Before coaching Chelsea, Di Matteo's coaching resume was not impressive.
In 2008, he coached Milton Keynes Dons in League One. They finished third in League One that season, but lost to their opponents in the play-offs for promotion to the Championship and missed the opportunity to be promoted.
Although he failed to lead Milton Keynes to promotion to the English Championship, Di Matteo relied on his good performance in one season to get the opportunity to coach the English Championship team West Bromwich Albion, which is a famous promotion team in the Premier League.
team.
The so-called lift means that West Bromwich Albion travel frequently between the Premier League and the Championship.
Di Matteo successfully led the team to the Premier League in his first season as coach, which earned him praise. Even after being promoted to the Premier League, although there were sad memories of a 0-6 away defeat to Chelsea in the first round.
, but then the team quickly adjusted, once occupying sixth place in the Premier League, defeating Arsenal, and drawing with Manchester United away from home. The performance was outstanding.
During that time, Di Matteo became famous and attracted the attention of the entire British and even European football circles.
But the good times did not last long. West Bromwich Albion's relatively open style of play, but a seriously insufficient lineup, made this team seriously lack of stamina. Di Matteo coached West Bromwich Albion until the second half of 2011.
Class will end in the month.
Last summer, after his application to coach Birmingham was unsuccessful, Di Matteo accepted Villas-Boas's invitation to serve as the Portuguese's chief assistant coach at Chelsea and officially returned to Stamford Bridge.
What no one expected was that Di Matteo, who had not been favored even when coaching Birmingham, would be fired as Villas-Boas half a year later and replaced him as Chelsea's head coach, leading the team to the Champions League.
finals.
Destiny is something that is really confusing.
Although Di Matteo's coaching resume is not impressive, his career can be regarded as one of the best in Europe.
From Lazio to Chelsea, the Blues even offered Di Matteo a sky-high price of US$6.8 million. In 1996, this was the highest transfer fee in Chelsea's history. Even in the Premier League at the time, this was considered a considerable amount.
The high transfer fee shows that Chelsea attaches great importance to Di Matteo.
Having played for a big team for a long time, Di Matteo is well-informed and he deeply understands the survival rules of a big team head coach.
As the head coach of a big team, especially a wealthy team, professional ability has never been the most important, because these can be left to the assistants. It is like Ferguson has not even bothered with training and preparation for many years.
So what is the most important thing for a head coach of a wealthy team?
manage!
You have to be able to stabilize the players on and off the court, and you have to be able to deal with the boss.
Villas-Boas has no problem with his professional ability and can handle the boss, so he became the head coach of Chelsea at a young age. But the problem is that he can't control the players, so he was dismissed.
As for whether it is the so-called veteran team committee in the Chelsea team who messed with him, does it matter?
Di Matteo knows this very well, and he has even experienced it all personally, so the first thing he did after taking office as Chelsea's head coach was to stabilize the core veterans of the team committee and persuade them to support
Own.
The following results are clear at a glance. When the players worked hard, Chelsea made rapid progress in the Champions League.
Of course, in the knockout stages of the Champions League, Di Matteo also has his own set of tactics, which are defense and counterattack.
Starting from the knockout rounds, Di Matteo's Chelsea basically adopted this set of tactics, and the results were really effective. They reached the Champions League final and directly faced Manchester City.
How to play against Manchester City?
As an Italian, Di Matteo decided to continue doing what he does best.
…
"Shou!"
On the morning of the game, in the conference room of the hotel where Chelsea stayed, Di Matteo solemnly announced his tactics for tonight. The core of it was not unexpected, and he still had to be on guard.
This is Chelsea's only way out.
Strictly speaking, this was not surprising, so there was not even a sound of surprise in the conference room, and everyone took it for granted.
Today's Manchester City is no longer the Manchester City it was two years ago. It is natural to adopt defensive tactics when playing against Manchester City.
"When we played against Bayern Munich, we had a lot of problems in the midfield. The main reason was that Bayern adopted a double midfielder tactic, which is four-two-three-one. This is the same as us, so Lampard was alone in the game.
It was a bit difficult to play against two defensive midfielders, so one of our two defensive midfielders had to step up."
Heynckes is an old fox. He saw through this in the game, so he asked Robben and Ribery to adopt inward tactics, and let Thomas Muller transition more with the ball. Look at Mick.
Whoever goes up, Mere or Meireles, Thomas Muller will pass the ball to one side, and Bayern will focus on attacking on that side.
This made Chelsea very passive and the situation extremely embarrassing.
But now, Manchester City's tactics will basically not change. Busquets will definitely stay deep, and David Silva and Toni Kroos will basically join forces in the midfield. This is in line with Chelsea's midfield layout.
