Chapter 1042 Big Explosion?

The League Cup final ended with the Saints defeating Man United 2-1.

In the 79th minute of the game, the Saints' young players finally exposed a flaw, which was seized by Manchester City. Substitute center Abubakar scored a goal for the Blue Moon to save face.

Although Pellegrini later signaled the team to press forward in an attempt to equalize the score, the Saints quickly stabilized the situation and launched a fierce bombardment. In just two minutes, they made four threatening shots in front of Manchester City's goal, scaring Manchester City so much that they dared not come out again.

In the end, the score was locked at two to one.

Having won the League Cup once again, the Saints' young players were very excited.

The Saints fans who came to Wembley Stadium specially to watch the game were also very excited.

Although the Saints have won many championships in the past few years, as a fan, who would complain about a team winning too many championships?

Besides, this time is different from the previous ones. In this League Cup, the Saints played with pure substitutes and youth team lineups, but they repeatedly defeated strong opponents such as Liverpool, Everton and Manchester City. The team's performance can be imagined.

The fans were also ecstatic that the team had such a strong bench and young players.

These are the future of the saints!

The British media also praised the Saints' victory, but were not surprised.

Because in the past two or three years, the Saints' performance has been steadily improving, and they are also the strongest team in the Premier League.

Even as early as the past two seasons, the Saints' bench depth and the performance of young players have been impressive.

Not to mention the first-team substitutes and young players, their performances in domestic cup competitions such as the League Cup and FA Cup have always been quite good, and they have even reached the finals before. It's just a pity that they failed to win the championship.

The Saints' second team is even more amazing.

Since the official establishment of the English League Three, the Saints' second team has been promoted every year, from English League Three to English League Two and then to English League One.

In this season's English League One, Saints II is currently ranked second in the standings, ahead of traditional teams such as Gillingham, Wigan Athletic, Sheffield United and Coventry, and is only one point away from the leader Burton Albion.

Based on the performance of the Saints' second team, there is a high possibility of promotion.

Once the second team is promoted to the Championship, it will bring huge benefits to the Saints' entire youth training system.

Apart from anything else, the training of youth team players is far superior to that of other teams.

Tielemans, who has been shining in the Saints first team this season, was promoted to the first team after his outstanding performance in the second team.

Now, the Saints' second team also has young players such as Patrick Roberts, Halilovic, Ruben Neves, Max Lopez and Gerson, all of whom are talented but young players.

But what impresses fans all over the world the most is the Saints' youth training system with super star-making ability.

When everyone's attention was focused on the Norwegian genius Odegaard who moved to Real Madrid, Southampton quietly introduced Christopher Ayer, who was also born in 1998, and Chinese-American Hou Yongyong from Norway.

In terms of fame, Odegaard was undoubtedly far ahead of the other two players in a previous high-profile transfer battle.

But now, when Odegaard is still in the Real Madrid B team and can't even get a starting position, Ayer and Hou Yongyong have already played a season of English Football League One for the Saints and have accumulated rich game experience.

Especially Ayer, his performance in this season of English League One has won recognition and affirmation from countless experts.

From this point of view, Southampton's attitude towards youth training is undoubtedly more pragmatic.

The first team is strong and the youth team is full of talents. All media reporters and fans have compared the Saints with Barcelona in 2009. Many people even believe that the Saints have surpassed Barcelona in its heyday.

Because the Saints successfully defended their title in the Champions League, a feat that even the Dream Team III at its peak could not accomplish.

Not only that, the Saints are on their way to a three-peat this season.

If the Saints really win three consecutive championships, they will undoubtedly surpass Barcelona in all aspects.

After seeing that the average age of the first team is so reasonable and the youth team is producing a large number of talents, who dares to say that the Saints will not become the strongest ruler of the Premier League and even European football in the next few years?

When the Saints returned to Southampton from London holding the League Cup trophy, they were immediately welcomed by all the fans in the city.

All of them are proud of the team's achievements.

The glory of the Saints is built up with these trophies. As the most fanatical fans of the Saints, they are also doing their best to support their beloved team.

But now is far from the time to celebrate, because this is the time when the events are most intense.

Three days after the Saints returned triumphantly from London, they travelled to challenge Bournemouth.

After a rest in the last round, the Saints sent out all their main players in this round and beat Bournemouth 6-0 away from home.

Suarez, the top scorer of the Premier League this season, once again performed a hat-trick and continued to lead the Premier League scorer list.

But Messi's performance in this game was equally good. He scored twice, allowing Messi to officially catch up with Cristiano Ronaldo's league goals, while Hazard also scored a goal.

Interestingly, in the league's scorer list, Suarez ranks first, Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi are tied for second, but Hazard is third.

Even Chilean winger Sanchez entered the top ten scorer list, which shows the Saints' strong offensive power.

Three days later, the Saints played at home against Bournemouth again.

But this is not a league match, but a sixth-round knockout match of the FA Cup.

