Chapter 991 This is too scary!
At the European Club Association member conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, what finally appeared in front of the world was just a message on its official website, which simply and clearly told everyone that Rummenigge was re-elected as chairman, who became the executive committee member, and who entered the UEFA executive committee.
As for what happened behind the scenes, no one knows except the insiders.
After two weeks of national team matches, European football quickly reignited the war.
Because the Saints participated in the European Super Cup, the fourth round of the Premier League was postponed. Currently, they have one game less and are ranked fourth in the league, behind Tottenham Hotspur and other teams.
But after the national team match day, Tottenham Hotspur also experienced ups and downs in form. In the fifth round of the Premier League, they drew 0-0 with Everton at home, giving up their position as the league leader in vain.
The Saints beat West Bromwich Albion 3-0 away from home with Pogba's two goals in half an hour and Sturridge's goal in the 72nd minute of the second half, winning four consecutive games and returning to the top of the table.
Ancelotti's lineup in this game was very bold. None of the main players of the front trident played, but the Saints still relied on their own strong strength advantage to securely win the three points.
In the middle of the week, the home court welcomed the first leg of the Champions League group stage, and the opponent was Juventus.
Ancelotti met his old club again and showed no mercy, sending out all his main players to play in the Glory Stadium.
If the two sides were evenly matched in the first half and the Saints only relied on Hazard's flash of inspiration in the first 30 minutes to score the first goal, then in the second half, the Saints completely controlled the game.
In the 55th minute, Suarez received an assist from Fabregas and scored another goal for the Saints, making it 2-0.
Afterwards, Di Maria broke through the middle and the opponent's midfielder Marchisio committed a defensive foul. He was shown the second yellow card of the game and was sent off with a red card.
Afterwards, Sanchez and Fabregas assisted Suarez to score two goals respectively, and the Uruguayan striker performed a hat trick.
In the end, the Saints defeated Juventus 4-0 at home and got off to a good start in the Champions League group stage.
After the Zebras lost at the Estadio da Gloria, head coach Allegri had to admit that the team was not as skilled as their opponents.
Allegri was full of praise for his compatriot Ancelotti's team, believing that the Saints are the most competitive team in Europe.
"Ancelotti has made the Saints even more unpredictable and he has surprised us all."
The high evaluation of the Juventus head coach has also been generally recognized by European football experts.
Ancelotti's transformation of the Saints is gradually showing results.
Compared with Bielsa who emphasizes offense and almost launches offensive football at all costs, Ancelotti pays more attention to control and the balance between offense and defense.
Legendary Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi spoke highly of Carlo Ancelotti's achievements as Southampton coach in his column for Gazzetta dello Sport. He believes that Ancelotti has injected his own ideas into the Saints.
"As the best and strongest team in Europe in the past two seasons, any head coach coaching the Saints will be seen as a big challenge. It is not easy to make the fans forget Bielsa, but I think Ancelotti has done a good job."
"For many years, the Premier League has been pursuing the continentalization of its tactical system. In fact, we call this positional warfare."
"Bielsa spent several years injecting positional warfare and his offensive football philosophy into the Saints' blood. He took the Saints from the original third-tier league team all the way to the European hegemony, which was not easy."
"Like all positional warfare concepts, how to create advantages in local areas is also what Bielsa pursues. He is full of desire to attack forward and wants to create advantages behind every pressure line of the opponent."
"This so-called advantage can be said to be an advantage in numbers, that is, in a specific period of time, in a specific area, through the transfer of the ball, the active running of the players, and the smart choice of position, to create an unmarked free man. This is the most tireless pursuit of all positional warfare."
“So does Bielsa!”
"And we can see that over the years, especially after the great achievements of Guardiola at Barcelona, the development of positional warfare has been rapid, and building advantage in the process of advancing from the back has become crucial in positional warfare.
"During Bielsa's time, the Saints' defense played a vital role in the team's tactical system. Even goalkeeper Neuer was part of the team's tactics. This sweeper goalkeeper who often boldly pressed out of the penalty area completely overturned people's previous understanding of goalkeepers."
"This is a crazy choice. No goalkeeper has ever done this, but Bielsa chose Neuer. In order to better bring out Neuer's ability in this area, the Saints even hired the former Schalke 04 youth training goalkeeper coach, Lothar Matusak, to come to Southampton to train Neuer and all the Saints' goalkeepers."
"As far as I know, the German youth goalkeeper coach is best at training the players' positions and adjusting their positions through small steps and a lot of lateral movement."
"They believe that by taking this small side step, the goalkeeper and the ball are always kept in a straight line, and at the critical moment, the center of gravity is moved to the front foot and suddenly accelerated, which can comprehensively improve Neuer's defensive ability when facing the opponent's offensive players."
"In fact, Bielsa and Neuer have done a pretty good job."
