Chapter 237 Football is not about fighting and killing
In another second round group match in Group H, Ajax drew 1:1 at home with AC Milan.
After the San Siro's defeat to Hamburg, Allegri seemed to have lost his courage. He deployed a 4321 Christmas tree defensive counterattack formation in the away game.
This formation and style of play also helped the team maintain the 0:0 score until the 90th minute.
But just before stoppage time, Ajax center back Dunswell took advantage of a corner kick opportunity to break through Milan's goal and help the home team lead by one goal.
This is almost a winning goal!
And when the stoppage time entered the fourth minute, a dramatic scene occurred.
Balotelli equalized the score!
This allowed Milan to avoid the embarrassing situation of two consecutive defeats, but it also allowed Hamburg to dominate the so-called group of death.
After two rounds, Hamburg has 6 points, Barcelona has 3 points, Ajax and AC Milan have 1 point each.
The next four teams will engage in two "back-to-back" battles.
Hamburg will face Ajax, who are recognized to be weak in the group. If they can score all six points, they will have a great chance of breaking out of this group directly, and will probably be first in the group. p>
Barcelona and Milan will have to play two consecutive life-and-death matches at home and away.
Obviously, these two games will largely determine the final trend of this Champions League group.
However, "Gazzetta dello Sport" also believes that with only two rounds played now, the group situation is not very clear, and both Barcelona and Milan still have a chance.
"Ajax's away games are never easy, which is why Allegri adopts a conservative style of play. When Hamburg travels to the Netherlands, they will inevitably encounter strong resistance and may not be able to secure three points." "And if Hamburg capsizes in Amsterdam, the winner of the two games between Barcelona and Milan will have a good chance of coming from behind and then facing Hamburg in the second round to determine the real top spot in the group."
Of course, "Gazzetta dello Sport" is not particularly optimistic about AC Milan's prospects.
Because even if Hamburg cannot secure first place in the group in advance, in the past few seasons, Milan and Barcelona have won and lost in direct confrontations, but they both ended up losing.
Milan's condition this season is worse than in the previous two seasons, but Barcelona is obviously much better - they were invincible before meeting Hamburg.
Therefore, the Italian media can only hope that Milan can play at a better level against Barcelona.
More media began to change their previous predictions for this group.
Before the game, everyone believed that in this group of death, Barcelona and Milan were the teams most likely to break through. Hamburg would at best compete with Ajax for third place to get a ticket to the Europa League.
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But no one expected that after two rounds of competition, the group situation had undergone surprising changes. Not only was Hamburg not in danger of being eliminated, but it also directly became the top favorite in the group!
Moreover, Hamburg is in the Champions League, Bundesliga, including the German Cup, all three tiers go hand in hand, without losing any of them.
As the head coach of Hamburg, Pan Yi's rotation on various fronts and the technical and tactical abilities he displayed after the rotation are also amazing.
Sometimes, people may even think that Pan Yi's rotation range is very radical, and all members are often replaced.
If this happens only when playing against Bundesliga teams in the cup, then Pan Yi will also often rotate more than half of the team in Bundesliga matches.
But even so, Hamburg is still working steadily on multiple fronts and has achieved very excellent results.
Sometimes even if they don't perform very well in the game, Hamburg players can always stabilize their mentality, play at a higher than average level, and finally win the game without any danger.
This is a symbol of the growth of a team.
Because it is impossible for a team to always maintain the highest mood and state during a long season. Players are also human beings, not machines.
Their status will always have ups and downs, ups and downs.
But a championship team can always grit its teeth and hold on even when its personnel are tired and its state has declined, and then steadily score points one after another.
……
On October 6, Hamburg returned to the Bundesliga and challenged Nuremberg away from home.
After this round of games, there will be another two-week international match day, so Pan Yi still sent out a semi-rotating lineup.
Hamburg continued their good form in the Champions League in this game, and even beat their opponents by five goals in the away game!
Vardy once again scored a hat trick, while Arslan and Best, who came off the bench, also scored a goal each.
What makes the Hamburg generals even more happy is that in this round of competition, several major competitors overturned.
Of course, it is not accurate to say "overturn", because this round Leverkusen ushered in a direct contest with Bayern Munich at home!
Bayern took the lead in the 30th minute when Kroos succeeded with a long shot from midfield.
But Leverkusen equalized the score a minute later, with right winger Sam scoring with a powerful shot.
In any case, this draw successfully slowed down Hamburg's two main rivals.
