Chapter 14 Bad Boy
Sometimes, playing football is very similar to working in the workplace.
Joining a wealthy club is just like joining a famous company. You will get a high salary that everyone envies and may look more glamorous than others on the surface, but pressure also comes with it. The fierce internal competition is enough to crush countless people.
If you are not overwhelmed, then congratulations, with the help of the platform of a famous company, your career development will take off.
However, not everyone can adapt to the competitive pressure and work intensity of famous companies.
Similarly, not all players can adapt to the competitive pressure and intensity of game training in top clubs.
Woodgate is one of those players.
From a technical point of view, Woodgate has almost no obvious weaknesses. It is precisely because of this that Real Madrid is willing to pay a transfer fee of nearly 17 million euros for him, which is already a very high price for a central defender.
Psychologically, Woodgate has no obvious problems either.
What really prevented him from gaining a foothold in Real Madrid was his fragile body.
In a team like Real Madrid, the competition is unprecedentedly fierce. In many cases, training is even more intense than actual combat.
Gao Shen still remembers that after retiring, Woodgate was interviewed by Marca and mentioned his bleak experience in Real Madrid. He said that language and injuries were the key factors that prevented him from playing to his value in Real Madrid. In addition to his own physical factors, the reason for his frequent injuries was the fierce competition within the Real Madrid team.
"When you're at such a big club you can't even lose training, losing a game is like losing a world war!"
Unfortunately, Woodgate's start at Real Madrid can be described as terrible.
After a long injury, his debut ended with an own goal for the Bernabeu fans.
If a good start is half the battle, then Woodgate's bad start doomed him to a tragic fate.
…
Gao Shen called out to Woodgate, who had just finished the examination, outside the medical room.
The face of the England central defender today no longer shows any trace of the bad boy of the Premier League. Years of injuries and huge pressure from public opinion have worn away Woodgate's sharpness.
People with high EQ call this maturity, while people with low EQ call this lying down after suffering repeated beatings from reality.
But to Woodgate's surprise, Gao Shen actually spoke to him directly in English.
From the day he joined Real Madrid, from Camacho to Raymond to Luxemburgo to Carlo, no head coach could understand his English, which created a huge language barrier between him and the coaching staff.
It can be said that this is also an important reason for his frequent injuries.
Without communication, he didn't understand what the head coach meant, and the head coach didn't understand what he was thinking.
After meeting and chatting for a few minutes, Gao Shen took out an old photo.
The man in the photo looked a little green, wearing the England national team jersey. Woodgate recognized him at a glance. It was taken on June 8, 1999 in Bulgaria, in the European Cup qualifiers. He played for England for the first time.
In that game, his partners were Southgate and Campbell.
It was also in that game that Rio Ferdinand, who later created the sky-high price for the world's most expensive central defender, sat on the bench.
That year, he was nineteen years old.
It was also in that year that Chelsea captain Terry was still unable to play for the first team.
Woodgate stared at the photo for a long time before turning around and looking at Gao Shen with caution.
"what do you mean?"
This is not surprising.
This rookie head coach, who was criticized by the locker room bosses, fans and the media, showed such a photo as soon as he met me. What was he trying to do? Did he want to say that he was my fan and use this to get close to me?
If he were a few years younger, Woodgate might have bought into this, but now... haha.
Gao Shen smiled faintly, "You know, I am studying sports at Loughborough University. I have a classmate from Leeds who is a fan of Leeds United and yours. This is one of your photos that he treasures. Even now, he still thinks that you are the best central defender in England and even in the world."
Woodgate didn't react much because he didn't know where Gao Shen's photos came from or whether the story was true.
But Gao Shen's next words made his face change completely, and he revealed an incredible look.
"He has always been watching you and waiting for you."
For some reason, when Woodgate heard this, he couldn't help but believe it.
Attention and expectation, this is what he desires so much and yet lacks so much.
As a star who was once the focus of everyone's attention, he once enjoyed countless attention and expectations, and he even disdained all of these. Especially when he joined Real Madrid, he was ambitious to reach a new peak of his career in this team and become one of the superstars that the whole world pays attention to.
But all of this is gone from him now.
In the past year and a half, he has completely lost the ambition to join Real Madrid and even all the ambitions he had in all these years of playing football. He knows that his career is over.
Ferdinand and Terry, two peers who were once left behind by him, have now surpassed him and he will never be able to catch up in his lifetime.
No one could understand the depression and loss in his heart, and no one even paid attention to his every move.
