Chapter 16: Learning from Ferguson's Good Example
"There is a joke going around in English football."
Before the afternoon training session, Gao Shen spoke for the first time as head coach.
The players in front of him had different expressions. Some were nonchalant, some were dismissive, and some were listening attentively...
But he didn't care and continued with his carefully prepared first speech.
"In the first round of the 1995-1996 Premier League, after Manchester United lost 1-3 to Aston Villa, football legend Alan Hansen shouted to Ferguson on a TV show, saying, you can't win anything with a bunch of kids!"
This is indeed a story that is well known to fans in English football. Everyone who has played in the Premier League has heard of it.
"Three years later, Ferguson won the treble with these kids, and Alan Hansen's words became a joke."
Behind Gao Shen, Maqueda's face became quite ugly, and the other coaching staff members also had strange expressions.
Because of this sentence, Maqueda also said this to Gao Shen in the office just now.
They now understood that this rookie head coach was a vengeful person. Not only would he take revenge on the spot, he would also look for opportunities to whip him afterwards. He was too petty!
Don’t mess with this kind of person anymore!
"Someone just said the same thing to me. He also felt that I was a kid leading a group of kids and could not win anything. The situation I am facing now is even worse because Ferguson was a famous coach and I was just a rookie. All those Manchester United kids later became top stars in the Premier League and even Europe."
"Also, I don't have as much time as Ferguson. He could use three years to create a treble, but I may only have three days left. The weekend's derby will decide my fate."
Everyone looked at him silently, with various looks in their eyes, many of which were full of disdain and ridicule, and some were quite complicated.
"But I personally feel that in the 1995 and 1996 seasons, Ferguson was not sure that these players would bring him the Treble in the future. We are only looking at the incident from the perspective of hindsight, just like now, I don't know what will happen at the weekend, right?"
Although players' academic performance is generally poor, Gao Shen's words are very straightforward and the logic is still clear.
"What I learned from this incident between Ferguson and Alan Hansen was not Ferguson's future treble and the jokes about Alan Hansen, but that Ferguson bravely did what he thought was right and what he should do, even though he was facing many doubts and an unpredictable future."
"Ferguson is the coach I respect the most. I can't compare myself with him, but I am willing to learn his attitude towards work, so I will continue to do what I think is right and what I should do. As for the results, the wins and losses at the weekend, whether I will be sacked or not, time will decide."
In the team, Raul, Beckham, Zidane and Woodgate, as well as several young players promoted from the second team, had all communicated with Gao Shen. They also knew what Gao Shen was thinking. At this moment, hearing his heartfelt words, they were obviously more deeply touched than others.
Especially the few young players who were promoted, they felt that they were the group of kids that Gao Shen mentioned, and Gao Shen was blocking the overwhelming doubts for them.
This touched them.
…
The afternoon training session was a closed training session with no outsiders present.
When assistant coach Maqueda announced the roster for the team competition, everyone was stunned.
Not only because there were several young players in the yellow vests representing the main force, but also because Carlos and Ronaldo were not even included in the red vests.
What does it mean?
That day, everyone saw Carlos threatening Gao Shen in public, and Ronaldo had always been the vanguard against Gao Shen, and they were also the leaders of the Brazilian gang. Now Gao Shen was directly targeting them, and his intentions were obvious.
After hearing the list, Ronaldo and Carlos were furious and wanted to argue with Gao Shen, but were stopped by their teammates. Fernando Lucas stood in front of Gao Shen, separating the two superstars.
After the two of them quarreled for a while, they left angrily after saying something harsh.
"I'm waiting to see how you end up!"
"You're screwed, you won't make it to the weekend!"
Gao Shen was mentally prepared for such a situation, and he didn't care. For him, all this was planned, so he directly signaled to start warming up and prepare for team training.
Taking advantage of the warm-up time, Gao Shen gathered the group of yellow vests together. Lucas brought a small tactical blackboard, and Gao Shen drew his own position diagram on the small blackboard, a 4-2-3-1 formation.
He told the players clearly that this was only the first training session and that the main focus was on getting the players to understand each other. He also welcomed every player to provide timely feedback on their opinions and suggestions based on their own characteristics and circumstances.
In this 4-2-3-1 formation, balance is the main focus. Negredo is the center forward in the front, and Raul on the left is closer to the center forward and roams around him. This is also Raul's strength. Zidane is the core attacking midfielder in the midfield, taking charge of the overall situation. Beckham is responsible for long passes and crosses from the wing on the right.