Dortmund was defeated by Monchengladbach in the away game, and the score of 0:2 was not really an unexpected ending.
But in this way, Hamburg will dominate the Bundesliga standings!
After eight rounds, Hamburg has seven wins and one draw with 22 points, while Bayern has 20 points, Dortmund and Leverkusen both have 19 points, ranking second to fourth.
These four teams have also begun to widen the gap between the teams behind them, because the fifth-placed Monchengladbach only has 13 points.
……
At this time, the 2014 World Cup qualifiers have basically come to an end, and only a few continents have entered the play-off stage to determine the last few participating places.
Therefore, most of Hamburg's international players go to participate in some international friendly matches that are not very intense.
The only player who will participate in official matches in October is Egyptian international Salah.
The Egyptian national team entered the final stage of the top ten matches in the African region, and their opponent was the Ghana team.
As a result, the Ghana team, whose overall strength is much higher, defeated Egypt 6:1 at home and has one foot on the road to Brazil.
Although Salah tried his best and scored a goal, he was still alone and lost to the Ghana team led by Muntari, Gian and others.
……
On October 20, in the ninth round of the Bundesliga, Hamburg faced Stuttgart at home.
In this game, Pan Yi rested some players who played a lot on international matches, but the team still performed at a high level in the game.
When the game reached the 17th minute, Mitrovic was at the front of the penalty area. After holding Stuttgart's central defender Schwab on his back, he passed the ball back to Hasebe Makoto, then turned around and moved forward quickly.
Hasebe sent a through ball with sincerity and understanding, and it went behind the Stuttgart defense.
Two Stuttgart center backs prepared to join forces to intercept Mitrovic and fell to the ground to tackle at the same time. As a result, the ball bounced happily between the two bodies, and the ball accidentally fell to Wu Lei on the other side.
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Of course Wu Lei would not let go of such a bargain. He pushed the ball easily and scored.
1:0!
The entire People's Park stadium cheered.
Being scored in this way by the opponent, all the Stuttgart players were very frustrated.
Moreover, this unexpected goal conceded also disrupted their pre-match plans, making it difficult for them to continue their defensive counterattack.
But this is just the beginning.
After Hamburg broke the deadlock, they took advantage of the situation and continued to launch fierce attacks on Stuttgart.
First, Lin Zhijian's low shot in the penalty area was directly confiscated by the opponent's goalkeeper.
Then Mitrovic's heel flew, Paulinho followed up with a header, and the ball went over the crossbar.
Then Wu Lei got a chance to stand alone and took a shot in the penalty area, which was saved by the goalkeeper. Then the linesman raised the flag to indicate offside.
Although they failed to score a goal, the continuous offensive made Stuttgart's goal a jittery one.
In the 40th minute, Hamburg got a corner kick opportunity. Calhanoglu passed the ball directly to the outside and Paulinho took a long shot!
The ball was blocked by Schwab and changed direction. The goalkeeper was helpless. Hamburg 2:0 Stuttgart!
Despite the two-week suspension of national team games, Hamburg still appears unstoppable after the war resumed.
In the second half of the game, Pan Yi made some adjustments to the team's tactics to make everyone play more smoothly.
This is because on October 24, four days later, Hamburg will travel to the Netherlands to challenge Ajax.
At that time, there will be another round of fatigue, so players should try not to be too tired as much as possible while winning the game.
However, this also gave Stuttgart a chance to breathe. In the 62nd minute, Goudo Sakai assisted Gentner to score and get a goal back.
But Hamburg did not panic because of this and continued to work steadily.
At the end of the game, taking advantage of the opportunity that all Stuttgart players were pressing, right back Dick Meier hit a midfielder lob, once again breaking the Stuttgart goal, and setting the final score at 3:1.<
/p>
The victory in this game also allowed Hamburg to continue to lead the standings with a 2-point advantage.
The top three players also won this round and continued to chase after them.
……
October 24, Amsterdam Arena.
In the 10th minute of the game, the home team used an attack from the right, with left back Blind passing the ball into the penalty area, creating a chaos in the hinterland of Hamburg.
Van Dijk tried to drive the ball out of the danger zone with a big kick, but what he didn't expect was that the clearance ball hit the head of Vardy who was actively returning to defend, and then bounced to the leg of Kante on the side.
Up, flying towards the goal.
This unexpected rebound caught Hamburg goalkeeper Navas off guard, and he could only watch the ball roll into the goal.
1:0, Ajax, playing at home, scored first and took the lead over Hamburg!