At the beginning, the media would report some of Woodgate's injuries, but gradually, no one cared.
The media is like this, the fans are like this, and even the head coach is basically like this.
Sometimes Woodgate even wondered if the Real Madrid coaching staff had forgotten that there was a player like him in the team?
"In the UK and even around the world, there are many fans like my friend. They haven't forgotten you. They have been paying attention and waiting, but you just don't know it."
As Gao Shen spoke, he noticed that Woodgate's hand holding the photo was shaking slightly, and he knew that he was right.
There is a Hawthorne effect in management science, which means that when a person realizes that he is being noticed, he will subtly and deliberately change some of his behaviors.
This Leeds fan’s friend is real, and the photo is real, but it is not known whether he still follows Woodgate.
Gao Shen's intention is very clear, which is to tell Woodgate one thing through this incident, that is, there are still many fans who are silently paying attention to and looking forward to him.
As to whether Gao Shen, this friend, is still paying attention, it is no longer important and there is no way to verify it.
Guiding through stories is always more effective than simply preaching.
Especially when Gao Shen uses Woodgate's intimate English.
"I let them down, you know, my body..." Woodgate became frustrated.
Gao Shen shook his head. "I just asked the team doctor. Your physical condition is pretty good. It's just that you are under too much pressure and too tense. You often become overly nervous, which makes you prone to mistakes and injuries."
"You know, there are cases like yours. Let's not talk about the distant past. Take Ronaldo for example. Wasn't his injury more serious than yours? Didn't he need longer to recover from the injury? But now, he is still a world-class striker, isn't he?"
If Ronaldo can do it, don’t you have a chance too?
Woodgate figured out what Gao Shen wanted him to understand.
And he was indeed somewhat moved.
"You know, in this weekend's derby, Ramos will be suspended for accumulating yellow cards, and our central defender position is vacant. I hope you can replace Ramos and partner with Elguera."
"Me?" Woodgate was surprised.
"Yes, and I believe you have seen that there is a serious shortage of central defenders right now. You are the best choice for the team, but if you continue to get injured or perform poorly in the weekend game, I will reconsider other candidates."
Gao Shen once heard a very interesting question: there are two choices, one is to take away 20 yuan directly, and the other is to guess the coin. If you win, you have the chance to win 100 yuan, and if you lose, you get nothing.
Most people would choose to take the twenty dollars directly.
why?
Because when the choice is given, the chooser will automatically regard the twenty dollars as something they have already got, so they will subconsciously feel that guessing the coin may cause them to lose the twenty dollars, so they don't even want the hundred dollars.
Smart management often uses this method to motivate employees.
Gao Shen first gave Woodgate a position as a main central defender, and then told him that if he did not perform well, he would lose this position, which would create a feeling of disgust in him deep in his heart.
It's not the disgust for Gao Shen, but the disgust for losing the starting position that he had obtained.
Sure enough, after hearing this, Woodgate took a deep breath and said loudly: "Don't worry, you don't have such a chance!"
After saying this, the England centre-back turned and left.
By the way, I also took the photo of Gao Shen’s friend away.
…
Gao Shen finally breathed a sigh of relief after watching Woodgate leave.
Personnel management in the dressing room of a top club is really a very brain-burning thing.
Each player has a completely different personality, and each player's experiences and demands are also completely different. Trying to combine these people into a whole seems simple, but it is actually very complicated.
Especially for rookies like Gao Shen who have no qualifications, why should they be expected to obey?
Now we can only say that everything is just getting on track.
This is what Chairman Mao said: There is endless joy .
After returning from the medical room, Gao Shen buried his head in the office preparing the afternoon training materials.
Last night in the tactical library, he focused on studying Benítez's double defensive midfielder tactics in Valencia and Liverpool, focusing on the formation and positioning, especially the construction of the defensive system, which involves too many complicated things.
What Gao Shen can do now is to draw up a tactical framework in a short period of time, to show his fighting power in the derby as soon as possible at the weekend, and then to slowly enrich and improve it when there is time.
But even so, Gao Shen still has a lot of things to do. The first is to make the players understand his ideas.
As a player of Real Madrid, tactical qualities are not a problem. As long as they understand and are willing to implement them, this set of tactics will definitely work, because this itself is part of the tactical qualities of a professional player.
Therefore, Gao Shen’s next challenge is how to make the players understand his tactical requirements and how to coordinate the team’s tactical style of play.
There is a derby match this weekend and he doesn’t have much time left.
