Today, Gao Shen has long been regarded as a world-famous coach, a gold-medal coach with two Champions League titles, and is regarded by countless fans as an outstanding figure alongside top coaches such as Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho and Ancelotti.
But in his mind, there are two seniors who are the most special.
Needless to say, one is Ferguson.
The Godfather of Manchester United had a very profound and all-round influence on Gao Shen, so much so that Gao Shen always felt that he had deep traces of Ferguson on him.
Because of this, the 8-0 away game against Manchester United was a unique thrill for Gao Shen.
It feels like personally destroying a big shot that you looked up to in the past. It’s really enjoyable!
The other one is Benitez.
Back then, when Gao Shen just crossed over and coached Real Madrid, the first thing he did was to establish that the team would play Benitez's 4-2-3-1 tactic, because this tactic could bring stability to Real Madrid at the time.
In order to build a better double midfielder, Gao Shen also specially dug out De La Red from the youth team and asked him to form a double midfielder with Graveson to protect Real Madrid's defense together.
Facts also proved that Gao Shen's choice at that time was correct. With this style of play, Real Madrid not only counterattacked Barcelona, but also won the double crown of La Liga and the Champions League.
From then on, Gao Shen truly found his own path.
Times have changed, and Gao Shen no longer plays football, but everything he experienced at Real Madrid back then is still vivid in his mind.
In 2008, De La Rede fainted on the court, and Gao Shen flew to Madrid to visit him.
If according to the history he knew in his previous life, De La Red will retire in 10 years, and then Gao Shen will try to invite him to join his coaching staff, which can be regarded as the end of a good relationship back then.
Later, when Gao Shen first coached Naples, he still used a 4-2-3 formation, so many people at the time said that Gao Shen was Benitez II.
It can be seen that Benitez's influence on Gao Shen is also very great.
No matter in his past life or in this life, Liverpool's head coach is a very successful and great world-famous coach in Gao Shen's mind, although he later encountered Waterloo in many places.
Especially after personally coaching and seeing too many Waterloo cases in European football, Gao Shen clearly understands why the head coach is known as the most dangerous profession in European football.
It can be said that the success of every head coach is inseparable from the right time, right place and right people.
Sometimes you even need a little bit of luck.
Back then, Benítez left Liverpool, which in itself had nothing to say. Selling Xabi Alonso and bringing in Aquilani was a mistake in decision-making. In addition, Liverpool had not been able to make up for the team's loopholes and weaknesses for many years.
Benitez has an unshirkable responsibility, and dismissal is a matter of course.
But taking over Inter Milan is obviously not a very wise choice.
On the one hand, after Inter Milan was at its peak, the aging of the team was fully exposed, but on the other hand, it was unwilling to sell a group of stars in their prime in exchange for a sum of funds for restructuring, and at the same time, Moratti had no money.
Continue to invest.
In this case, no matter who takes over Inter Milan, it will be a mess.
As for him taking over Real Madrid, this is even more interesting.
If you look closely at the tactics of Benitez and Zidane, it is not difficult to find that there are many similarities.
So why did Benitez fail and Zidane succeed?
Because he is Zidane!
The answer is so simple and crude.
It is easy for ordinary fans to ignore Benitez's attempts and contributions because of Zidane's success.
It's like many Chelsea fans will remember Mourinho's success and ignore the foundation and contributions laid during Ranieri's period.
You know, Ranieri's Chelsea is one of the top four teams in the Champions League.
Many times, professional football is realistic, cruel, and victory-based.
But as a practitioner, Gao Shen clearly knows that in professional football, failure is the majority, and success is often only a handful.
Precisely because he understands this, Gao Shen is still full of expectations for this battle with Benitez.
…
After twelve rounds, the league was suspended again, and it was another two weeks of national team matches.
Today's Manchester City is richer, the treatment of players is obviously better, and the logistics services are more guaranteed.
For example, during every national team match day, the club will charter a flight to bring back the international players from South America.
Of course, Manchester City will choose to share the cost with several other giant teams in the Premier League.
But this is still a lot of money, and many teams are still reluctant to pay for it.
During these two weeks, Gao Shen was monitoring the matches of the international players, training the remaining players at Carrington, and at the same time researching and collecting intelligence and information on Liverpool.
In the end, nearly two hundred pages of information about Liverpool in this game were placed on Gao Shen's desk. Next, Gao Shen and the coaching staff needed to combine these two hundred pages of information with
The report was further analyzed, filtered and condensed, and what was finally delivered to each player was basically the content of an A4 paper.
