Chapter 52: The Final Kill
What to do when 4231 meets 4231?
This was the problem Gao Shen faced at the Mestalla Stadium on the evening of March 11.
As early as 2004, when Benítez left Valencia and went to Liverpool in the Premier League, the honest tinker Ranieri took over a hot potato and took charge of this championship team.
And the whole world knows that this is a sinkhole.
As expected, Ranieri suffered another painful lesson in his coaching career in Valencia.
Valencia under the coaching of Benítez has always adhered to the 4-2-3-1 formation. The tinkerer tried to inject more elements into the team that had just won the championship, such as inheriting the characteristics of the Italians to make the team's tactics more diverse.
He brought in a number of Italian players, which caused great dissatisfaction among Valencia's championship players, and tragedy ensued.
After Ranieri was sacked, Flores, who led newly promoted Getafe to relegation, became his successor.
Many people may not know that the current Valencia head coach, Quique Sánchez Flores, not only played for Real Madrid during his career, but also started coaching the Real Madrid youth team after retiring.
From 1997 to 2004, he coached Real Madrid's U17 age group for seven years, accumulating extremely rich coaching experience. After that, he became the head coach of newly promoted Getafe and led the team to successful relegation. In 2005, he coached Valencia.
This is another classic example of accumulation leading to a breakthrough.
When Gao Shen saw Flores' resume, on the one hand he felt that Real Madrid was indeed worthy of being called the Huangpu Military Academy of Spanish football. On the other hand he also thought that this was the step-by-step upgrade model that Carlo, Lucas and others had advised him to follow.
After Flores took over Valencia, Ranieri had already left Spain with his Italian army, so he put things right, re-activated the 4-2-3-1 formation , reused Albelda and Baraja as double defensive midfielders, reused Aimar as attacking midfielder, and spent 10 million euros to introduce David Villa from Zaragoza.
Valencia has performed very vigorously this season, even suppressing Real Madrid for a long time and ranking second in La Liga.
But unfortunately, neither the predecessor Ranieri nor the current Flores has figured out Benítez's 4-2-3-1, or in other words, they have only understood part of it.
Valencia's defense under Flores was excellent, but their offense was a mess, especially after Vicente was injured, almost all the offensive burden fell on Villa.
Villa has very strong personal ability and goal-scoring ability, but in a formation of 4-2-3-1, the most forward center position requires a player like Mista, not Villa.
But after being "ravaged" by Ranieri, Mista has been unable to regain the form he had under Benítez. Even though Flores has made repeated adjustments and changes to the formation this season, he has failed to inspire Mista's vitality.
Valencia's offense is like a stagnant pool of water. It relies on Villa's goals and Aimar's occasional flashes of inspiration to survive. Relying on the team's tenacious defense, it has managed to go 15 games unbeaten this season.
What is even more commendable is that Valencia has achieved an impressive record of two wins and one draw in the three games against Real Madrid and Barcelona this season, including a 1-0 victory over Barcelona at home, a 2-1 victory over Real Madrid away, and a 2-2 draw with Barcelona at Camp Nou.
It is not difficult to see from Valencia's data this season and its performance in strong dialogues how powerful Benítez's 4-2-3-1 is.
So what can Gao Shen do when facing such a team?
There is no better way, we can only try our best.
…
The goalkeeper is Casillas, the defense is Felipe, Woodgate, Ramos and Arbeloa, the double defensive midfielders are Pablo Garcia and Borja, the frontcourt is Raul, Guti and Cassano, and the forward is Soldado.
This is the starting lineup that Gao Shen arranged at the Mestalla Stadium. Except for the defense line and Raul, all other players were rotated.
The game was very dull.
Valencia has the best defense in La Liga, but their offense is not good. It is wishful thinking to expect Valencia to take the initiative to attack. Real Madrid is missing its main lineup after a major rotation. Facing Valencia with strong defensive ability, it is naturally impossible for them to be greedy and advance rashly.
Both teams adopted a conservative style, which resulted in a lackluster performance in the Mestalla match.
Real Madrid, who had control of the ball, was more focused on pulling the ball back and forth, but it was difficult for them to penetrate Valencia's territory and pose a threat. Valencia also lacked ambition and just wanted to play it safe, counterattacking when they got the chance.
With Woodgate in charge of the defense, Ramos was given more freedom. Gao Shen asked him to mark Villa, and Valencia's attack became silent.
Real Madrid's offense was unable to gain any advantage over Valencia's defense, which led to a stalemate in the game.
After Gao Shen took office, Soldado, who started for the first time, worked very hard on the court, ran very actively, and executed tactics very well, but it was indeed difficult for him to gain an advantage in front of Albiol and Marchena.
The two sides tied 0-0 in the first half, but Real Madrid had 65 percent possession of the ball.
After the change of sides in the second half, Real Madrid still chose to fight with Valencia, constantly pulling the ball left and right by passing and controlling the ball.
But there was no breakthrough on the scene.
But Gao Shen was not in a hurry at all.
