Chapter 39: Not a familiar face, but like an old friend returning

Chapter 39: Not a familiar face, but like an old friend returning

Chapter 39: Not a familiar face, but like an old friend returning

"Perfect tactical induction! Lee once again fooled everyone, even Manchester United fans!
If Lee told reporters before the game that the new thing he prepared for Guardiola was to use Ronaldo as a tactical bait, Guardiola would definitely think he was joking, which is really crazy! "

"Cavani really did a great job. He seized the opportunity and scored a goal in Manchester United's second counterattack attempt after the start of the game!
I have to say that Lee's use of these veterans is really smart. After Cavani returned from injury, Lee did not let him be on the bench for a long time, but tried to let him play more in some games with a slower pace to help him get a feel for the game.

For these veteran stars, they no longer need to prove their ability to seize opportunities. What they lack is more adjustment time and trust. "

“Yes, this can be seen from the way Lee used Cristiano Ronaldo and Matic earlier.

He clearly has a level of patience with these veterans that other coaches don't have.

Under his protective use, the veterans in the Manchester United team also played brilliantly! ”

Accompanied by praises from Sky Sports commentators and special guests, Cavani jumped high in celebration as he ran towards the baseline in the live broadcast, then roared and punched!

C Ronaldo and B Fee, who were following closely behind him, then hugged him and patted his shoulders excitedly!

This goal is so important for Manchester United!
Even in the middle and late stages of the league, they have defeated Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham United and other strong rivals in the top six of the Premier League.

But the feeling of powerlessness when facing Manchester City and Liverpool in the first half of the league has always been like a haze in their hearts.

Before you fight again and defeat the opponent, any words of encouragement will be meaningless.

Although Manchester United's main players trust Li Chen very much, they have no doubt that his carefully arranged tactics will have the corresponding effect.

But now they are facing Manchester City!
It is the current Premier League champion who has won three Premier League titles in the past four seasons!
After the team got back on track, Manchester United's main players regained their confidence and had no doubt that they could maintain their top four position in the league this season and qualify for next season's Champions League.

They also had no doubt that Li Chen could lead them to win the FA Cup.

But Li Chen said he would lead them to defeat Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, which was really too surprising.

Superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Varane, who have been at the top of the football world with Real Madrid for many years and are accustomed to big scenes, will of course think that Li Chen's pursuit is natural.

But the other Manchester United players were worried.

Even after the game officially started, they were still cautious about their goal of beating Manchester City away from home today.

But now, the leading goal seems to have instantly broken the "filter" of many Manchester United main players about Manchester City's super strength.

Manchester City is indeed one of the top teams in today's football world. Their dominance in the league is quite stable, and every year they are regarded by the media and fans as the favorites to win the Champions League.

But no matter how strong Manchester City is, in the history of football, they are not the big devil-level team that suppresses European football.

At least that's what Li Chen thought.

He personally experienced the dominance of Barcelona, ​​and followed Mourinho to build an invincible Real Madrid in La Liga, overturning Barcelona's dominance.

I also personally experienced the disappointment and pain of being blocked by the big devil Bayern before the Champions League final.

No matter how strong Manchester City is, can it be stronger than Real Madrid and Salah that dominated the football world back then?

In terms of league dominance, they are comparable to Barcelona back then, but they do not have a superstar like Messi who can influence the situation of the game.

Facing Mourinho's Real Madrid, which can compete with peak Barcelona, ​​this Manchester City's so-called control may not be able to withstand the repeated attacks from peak Cristiano Ronaldo and Di Maria!
Finally, let’s take a look at Bayern, the team with the highest performance ceiling back then.

Li Chen just wanted to say that the Hai style Bayern was the one that was truly close to "perfect" in the history of football.

Unlike Barcelona and Real Madrid, two teams that take extreme approaches, Bayern Munich is a truly all-round team that combines control and super counterattacks.

The personnel configuration is quite reasonable, and they can easily fight offensive battles, positional battles, and destroy buses.

What’s even more exaggerated is that Bayern had two defensive midfielders who were good enough to rank among the top five in football at that time!
With such luxurious configuration, coupled with the pragmatic and flexible tactics of the coach, it was inevitable that Bayern swept the world football that year.