……
On the sidelines, Hamburg head coach Pan Yi, who was one goal behind, did not panic. Instead, he signaled the players to stabilize their mentality and continue playing at their own pace.
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The overall strength of this Ajax team is not very strong, and the team also lacks star players.
Except for Dutch international Blind and international goalkeeper Cilaisen, there really are no outstanding stars in the Ajax team.
Even Blind and Cilaisen are far behind Barcelona in terms of star quality, and are even not as good as the current AC Milan players.
The current head coach of Ajax, Frank de Boer, adopted a cautious counterattack posture when facing Hamburg, which was gaining momentum, even at home, using 4-1-2-2-1.
This is a bit similar to the Christmas tree formation to face.
This formation is based on defense in the middle. The offense mainly relies on the through ball from the center to the forward during counterattacks, and the use of two full-backs to open side channels. This is consistent with the basic idea of the 4321 Christmas tree tactic used by Pan Yi before.
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The goal just now was initiated by left back Blind, which caused chaos and resulted in Hamburg's own goal.
Although part of the reason for this goal was the failure to completely suppress Blind's cross, the two Hamburg center backs in the middle had actually blocked the landing point and successfully made a clearance.
It was just a bit of bad luck that led to this goal.
If Hamburg's players hadn't been more active in defense, there wouldn't have been this goal!
Therefore, Pan Yi will not be too harsh on his own players for such a goal.
As long as the Hamburg players don't be impatient and play their own game according to the tactics arranged by the coach before the game, they will have a good chance of equalizing the score or even taking the lead.
After all, this Christmas tree tactic is indeed a bit outdated now!
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Although the two full-backs in Ajax have good assist abilities, due to the accelerated pace of today's football games, it is difficult for even the most capable full-backs to cover both offense and defense, and after assisting, they will inevitably
There is a large area of open space.
In order to make up for such a gap, this formation has very high requirements for midfielders. Not only must they have comprehensive skills and be able to suppress opponents in offense, but they must also have good awareness and can supplement the two full-backs in defense.
Location.
But now Ajax obviously lacks such a comprehensive player.
Moreover, they do not have No. 10 players like Kaka, Seedorf, and Luyin Costa who can activate the midfield like AC Milan did in the Anfa era, so they actually have many flaws when they play the Christmas tree formation.
of.
Of course, Pan Yi, a master tactician, understands this flaw very well. After all, he is also the one who used this formation to great effect.
So it doesn’t matter if someone is stolen, just fight back slowly!
……
As a result, the scene became "mellow".
Hamburg is finding its own rhythm under Pan Yi's instructions and is in no rush to advance.
Ajax has a goal in hand and is wary of Hamburg's strength, so they don't dare to be too aggressive even in a home game.
After all, the opponent is the team that defeated AC Milan and Barcelona!
When facing these two teams, Ajax first lost to Barcelona with four goals and then drew with Milan, so there is still a bit of a gap in terms of strength.
This is why DeBoer adopted this defensive counterattack formation.
As a result, the two sides continued to compete in the midfield, but they were rarely able to push the ball into the dangerous area.
This situation lasted until 40 minutes.
At the end of the half, it is often when players from both sides relax.
Especially the two full-backs of Ajax, because their players are mainly concentrated in the center and they rely heavily on their front and back penetration when attacking from the wing, so their physical fitness has also declined, and their concentration will also decrease.<
/p>
At this time, Hamburg's right wing duo Carvajal and Salah launched waves of attacks.
Since it is difficult for the Ajax midfielder to provide strong support to the wingers, Blind, like Barcelona's Adriano in the last game, has to often face one-on-two situations.
And this situation is often very dangerous! Especially when you have to face Hamburg, a duo who are already very skilled in cooperating!
I saw Carvajal once again dribbling the ball along the right side of Hamburg to attack. When Blind came to defend, he immediately passed the ball to Salah who was running forward close to the right sideline, while he quickly ran into the gap.
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When Salah got the ball, he did not return the ball to Carvajal immediately. Instead, he dunked past a defensive player, cut inward laterally, attracted the attention of the opponent's midfielder, and then distributed the ball.
It was given to De Bruyne in the middle.
De Bruyne is already standing at the top of the penalty area. Once he gets the ball, he will obviously pose a threat to Ajax's goal.
Center defender Dunswell in the penalty area immediately rushed out, fearing that De Bruyne would get a chance to take a long shot.
