After winning the World Cup, the announcement of England's new squad caused endless reverie in Fleet Street.
As expected, veteran goalkeeper Seaman was honorably discharged, and who will be guarding England's next national goalkeeper?
The three goalkeepers in Aldridge's new national team roster are James, Robinson, and Green. Among them, the 22-year-old Green is regarded as a competitor for the next generation. In this generation, the only goalkeepers that England can get are James and
Robinson, the outside world dare not make any judgments about who will take over.
Apart from the goalkeeper, Fleet Street is really confused about the other third-line players.
Except for Phil Neville, Butt, and McManaman, none of the main players who won the World Cup were called up!
Owen, Scholes, Beckham, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Southgate, Ferdinand, 7 main players were eliminated one after another.
Obviously, the young coach is giving them more time to rest, not even using the national team, and staying at home.
Because on the FIFA match day in September, the England team had a bye in the European Cup qualifying group and had to play a friendly match.
Gary Neville and Gerrard returned to the national team roster. It must be infinite regret for them to miss the World Cup, but they can only lament their bad luck and got injured before the World Cup.
The upper limit of the competition roster is 23 people. In other periods, the number of national teams will generally be maintained at around 25-30 people. On the one hand, it is to select talents, and on the other hand, it is to form healthy competition within the team.
This national team friendly match will be held locally, and the chosen home stadium is Anfield.
The day before the players came to report, Aldridge met the national team coaching staff at Liverpool's training base. He even came earlier. Yesterday, he sent Bert and Earl to their grandmother's house.
The coaching staff of the national team has a new atmosphere. Except for Aldridge and Jensen, two familiar faces to the outside world, the other coaches are unknown to others.
On a sunny afternoon, Stramaccioni presented to Aldrich a summary of intelligence he had collected on the opponents in the European Cup qualifying group.
Flicking through the documents in his hand, Aldrich smiled and said nothing to Stramaccioni.
In fact, there is almost no suspense about England's entry into the European Cup.
Take a look at the opponents in the same group?
Türkiye is the strongest, followed by Slovakia, Macedonia and Liechtenstein.
Throughout the qualifiers, as long as the two-round match against Türkiye is completed, the top spot in the group can be guaranteed.
In such a group, is it necessary to study the opponent deliberately?
Even if we really do research, we can just focus on Türkiye. Studying all our opponents would be making a mountain out of a molehill.
This was just Aldridge's way of testing Stramaccioni's work ethic.
Not to mention, this handsome Italian guy is very serious. Even Liechtenstein, which is ranked outside the 150th place in the world, has collected a lot of intelligence information. The page of player information is densely packed with text and there are a lot of players.
Compared with a national team that is second-rate in football, the main lineup will basically not change much in a few years. For a national team like Liechtenstein that may not even be called a third-rate football team, player information is the most difficult to compile. Why? Because you don’t
Know where the other side will find a group of amateur players to represent the national team.
, maybe after playing for the national team, those players take off their jerseys and work as courier workers, or sit in the office as white-collar workers. They play football just for fun. When the national team is about to compete, they can make a temporary guest appearance. There are no serious players in the country.
In the Bajing professional league, the clubs are somewhere between semi-professional and amateur.
It can be seen that Stramaccioni's opponent investigation report was very detailed.
Except for Stramaccioni, most of the other newcomers to the coaching staff are selected from within England. For them, it is a career promotion. They have worked in low-level national echelons such as U21 and youth teams.
In addition to getting to know each other and saying hello to them after the first meeting, Aldridge then handed over other tasks to Jenson. He jogged around the court in the training base in sportswear, and then interacted with the small ball in the training base.
Playing ball with children, it doesn't look like they are here for work at all.
The new coach was shocked. He felt that the young marshal was an alienated figure. Under the arrangement of Jensen, they began to prepare for their own tasks and each performed their own duties. Training was 80% of the work. When these people were arranged, Jensen hesitated.
After a moment, he called Stramaccioni over and walked towards Aldrich with him.
Aldrich was sweating all over, sitting on the turf of the training ground, waving goodbye to the ball boy. After the ball boy walked away, Jensen and Stramaccioni came to him.
Janson sat down cross-legged in front of Aldrich, and Stramaccioni saw both of them sitting on the turf, so he also sat down.
Jensen looked at Aldrich who was a little distracted and asked, "When will we get down to business?"
"Huh? What's the business?"
"Don't pretend to be stupid. You know the changes in the England team's skills and tactics. As a World Cup champion, England still wants to continue playing in the European Cup with 4321. I'm afraid it will be difficult to achieve anything. Don't underestimate the European powers and learn from experience and lessons.
The mystery of England's tactics has been unveiled. Does England still want to shine in the European Cup?"
Aldrich looked up at the blue sky and smiled bitterly: "Yes, this is the business."
Stramaccioni was full of energy, held his head high and listened carefully to what was coming next.
The 4321 formation used by the England team to win the World Cup has been listed as a classic tactic by FIFA. The overall technical and tactical structure is clear and has been listed as a key explanation topic in the new issue of FIFA lecturers.
It is no exaggeration to say that the England team is being dismembered by the outside world from a technical and tactical level!
