On the evening of August 15th, Manchester Etihad Stadium.
The players had already held the ball boy's hand, and under the leadership of referee Mike Dean, amidst the roar of the fans, they walked into the stadium, and the first game of the new Premier League season was about to kick off.
Thirty-eight-year-old Brendan Rodgers stood in the player tunnel with a stern face, his eyes fixed on the exit in front, trying to calm himself down.
Tonight, he was dressed very formally, with a black suit and tie. There was a pocket square in the breast pocket of the suit. He had a high hairline and his hair was combed meticulously. He looked very formal.
feel.
This is the Premier League he has been waiting for for many years!
It is also a game that he has been looking forward to for a long time!
…
Although he is only thirty-eight years old, Rogers' coaching career has spanned seventeen years.
He was twenty years old that year and thought he had to retire early due to injuries, so he went to take a coaching course.
In 1994, he entered the Reading youth team and gradually rose to the position of youth training director and assistant coach of the first team.
That was the pinnacle moment of La Liga football.
Bosque's Real Madrid at the turn of the century, Irueta's Super Depor, Cooper and Benitez's Valencia, and later Rijkaard's Barcelona, these teams have all achieved success in European football.
gained a great reputation.
All knowledgeable people basically agree that the strength of Spanish football is not inferior to that of Serie A in the Mini World Cup.
It was also during that time that Rogers often traveled to Spain in the name of learning Spanish. The most important thing was to learn and understand Spanish football, which opened up a new world for him.
Because he was proficient in Spanish and familiar with Spanish and Iberian Peninsula football, in 2004, when Mourinho took charge of Chelsea and Chelsea launched a vigorous youth training reform, Rogers applied to Chelsea as the 18-year-old
He was the head coach of the youth team and was promoted to head coach of the reserve team two years later.
In November 2009, the English Championship team Watford was not performing well. After the dismissal of head coach Boothroyd, assistant coach Malky McKay coached for five games. The results were still not satisfactory, so they found Chelsea.
Rogers from the reserve team.
The results of coaching Watford were not bad, but after the end of the season, Rogers' position was replaced by assistant coach Malky McKay, and Rogers returned to coach his old club Reading, which was aiming to hit the Premier League. It was not until the winter.
During the break, he was fired.
After graduating from Reading, it took Rogers half a year to find his next job.
Unlike Reading, a strong team in the Premier League that made the leap to the Premier League, Swansea is a mid-range team that has only been promoted from the third level to the British Championship for two years.
Martinez and Portuguese Paulo Sosa.
These two head coaches not only led Swansea to perform well in English League One and the English Championship, but also injected the football genes of the Iberian Peninsula into the team. Therefore, after sending away these two head coaches, Swansea decisively chose
Rogers.
This time, the two sides hit it off immediately.
No one expected that after one year of coaching Swansea, Rogers successfully led the team one step further, entering the promotion zone, and defeated Nottingham Forest and his old club Reading in the play-offs, successfully promoting to the Premier League.
It can be said that up to now, Rogers' coaching career has been an inspirational novel.
Deeply influenced by Spanish football, Rogers particularly admired Barcelona's football style.
Control the ball, transfer, open up space...
Barcelona's football philosophy profoundly influenced Rodgers.
Even as early as last season, when Guardiola led Manchester City to success, Rogers made no secret of the fact that he was a fan of Guardiola and he liked Guardiola's football very much.
But no one thought at the time that Rogers' first game after leading the team to the Premier League would be to face Guardiola's Manchester City.
…
Rogers stretched out his hand to straighten his suit, took a deep breath, and walked towards the players' tunnel.
As the team's performance improves, Manchester City's home attendance rate is extremely high, especially after the stadium expansion. The home stadium capacity is close to 50,000 people, and it is still full now.
Rogers was not popular with Manchester City fans and was booed as soon as he walked out.
He was used to this.
No English team's home fans like the visiting team's manager.
After walking out of the tunnel, Rogers quickly turned to look at the home team's coaching bench and found that Guardiola was already walking towards him. He immediately greeted him with a smile.
"Hello, Brendan."
"Nice to meet you, Josep."
The two greeted each other at the same time, but interestingly, Guardiola spoke in English and Rodgers spoke in Spanish.
This made both teams laugh in unison.
The same football philosophy led the two to discuss each other's tactics on the sidelines, and they were somewhat tit-for-tat.
The resources and support Guardiola was able to get at Manchester City were something Rogers could not get at Swansea.
For example, he does not have a super center like Su Dong, so he can only choose shooters like Daniel Graham, wing attackers, players like David Silva, and Toni Kroos
This kind of role.
