Chapter 71 Messi, he loves you the most, but he also knows how to restrict you
Chapter 71 Messi, he loves you the most, but he also knows how to restrict you
《The last step! 》
The day after Li Chen led the England team to a big win over Morocco and entered the World Cup final.
Sky Sports wrote a passionate pre-match mobilization report with this title.
For English football and English fans, they have waited too long for this day to come back.
58 years is more than enough time for two generations to grow up.
The Rimet Gold Cup won 58 years ago is not only the supreme honor of English football, but also the tremendous pressure for every generation of English players in the future to pursue breakthroughs.
If they want to achieve world-recognized success in international competitions.
The only way is to win the World Cup again or win the Delaunay Cup (European Cup) for the record first time.
Apart from this, any non-championship place achieved by England in international competitions will only be taken for granted by the world.
Because the England team has never lacked popular players or even football superstars.
They have a top coach and a huge number of enthusiastic fans.
They also have their own aura of focus, making the media around the world look forward to them in every international competition.
If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight.
Since we have enjoyed the support of thousands of fans and such a huge amount of public attention.
Then the England players must withstand the pressure and aim to win every major championship.
However, the strange thing is that the England team was almost always favored by the media before the start of every international competition they participated in, but there would always be more or less unexpected problems during the competition, making it difficult for them to reach the finals.
It was not until the 2021 European Cup that the England team broke the curse and reached the European Cup final for the first time in history.
This is probably the fundamental reason why Southgate remains the England coach despite being criticized by fans.
He was able to lead England into the final of an international tournament, regardless of the situation or whether there were any problems with the tactical arrangements. This is already a rare skill.
The English Football Association is really scared by many unreliable coaches in the past.
It is rare to have a head coach like Nanmen who is thick-skinned, not afraid of public criticism, and can lead the team to achieve results. Naturally, we have to believe in him and believe in him again.
The fans clamored for a change of coach, saying that England's performance would only get better after a change of coach.
But what if the results drop again after the change of coach?
Won't it be the English Football Association that will be criticized then?
All I can say is that fans watch football for fun and only need to focus on whether they are happy or not, but the English Football Association has many aspects to consider.
When the accident happened at Southgate, everyone in the English Football Association agreed that England's performance in this World Cup was a complete failure.
Li Chen's temporary takeover gave them the confidence that the national team could almost enter the knockout stage and give an explanation to the fans at that time.
As a result, no one expected that the England team under Li Chen would actually undergo a complete transformation.
Not only did they play at full speed, but they also created England's best group stage result in international competitions since the new century.
After that, England's success in defeating Senegal and France to advance to the World Cup semi-finals directly surprised the top executives of the English Football Association to the point of being numb.
It was not until England defeated Morocco that they reached the World Cup final again after 58 years.
The English Football Association's top executives, who were so surprised that they were numb, finally came to their senses and then fell into ecstasy.
If the English Football Association did not want to offend the wealthy boss behind Newcastle, it would even want to offer Li Chen a sky-high contract to poach him at this time.
As for Nanmen, who is now resting at home?
FA bosses just want to wish him good luck.
Unfortunately, they couldn't poach the player, and the English FA could only mobilize the domestic propaganda machine at this time and send a condolence email to Li Chen.
Bonuses and stuff are easy to talk about, anyway, it's just a matter of making big promises. I ask Li Chen to help the England team win the World Cup.
On one hand, the British media is promoting the event extensively, while on the other hand, the English Football Association is privately making humble requests.
It is unrealistic to say that Li Chen did not feel any pressure in this situation.
Just think about it, tens of millions of people place their ultimate pursuit and aspirations for a team sport on you, praying that you can lead the team to the ultimate victory.
What a great honor and mission responsibility this is.
As a non-Englishman and the team's temporary coach, Li Chen can feel the heavy responsibility and pressure in his heart at this moment.
Not to mention the players and English coaches in the team.
