Chapter 34: The People Who Nottingham Forest Rely On
Nottingham Forest's solid defense mainly relies on three people. One is their main goalkeeper, Peter Johnson, who is only 21 years old this year.
He is now also the main goalkeeper of the England national team.
He is two meters tall, but not clumsy. He is very flexible and has a particularly long wingspan, which allows him to easily save many balls that ordinary goalkeepers would have to struggle to save.
This is his advantage.
He is a supernova who emerged from Nottingham Forest two seasons ago. He has been dubbed Casillas II by the English media - which means that although he is tall, he is agile, good at throwing dangerous balls, and has quick second reaction.
The most important thing is his role. His role in the England national team is almost equivalent to Casillas' role in Real Madrid's most chaotic period. The defense basically relies on him...
So in fact, this nickname sounds more like the English media’s self-deprecation of the England national team’s poor defense...
However, his performance was indeed outstanding. Because of his rapid rise, the 34-year-old England national goalkeeper Joe Hart has retired from the main position of the national team and has been replaced by Peter Johnson as a substitute.
The goalkeeper is the last line of defense for a team, but if a team defends well, it is obviously impossible to always count on the goalkeeper to perform exceptionally and come to the rescue.
If we only relied on the goalkeeper, Nottingham Forest would not be able to become the best defensive team in England and keep a clean sheet in the Champions League group stage.
Their defense is good, mainly due to their strong midfield.
At this time, I must mention two other important figures in this team.
Chen Jian.
At the age of 26, he serves as a defensive midfielder and is the main force of both the Chinese national team and the Nottingham Forest team. He was also a player sent abroad by the "Star Project" company at that time. He first went to Spain. He was still very young at that time, and later he was gradually kicked out.
, and his reputation is getting bigger and bigger.
He was selected for the Chinese national team and played many games. He was valued by Nottingham Forest, who hired him from the Yellow Submarine after being promoted to the Premier League.
He is characterized by a flexible body, and his defense mainly relies on excellent positioning awareness and flexible and agile running. His physical confrontation ability is slightly weak, but his brain makes up for this disadvantage.
In the Chinese national team, he only needs to be responsible for sweeping the midfield, and other players in the Chinese team can attack with confidence. This shows how good his defensive ability is.
In the Nottingham Forest team, he partnered with George Wood, and the two worked together well.
He won the Premier League's Best Foreign Player Award last season.
Moreover, Nottingham Forest had just successfully renewed his contract, giving him a six-year long-term contract with a substantial increase in annual salary and bonuses. Tony Twain directly told those who were interested in Chen Jian at the press conference on the successful renewal of the contract.
An interesting team, Chen Jian is priceless and will not be sold.
George Wood.
The captain of Nottingham Forest is only 24 years old and is already a world-renowned midfielder.
Nottingham Forest represents the top local players trained by its own youth training system.
He has excellent physical fitness, fast speed, good stamina, and first-class confrontation ability. He is a top defensive midfielder.
He is only twenty-four years old, but he has already had a four-year international career, which means that he has already become an international player for the England national team at the age of twenty.
With his strength, he should actually play for those European giants, and the European giants have also tried to seduce him.
However, he is a native of Nottingham and has a deep affection for the Nottingham Forest team, so he would rather stay in the Nottingham Forest team than leave.
After playing his first professional first-team game for Forest at the age of eighteen, he has been the main midfielder of Nottingham Forest.
With him around, everyone will feel at ease.
In addition to defense, George Wood also has excellent long-range shooting and long-passing abilities. The main reason for Nottingham Forest's sharp counterattack is that his long-pass scheduling is very accurate.
In midfield defense, George Wood is usually responsible for attacking, while Chen Jian is responsible for filling in behind him.
The two of them work together very well, which can be seen from Chen Jian's first game at Nottingham Forest.
Their tacit understanding is also reflected in the transition between offense and defense.
After Chen Jian grabs the ball, he will immediately hand the ball to George Wood, who will launch a long pass to counterattack.
And if Wood grabs the ball, he will pass the ball directly if he has the chance. If he doesn't have the chance, he will divert the ball to Chen Jian next to him, and then run himself.
Chen Jian will quickly pass the football to George Wood who is cutting and running, and then George Wood will launch the attack.
Chen Jian and Wood will not have any hesitation in this regard.
The tacit understanding and efficiency between the two of them are also another main reason for Nottingham Forest's sharp counterattack.
Because they will not be sloppy in the midfield, and they do a very good job in offensive and defensive transitions.
In modern football, the team that does a better job of transitioning between offense and defense will take advantage.
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In addition, when studying Nottingham Forest, there is another person who cannot be bypassed no matter what.
