Chapter 707 Paranoia

"Mr. Yang Huan, how is the atmosphere on our court?"

In the chairman's stand of the Telekom Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, Galatasaray's chairman Unar Esar pointed at the stadium with pride and asked Yang Huan.

As everyone knows, under Yang Huan's painstaking management, Southampton's St. Mary's Stadium has long been transformed into a well-known devil's home ground in Europe, famous for its fanatical home atmosphere, but Istanbul in Turkey is equally good, known as the Red Hell.

Therefore, Unar Issar had long wanted to compete with Yang Huan.

Yang Huan didn't take it seriously at all. He laughed and nodded, saying, "Well, it's pretty good. It's really hell!"

Logically speaking, Galatasaray should have a good number of fans. After all, it is a Champions League match, which attracted a total of more than 50,000, almost 60,000 people to the stadium to watch the game. But the problem is that their stadium has a capacity of more than 80,000.

With more than 20,000 vacancies, it's easy to make people feel that a large area of ​​the stands is empty.

But we have to say that Turkish fans are really fanatical. The momentum and the noise created by more than 60,000 people gathered together are really impressive. No wonder this place is called the Red Hell.

Unar Essar burst into laughter after receiving Yang Huan's praise. "In Istanbul, although Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş have good attendance rates, they are inferior to us!"

Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş are both teams from Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, and are considered to be sworn rivals of Galatasaray.

When Yang Huan heard this, he immediately turned his head and looked at UEFA President Platini, who was sitting next to him, and they both smiled bitterly.

This was the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 knockout match, and it was also Southampton's first time in history to participate in the Champions League knockout match. According to the Champions League rules, the first place in the group stage would be drawn with the second place in the group stage, and the schedule was also away first and home later, so Yang Huan attached great importance to this away game and supervised the battle personally.

After hearing this, Platini also changed his itinerary and came to Galatasaray.

Just now, President Unar Esar took the initiative to assume the role of host and introduced Platini to Yang Huan with great dignity, saying that the UEFA President's personal visit to the Telecom Stadium showed his importance to Galatasaray.

Yang Huan could only laugh helplessly at this.

There is no way around it. Turkish football has developed very quickly in recent years, especially after 2002, when Turkey actually made it to the semi-finals of the World Cup and finally got third place, which greatly stimulated the football atmosphere in Turkey.

In addition, Turkey has taken advantage of its geographical advantages and its economy has developed rapidly in recent years. As a result, the football industry has developed faster and faster, and has gradually become a destination for many out-of-date European stars.

For example, Galatasaray has many famous European stars such as Sneijder, Eboue, Felipe Melo, former Liverpool midfielder Riera, and former Real Madrid midfielder Altintop.

But when it comes to vision and the ability to run a football club, Turkish teams still have a long way to go!

Yang Huan had seen such a joke in Ancelotti's autobiography before.

It is said that after Ancelotti was sacked from Parma, a Turkish team came to him and hoped to invite him to coach. Ancelotti proposed to visit the site before making a decision.

At that time, both parties agreed to keep it confidential, but in the end, as soon as Ancelotti got off the plane, he was immediately surrounded by crazy fans.

Originally, when this situation arose, there was no possibility of cooperation between the two parties, but the other party used his persistent and girl-chasing skills and pursued Ancelotti without any scruples. Even in the face of all kinds of difficulties raised by Ancelotti, they repeatedly satisfied him.

Want a villa? One with a sea view?

Okay, here you go!

Do you need a private car and a driver?

no problem!

Do I need the club to reimburse my air tickets to and from Italy?

You should!

You have your own team and can’t make decisions?

This is nature!

…

Anyway, it is said that in the end, Ancelotti had no reason to refuse and he almost agreed.

But later the Italian found an excuse to run back to Italy and would never dare to go back to Turkey. He just rejected the other party over the phone. The fans basically know what happened next.

From this point it is not difficult to see that the management of the Turkish team is still the same even now!

But what’s interesting is that the Italian Ancelotti refused to coach a Turkish team at all, but now, Galatasaray’s head coach is from Italy, and he is a famous coach, the former Manchester City coach Mancini.

What’s more interesting is that Mancini coached Inter Milan, while Terim, the former coach of Galatasaray whom he replaced, coached AC Milan. Coincidentally, Terim was sacked from AC Milan that year and was replaced by Ancelotti.

It really proves the saying that we will meet each other everywhere in life!

Perhaps it was the shining halo brought by the famous coach Mancini, and Galatasaray's breakthrough from the Champions League group stage over Juventus, that gave the Turks extremely strong confidence.

Just now, Unar Esar even said in a half-joking tone that Galatasaray's strategy is to win at home and strive for a draw away.

In other words, breaking through the group stage is no longer enough for them, what they want is to reach the quarterfinals!

This made Yang Huan seriously doubt whether he was too low-key?

You know, Southampton's original goal was to qualify from the group stage. After all, this was Southampton's first season in the Champions League. Many players had little experience, and head coach Bielsa also had no experience, so they were more cautious.

