Chapter 369: Rose Derby at Elland Road and Kung Fu Football
The addition of B Fee has made the extra training team extremely lively.
Players like De Gea and Eriksen, who were older and needed sufficient rest and recovery time, and had no feelings for the extra training team before, will now start to observe the activities of the extra training team after the training.
But as the saying goes, laymen watch the excitement while experts watch the details. After watching a few games, these Manchester United players all praised the training program of the additional training team.
Although older veterans such as De Gea, Casemiro and Eriksen were unable to participate, they clearly saw from the training content of the extra training team that the routines used by Chen Xiaoliang, Kva and Cesco in official matches were actually the result of thousands of practices in the extra training sessions.
Especially the tacit understanding between the three of them is something that all professional players envy.
With the addition of Bruno Fernandes and the spread of such praise, other players began to apply to join the team.
Some people want to improve their skills, such as young players Brandon Williams and Zidane Iqbal, while some people want to save their careers, such as Sancho and Wan Bissaka.
They want to have a good relationship with Chen Xiaoliang, and at the same time, they also want to develop a tacit understanding with this tactical core and future team captain during extra training so as to improve their performance on the court.
However, soon, something even more shocking than B Fee happened. Maguire also took the initiative to join the extra training team.
There is one thing that, although professional players are much better than amateur fans, it is still impossible to tell the difference.
That is, looking at a player from the perspective of a spectator and facing the player head-on as an opponent. These two different perspectives and different mentalities are completely different in judging the player's strength.
It can be said that after only three days of extra training, B Fee was completely defeated by Chen Xiaoliang.
That kind of lead in strength is all-round. B Fee is most proud of his positioning and creating opportunities, but Chen Xiaoliang is also good at it and is even better.
B Fee is not good at physical confrontation, penalty area attack, long pass organization, and defense, which is his worst aspect. In these aspects, Chen Xiaoliang is ahead of him in a crushing manner.
During the three days of extra training, the new leading player of Portugal was so blocked by Chen Xiaoliang that he had no temper at all.
And with his weak defensive ability, he was unable to stop Chen Xiaoliang from scoring the goal.
People tend to only envy and hate those who are only slightly better than you but are much ahead of you through opportunities. However, when faced with those who are far superior to you in all aspects, all that is left is admiration and inferiority.
Seeing that the team's current captain and vice-captain began to actively join Chen Xiaoliang's small circle, Ten Hag felt that the time had come. He initiated a vote at the team's tactical meeting after all the national team games were over and all the players had returned to the team, asking everyone to use their votes to elect a new captain. As a result, 26 of the 27 players on the first team voted for Chen Xiaoliang, and the only vote not cast for Chen Xiaoliang came from Chen Xiaoliang himself.
In this way, it is natural, legitimate and inevitable that a new No. 7 becomes the new captain of Manchester United.
However, Ten Hag followed his previous statement and officially announced the news of the new captain to the outside world only after the new CEO takes office.
As luck would have it, on the second day of the vote, which was September 28, 2023, Manchester United officially announced that legendary goalkeeper Van der Sar would officially take over as CEO of Manchester United and would become the second person under the club's owner Hamad Al Thani, fully responsible for all operations and development of the club.
After Van der Sar’s official announcement, the club immediately issued a press release about the new captains. Chen Xiaoliang served as the first captain, B Fee as the second captain, and Casemiro as the third captain.
After seeing these two pieces of news, both Manchester United fans and fans of other clubs generally began to believe that this old giant has finally woken up after being lost for 10 years.
They no longer hand over the management and operation of the club to financiers and bankers who are only good at managing finances, making money and raising funds, but truly return football matters to those who are professional in the football field.
Van der Sar at Ajax and Chen Xiaoliang at Roma, the achievements these two have made in their previous clubs are obvious to all.
Some fans also joked that Manchester United not only poached Ajax's head coach, players, and Compass, but also the CEO. The next step is to poach scouts, team doctors, and even the cafeteria auntie.
The reunion of Ten Hag and Van der Sar also allowed the two to work seamlessly together immediately.
Van der Sar directly took over the team's youth training network construction, salary management, scout team management, and personnel management.
Club owner Hamad Al Thani has also fulfilled his promise. Although he will still appear at the Carrington training base and Old Trafford for home games every day, he will no longer give specific instructions on anything except regular work briefings from the club's management, and will fully let the management team formed by Van der Sar run the business.