Would you let the current Manchester City and the former Bayern Munich meet?
Then Li Chen can only say that he cannot touch it. Isn't this favoring the past over the present? When Guardiola led Barcelona with Messi, how was it beaten by Bayern?
Real Madrid was able to play back and forth with Bayern at the time thanks to the super firepower on both wings that suppressed Alaba and Lahm, preventing them from supporting the Robey-Richard combination with all their strength.

Just the two wingers and full-backs that Manchester City has now?

They played well under Guardiola's tactical system, but they were really forced to fight on the wing and had to tear open the opponent's defense.

How could they have the ability to suppress Alaba, who reached his peak as soon as he debuted, and Lahm, who was at his final peak.

On the other hand, can Cancelo and Kyle Walker withstand the repeated attacks from Ribery and Robben?
And don't forget, Bayern also has a slippery corkscrew, Muller.

This guy is an old metaphysical expert. The stronger the opponent, the more excited he gets. Every time Bayern beats other powerful teams, he is basically involved.

Li Chen stood beside Mourinho and fought hard for 180 minutes against such a powerful Bayern!

He has seen Real Madrid in their peak form, so how could he feel afraid or nervous about these top teams?

On the contrary, in his opinion, these teams all have many flaws in their tactical structure or personnel configuration - this is true for both Manchester City and Liverpool.

He is indeed confident that he can win by catching his opponent off guard.

Before the game, he excluded different voices within the team and insisted on his own views, and this is even more so now.

"Let Chris and Edinson stand separately and press on the ribs on both sides of Manchester City's midfield, strengthen the coverage and interception hardness of the midfield and backcourt, and treat the remaining time of the first half as the final decisive battle!"

After calming down, Li Chen made new tactical adjustment instructions in time.

Carrick also forced himself to calm down quickly. After listening carefully to Li Chen's instructions, he hurried to the sidelines to call Sancho to make tactical arrangements.

Guardiola, who was standing not far from Li Chen at this moment, was somewhat surprised at Li Chen's decisiveness in adjusting his tactics.

However, after experiencing the surprise and depression after conceding the goal, he managed to keep his composure and supported his players on the field to continue to strengthen their penetration into Manchester United's center!
Guardiola knew that he had made a mistake and had underestimated Li Chen, but he would not dwell on the regret of making the mistake.

He is unable to make the adjustment to shrink the formation and guard against Manchester United's quick counterattack.

However, he dared to withstand the pressure and continued to let the Manchester City players on the field play to their heart's content in the offensive end which they are best at!
This is also the essence of Guardiola's tactical philosophy.

No matter what difficulties and hardships they encounter, he and his team dare to stick to themselves, insist on taking the initiative and attacking style of play, and try their best to control the rhythm of the game and the team's fate of victory or defeat in their own hands!
The determined Guardiola soon received a response from his disciples.

After the restart, Manchester City was not discouraged, but gave up more safe passes and launched a more active penetration attack on Manchester United's midfield and backcourt defense. However, although Manchester United still pressed the two forwards in Manchester City's half, waiting for a better counterattack opportunity, they did not relax the protection of the middle.

Li Chen's words "Treat the rest of the first half as the final battle!" were faithfully conveyed to the Manchester United players on the field by Carrick and Sancho.

In the final battle, you naturally have to fight your opponent with all your strength!

Manchester City's players have excellent ball-handling skills and outstanding physical fitness.

But Manchester United can also respond with a desperate attitude and abundant physical strength at this moment!
The more Manchester United performs on the defensive end, the more Manchester City's players want to suppress their opponents at home!
As a result, scenes of tough fighting and explosive confrontation appeared in this stadium.

Amid the crazy cheers of the home fans, Manchester City's technical players performed very bravely and no one had the idea of ​​retreating in the fierce confrontation.

Any head coach would be proud of his players seeing this.

The same is true for Guardiola, but he is more worried at the moment.

Because the situation he least wanted to see before the game finally happened.

Manchester City was dragged into the mud by Manchester United and rolled around!

