Chapter 34: Hell Level-Up Dungeon
After the match between Atletico Madrid and Deportivo La Coruña, all the matches of the 33rd round of La Liga were played.
Due to the frequent upsets in this round, the situation in the entire La Liga has become more chaotic.
Real Madrid won 1-0 away against Zaragoza thanks to Raul's penalty kick in this round, tying with Barcelona in the standings, with both teams having 56 points.
According to the rules, if the points are the same, the ranking will first look at the results of the two teams' matches. Real Madrid drew 2-2 away and 3-0 at home, so they overtook Barcelona in the standings and became the second in the La Liga standings.
But they are still 5 points behind Deportivo La Coruña.
Irueta's team did not perform well enough in this round.
Compared to Real Madrid and Barcelona, who have to focus on the Champions League and the Copa del Rey, Deportivo La Coruña only has one league match to fight on, and as a result, after a week's rest, they failed to beat Rayo Vallecano away, shattering their hopes of establishing an early advantage in the championship.
To some extent, Deportivo La Coruña's performance was indeed not very convincing.
On the contrary, after Bosque took over midway, although the team's tactical style was very conservative and criticized by many fans, on the field, Real Madrid's performance was very stable and the efficiency in scoring points was very high.
This round's opponent Zaragoza is currently ranked 4th in La Liga, only 1 point less than Barcelona and Real Madrid.
Real Madrid's performance was indeed good as they beat Zaragoza 1-0 away.
There was also an unexpected upset in this round. Real Oviedo coached by Aragones beat Barcelona 3-0 at home, which definitely surprised everyone.
With the 3 points from this game, Oviedo reversed Real Betis, climbed out of the relegation zone, and ranked 17th in La Liga.
Below Oviedo, Hiddink's Real Betis ranked 18th with 36 points, 1 point behind Oviedo.
Atletico Madrid defeated Malaga at home and got 35 points, still ranking 19th, but only 1 point away from Real Betis, 2 points away from Real Oviedo, and 4 points behind Racing Santander, which ranked 16th.
Sevilla lost 1-2 to Valencia at home in this round and currently has 27 points, ranking at the bottom of La Liga.
Judging from the current situation, Sevilla's relegation is a foregone conclusion.
Atletico Madrid, Real Betis and Real Oviedo are the favorites to be relegated, but the points gap is very close.
Even further back, Racing Santander, Numancia, Athletic Bilbao, and even Real Sociedad and Malaga, which lost this round, have not yet completely escaped the threat of relegation.
It can be seen from this that the relegation situation in La Liga this season is really quite serious.
After the 33rd round of La Liga, the Spanish media focused on analyzing the current situation in La Liga.
All major bookmakers have adjusted their odds, but Atletico Madrid is still the second favorite to be relegated after Sevilla.
The reason is actually related to the schedule.
After a week's rest, Atletico Madrid will face Valencia, the second leg of the Copa del Rey semi-final in the middle of the week, and Barcelona at home in the 35th round of La Liga at the weekend.
In other words, in the next week, all three games will be against strong teams.
This will be a huge test for Atletico Madrid, and every game will decide life and death.
Even if they barely get past Valencia and Barcelona, their direct relegation rival Real Oviedo will be facing them in the 36th round.
At present, the two sides are in a life-and-death situation. If they want to avoid relegation, they must crush their opponents.
But Atletico Madrid is away.
Marca believes that the relegation copy in Yang Hao's hands is absolutely hell-level.
This schedule and its difficulty are enough to make countless head coaches despair.
More importantly, given Atletico Madrid's current situation, they really cannot give up any game, including the King's Cup.
The tolerance rate is extremely low, the opponents are strong, and the schedule is devilish. The difficulty of relegation is unprecedented.
More importantly, Yang Hao has very little time left.
We played against Barcelona three days after taking over, and against Malaga on the weekend, and then there was a tough schedule, and the pressure piled up all of a sudden.
Marca believes that judging from the two games since Yang Hao took over Atletico Madrid, the team has indeed shown a very obvious transformation, and there have been amazing changes in the technical and tactical levels, especially in the mental outlook of the players, which can be said to be reborn.
But the schedule is too difficult, the opponents are too strong, and the test is too great. The possibility of Yang Hao leading Atletico Madrid to avoid relegation is very slim.
Moreover, he faced famous coaches such as Van Gaal, Hiddink, Cooper and Aragones.
"Although it's only been two games, Yang Hao has indeed demonstrated his exceptional coaching ability and technical and tactical qualities."
"But he should regret taking over Atletico because he could have had a more relaxed coaching environment, but at Atletico, he simply didn't have any room to make mistakes, which is the most despairing thing."
Marca believes that the two consecutive victories are just a good start. Atletico Madrid's real challenge lies in the upcoming devilish schedule and the game against Real Oviedo.
"Atletico Madrid must win all four games to turn the relegation situation around."
“But it’s very difficult.”
…
Compared with Marca's more objective analysis, several other Spanish media outlets, on the one hand, affirmed Atletico Madrid's recovery in the last two games, but were very pessimistic about the team's relegation situation.