Behind him, Carvajal, who had passed the ball before and moved forward, suddenly changed his direction and inserted diagonally into the ribs of the penalty area from near the baseline. Like a sharp knife, he just inserted into Dunsville's goal after the tackle.
That location.
De Bruyne also understood it clearly. He just made a fake shot, and then sent a through ball to the ribs on the right side of the penalty area.
When Carvajal caught up and got the ball, there was no Ajax player defending within a radius of three or four meters.
As soon as he stopped the ball with his right foot, he made a slight adjustment and then started to volley!
The ball passed goalkeeper Xilaisen and went straight into the far corner of the goal.
"goalllllllllllllllllllll!
”
"In the 42nd minute, Hamburg used the wonderful cooperation of several players on the right to tear apart Ajax's defense, and Carvajal equalized the score, 1:1!"
"After falling behind in the opening score, the Hamburg players were not in a hurry, but were looking for opportunities very patiently. This fully shows that this team has become increasingly mature and will not be impatient because of a temporary fall behind."
"This also shows that they already have the mentality of a strong team. Only with this strong self-confidence can they not worry about losing the ball and firmly believe that they will also score goals!"
"In this attack, Hamburg once again took advantage of their powerful right-side attack. I can even say that the combination of Salah, De Bruyne and Carvajal is currently the best combination in European football. A sharp offensive line!"
"Pan Yi obviously also saw the defensive weaknesses of Ajax's formation on the wing, so he resolutely asked the players to attack on both sides, and finally achieved results."
"Of course, I believe Pan Yi's goal is not just to score one point, this goal is just the beginning. Their team is still attacking!"
……
In the second half, the two sides changed sides and fought again.
After the game entered 60 minutes, DeBoer couldn't sit still.
He didn't want the three points he got to turn into one point, so he replaced midfielder Duarte and replaced him with forward Lucas Anderson. The formation also changed to 442 to strengthen the offense.
After all, although they are a little worried about Hamburg's strength, if Ajax does not win a victory at home, it will be difficult to play in the following games.
After the first cycle, if they only accumulate two points after two home games, Ajax's journey in the next three games will definitely be more difficult, and qualifying will be even more wishful thinking.
Therefore, DeBoer could only bite the bullet and launch the final attack.
Burger, on the other hand, responded calmly.
Pan Yi also gradually made substitution adjustments, taking off Sun Xingmin, Robertson and others who had average performance today, and replacing them with Wu Lei, Jan Sen and others to continue to maintain the running support ability of the personnel.
And such substitutions also had results in the final stage of the game.
This time, it’s the left wing combination with plenty of energy that shows off its power.
They took advantage of the huge space exposed after Ajax pressed the attack. After Wu Lei and Janssen made continuous passes against the wall, Wu Lei dribbled the ball into the small penalty area and succeeded in shooting from a small angle!< /p>
1:2, Hamburg overtook the score!
At this time, the timer on the display screen above the stadium has reached the 90th minute.
At the last moment, Hamburg retreated across the board.
In the end, relying on the team's strong defensive foundation, Hamburg defended the 1:2 score until the end.
……
The Hamburg media, including the German media, are very satisfied with Hamburg's ability to take all three points from Ajax in the away game.
Although the score is not as exciting as against Milan or Barcelona, getting points is the most important thing.
In this way, Hamburg has scored nine points after three games!
In another game, AC Milan played at the San Siro Stadium and tied with Barcelona, who came from afar, 1:1.
The golden ball winners of both sides, Kaká and Messi, each scored a goal for their respective teams.
As a result, the points gap between Hamburg and the three opponents in the group has further widened.
Hamburg has 9 points, Barcelona has 4 points, AC Milan has 2 points, and Ajax has 1 point.
As long as Hamburg defeats Ajax at home in the next round, they can secure a qualifying spot!
This is really a death group that is not scary at all!
Hamburg is happy, but the Spanish and Italian media are beginning to worry about Barcelona or Milan.
If they want to advance, they must try their best in the second meeting in the next round.
In fact, Barcelona is better. Even if they draw, they will still have the initiative to qualify.
But that won't work for AC Milan. If they don't win anymore, they will basically have to act based on other people's faces.
And this "face" largely depends on the burger.
The Milan media are also speculating and building momentum, believing that if Hamburg can qualify early, maybe Pan Yi will use the substitute lineup in the later stages of the group stage, which will give Milan a chance.
Considering the deep relationship between Pan Yi and Milan, who says this will never happen?
Football is not about fighting and killing, football is about human relationships!