On the evening of August 29th, Naples San Paolo Stadium.
In the third round of the Italian Cup, Napoli faced Reggina at home.
Gao Shen stood in front of the home team's coaching bench and looked at the stadium with a puzzled expression.
The game has already begun.
Players from both sides started a back-and-forth battle, but Naples still relied on its home court advantage and its better high-position pressing to form a clear suppression on Reggina.
This is a normal thing, Gao Shen is not surprised at all.
What really surprised him was Ulivieri's formation in this game.
This grandfather-like head coach, who is highly respected in Italian football, adopted a very strange tactic during the game. His positioning was somewhat similar to a three-four-two-one.
The defense has a combination of three central defenders, which is nothing new in Italian football, even now in 2007.
The midfielder is composed of four players in a shallow position. The two wingers are more like full midfielders, but there are two defensive midfielders. In front are two forward midfielders, and further forward are nearly 1.9 meters tall.
Danish high center forward Tulberg.
Gao Shen really didn't understand the purpose of this tactical play.
Let’s say it wants to attack. The three and four behind the three-four-two formation are actually retreating to participate in defense. They even seem to be defensive. But let’s say it is defensive. Both wings are
Standing in the position of a wing midfielder, his ability does not seem to be particularly outstanding, at least not like a one-stop player on the wing like Carlos or Cafu.
This is very strange.
Why did Ulivieri adopt such a set of tactics?
…
"To be honest, I don't understand either."
After Carlo heard the profound question, he shook his head and smiled bitterly.
"Is there a bit of Italian persistence in this?"
"Persevere?" Gao Shen shook his head after hearing this, "I think this is more like a kind of stubbornness."
Gao Shen feels that perseverance should mean sticking to some good things, but if you stick to some bad things, it should be called stubbornness, and this situation is really common in Italian football.
It was only after arriving in Italy that Gao Shen fully understood why Sacchi said that he should preserve the country's deep-rooted genes.
If you stick to some rare and good things, Gao Shen will think that this is a respectable behavior, but if you are stubborn and stubborn on something that is obviously outdated, then this is very inappropriate.
Seeking truth from facts and advancing with the times is the right way!
…
Naples still adopts a four-three-three formation tonight, with Thiago Motta in the midfield, Biglia and Vidal partnering up front, and Di Maria, Pelle and Callejon in front.
Among the current midfielders, Biglia is actually the most stable and the most important player.
Rakitic is relatively young and inexperienced, Vidal is not very adaptable to the double midfielder tactic, Parejo, Nainggolan and Pastore are all newcomers, and they are not yet able to play the leading role alone. This is
As a result, Biglia's performance in Naples was very eye-catching.
For this reason, the Argentine midfielder has been selected for the Argentina national team's warm-up match against Australia in September this year.
Also selected for the national team for the first time is Italian central defender Paolo Cannavaro.
The Naples central defender performed very well last season. He also performed very well in the cup and league games at the beginning of the season, attracting the attention of Italian national team coach Donadoni. It happened that Materazzi had muscles.
He was out due to a strain, so Cannavaro Jr. was recruited.
If he can appear successfully, he will fight side by side with his brother Cannavaro, which will be a good story.
After more than ten minutes of play, Gao Shen basically figured out the opponent's approach, and immediately signaled the team to press hard, especially Di Maria and Callejon on the two wings, to pay attention to attacking the opponent.
behind the defensive line.
The two central defenders David Luiz and Bonucci must pay attention to launching long passes.
In advanced tactical positioning, long passes are like long-range missiles, which can hit any target on the court anytime, anywhere. This is simply very useful.
More importantly, Naples' long passers are still two central defenders.
Unless they encounter a high-pressing team like Barcelona in the future, the two central defenders basically don't have to worry about finding long-pass opportunities.
Therefore, the key depends on the previous movement.
When the game reached the 31st minute, Bonucci received the return pass from the midfielder, stopped the ball and moved forward. After taking a look at the running position of his teammates in front, he quickly sent a diagonal diagonal kick.
The pass was passed accurately to the back of Regina's left defense line.
I saw Di Maria sprinting as fast as possible, stopping the ball before the opponent's right midfielder could return to defend and the right center back rushing out, and then walked into the penalty area and made a fake move to throw the ball away.
He opened the opponent's central defender, went down to the baseline and passed forward.