He is still waiting.
…
How to break dense defense?
As a veteran football fan, Gao Shen can immediately name three tricks to break the density: set pieces, long shots and center forward.
But in fact, these three tactics are based on the fact that the team can gain space, that is, they can only be effective when they have basically broken through the dense defense.
For example, set pieces are nothing more than corner kicks and free kicks. The former is caused by the ball going out of bounds after a breakthrough, and the latter is to cause the opponent to foul. Defensive players will commit fouls, but that is based on the situation that they are basically about to be broken through. Otherwise, who would commit a foul easily?
Speaking of long shots, Valencia has two world-class midfielders in the defensive midfield. The tight defensive system built by Ranieri, Cooper and Benítez, will it easily give you the opportunity to shoot from long range?
Finally, the center forward.
Everyone knows that high balls from the wing are the least efficient , with a very low success rate. And the key is that if you want to pass the ball well from the wing, you still have to get space, just like Beckham needs to be able to swing his legs.
So, the problem goes around and around and comes back to the most fundamental question.
space!
The key to breaking through dense defense is to create space.
How to create?
The opponent has put up a tight defensive formation and will not let you create space easily.
what to do?
Pull!
There is a saying that goes, if you can wield the hoe well, there is no wall that cannot be dug down.
By the same token, as long as you keep pulling and constantly consume the opponent's players' physical energy, to a certain extent, you will be able to create offensive space.
To a certain extent, the so-called passing and controlling of the ball by Guardiola's Barcelona is essentially about constantly pulling and trying to create space. Passing and controlling the ball and high-pressure pressing are just their means.
Therefore, in the match against Valencia, Gao Shen's starting lineup was never intended to score goals, but to fight with the opponent, constantly running, constantly pulling, and constantly consuming the opponent.
Time passed by little by little, but Gao Shen was not moved at all.
Instead, Flores replaced Angulo with Rufete in the 63rd minute.
Three minutes later, Mista replaced Regueiro.
Both substitutions were made to adjust the team's frontcourt offense. After Mista came on, Valencia basically returned to the double striker tactics, with Mista and Villa partnering up.
Obviously, Flores still wants to win, after all, it's his home court.
After seeing Valencia make two substitutions, Gao Shen arranged for Callejon to warm up in the 68th minute.
After ten days of contact, he can now finally confirm that the one who later performed well in Naples was Jose Callejon, the older brother of the twin brothers.
Callejon, nicknamed Little Motorcycle, is very fast and has a fighting style. Gao Shen replaced Cassano with him in the 70th minute.
The intention of this substitution was very clear, which was to quickly counterattack Valencia.
…
As Valencia began to exert its strength on the offensive end, the overall formation was no longer tight, but instead pressed forward to attack frequently.
Real Madrid still controlled the ball, but as a whole they retreated appropriately, allowing Valencia to press forward.
In the 78th minute, Ramos suddenly went around to defend, intercepted the ball passed to Villa in advance, dribbled the ball forward, and quickly passed it through the midfield to Guti's feet.
Guti, who played as an attacking midfielder, was not even assigned any defensive tasks in this game. He could fully unleash his offensive talents, but unfortunately, he met Albelda and Baraja, the world's top double defensive midfielder combination, and he was unable to perform well.
But this time, he seized the opportunity. After stopping the ball, without waiting for the two defensive midfielders to press forward, he sent a long diagonal pass directly behind Valencia's left-back Moretti.
Callejon sprinted at the fastest speed on the right side, came from behind, got ahead of Moretti, poked the ball to the bottom line, and after catching up, he made a low cross.
Soldado, who was chasing in the front, was disturbed by Albiol and Marchena, but he deliberately let the ball fly past him and went straight to the back point.
Raul, who was unguarded, chased to the outside of the small penalty area and faced the cross that crossed most of the field. He directly shot the ball into the almost unguarded Valencia goal.
Cañizares was standing on the right side of the goal and was completely powerless to stop Raul's shot from the left.
In the 78th minute, Raul scored the first goal for Real Madrid!
After scoring the goal, the Real Madrid captain once again rushed out of the stadium excitedly to celebrate this crucial goal for the team.
The Real Madrid players on the field also rushed forward to celebrate the goal for their captain.
One to zero!
What a difficult goal this was!
Gao Shen, in front of the visiting team's coaching booth, also excitedly clenched his fists and waved them up and down continuously to vent his inner excitement.
Behind him, Maqueda, Lucas and others were huddled together to celebrate the goal.
They had already arranged their tactics before the game, but they were still nervous.
It was not until this moment, when they saw Raul score a goal, that they finally put their minds at ease.
If Valencia hadn't made any mistakes, the game would have ended in a 0-0 draw.
However, Gao Shen quickly made adjustments.
Diogo replaced the physically exhausted Arbeloa, and replaced Borja with Xavi Garcia.
Both substitutions were made to strengthen the defense.
Anyone can see that Gao Shen’s goal is very clear, which is to defend this goal.
