Chapter 12 The Terrible Barcelona

The afternoon training session will proceed according to the original plan.

Yang Hao planned to select four players from the youth team, but only two came, Pablo Garcia and Antonio Lopez.

The former is in the second team and the latter is in the U19 team. Both have training arrangements today.

Torres and Gabi are both in the U17 team. Their game tasks are not heavy and they will have a day off after the game at the weekend.

Yang Hao was not in a hurry. He just asked Parales to pay attention and arrange for them to train with the first team another day.

The players who talked with Yang Hao in the afternoon basically had a certain understanding of the new coach, and some even reached a consensus, which also improved the training atmosphere to a certain extent.

Those who had not been called over by Yang Hao to talk were all waiting.

In this case, whoever communicates with the head coach first will have an advantage in the competition.

During the team training, Yang Hao was still standing on the training ground, but his thoughts had drifted to the distant Barcelona.

This is Atletico's next opponent.

Copa del Rey semi-final.

Today's Barcelona is very powerful. No matter from which angle you look at it, this team can be said to be full of superstars.

Not to mention the two footballers of the year, Luis Figo and Rivaldo, there are also Luis Enrique, Kluivert, Guardiola, Zenden, Cocu, the De Boer brothers, Reiziger, Bogarde...

In such a lineup full of superstars, Xavi, Reina, Puyol and others can only be regarded as emerging young players.

When many fans in later generations mentioned Van Gaal, they always felt that his coaching of Barcelona was a failure.

But in fact, it is not.

Before Van Gaal, Barcelona's head coach in the 96/97 season was Bobby Robson.

Although that season saw the emergence of the most unforgettable and superb player in the history of world football, Ronaldo, Barcelona still lost to Real Madrid, led by Raul, Suker, Mijatovic and Seedorf, by two points in the league.

It is worth mentioning that a special person followed Robson to Barcelona in this season as Ronaldo's translator, and after Robson and Ronaldo both left in the summer of 1997, he stayed to continue helping Van Gaal.

Van Gaal arrived at Camp Nou with the halo of the Champions League champion.

Before this, Barcelona had been built by many famous Dutch coaches such as Michels and Cruyff, and it itself had a very strong Dutch football atmosphere. I hope Van Gaal can lead Barcelona to revival.

So, Van Gaal created the Dutch gang in the Barcelona locker room.

Do you know how many Dutch people there are in Barcelona's first team now?

And all of them play an important role.

It can be said that the Dutch gang completely crushed local players and other forces in the Barcelona locker room.

In the 97/98 and 98/99 seasons, Barcelona performed very well and won the La Liga championship with a large lead. In this case, no one had any objections.

But gradually, when the team's performance began to decline, the contradictions that had been hidden gradually surfaced.

For example, Rivaldo kept complaining that Van Gaal was wasting his talent by placing him on the wing.

The Brazilian genius believes that he should appear in the middle.

This conflict has run through Barcelona this season, especially not long ago, when Manchester United head coach Ferguson personally stepped in to add fuel to the fire and expressed his great interest in Rivaldo.

Van Gaal was furious and angrily criticized Ferguson, saying sarcastically: "Manchester United should check their own purse strings. Can they afford Rivaldo?"

Not content with this, Van Gaal hit back, saying, "This is an interesting phenomenon. Ferguson just said that even if Beckham was sold, he wouldn't give him a salary increase, but in the blink of an eye, they are thinking about players they can't afford. How strange."

The battles between famous coaches are often so simple, direct and brutal.

Rivaldo's farce is now getting bigger and bigger, and the contradictions are gradually spreading, especially in the league, where they have been unable to catch up with Deportivo La Coruña, which has put pressure on everyone at Barcelona and the fans are becoming increasingly dissatisfied.

In Yang Hao’s previous life, many people said that Real Madrid fans had too high expectations. They wanted to win and win beautifully.

In fact, the same is true for Barcelona fans today.

Even Barcelona's veteran central defender Abelardo publicly accused Van Gaal, saying his tactics this season were as ugly as those of Chelsea in the Premier League.

These are Abelardo’s original words. He is so good at using map cannons.

Because in 2000, Premier League teams, especially teams like Chelsea, played really ugly football.

It was in this situation of internal and external difficulties that Barcelona suffered a crushing defeat of 0-3 to Real Mallorca at home in the last round.

Eto'o scored twice.

Real Mallorca adopted the 442 tactics, defending and counterattacking.

This will definitely be Atletico Madrid's strategy against Barcelona. The key is how to defend and how to counterattack.

At present, Atletico Madrid does not have a counterattack weapon like Eto'o, not to mention that Mallorca has Tristan.

…

After the training, Yang Hao returned to the office and found the video of the previous round of Barcelona's match against Real Mallorca.

Barcelona is still playing their 433, but Guardiola has recently lost his starting position and has been replaced by Cocu.