This time, the Saints still sent out all the substitutes and young players. As a result, the Saints players who had just defeated Manchester City at Wembley Stadium defeated Bournemouth 3-0 again at the Glory Stadium and successfully advanced to the semi-finals.

For a time, the entire English football world was exclaiming, what are the Saints doing?

Gary Lineker cheered for the Saints on BBC's Match of the Day.

"I have never seen a team as dominant as the Saints. They can beat Premier League teams even with substitutes and the second team. It's unbelievable!"

As a guest on the Daily Match, Manchester United legend Gary Neville also spoke highly of Ancelotti's team.

"If I had to choose, the best team in Europe this season would undoubtedly be the Saints, and the best coach would, needless to say, be Ancelotti."

"This team plays incredible football. I can hardly imagine any team that has such strong control of the game as the Saints. It reminds me of Guardiola's Barcelona."

But soon, the Manchester United legend overturned his judgment.

"Oh no, I think this Saints team is more dominant than Barcelona at its peak!"

Alan Shearer also said, "Guardiola once said that even he was surprised by the football played by this Saints team!"

"Yes, but it also makes me look forward to what changes Guardiola will bring to Southampton next season when he takes over as coach of the Saints."

"Haha, Gary, it's not just you, I guess fans all over the world are looking forward to it."

Yes, everyone couldn’t believe it and were looking forward to it.

It should be said that when Guardiola took over Bayern Munich, the team was at its peak. Although Bayern Munich has not been able to continue to achieve success in the European arena after Guardiola took over, and even suffered humiliation from its competitors, Guardiola's coaching and transformation of Bayern Munich was still quite successful.

At least, this German team made everyone feel a kind of delicacy and stability, which was obviously different from Heynckes and even a style of football that Bayern Munich had never had before.

This style is very advanced and very pleasing.

As for the team's inability to achieve results, it can't be entirely blamed on Guardiola, right?

But the saints are obviously different.

Today's Southampton is full of talents. The team is in its golden age, with a very reasonable age structure. In addition, the youth team is full of talents, and head coach Ancelotti has further improved the team's tactical concepts based on Bielsa's foundation.

It is particularly worth considering that if Ancelotti achieves excellent coaching results this season, Guardiola will inevitably face an unprecedented challenge after taking over the team.

That is how to lead a team that has already achieved overall success to break through again.

If we look at the current football world, the head coach with the most breakthrough consciousness, apart from Bielsa, is Guardiola.

This is why fans and football professionals all over the world are looking forward to Guardiola's Saints.

As the boss of the Saints, Yang Huan is also looking forward to it.

But he is different from the fans outside, he has a very clear mind.

He knew clearly that Ancelotti's success would be difficult to sustain.

The team has remained unbeaten so far, making progress on all fronts, and may even achieve a breakthrough in results, especially now that the Premier League title is basically in the bag. The team's focus next will definitely be on the cup competitions.

Under such circumstances, it is very likely that Ancelotti's team will make another breakthrough in performance.

But what about next season?

Even if Ancelotti continues to coach, I'm afraid it will be difficult for him to maintain his outstanding performance this season.

After the team reaches its peak, there will definitely be ups and downs.

Therefore, Yang Huan knew very well that at this time, what the team needed to do was to seek change.

But this takes time, requires trial and error, so it is unreasonable to demand that Guardiola produce results as soon as he arrives, or even that he must produce results.

Therefore, when it comes to dealing with Guardiola, Yang Huan’s attitude is very clear. He should not be given too much pressure to achieve results and should be given enough room to coach.

This is also why the Saints kept a low profile on the issue of coaching changes.

Firstly, this is a respect for Ancelotti, and secondly, it also relieves the pressure on Guardiola.

As for the attention from the media and fans, given the Saints' current status and Guardiola's influence, no matter how low-key they are, it will definitely attract the attention and discussion of media and fans around the world.

In addition, Yang Huan told Mubarak very frankly that the contract between the Saints and Ancelotti was only one year, which was something that had been determined long ago.

It was only at this time that Mubarak found out that the Saints had already secured Guardiola more than a year in advance, thanks to them and Abramovich for still pursuing him so desperately.

At this time, the chairman of Manchester City was so embarrassed that he almost wanted to commit suicide.

However, Yang Huan also made a request to Mubarak, that is, no matter what the talks between Manchester City and Ancelotti were, it must be kept confidential, because he did not want to affect the team's performance.

Mubarak also agreed to Master Huan's request and said he would keep a low profile.

After dealing with these matters, Yang Huan left the UK without stopping and flew back to China.

But he did not go to the capital, nor to Longhai, but to Tianjin, near the capital.

Because he was going to supervise the first round of the new season of the Chinese Super League, Beijing Guoan away challenge Tianjin Taida.

This is also the most anticipated battle in the first round of the Chinese Super League this season.

Especially domestic fans are all paying attention to the debut of Beijing Guoan team.

With the embarrassing record of five consecutive defeats in warm-up matches, can Pochettino have a big outbreak?