What should we do when four-two-three-one meets four-two-three-one?
This was the problem faced by Gao Shen at the Mestanha Stadium on the night of March 11th.
As early as 2004, when Benitez left Valencia and went to Liverpool in the Premier League, the honest tinker Ranieri took over a hot potato and took charge of this championship team.
And the whole world knows that this is a sinkhole.
Sure enough, Ranieri encountered another painful lesson in his coaching career in Valencia.
Valencia under the coaching of Benitez is an unshakable 4231. The tinker is trying to inject more factors into this team that has just won the championship, such as inheriting the characteristics of the Italians, so that this team can
The tactics have become more diverse and varied.
He brought many Italian players, which caused Valencia's champion players to be very dissatisfied, and this is where the tragedy occurred.
After Ranieri dismissed get out of class, Flores, who successfully led newly promoted Getafe to avoid relegation, became his successor.
Many people may not know that the current head coach of Valencia, Quique Sanchez Flores, not only played for Real Madrid in his career, but also started coaching in the Real Madrid youth team after retiring.
From 1997 to 2004, he coached Real Madrid in the U17 age group for seven years, accumulating extremely rich coaching experience. After that, he became the head coach of the newly promoted club Getafe, leading the team to successfully avoid relegation.
Coached Valencia in 2005.
This is another classic case of accumulation and accumulation.
When Gao Shen saw Flores' resume, he lamented on the one hand that Real Madrid really deserves to be the Whampoa Military Academy of Spanish football. On the other hand, he also thought that this is what Carlo, Lucas and others advised him to do step by step.
Upgrade mode.
After Flores took over Valencia, Ranieri had already left Spain with his Italian Legion, so he set things right and reactivated 4231, reusing the double midfielders of Albelda and Baraja.
Reused Aimar as an attacking midfielder, and spent 10 million euros to introduce David Villa from Zaragoza.
Valencia has performed very vigorously this season, even surpassing Real Madrid for a long time and ranking second in La Liga.
But it is a pity that neither the former Ranieri nor the current Flores have understood Benitez's four-two-three-one, or in other words, they have only understood part of it.
Valencia's defense under Flores was very good, but the offense was a mess, especially after Vicente was injured, almost all the offensive burden fell on Villa.
Villa's personal ability and scoring ability are very strong, but in a formation like 4,231, the most advanced center position needs a player like Mista, not Villa
.
But after experiencing Ranieri's "ravage", Mista has simply been unable to regain the form he had under Benitez. Even if Flores has made repeated adjustments and changes this season, he has not been able to inspire.
Bring out the vitality of Mista.
Valencia's offense is like a backwater, relying on Villa's goals, Aimar's flashes of inspiration from time to time, and the team's tenacious defense to score fifteen goals this season.
defeat.
What’s even more commendable is that Valencia has achieved an impressive record of two wins and one draw in the three games it faced against Real Madrid and Barcelona this season, including a 1-0 win over Barcelona at home, a 2-1 away win over Real Madrid, and a 2-1 away win over Barcelona.
A two-on-one draw with Barcelona at Camp Nou.
It is not difficult to see from Valencia's statistics this season and its performance in the strong dialogue how powerful Benitez's four-two-three-one is.
So what can Gao Shen do when facing such a team?
There is no good way but to fight.
…
The goalkeeper is Casillas, the defense is Felipe, Woodgate, Ramos and Arbeloa, the midfielder is Pablo Garcia and Borja, and the frontcourt is Raul and Guti.
and Cassano, with Soldado in front.
This is the starting lineup that Gao Shen has arranged at the Mestania Stadium. Except for the defense and Raul, all other players have been rotated.
The game went very dull.
Valencia has the best defense in La Liga, but their offense is not good. It is a luxury to expect Valencia to take the initiative to attack. Real Madrid, after a large rotation, lacks the main lineup and faces Valencia with super defensive ability.
Lencia, of course, cannot be greedy for success and rush forward.
Both teams had a conservative style, which resulted in a lackluster performance in the Mestania battle.
Real Madrid, who were in control of the ball, were pulling more and more, constantly pulling back and forth, but it was difficult to penetrate into Valencia's hinterland to pose a threat. Valencia also lacked ambition and just wanted to be stable and seize the opportunity to counterattack.
With Woodgate sitting in the defense, Ramos got more freedom. Gao Shen asked him to mark Villa, and Valencia's offense stalled.
Real Madrid's offense failed to take advantage of Valencia's defense, which brought the game to a stalemate.
After Gao Shen took office, Soldado, who started for the first time, worked very hard on the court, ran very actively, and executed tactics very well. However, it was indeed difficult for him to take advantage in front of Albiol and Marchena.
In the first half, the two sides shook hands at a score of 0-0, but Real Madrid had 65% of the ball possession.
After changing sides in the second half, Real Madrid still chose to compete with Valencia, constantly passing and controlling the ball.
But there was never a breakthrough on the scene.