That is their head coach Tony Twain.
This native of Sherwood, northwest of Nottingham, joined Nottingham Forest Club when he was twenty years old, not as a player, but as a coach.
He started as an ordinary training coach at the lowest level, worked hard to learn and improve himself, and climbed up little by little.
When he was thirty-four years old, he replaced his predecessor who was dismissed due to poor coaching performance and became the youngest head coach in the history of Nottingham Forest Club.
Since then, Nottingham Forest has entered the era of Tony Twain.
He started from the youth training camp, and when the club's financial situation was worrying, he boldly used young players, and based on the actual situation of the Forest team, he chose the defensive counterattack tactic.
In the end, under his leadership, Nottingham Forest achieved a triple jump in three years!
It was promoted from the English First Division to the English Champions League, and from the English Champions League to the English Premier League!
He then continued to improve his defensive counterattack tactics and introduced a large number of players suitable for defensive counterattacks.
It took two years to establish a firm foothold in the Premier League, and the next two years to enter the European competition.
Finally, in his seventh year coaching Nottingham Forest, he led the team to qualify for the Champions League!
Last season, they were fourth in the Premier League and participated in the Champions League play-offs. They defeated Lyon in the play-offs and qualified for the main draw.
Tony Twain has become a hot young and promising head coach in English football.
At the age of 41, he received coaching invitations from many big teams, but he remained unmoved and chose to stay at Nottingham Forest.
As he said to the Nottingham Forest fans, he is a Nottingham man and he will not leave his hometown team unless someone drives him away.
But for such a capable head coach, the chairman of Nottingham Forest had a mental illness and got rid of him...
Coaching in England is completely different from coaching in Italy. In England, the head coach holds a lot of power. He is almost more powerful than the club president and has a higher reputation. This is natural and no one will think it is abnormal.
But in Italy, this is something deviant...
What Chang Sheng cares more about is the tactics Twain chooses.
In the past ten years, due to the unprecedented success of Lazio, a whirlwind of offensive football ideas has swept across European football, affecting almost everyone.
The scenes of many teams seem to be very homogeneous.
It's like they're on the same team.
If you choose a game of any team, you will find that they mainly focus on passing and advancing on the ground, pay attention to ball possession rate, and choose to surround the opponent in defense, starting from the front court.
These characteristics are very similar to Lazio's style.
Of course, this kind of football is very beautiful.
However, some people still complain that everyone plays this kind of football, and when I watch all the teams' games, I feel like I am actually watching one team... So what's the point of this kind of football?
Despite such complaints, more voices still support this direction.
Because it makes football look better based on winning.
The smooth-flowing offense, like precisely calculated passes back and forth, and the outstanding individual performances are mesmerizing.
In the eyes of supporters, this is how football should develop.
This kind of thinking really has a profound influence, and even many teams around the world have accepted this style of play. For a time, all teams were imitating Lazio.
It was in such an environment that Tony Twain chose defensive counterattack tactics and publicly stated many times that he looked down on the current football of many teams.
"...Many teams are imitating Lazio, and the media is full of praise for this imitation, saying that they have made football more beautiful and got rid of the low taste of utilitarianism... This is really ironic. These balls
Are teams imitating Lazio because Lazio's football is beautiful? Bullshit! They imitate Lazio just to win, because Lazio's football can win. It's that simple. It has nothing to do with whether it looks good or not! So this in itself
Isn’t it a very utilitarian idea and approach? When the football world is full of such utilitarian ideas, how can we say that today’s football is free from utilitarianism?”
When being interviewed by reporters again, Tony Twain talked about his disdain and contempt for today's football culture.
At the same time, he put forward his own theory of "the uselessness of ball control".
"The more complicated the ball control, the more useless it is. It looks good, but it only looks good, and it is actually of no use. The vast majority of goals that actually lead to goals are ball control within five passes. Too much ball control will cause
As a result, the football stays at the feet too much. If you encounter those teams with strong pressing ability, it will be very ugly. I think too much possession of the ball is of no use at all. The team only needs to pursue the necessary possession of the ball.
Let's give possession of the ball away to the other team and let them worry about the ball at their feet!"
This is what Tang En said, and this is how he practices what he said.
His Nottingham Forest had a lower possession rate than their opponents in almost every game, but they were still able to win.
It doesn't look good, but it's very practical.
In this way, a team that had been unknown for a long time was brought back to the Champions League.
This is also the reason why there are so many public opinions scolding him, but his fame is getting bigger and bigger, and his status is getting higher and higher. (To be continued. Please search Piao Tian Literature, the novel will be better and updated faster!)