But now, seeing that even a team like Galatasaray dared to say that it wanted to enter the quarterfinals, Yang Huan had to seriously doubt that the goals set by himself, Peter Kenyon and others were really lame!

But it’s true, as soon as the game started, Galatasaray was not at all inferior to Southampton.

Mancini's game strategy is very cautious, focusing on defense and then looking for opportunities to counterattack.

Italian head coaches are usually good at defense, so Galatasaray's defense was impenetrable.

Southampton had several chances but failed to create any threat, while Galatasaray also seized one or two chances, launched a counterattack, and even had a free kick in the frontcourt.

The most threatening was undoubtedly Sneijder's cross in a counterattack, but Varane got ahead of the opponent and made a crucial clearance, defusing the crisis and causing Platini, who was sitting next to Yang Huan, to cheer loudly.

"Rafael has been making progress in the past few years at Southampton. He has performed quite steadily this season and has the demeanor of a great general!" Platini praised him highly.

As a Frenchman, he is always happy to see his compatriots perform well.

Yang Huan's attitude was rather indifferent, "He is only twenty years old, you can't praise him!"

After hearing this, Platini immediately laughed and nodded, "Yes, if you just look at his performance on the court, you can't tell that he is only 20 years old, he is too mature and stable!"

Yang Huan also agreed that Varane was indeed quite outstanding.

In the past few years at Southampton, under the meticulous work of the coaching team, his physical fitness has been perfect among central defenders, with almost no flaws, and his defensive skills have also been improved day by day. Although he lacked experience before, with the accumulation of professional experience in recent years, he has acquired the ability to stand on his own.

Even when Javi Martinez was absent many times, he commanded the entire defense very well.

Varane has now become an indispensable member of Southampton's defense, and is also a shining gem produced by the Saints' youth training camp!

Although Southampton's main central defenders are currently Javi Martinez and Varane, Bielsa is actually still a little dissatisfied. This was only revealed by Bielsa when Yang Huan planned to send Nastasic to Inter Milan.

It turns out that this guy has secretly tried the left-footed central defender combination of Nastasic and Varane several times.

When many people mention central defenders, they think that there is no difference between left foot and right foot. Many people even have doubts about the left central defender and the right central defender, and think if it is necessary to distinguish them so clearly?

But in the eyes of professionals, it is necessary, and very necessary.

What's more, in the eyes of a paranoid like Bielsa, unless the conditions are not met, he must do so!

In Bielsa's tactical system, the full-backs have a considerable task of making runs forward. In addition to defense, the central defender's passing is also crucial, so he pulled Javi Martinez to the back line and played as a central defender to bring out his passing advantage.

As we all know, today's teams focus on pressing in the frontcourt.

Imagine a right-footed player playing as a right center back or a left center back. When facing pressure, will the angle of the ball be the same?

It can be said that a right-footed player playing as a left center back will be greatly restricted in his ability to pass the ball.

Also, Bielsa's tactics are four defenders, but he often arranges the deep midfielder to retreat to the back line, so the two central defenders have to be pulled apart and go to both sides. At this time, the right-footed player plays as the left central defender, and the disadvantages become very obvious.

In this case, Bielsa tried to let Nastasic, a left-footed player, play as left center back and Varane as right center back, with the aim of further strengthening the defense and passing of Southampton's center back combination.

Therefore, when Yang Huan decided to send Nastasic away, Bielsa opposed it to the death.

After all, it is really difficult to catch a left-footed central defender these days, let alone a left-footed central defender with high potential like Nastasic, who is a scarce commodity. Who would be willing to let go?

Yang Huan looked at the field. The starting central defenders of this game were still Javi Martinez and Varane, but it was likely that with time, Nastasic would most likely replace Javi Martinez.

As for what kind of chemical reaction will occur at that time, who knows?

Southampton launched a fierce attack at the beginning of the game, but when they saw that there was no effect, the double defensive midfielders Toni Kroos and Modric waved their hands and the pace immediately slowed down.

This also made the game no longer as intense, fast-paced, and exciting as it was at the beginning.

"It seems that Mancini is well prepared for this game!" Platini said with a smile.

Yang Huan also laughed after hearing this, "I really don't believe it. The trident formed by Ibrahimovic, Hazard and Suarez can break through Mancini's iron wall!"

This also reflects Yang Huan's strong confidence in the team's strength.

In the Champions League group stage, Southampton's performance was so stable that it was beyond everyone's expectations. Its offensive power was second only to Real Madrid. With an impressive record of five wins and one draw in six games, it advanced to the next round.

This not only took everyone by surprise, but even the Southampton management was a little surprised.

Because the original goal of the team was just to qualify from the group stage, we never thought we would perform so well.

Just like another team, Juventus, although it is the Serie A champion, most of the team members are participating in the Champions League for the first time, so they finished third in the group stage and were directly stepped on by Galatasaray and forced to play in the Europa League.

Platini also nodded. Southampton's offensive power was indeed surprising. Bielsa's team was always so aggressive and full of passion, and anything was possible.

But soon, the UEFA president got down to business and mentioned some recent events.

Gradually, the topic fell on FIFA.

"Master Huan, what do you think I should do now?" Platini asked humbly.