Who would have thought that the 31-year-old Barcelona captain would be directly banished to the cold palace.

In terms of personnel configuration, Van Gaal still trusts Dutch players more, so players like goalkeeper Hespp, center forward Kluivert, center back Frank de Boer, Cocu and others will continue to start.

Due to the lack of left-back options for Barcelona this season, either Reiziger or Bogarde is used as a substitute. In recent times, Bogarde has basically played on the left.

Then, the defense line should be Bogarde, Ferland de Boer, Abelardo and Puyol.

Yes, Barcelona's future captain is now playing as a right-back.

He and Xavi are the young players Van Gaal trusts the most. Together with Gabriel Jesus and Cocu, the midfield trio is complete.

The center forward in front will definitely be Kluivert. The difference is on the wings. Luis Figo and Rivaldo should also start. After all, they are mostly big-name stars, and Barcelona just lost to Real Mallorca and urgently needs a victory.

Then on the bench are Finnish ice skater Litmanen, Figo II Simao, and Dutch winger Zenden.

If Hasselbaink is the biggest star in Atletico Madrid's lineup, then any player picked out from Barcelona's lineup is no less powerful than the Dutch striker.

This is what's so scary about Barcelona.

But as a time traveler from 2023, Yang Hao is no longer at the age of being superstitious about football stars.

He knows better than anyone that the essence of football is the whole.

No matter how many stars there are, if they fight on their own, even a luxurious team like the Galacticos will still fall apart, right?

Even being beaten by a team from a lower league?

Yang Hao's original plan was to insist on attacking from the left, but after watching the match between Barcelona and Real Mallorca, he suddenly realized that even if Figo did not actively return to defense, Atletico Madrid's left might not be able to break through Barcelona's right.

Puyol is a very strong player with great speed and strong one-on-one defense ability. Solari is afraid that he will not be able to take advantage of him.

On the other hand, on the left side, Bogarde is a left-footed central defender playing on the left. He is 1.88 meters tall and has Surinamese ancestry. This is enough to imagine that he is very good at physical confrontation, but his footwork is rather rough. He is tall and strong but not flexible, and his speed is also slow.

And this is precisely Aguilera's advantage. He is only 1.74 meters tall, a typical Spanish winger.

Thinking of this, Yang Hao already had a plan in mind.

…

After watching the game video, it was already dark.

After the training, the players and coaches left work one after another.

Parales, on the other hand, took the initiative to stay.

This young man is really smart. Yang Hao admires him very much. The most important thing is that he is also reliable in his work.

Little Hill had just called him and knew that he didn't have a car, so he was rushing over from Calderon to pick him up. They planned to go out for dinner together and have a couple of drinks at the bar to relieve stress.

When Yang Hao walked out of the office, he stretched hard to stretch his muscles.

The first day in office was really very busy and fulfilling for him.

He hardly ever wastes a minute and plays at a very fast pace.

So much so that now, when he had some free time and looked at the training ground in front of him, he suddenly felt that it was not real.

He really became the head coach of Atletico Madrid!

It was at this time that Yang Hao discovered that Parales was coming over again, with someone following him.

It turned out to be Kiko.

This suddenly made his heart skip a beat.

Because he is not fully ready yet.

According to Yang Hao's plan, he should first deal with most of the other people, and then slowly talk to Kiko.

In this way, even if the talks really break down, Kiko won't cause any big trouble in the locker room.

But now, before Yang Hao was ready, Kiko came to him on his own.

Did he discover something?

Although his mind was full of random thoughts, Yang Hao still greeted him with a smile on his face.

"Hello, Kiko, you haven't gone home yet?"

Kiko looked a little lonely, without his former high spirits. It was obvious that the long-term injury and the slump in the past period, coupled with physical reasons, had tortured him.

Those who have not experienced it will never be able to understand this kind of mental torture.

Just like many people blamed Ronaldo for his later weight gain, Yang Hao always felt that the fat Ronaldo was equally worthy of admiration, because the fact that he was able to return to the football field and overcome those injuries again and again was itself an extremely remarkable thing.

The same is true for Kiko.

The Spanish prince stayed to receive physical therapy from Parales and to carry out his rehabilitation program.

Yang Hao noticed the secret look from Parales, and it was obvious that this was an excuse.

It seems that he really stayed here just to block me.

There is no way.

What is meant to come will always come.

"Come, let's talk inside." Yang Hao warmly invited Kiko into the house.

Parales made an apologetic gesture, and it was obvious that he couldn't stop Kiko.

Yang Hao said that he understood and indicated that everything was fine, so he could rest assured.

Before entering the door, Yang Hao took a deep breath to calm himself down.

After entering the room, he sat directly opposite Kiko and looked directly at the prince who was deeply loved by Atletico Madrid fans.

"Let's stop beating around the bush and get straight to the point. What do you want to talk to me about?"