This is the most important job of the Lucas Analytics team before the game.
Many times, if too much information and content is given to players, it will easily cause them to become confused.
Therefore, at most it is one piece of paper, and sometimes it may even be only half a piece of paper.
This requires Gao Shen, the coaching staff, and the analysis team to make very detailed preparations and screenings before the game, and at the same time come up with a set of tactics for Liverpool early on.
Liverpool's situation has been a bit messy recently because they started to suffer injuries.
"At present, it is very certain that Torres will definitely be absent, and the two wingers Riera and Benayoun may not be able to, but the central defender Daniel Agger is back after suspension, and Gerrard is also back from injury."
Lucas reported on the current situation of Liverpool, which can be described as mixed.
The absence of Torres has a great impact on Liverpool's offensive power. Benayoun is also one of the best wingers this season, but the return of Agger and Gerrard can greatly improve the strength of Liverpool's defense and midfield.
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It is conceivable that Benitez is in pain and happiness now.
The situation at Manchester City is not much better.
On the one hand, the South American national football team has traveled a long distance. On the other hand, with the improvement of the team's performance, there are more and more national football players, and their role in the national team is becoming more and more obvious. It is the duty of every player to play for the country.
obligations.
In this regard, Gao Shen is impossible to stop.
Therefore, he can only study how to defeat his opponents from a technical and tactical level.
…
"Tomorrow, after the players return, we will conduct special set-piece offensive training."
Gao Shen made arrangements for the tasks of the coaching staff.
Brian Kidd, Carlo and Sarri all recorded the profound requirements very carefully.
"Benitez has been coaching Liverpool for several years and has always insisted on using zone defense in set-piece defense. This once made Liverpool the team that conceded the fewest set-piece goals in the Premier League, so it was very successful, but now it is gradually exposed.
Something went wrong."
In fact, there has always been controversy about Liverpool's set-piece defense.
The so-called zone defense requires every player to defend his own zone when defending set pieces, rather than focusing on his target player.
This defensive system has a very obvious advantage, which is that it can ensure that the player with the best defensive ability always stays in the most dangerous area.
Another defensive system for set pieces is man-to-man.
As the name suggests, the man-to-man system means that the defensive player is only responsible for keeping an eye on his target player. Wherever the opponent goes, he will follow to ensure that the target player will not be left alone.
Both systems actually have their own pros and cons.
The problem with man-to-man marking is that the player with the best defensive ability is likely to be pulled out of his defense zone by the opponent's player, resulting in a situation where there are no strong enough players to guard the dangerous area, and can be exploited and attacked by the opponent.
The problem with regional defense is that there will inevitably be gaps between defenders in each area. Especially when it comes to defense of secondary balls similar to ferrying, the flaws are very obvious.
So, some people may think that since both have their own pros and cons, is there a way to effectively combine the advantages of zone defense and man-to-man marking?
The answer is, yes.
That's zone marking.
But the problem is that this defensive system is not perfect. It also has advantages and disadvantages, especially the switching of players in the ever-changing game. This is a very big problem.
In fact, strictly speaking, there is no clear-cut boundary between zone defense and man-to-man marking anymore.
Every team is using a hybrid set-piece defense, but many times, when goals are conceded, the media and fans always have to find some reasons and crux.
But one thing is very obvious, that is, the current Liverpool's protection of the three most important key positions is insufficient. This is the biggest Achilles' heel of Liverpool's current set-piece defense.
These three positions are the front point and the center of the small penalty area, as well as the players who protect them between the two positions.
Gao Shen specially asked Lucas to collect all the highlights of Liverpool's set piece defense in the past two seasons and this season, watched and analyzed it with all members of the coaching staff, and sorted out and recorded Liverpool's set piece defense.
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Regarding the upcoming battle at Anfield, Gao Shen attaches great importance to it and is also mentally prepared for a tough battle.
No one knows Biglia's strength better than him, so he also clearly knows the power of the double midfielder combination of Biglia and Mascherano, plus Gerrard.
It can be said that Liverpool's overall strength is far stronger than the Liverpool team Gao Shen knew in his previous life.
Even with Manchester City's current strong offensive power, they may not be able to attack Liverpool's defense at Anfield.
At best, Torres' absence can only weaken Liverpool's offense, especially the frontal impact in the counterattack, but the Red Army's defense will be a very big trouble.
Experts predict that set kicks are likely to be the decisive factor that changes the trend of the game.