In such a battlefield, Manchester City's technical advantage was directly exchanged, and instead the Manchester United players who were more accustomed to fighting rough battles played more calmly.

Looking at the current game situation, Guardiola suddenly recalled the famous scenes of his battle with Mourinho in the La Liga.

"This kid really got your true teachings, Jose, you guys still like to drag people into the mud pit to 'fight and wrestle', alas..."

The sigh in his heart showed Guardiola's headache and helplessness at the moment.

To be honest, after so many years, he still has no good way to crack Mourinho's tactics.

Unless the overall strength of the team coached by Mourinho declines significantly, or there are fatal flaws on the defensive end - just like the Manchester United team he led a few years ago.

In that case, Guardiola will be able to rely on a stronger team as a whole to wear down the physical fitness of the team coached by Mourinho, and ultimately win the victory in a harvest battle.

But even though they had some advantages over Mourinho's Manchester United in the past few years, Guardiola's Manchester City's record against Mourinho's Manchester United is only three wins, one draw and two losses.

The reason they won one more game was that Manchester United had fallen into internal turmoil at that time, with Pogba taking the lead in causing trouble and Mourinho being deserted by his friends and relatives.

If we ignore Mourinho's performance in the last half season at Manchester United, Guardiola's record against him in the Premier League is only two wins, one draw and two losses.

The two put aside off-field factors and had a fair fight, but the game ended in a draw.

So Guardiola does understand Mourinho and knows what tactics to use to compete against him.

But the outcome of the match between them is really 50-50.

Regardless of whether the overall strength of Manchester City coached by Guardiola exceeds that of Manchester United, he cannot truly break this tactical vicious circle.

And his current biggest rival Klopp was even more helpless against Manchester United at that time.

Excluding the chaotic last half season when Mourinho coached Manchester United, Klopp only had three draws and one loss against Mourinho in the Premier League.

It is conceivable how confident Mourinho was in playing against the strong teams in the league at that time.

The tactical essence that Old Mu designed specifically for playing against strong teams has now obviously been completely inherited by Li Chen.

In some ways, Li Chen is extremely lucky because he has a stronger defense than Mourinho's Manchester United.

He also got Maguire, the super central defender that Mourinho had been thinking about when he left Manchester United.

Judging from the defensive system alone, the Manchester United led by Li Chen now is much more stable than the Manchester United led by Mourinho.

This also gives him more confidence to open up the wing and win!

Manchester City's central attack ultimately ended in failure.

De Bruyne would be so angry that his face would turn red just by looking at Manchester United's dense defense in the middle!
This guy is too much!

The key is that it is now difficult for him to send threatening passes behind Manchester United's defense!

In games against other teams, Manchester City's two central defenders will also be heavily involved in forward attacks.

In this way, the tactical fulcrum role of disintegrating the opponent's bus formation is brought into play.

But Manchester United's defense was not thorough, and they chose to place two threatening forwards, Ronaldo and Cavani, in the heart of Manchester City's defense!
No matter how brave Laporta and Stones are, they dare not ignore these two big forwards and let them join in the attack.

They also had to ask Rodri to move further back from time to time to help them block Manchester United's counterattacks.

So Manchester City should forget about using central defenders and defensive midfielders to break the deadlock.

Manchester United relied on the deterrent power of its two big forwards to continue strangling Manchester City's organizational space in the middle.

This situation is quite difficult for De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva.

No matter how good their skills are, if they want to perform well, they need corresponding teammates to receive the ball and support them.

Guardiola is determined to attack, but he does not dare to take the risk of sending his entire army forward at this point in time.

After all, if Manchester United steals another goal, Manchester City will really have to consider how to appease the dissatisfaction of the home fans after losing the game...

Time passed quickly, and despite Manchester United's tenacious resistance and pressing, Manchester City failed to equalize the score before the end of the first half.

When the halftime break came, Guardiola subconsciously walked towards Li Chen who was also walking towards him.

The two men shook hands and broke off immediately, but before turning to walk towards the player tunnel, Li Chen's smile and wink made Guardiola's eyes dazed.

It's not a familiar face, but it feels like an old friend returning...

(End of this chapter)