"Although, as the most daring goalkeeper in history, Neuer still takes the risk of losing control and giving up the goal, but at the same time, he expands his defensive area, allowing the defense to be positioned higher, the formation to be more compact, and the team's pressing to be more aggressive."
"But our compatriot, the smart Ancelotti, like all Italian coaches, believes that it is not enough to rely on players, but tactics should be used to minimize the hidden dangers of Neuer."
"In the positional warfare, the players of the two teams were arranged in an orderly manner on the court, staggered back and forth, attacking and defending each other."
"Ancelotti believes that players occupying key areas at specific moments will help create regional advantages when attacking, the offense will be tighter and faster, and the ball possession will be more stable. When defending, the occupation of key areas will help the team's good position structure and facilitate high pressure."
"In this case, offense and defense are integrated into one and cannot be separated from each other."
"It is obvious that Ancelotti, my great student, has injected the essence of Italian football into the Saints' tactics. That is why we can see that this season the Saints are not only still sharp in attack, but also have a significant improvement in defense. The overall lineup structure is also more compact, orderly and rigorous."
"The three lines in front are like a series of iron walls, firmly oppressing the opponent, restricting the opponent's attack, cutting the opponent's line, making it no longer so easy for Neuer behind him to directly face the opponent's attack. Therefore, the German goalkeeper is liberated and takes on more offensive and organizational responsibilities."
"When playing against Juventus, we even saw Neuer pressing into the half court unwillingly, but Juventus looked at the empty goal behind them and could not get the ball in no matter what."
The Saints not only received high praise from Sacchi, but also received high recognition from other European celebrities.
The key is not the Saints' winning streak, but the stability, efficiency and desperate ability that Ancelotti's team has created in the game to kill opponents and kill the game.
Three days after the first round of the Champions League group stage match against Juventus, the Saints returned to Southampton's glorious stadium and once again defeated the visiting Leicester City 4-0 to win five consecutive victories.
But what is even more terrifying is that in the middle of the week, Southampton faced a make-up match for the fourth round of the league and won 5-0 against Norwich at home.
This weekend, the Saints once again hosted Swansea at home.
Less than two minutes into the game, Southampton scored against Swansea with a powerful shot from left-back David Alaba.
In the second half, Sanchez and Harry Kane scored successively, making it 3-0 and achieving another complete victory.
Seven games, seven consecutive wins!
But that wasn't the most surprising thing; what was truly shocking was the dominance shown by the Saints.
Seven games and not a single goal lost, this is terrifying!
The Premier League has just begun, and the Saints have already shown such an astonishing and terrifying momentum, which is simply to make all competitors despair!
But just when the British and European media were marveling at the Saints' winning streak, in the second match of the Champions League group stage, the Saints challenged Wolfsburg of the Bundesliga away. As a result, three minutes into the game, Pogba took the lead with a powerful shot in the penalty area to score the first goal for the Saints.
In the 14th minute, Di Maria scored a goal after offside and extended the lead for the Saints to 2-0.
In the second half, Suarez, Di Maria and Kovacic, who came on as a substitute, scored three goals for the Saints, defeating Wolfsburg 5-0.
This simply shocked the whole of Europe!
What's even more terrifying is that the Saints had a total of 38 shots in this game, and their ball possession rate was as high as 63%. This was simply a crazy bombardment of Wolfsburg. Scoring only five goals was considered too few!
The entire European football world was shocked!
No one could have imagined that the Saints would achieve such a strong record at the start of the new season after a change of coach. This is simply incredible!
What is even more incredible is that Messi did not play in all these achievements of the Saints.
If Messi plays, won't Southampton be even more powerful?
As a result, fans all over the world are discussing the Saints crazily. Almost everyone believes that the Saints will be the champion of the new Premier League season, and the Saints are also the undisputed number one favorite in the new Champions League season.
However, while the whole world is generally hyping up saints, there are also many questioning voices.
For example, Martin Samuel, a famous British columnist, pointed out in his column that the Saints' rapid progress is indeed amazing, but it must be noted that Juventus and Wolfsburg are not top European teams. Juventus has been weak for many years and has suffered serious player loss, especially this season, with the departure of Pirlo, the midfield has been greatly weakened.
Wolfsburg is a new team in the Champions League and lacks experience, so it is not surprising that they were defeated.
As for the Premier League, Southampton has not yet encountered the top four teams. Although Everton is strong, its performance this season is not ideal.
So, to sum up, the Saints' winning streak looks unstoppable, but in fact it is not terrible.
"Ancelotti's team still needs to be tested by a truly strong team!"
"In the eighth round of the league, the Saints will visit Stamford Bridge to challenge Chelsea. In the third round of the Champions League group stage, the Saints will visit the Parc des Princes to challenge Paris Saint-Germain. This is the real highlight!"
At the same time, some problems also emerged within the Saints.