But Gao Shen was not anxious at all.
He is still waiting.
…
How to break through dense defense?
As a senior football fan, Gao Shen can immediately tell you three tricks to break through the crowd: set pieces, long shots and high forwards.
But in fact, these three moves can only work when the team can gain space, that is, when the intensive defense has been basically broken.
For example, set kicks are nothing more than corner kicks and free kicks. The former is caused by the ball going out of the baseline after a breakthrough, and the latter is caused by causing the opponent to foul, and the defensive player will foul. This is based on the situation that the breakthrough is basically necessary, otherwise
, who will foul easily?
Let’s talk about long-range shots. Valencia has two world-class midfielders and a tight defensive system created by Ranieri to Cooper and Benitez. Will it easily give you the opportunity to take long-range shots?
Finally, there is the high center forward.
Everyone knows that lobbing the ball from the wing is the most inefficient and has a very low success rate. And the key is that if you want to pass the ball well from the wing, you still need to gain space, just like Beckham needs to be able to swing his legs.
So, the problem went round and round and returned to the most fundamental issue.
space!
The key to breaking down a dense defense is to create space.
How to create?
The opponent has put up a tight defensive posture and will not let you easily create space.
what to do?
Pull!
There is a saying that goes well, as long as the hoe dances well, there is no city wall that cannot be dug down?
In the same way, as long as you keep pulling and consuming the opponent's players' physical energy, to a certain extent, you can create offensive space.
To a certain extent, the so-called passing and controlling of the Barcelona coached by Guardiola is essentially a constant pull and effort to create space. Passing and controlling the ball and high-position pressing are just their methods.
Therefore, in the battle against Valencia, Gao Shen's starting lineup was never designed to score goals, but to compete with the opponent, keep running, keep pulling, and keep wearing down the opponent.
Time passed bit by bit, but Gao Shen remained unmoved at all.
On the contrary, Flores replaced Angulo with Rufete in the 63rd minute.
Three minutes later, Reguero was replaced by Mista.
Both substitutions were made to adjust the team's frontcourt offense. After Mista came on, Valencia basically returned to a two-forward tactic, with Mista and Villa partnering.
Obviously, Flores still wants to win, after all, it is at home.
After seeing Valencia make two substitutions in a row, Gao Shen sent Callejon out to warm up in the 68th minute.
After ten days of contact, he could now finally confirm that it was Jose Callejon, the elder of the twin brothers, who later performed well in Naples.
Callejon, nicknamed Little Motorcycle, was very fast and had a very hard-working style. Gao Shen replaced Cassano with him in the 70th minute.
The purpose of this substitution is very obvious, which is to quickly defeat Valencia's counterattack.
…
As Valencia began to exert strength on the offensive end, the overall formation no longer tightened, but frequently pressed out to attack.
Real Madrid still controlled the ball, but they also retreated appropriately, allowing Valencia to take the initiative to press out.
In the 78th minute, Ramos suddenly went around to defend, intercepted the ball passed to Villa in advance, drove the ball forward, and quickly passed the ball through the midfield and handed it to Guti.
Guti, who serves as the attacking midfielder, was not even assigned a defensive task in this game and could unleash his offensive talents to his heart's content. However, unfortunately, he encountered the world's top double midfielder combination of Alberda and Baraja.
He was unable to perform.
But this time, he seized the opportunity. After stopping the ball, without waiting for the double midfielders to press up, he sent a diagonal long pass directly to the back of Valencia left back Moretti.
Callejon sprinted as fast as he could down the right wing, came from behind, took one step ahead of Moretti, and drove the ball to the baseline. After catching up, he passed the ball low.
Soldado, who was chasing the front point, was interfered by Albiol and Marchena, but he deliberately let the ball fly past him and went straight to the back point.
The unguarded Raul chased to the outside of the small penalty area, met the cross that spanned most of the court, and pushed the ball directly into the almost unguarded Valencia goal.
Canizares stood on the right side of the goal and was helpless against Raul's shot from the left.
In the 78th minute, Raul opened the scoring for Real Madrid!
After the Real Madrid captain scored, he once again rushed out of the stadium excitedly to celebrate the team's key victory.
Real Madrid players on the field also rushed to catch up and celebrate the captain's goal.
One to zero!
What a difficult goal this is!
Gao Shen clenched his fists in excitement in front of the visiting team's coaching bench and waved them up and down to vent his inner excitement.
Behind him, Maqueda, Lucas and others were also huddled together, celebrating the goal.
They had already laid out their tactics before the game, but they were still worried.
Until this moment, when they saw Raul scoring a goal, they were relieved.
If Valencia didn't make mistakes, the game would have been zero to zero.
However, Gao Shen quickly made adjustments.
Diogo replaced Arbeloa, who was physically exhausted, and replaced Borja with Javi Garcia.
Both substitutions were made to strengthen defense.
Everyone can see that Gao Shen's purpose is very clear, which is to defend this goal.