Affected by this, the morale of Manchester United's first team was boosted. In the home game against Wolves on September 30, although the players who participated in the national team competition were still a little tired, the whole team was in very good shape.
Chen Xiaoliang thought he was already very young for his debut, but in this game, Ten Hag made an unprecedented move by sending out Amir Ibragimov, a 15-year-old midfielder from Manchester United's U18 youth team who holds dual English and Russian citizenship.
Although he is not yet 16 years old, the minimum age for playing in the Premier League, according to the rules, any player who turns 16 during the season is considered eligible to play.
Of course, such a player will not play for long. He replaced Chen Xiaoliang who completed a hat trick in the 78th minute, and the score of the game was 6-0.
In the 16th minute, Manchester United took the lead at home. Rashford took a direct free kick from 31 meters away from the goal on the left side of the penalty area. The ball was kicked in an S-shaped arc, completely deceiving goalkeeper Jose Sa and flew into the goal.
Just three minutes later, Manchester United got a corner kick on the right side. Luke Shaw kicked the ball inward with his left foot. Maguire, who rarely started, took advantage of his big head and weight and headed the ball into the goal with an English dunk.
After conceding two goals in just 20 minutes, the Wolves, who were not far from the relegation zone last season and are already in the relegation zone this season, completely lost confidence, and Chen Xiaoliang officially took over the game.
In the 33rd minute, in the time composed of the numbers he was most familiar with, Eriksen's corner kick from the right was headed out of the penalty area by the opponent's central defender Kilman. Chen Xiaoliang, who was waiting outside the penalty area, directly volleyed the ball with his right foot and blasted the ball into the upper left corner of the goal.
In the 38th minute, Ganacho, who started the game, passed two players on the left, broke into the penalty area and passed the ball to the front of the goal at the bottom line. Rashford's shot was saved by Wolves goalkeeper Jose Sa, but the referee judged that the opponent's midfielder Lemina committed a foul when defending and awarded Manchester United a penalty.
The first penalty was taken by Bruno Fernandes himself, but the ball was saved by Jose Sa. Chen Xiaoliang followed up and shot with his left foot, scoring the ball into the empty goal, 4-0!
In the second half, Wolves' performance remained unchanged, while Manchester United became more and more courageous.
In the 59th minute, Ganacho, who had an eye-catching performance in this game, broke into the penalty area from the inside of the left again and was tripped by the full-back Semedo. The referee awarded the second penalty of the game.
After missing a goal, B Fee took the initiative to give the penalty kick opportunity to Chen Xiaoliang who had already scored two goals. Chen Xiaoliang did not disappoint his teammates and still used the penalty kick method he designed for himself, which was not tricky but powerful. He kicked the ball into the Wolves' goal with such force that you couldn't even see it clearly in the blink of an eye.
5-0, Chen Xiaoliang completed his hat trick.
The last goal came in the 83rd minute. Chen Xiaoliang had already left the field at this time. Ibrahimov, the young player who replaced him, got the ball in the midfield and passed it to Sancho who came on the right. Sancho, who could neither dribble nor pass the ball, moved forward for a while but was firmly blocked by the opponent's left-back Toddi and could only pass the ball back to McTominay who was following in the middle.
McTominay didn't think twice and passed the ball from the right to the left. Ganacchio, who was in high spirits, received the ball and cut inside and chose to shoot with force, but he failed to shake off Semedo, the right-back who was defending him. The ball hit Semedo's leg and bounced to the top of the penalty area. B Fee, who came on as a defensive midfielder, shot directly and the ball rolled quickly into the lower right corner of the goal along the ground.
6 to 0, the game ended with such a one-sided score.
Manchester United exceeded all media expectations before the season and achieved a wave of 7 consecutive victories at the start of the season. However, behind them are Manchester City with 6 wins and 1 draw, and Liverpool with 6 wins and 1 loss.
Newcastle, who remained unbeaten with 5 wins and 2 draws, ranked 4-6 with Arsenal and Chelsea. Tottenham, whose performance was not as expected after the change of coach, ranked 8th. New head coach Glasner became the first Premier League coach to face the crisis of being sacked this season. On the betting website, his odds of being sacked have risen to 1 to 4.
These odds mean that it is very likely that Tottenham owner Levy is already thinking about whether to sack Glasner, but it is very likely that there is a buy-sell clause in his contract, or that he cannot find a practical coach for the time being, so he is delaying it for the time being.