Lampard stands forward and is responsible for suppressing Busquets. Mikel and Meireles stay behind and are responsible for dealing with David Silva and Toni Kroos. Three on three, plus Chelsea will adopt strict measures.
Defensive tactics, the situation is favorable to Chelsea.
"Mata is responsible for assisting Ashley Cole in marking Sanchez. The Chilean winger has good strength. He can go down and cut inside. He has excellent foot skills and is very fast. Ramirez and Ivano on the right.
Vic is responsible for marking Di Maria, he is faster and sharper, and his dribbling ability is also very good. At the same time, he has to be careful about Marcelo behind him."
Judging from the lineup configuration, Di Matteo's idea is very clear. Ramirez and Ivanovic on his right side are mainly defensive to withstand the attacks of Marcelo and Di Maria.
Pressure, and his left wing is to counterattack whenever he finds an opportunity, so he puts Mata on this side.
Everyone knows that although Manchester City's right back Zabaleta has offensive ability, he is not as strong as Marcelo.
Regarding defense, there are actually many things that need to be arranged.
For example, Manchester City's two central midfielders, David Silva and Toni Kroos, are very flexible in their positions and have a wide range of running. Many times they will even appear directly on the wing, which leaves Chelsea's two trailing midfielders
Marking in the deep midfield caused trouble.
Before, Chelsea had targeted this point and asked Mikel and Meireles to carry out targeted drills. Now it is time to test it in actual combat. After all, no matter how well they train on weekdays, they have not done anything for real on the court.
A game, who knows the outcome?
Since intensive defense is adopted, Chelsea's compact positioning is crucial. These have been practiced repeatedly before the game. As the Italian head coach, Di Matteo has good attainments in this area, but what he emphasizes most now is his mentality.
.
"We will not get the ball for a long time and will be passively beaten, but we are not too unfamiliar with this situation, because we played two games against Bayern Munich and even played against Barcelona before.
This is how we have played every game, and we can adapt to this kind of situation."
From Ranieri to Mourinho, and then Hiddink, Carlo Ancelotti and other famous coaches, through this round, although Chelsea has played very exciting games, it has always been inseparable from the legacy passed down over the years.
Solid defense.
This is the foundation of Chelsea's foothold in European football and the team's magic weapon.
"I believe that everyone knows that the more we are in this situation, the more we must maintain a stable and patient mentality. In the previous game against Bayern Munich, we left too many gaps for our opponents. Although this has tactical factors,
But we also have problems with implementation, which we need to pay attention to."
"Manchester City is a team that is more powerful and more terrifying than Bayern Munich, with stronger attack power and more lethal penetration ability. We should not be fooled by their so-called background. They are the most powerful team in European football and even world football this season.
It is one of the teams with the strongest combat effectiveness and the best condition in the world, and it can even be completely eliminated."
Regarding Guardiola's Manchester City, whether it is Di Matteo or others, they basically all praise him.
Even Ferguson, who is a mortal enemy, and Arsenal, who have been humiliated by Manchester City many times, basically give a thumbs up when mentioning Manchester City. This is achieved by Manchester City's solid results.
Chelsea's players didn't resent what Di Matteo said, because they knew very well that Chelsea was no longer at its peak.
Why does Villas-Boas want to purge old players?
Isn't it because Chelsea is no longer at its peak?
Drogba, Lampard, Terry and other veterans, don’t they know the team’s problems?
No, they know.
The reason why they opposed Boas was because Boas refused to show dignity to this group of veterans.
Even if your head coach doesn't show respect to us, then we'll show you respect.
At the end of the matter, Boas basically could not change the situation. He was fired just because of timing and cost considerations of the club management.
Now, Di Matteo is telling the players about the horror of Manchester City because he wants to warn the players that Chelsea can only have a chance to defeat Manchester City, a powerful opponent, if they are united and only if the players and the coach work closely together.
You know, Chelsea has never defeated Manchester City in the past two seasons.
Although the Champions League finals have never been superstitious about past results, Manchester City does have an advantage on a psychological level, and Chelsea will only have a chance if they work hard.
The entire meeting lasted for more than an hour, and Di Matteo kept emphasizing defense. He only briefly explained how to counterattack and attack without going into depth.
Whether it is against Di Matteo or Chelsea, the most important task in this Champions League final is defense. As for how to counterattack and attack, this cannot be considered before the game.
Di Matteo has already arranged several targeted counterattack lines in the previous training. It will depend on the players' performance on the spot and what tactics Manchester City will use in the game.
Both teams are very familiar with each other, and there will basically be no surprises. The key lies in targeted tactics.