The main reason is that the team’s situation is too serious and the schedule is too brutal.
El País even believes that when world-famous coaches like Ranieri and Antić are unable to lead Atletico Madrid out of the relegation zone, and famous coaches such as Aragones and Joaquin Peró are keeping their distance from Atletico Madrid, the relegation of the Colchoneros is a foregone conclusion.
"What Yang Hao is doing now is more about comforting Atletico Madrid fans so that they won't feel so much pain when the team is relegated, and at the same time accumulating chips for his future coaching career."
AS is more straightforward, believing that Atletico Madrid has missed the best opportunity to redeem itself.
This season, both Madrid giants fell into crisis at the same time and changed coaches in the middle of the season, but Atletico Madrid's coaching change was far less bold than Real Madrid's, because Real Madrid had already activated Bosque before the winter break.
Facts have also proved that Real Madrid's performance has undergone earth-shaking changes since Bosque took office.
But what about Atletico Madrid? Ranieri stayed until the winter break, and then Antić was appointed, but he had no idea what to do with the team's current situation and was mostly just a filler.
Under such circumstances, Atletico Madrid's performance can only continue to decline.
"Hasselbaink's agent is actively working to get him back to the Premier League; Valeron has long been in contact with Deportivo La Coruna, played by Irueta; Solari, Bejbl, Molina, Gaspar and Ventolin have all left the team early on."
"Atletico Madrid is now falling apart. How can they avoid relegation?"
AS asserted that although Yang Hao had won two consecutive games in the last two games and his coaching performance was indeed impressive, he still could not change Atletico Madrid's relegation trend.
"He is the unlucky guy that Atletico Madrid pushed out to take the blame for relegation!"
…
The relegation situation remains very bad, and the media is still very pessimistic about Atletico Madrid.
Yang Hao had anticipated all of this a long time ago, and he didn't even expect the media to say much good or bad about Atletico Madrid.
This also has something to do with old Hill.
Who made Hill have such a bad image? He has already ruined all his popularity. How can the media say good things about Atletico Madrid out of thin air?
But it doesn't matter. As long as the situation improves further and the relegation trend is reversed, these media outlets will naturally change their tune.
No matter how they curse and ridicule you now, you will have to swallow it back in the future.
After the 33rd round of La Liga, the team returned to Majadahonda and disbanded.
We will resume training tomorrow morning and start our holiday in the afternoon.
After the team won, Yang Hao decided to give the players a day off to adjust their physical and mental state.
The players have been under a lot of pressure over the past period of time, and there will be a series of tough schedules coming up. Now is a good time to relax their body and mind, which is definitely not a bad thing.
A week is plenty of time to prepare.
The players are like that, but the coaching staff is not.
Recently, Yang Hao has been living in the training base.
In fact, if possible, he really considered giving up the rented apartment to save himself from running back and forth every day, not only wasting his car money, but also spending extra money on rent.
It’s so good to live in Majadahonda. Food and accommodation are provided, and everything is reimbursed.
But in the eyes of others, Yang Hao is really suffering.
In order to help Atletico Madrid avoid relegation, he really tried his best!
So, on the night after playing against Malaga, Yang Hao decided to stay and watch the video of the match between Valencia and Sevilla. When studying the opponent for the next game, Juanma Lillo also took the initiative to ask to stay.
No bed to sleep on?
It’s okay, I can sleep on the sofa.
The head coach and assistant coach stayed, and Mendiodor also decided to stay.
Squeeze in?
Not true, my house is very close and I have a car.
There are also goalkeeping coach Pedro Haro, physiotherapist Parales and others who have also decided to stay.
Finally, Yang Hao didn't look at it in his own office, but went directly to the more spacious coach's office.
Many people think that Sevilla is a soft persimmon. With such a big gap, relegation is inevitable, and they may have given up long ago. But in fact, if you see the match between Sevilla and Valencia, it is easy to find that Sevilla is still holding on and fighting hard.
Today's Sevilla is still far from being the future Europa League champion, and its overall strength is far inferior, but its fighting spirit to avoid relegation has left a deep impression on people.
Valencia won this battle narrowly.
"Cooper's team is still saving their strength for the Champions League in the middle of the week," Yang Hao analyzed.
The current Champions League still has two rounds of group matches. The first round consists of 8 groups with 32 teams. The top two teams in each group enter the second round, which is divided into 4 groups with 16 teams. The top two teams in the second round of group matches directly advance to the quarterfinals and fight against each other.
Valencia beat Lazio 5-2 in the first leg, but they have to go away for the second leg, which is not safe enough.
Because Lazio is really strong.
Although La Liga this season is very chaotic, it is interesting that the teams have performed well in the Champions League.
At present, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia have all entered the quarterfinals.
In Yang Hao's previous life, these three teams gathered in the semi-finals, which shows the heyday of La Liga.
On one hand, there is the most chaotic La Liga in history, and on the other hand, the top three teams gathered in the semi-finals. Ultimately, the competition in La Liga is too fierce.
And this season is the beginning of Valencia's legend.