All of these are things that Swansea cannot have.
As the head coach, Rogers can only make compromises at the tactical level and cannot fully realize his ideas.
Guardiola also expressed his recognition and respect. After all, it is not easy to lead a team like Swansea to the Premier League. You know, four years ago, this team was still in the third level.
Swansea were promoted to the Premier League for the first time in their history.
"However, when it comes to the competition, we will not hold back."
Rogers smiled awkwardly. When he came to Manchester, he was actually mentally prepared to lose.
"Last season in the English Championship, you had a very fatal problem, that is, you played very well at home, but played very poorly on the road. This also has a lot to do with your tactics. I hope you have made up for this this summer.
It's defective, otherwise..."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Guardiola has not finished speaking, but the tit-for-tat is already very obvious.
Rogers could only smile bitterly, because his players' strength is limited. Even in the English Championship, it is difficult to maintain a high level of passing and ball control at home and away games like Manchester City, because all teams always play better in away games.
difficulty.
"We came here with a learning attitude," Rogers said with a smile.
Guardiola looked deeply at Rogers and nodded politely, "Good luck to you."
"The same to you."
The two head coaches separated on the sidelines and each returned to the coaching area.
…………
…………
Rogers said that Swansea came with a learning attitude.
This is obviously deceiving.
From the start of the game, Swansea demonstrated well why they were dubbed the Manchester City team in the Championship last season.
The high-position press was used without hesitation and launched a fierce impact on Manchester City.
Manchester City also attaches great importance to the debut of the new season. Except for the goalkeeper Joe Hart being replaced by Courtois, every other position remains the main force from last season and basically remains unchanged.
But even so, Swansea's high-position pressing still caused a lot of trouble for Manchester City.
It's not that Manchester City's players lack a tacit understanding or anything, but that in the first game of the new season, the players are generally not in the state yet, and Swansea's high-intensity pressing has had an impact on Manchester City, resulting in the team's passing.
There were a lot of mistakes in catching the ball.
Especially starting from the sixth minute, Swansea launched continuous attacks.
In the 4-2-3 formation, the shadow forward Dobby, who was ambushing behind center Graham, used a sudden long shot to hit the Manchester City goal. However, goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois made a side attack from the outside of the small penalty area.
The ball was blocked, and then after the Belgian goalkeeper landed, he jumped up again, grabbed the ball before Graham, and held the ball under him.
This wonderful save won Courtois warm applause from the fans.
In the twelfth minute, there was another counterattack from Swansea. The left back Tate quickly stepped in and sent a cross. Dobby volleyed from the front of the penalty area. The hit was powerful and heavy, but Courtois was
Lift out the beam.
The Belgian goalkeeper received the second round of applause from the audience.
Guardiola also applauded him from the sidelines, but was also dissatisfied with the performance of the players on the court.
Everyone can see that Swansea's players got into rhythm and form earlier than Manchester City.
In the first fifteen minutes, Manchester City's ball possession rate was only a pitiful 40%.
After experiencing two attacks by Swansea, especially two shots, Manchester City's players gradually got into the game and found the rhythm of the game.
Especially the midfield.
Under Swansea's high-pressure pressure, the team began to find the rhythm of passing and controlling the ball, and played very patiently.
Through this continuous back-and-forth kicking and even back-passing, he patiently controlled the ball and pulled Swansea players to run.
Especially after twenty minutes, Swansea's high-intensity and fast-paced pressing was too exhausting, and it was obvious that they couldn't keep up, because they also needed to reasonably distribute their physical energy throughout the game, and it was impossible to do it all in one go.
Now that all your physical energy has been exhausted, how can you play next?
Stand still and let your opponent take advantage of you?
But just when Swansea was about to slow down and try to take a breather, Manchester City gradually took the initiative and pressed the defense forward, especially in the ball control area. Busquets even passed the center line and directly hit Swansea.
Wangxi controlled the ball outside the thirty-meter area.
In the 23rd minute, Busquets received a return pass from his teammate, suddenly saw the right opportunity, and sent a fatal medium and long pass to the right side of the front edge of the penalty area.
Su Dong used his body to block Swansea's central defender Cockell, and after stopping the ball firmly, he suddenly turned around, shook off Cockell, and cut inside with the ball laterally.
Before another central defender, Williams, could step forward to take over, Su Dong suddenly shot with his left foot from the top right side of the arc in the penalty area, kicking a powerful and heavy curve ball directly to the upper left corner of the goal.
This sudden shot shocked everyone.
Swansea goalkeeper Vorm even flew sideways, trying to hit the ball out.