The previous 14 days of training brought Chen Xiaoliang 56 training points. The best player of this game received a total of 16 training points (117) and 3 breakthrough points (27→30).
Right winger LV2 Reluctant → LV3 Average, training value 117 → 37
Next, LV4 Ease and LV5 Like a Duck in Water require 160 and 320 training points respectively, which is no small project.
For Chen Xiaoliang, his current LV3 level can only allow him to make appropriate cross-position exchanges with his teammates on the right side during the game, allowing him to play as a right winger occasionally. He is not yet qualified to start as a fixed right winger. His plan is to increase his level to LV4, and then, when the team needs him, to serve as a full-time right winger to disrupt the opponent's targeted arrangements before the game.
However, the smooth schedule finally came to an end. On October 8, Manchester United set out from Carrington Base in the morning and arrived in Leeds by bus.
The two places are so close that you don’t need to go there a day in advance.
But speaking of Leeds United, perhaps for older Manchester United fans, this may be a more mortal enemy of Manchester United than Liverpool among all their rivals.
The so-called Rose Derby is used to describe the contest between .
The word rose comes from the War of the Roses that broke out between Lancashire and Yorkshire from 1455 to 1485.
For 30 years, supporters of both sides fought intermittent civil wars for the throne of England, which turned the two places, which were only 60 kilometers apart, into complete enemies. This hatred long predated the economic disputes between Liverpool and Manchester over industrial production and port shipping after the Industrial Revolution.
Although the Rose Derby can no longer be compared with the England national derby, Manchester City derby and North London derby on the competitive level, it is even better than them in terms of social security.
Since 1970, when English fanatical football fans formed their respective clubs' hardcore fan groups, they gradually evolved into football hooligan groups. At that time, the two most violent fan groups of Leeds United and Manchester United, the "Service Gang" and the "Red Army", would engage in off-field fights with bloody heads and broken hands and feet before every derby.
Although times have changed and football hooligans have gradually become a historical term, today outside the Elland Road Stadium, thousands of police officers and security guards are already on standby, "awaiting" the fans of both sides to enter.
Compared to Ten Hag and other coaches who are at the peak of their careers in today's football world, the head coach "Big Sam" hired by Leeds United at the end of last season - Sam Allardyce is a typical traditional British coach and relegation expert.
After he took office, Leeds United, which were in the relegation zone, only lost one goal to Manchester City, and then tied 2-2 against Newcastle away. They were able to score against strong teams and showed no mercy to mid- and lower-level teams. This is Allardyce's signature skill.
Originally in the Ferguson era, these old guys would still give the old Sir Alex some face and play real games, but they would not play the game themselves. But now that the old guy has retired and has been replaced by a young guy, the old guys will no longer give face.
It is a feud in itself, and it is the most traditional British style. Isn't it unreasonable to kick a person while playing football?
As long as you can't kill them, just kick them to death. The harder you kick, the more excited and cheerful the Leeds fans in the stands will be.
As the last two games of the season where they can score points against mid- and lower-level teams, Manchester United, who have to travel to the Netherlands to play PSV Eindhoven in the middle of the week, still sent out their strongest lineup after appropriate rotation, given their priority in the league this season.
goalkeeper David de Gea;
The back four: Wan-Bissaka, Varane, Timberwolves and Luke Shaw;
Double defensive midfielders Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes, central midfielder and captain Chen Xiaoliang;
The three forwards are Kva, Cesco and Anthony.
Within the first 10 minutes, Chen Xiaoliang was kicked down three times, with his left calf hit, his right buttock hit, and his right arm pulled.
The pain value increased by 3, but Leeds United's yellow cards remained at 0.
After playing 7 games in the Premier League, he still didn't fully understand why the Premier League referees were so lenient in enforcing the law, but today he truly experienced it.
If this happened in Serie A, unless the referee was doing something fishy or deliberately making trouble, at least two yellow cards would have been given.
Leeds United players, who enjoy the double buff of the Premier League's lenient penalty standards and the home whistle, are even more excited to see such a penalty. After almost every tackle for the ball, they will definitely make a follow-up move to Manchester United players.
As the captain, Chen Xiaoliang has communicated with today's referee Paul Tierney twice, hoping that he can face up to the violent incidents on the court, but the latter chose to calm the controversy with a smile.
After the second communication, Chen Xiaoliang decided not to waste time talking to him anymore.
Isn’t it just Kung Fu Football?
Who wouldn’t?