Due to the lack of extraordinary creativity, the limitation of this tactic is that without an unexpected impact from the opponent, there is not much room for change.
England's own creativity will not undergo earth-shaking changes because of winning the World Cup, so changes in techniques and tactics are a big problem.
Continue to insist on 4321?
It seems to follow the law of football circles: victory does not change!
But it has its own limitations, plus it will be thoroughly studied by the opponent. If you persist, you will only fall into the embarrassing situation of a trapped beast.
Especially after winning the World Cup, the English people are arrogant and arrogant in their bones. It is unlikely that they will continue to unswervingly fight against conservatism.
Aldrich's gaze slowly moved down from the sky, fixed on Stramaccioni's face, and asked: "What do you think can be improved in England?"
Stramaccioni hesitated for a long time without saying a word.
It's hard for him. In the past, I understood England from an external perspective, without having a detailed understanding of it from the inside, so it was really difficult to speak.
Aldrich said: "The people are still the same, and the skills of some young players will improve in the next two years, but overall, the overall creativity is still not comparable to the European powers. In other words, if you want to transform the team, you still have to use
The team is the starting point, and we cannot hope that any one player will become the core of changing everything. That is too unrealistic. Jenson, what do you think are the advantages of England?"
"Physical fitness, bravery, unity. If you look down to the specific players, individual speed advantages, set-piece abilities, and long passes, but compared to other strong teams, others have them, and they are not as good as them."
Aldrich nodded and sighed: "Yes, what we have, others also have, and we may not have what others are outstanding, so we use the core factors to amplify our advantages on the basis of the entire team, and use what we are good at
As a foundation, we will create a new tactic that is in line with our current situation. The three points you mentioned are almost the same as what I think. Our players have a large running range and good physical fitness. We only need to make reasonable arrangements before facing the competition.
This advantage can still be reflected in the competition. A large range of activities means strong mobility and bravery. Hahaha, there are a lot of rough guys. Technical things are indeed incomparable with the European powers. Unity, this is probably because we
The technical ability is not outstanding, so the distribution of ball rights is reasonable, so it seems more united than other teams. For a talented team like Argentina, distribution of ball rights is a big problem, so sometimes it does not look like a whole."
Stramaccioni looked thoughtful, but Janson's eyes became brighter and brighter, and he said with a smile: "Since we want to change, there is only one choice left."
Aldrich nodded and said: "Let's take a gamble. It will work. If it doesn't work, there is no way. I want to leave my job after the World Cup because the limitations of this team are too great. Since I am still in this position, the European Cup
, and there’s no ideological burden, so just take the other extreme path.”
Stramaccioni was confused and asked: "Excuse me, what are you talking about?"
Jensen laughed and said: "We have worked at Millwall for eight years and have summarized some tactics with a distinct style, which will be used according to the team's situation. One of them is a tactic we named 'Lions'.
Millwall has used it, but it has not been used to the extreme, so
Because Millwall itself is very creative, you can give it a try when you come to England. The creativity here is limited, but there is a group of engineers, plus they are physically strong and have a wide range of activities, they may be able to bring it to the extreme, and it is completely different from the previous 4321.
The ultimate two tactical systems."
Stramaccioni was very interested and asked: "What exactly is it like?"
Aldrich whistled and said with a smile, "Would you please treat us to a drink tonight?"
Stramaccioni was stunned, not expecting Aldrich to blackmail him so shamelessly.
He nodded and said, "Okay, but don't try to fool me!"
Jensen laughed and said: "Do you know Millwall's defensive strategy of pressing and attacking?"
"Well, I have a rough understanding. Through high-position pressing and cutting up the opponent's offensive formation at the same time, the first line of defense is formed from the forward, and the layers are compressed from the frontcourt to the middle and backcourt."
"That's just a theory, and Millwall cannot take this theory to the extreme due to the characteristics of the players, because you can't let Ronaldinho, Henry, Pirlo, 100% devote themselves to defense, and their defensive capabilities
It is also pitifully limited, so in defense they use their positions to cut through the opponent's point-to-point offensive formation and block passing routes. However, there are indeed a large number of players with defensive ability in England's formation.
It will no longer just cut the opponent's formation through positioning, but will directly crush the opponent's midfielder in the opponent's third-line formation through crazy running and pressing! Sublimate the cutting, instead of waiting for the opponent to hesitate and pass the ball
We made a mistake, but we reshaped the game through crazy pressing. This tactic is used to its extreme, which is to use destructive power to form dominance! The visual sense will be a group of lions crazily strangling the opponent, destroying the opponent in the terrifying chaos!"
Stramaccioni was stunned.
Is he still playing football?
Destruction leads to dominance?
This concept is subversive to him.
Aldrich didn't say much, he just stood up and said lazily: "Let's go, I'm sure you won't be stingy and treat us to dinner by the way."
On the way out of the training base, Aldridge looked at the sunset and suddenly had new expectations for the 2004 European Cup.
In 2004, the Czech Republic, one of the strongest representatives of offensive football, Greece, which reshaped the game with defense and became dominant, and France, which had a new tactical concept but was stillborn, was the host of the golden generation.
Aldrich has a new goal, leading the new England and European powers to hunt Portugal! (To be continued, please search Piaotian Literature, the novel is better and updated faster!