Gravesen is not the reckless man as many people think. On the contrary, he is good at both offense and defense. He plays as the core of Everton. Gao Shen uses him and De La Red as double defensive midfielders because he values the offense and defense of these two players.
The full-backs no longer blindly rush into the attack like before. Gao Shen requires that only one can go up at a time, and they cannot ignore the back like Carlos and Cicinho. After rushing up, they must make sure to return to the position as soon as possible.
As for the two central defenders, Woodgate is responsible for attacking and Elguera is responsible for falling back. This is mainly because Elguera does not have an advantage in terms of physical strength, and the season when he became famous in Real Madrid was when he played as a falling back central defender.
Gao Shen particularly emphasized one point, which is to keep the overall formation compact and orderly.
He divided the court into several different areas, and when defending, every player had to be able to return to his own area.
Everyone can see that at this stage, Gao Shen attaches more importance to defense.
This is also sensible, because good defense can put yourself in an invincible position.
With Real Madrid's offensive firepower, as long as they can defend, they will have a chance to attack.
…
There is too little time.
Although Gao Shen had made careful preparations and the players basically understood what he meant and were willing to try to accept his tactical ideas, there were still many problems in its implementation.
Although the attacking combination of Robinho, Soldado, Baptista and Cassano was a makeshift one, the individual abilities of these players were quite good. In addition, with Guti behind them responsible for delivering the ammunition, Cicinho was also quite active on the right, and the players were all holding back their energy, the red vests took an overwhelming advantage from the start and launched fierce attacks on the yellow vests in turn.
The yellow vests have not yet fully adapted to the sophisticated tactics and lack tacit understanding. Once they are attacked, they immediately become flustered and make many mistakes, which allow the red vests to frequently seize the opportunities to create dangerous situations.
This was also within Gao Shen's expectations.
He also constantly made fine adjustments based on the situation on the field, combined with Benítez's tactical ideas and the characteristics of the players, mainly some adjustments to the positions on the field.
But there are also highlights.
Robinho played very well at the beginning of the game, but was soon suppressed by Arbeloa.
You know, a year later, Arbeloa is the man who can freeze Messi.
Felipe Luis on the left was not far behind. After the chaos at the beginning, he quickly adapted to the rhythm of the team match. Facing Cassano, he was also very steady and did not give the Italian too many opportunities.
As for Soldado and Baptista, apart from scoring a goal each shortly after the start of the game, they were restrained at other times.
From a higher level perspective, Real Madrid's defense is now beginning to have layers.
Whether it was Soldado or Baptista, or Robinho and Cassano, after receiving the ball, let alone facing the goal directly, they often had to face two lines of defense.
For example, once Baptista got the ball in the middle and wanted to rush forward, he found that Gravesen and De La Red were flanking him on both sides, chasing him all the way. He then passed the ball to Soldado, but the young Spanish player was not in a good situation either, as Woodgate was next to him and there was Elguera behind him.
With the defense layered, it becomes very difficult for the opponent's offensive players to score.
This is also an advantage of the 4-2-3-1 formation.
But it's not safe because Atletico Madrid has Torres.
This new Spanish golden boy has great speed and explosiveness, and almost no one in the current Real Madrid team can match his frontal impact ability, so whether he can stop Torres or not will depend on the results of the game.
The players who execute the tactics know best whether they are successful or not.
As early as when Gao Shen was arranging tactics before the game, Raul, Zidane, Beckham and others had already noticed the uniqueness of this tactical framework. It was completely different from Real Madrid's previous tactics and placed more emphasis on the overall structure, especially the compactness of the four lines of the formation.
Not long into the game, the players realized the brilliance of this tactic.
But the players, especially superstars like Raul, were skeptical. How could a rookie like Gao Shen have such brilliant tactical concepts and a mature framework?
They quickly thought of Carlo.
Carlo had tried the 4-2-3-1 formation before, but because of the superstars and the less than ideal results, Carlo had to give up this style of play. However, if he could derive a new 4-2-3-1 formation based on Real Madrid's problems during this period, it would not be completely impossible.
This can also explain clearly why Gao Shen was able to come up with such a mature tactical system right from the start.
Obviously, the superstars guessed wrong, but they also executed more attentively on the court.
Compared to the rookie Gao Shen, they have more trust in Carlo.
This also allowed the yellow vest team's defense to gradually stabilize and they began to exert their strength on the offensive end.
Gao Shen was not aware that the players had misunderstood him, nor did he care, because the yellow vests' team's defense was becoming more and more stable, which made him even happier and he clearly felt the impact of this advanced technical and tactical concept.
If, we give him a little more time, things will be fine.