Pellet quickly stepped in, used his body to force the defender away, then poked forward with his foot and sent the ball into Reggina's goal, which was close at hand, opening the scoring for Naples!
After scoring the goal, the Italian center was so excited that he danced with joy on the sidelines.
In Naples' tactical system, he has indeed performed better and better, becoming more and more comfortable.
Unlike Cavani, his connection and tactical role will be more obvious, but he can also score goals.
Don’t forget, he is also an Italian center forward!
…
After scoring a goal, Naples still steadily adopted high-pressure tactics against Reggina.
So far, Italian football has not found a very effective way to resolve Naples' style of play.
No one knows that this is actually a topic that Ulivieri has been focusing on in the past year. He even plans to give a keynote speech on his experiences in the past year at the professional coaching summit in a few days.
But tonight's preview was obviously not as good as he expected, which made him a little embarrassed.
Should we still talk about it?
If you lose the game, speaking out will have no weight.
High-post pressing is actually not new. Needless to say, Benitez had this style of play a long time ago, but at that time it was mostly done in local areas or in small groups.
For example, focus on pressing the opponent's center, forcing the opponent to move the ball to the side, or let several offensive players in front press to gain more time for the midfielder and backcourt to position themselves.
Another type is the mad dog press. Although this is a full-court press, it should be noted that its purpose is to grab the ball.
But Gao Shen's style of play is not at all about grabbing the ball.
Ulivieri has studied many Naples games, and he can be very sure of one thing. Naples' high-post press is not for the sake of grabbing the ball, but for oppression.
Therefore, the media said that this is high pressing and pressing, which is actually wrong. This should be called high pressing.
What's more important is that he is the team's front-to-back, all-in-one player who performs the whole-field pressure without giving you any chance to breathe.
It's like a completely unreasonable guy rushing towards you, waving his fists with both hands.
The terrible thing is that he is also very powerful and his fists are so heavy that you can't even block him.
what to do?
In the past, when facing local or group pressure, there were good ways to resolve it, such as passing the ball back, or moving to the weak side. If you have the ability, you can even get rid of the push directly.
But these methods are basically useless when facing Naples' tactics.
Pass back to the backline?
Don't make trouble, they are forcing the goalkeeper directly!
Move to weak side?
Short passes are useless, the accuracy of long passes is low, and the transfer is also very fast.
As for relying on personal ability to get rid of advancement...
Well, so far, few teams have succeeded.
The main reason why Inter Milan restrained Naples last season was because the right wing was strangled by Inter Milan. The Nerazzurri almost played on the right wing and relied on their overall strong strength to suppress their opponents.
.
Other than that, there is no solution!
In other words, Ulivieri and his Italian colleagues cannot think of a solution for the time being.
Many people have discussed that Napoli's physical fitness will be too much because he runs too much distance.
But who would have thought that they persisted throughout the season.
Note that the Serie B League has 22 teams and has played a total of 42 rounds. Including the Italian Cup, Naples has no obvious physical problems.
Ulivieri really has the talent now, an experienced teacher, who feels helpless and depressed when faced with the random punches of young men.
In his memory and theoretical system, there is really no way to find an effective way to deal with it.
Not only him, but all the friends around him are basically the same as him.
…
While Ulivieri was helpless on the sidelines, the game continued on the court.
Napoli kept pressing Reggina until the first half was about to end.
Just when Regina was about to breathe a sigh of relief, David Luiz suddenly sent another diagonal pass, which accurately passed over the head of Regina's defense and landed on the right side of the frontcourt.
Moto Callejon quickly moved forward, along the right wing, rushed to the bottom line and stopped the ball, threw away the defensive player, broke into the penalty area from the bottom line, and passed back to the front of the small penalty area.
Pellet failed to seize the position in the front position, but Di Maria quickly followed up in the back position.
But just when the Argentinian winger didn't know if he could arrive in time, Reggina's deep-lying midfielder Cassione desperately tried to defend. In the rush, he made a mistake in the clearance and blocked the ball directly.
Regina's goal.
Two to zero!
Everyone was shocked!
Own goals!
Cassione himself was gripping his hair in pain.
This player also played for Rimini last season and performed well and was introduced by Reggina. Tonight is his debut in Reggina.
The Italian midfielder, who was 1.87 meters tall, fell to his knees in pain in his penalty area.
An own goal was scored in the first match, which was really sad!
Even Gao Shen on the sidelines felt sympathy.
In his memory, the last person who did this was named Woodgate.