In order to alleviate the huge sense of pressure that naturally arose from the bottom of his heart, Li Chen had to choose closed training again before the final.
He must try his best to maintain a good living and training atmosphere within the team and help the players avoid interference from public opinion.
It is always better to live and prepare in a good collective environment than to be alone and have random thoughts.
Of course, in order to effectively ease the players' mood, Li Chen allowed them to leave the training base after the end of the day's training and stay with their families until before 10 o'clock in the evening.
They still have to go back to the training base to spend the night. Regular and sufficient rest as a group can better maintain the players' physical fitness and condition.
In the past, Li Chen's "undemocratic" and compulsory management style would have probably made the players' families and the British media angry.
But at this crucial moment when England is about to win the World Cup, these issues that could easily be blown out of proportion are no longer problems.
When interviewed, the families of the England players expressed their understanding and recognition of Li Chen's management style.
The British media praised Li Chen's "management art", claiming that Li Chen's management style is definitely the only way to help the England team enter the World Cup knockout stage.
So when Li Chen made the decision to continue closed training before the final, all the media in England agreed and applauded.
It seems that closed training has become the secret to the England team's invincibility.
Even Argentine media reporters believed the British media's overwhelming propaganda and expressed their concerns about the England team's closed training.
In order not to interfere with England's pre-match preparations, the English Football Association has also made a decision not to recommend any domestic sports newspapers to disturb interviews at this time.
When we say it is not recommended, it actually means that no media is allowed to disturb the team's preparations at this time.
Media outlets that want to gain traffic can ignore the FA's warnings, but if they offend the FA in this matter, they will not be able to get first-hand news information about the Premier League in the future.
The mainstream media in England can clearly tell whether it is more important to get a large amount of traffic and then offend the English Football Association, or to build good relationships and maintain long-term success.
This was a big favor done by the English FA to Li Chen, allowing him to complete the final stage of training with the team in a relatively quiet environment.
Four days of preparation time is not too short, but it is certainly not too long either.
The luckiest thing for Li Chen is that he is more familiar with the technical characteristics of several core players of his final opponent.
This saved the England coaching staff at least one day of intelligence gathering time.
For the coaching staffs of both England and Argentina, by now they are already very familiar with their opponents' tactical playing styles and their usual tactical back-ups.
Therefore, in this situation where both sides have almost equal tactical understanding, whichever coach understands the skills and mentality of the core players of the opponent's team better will gain a slight advantage in preparation.
Li Chen believed that the special tactics he formulated for Argentina would definitely surprise the entire Argentine team...
At the pre-match press conference, Li Chen brought the team captain Kane and repeatedly told reporters that he was ready for a tough battle with Argentina.
Kane also expressed to the media his determination to lead his teammates to defeat Argentina and win the World Cup.
These routine speeches failed to arouse the interest of the media.
Many reporters asked Li Chen whether what he meant by this was that they had already rehearsed overtime and penalty shootouts in advance.
Li Chen just smiled and said nothing when he heard this.
On the contrary, Argentina coach Scaloni generously admitted that he was ready for a penalty shootout with England.
This did not surprise the media and fans, after all, Argentina is now very good at penalty shootouts.
Moreover, Argentina's strength is still half a level lower than that of England, at least on paper.
Consider also the strong offensive firepower that England has demonstrated in this World Cup.
It is reasonable for Scaloni to want to play more steadily in the final, or even want to drag England into a penalty shootout.
However, his words did not affect Li Chen's judgment.
Li Chen knew very well that Argentina's ability to reach the final stage of this World Cup was not due to their backcourt defense.
Compared to the Argentina team eight years ago, the current Argentina team's defense is much weaker, but their offensive combination is quite reasonable.
Scaloni built an offensive system around Messi, which almost fully activated Messi's abilities, allowing Messi to use all of his limited physical energy on the offensive end.
In addition, Scaloni has no shortage of offensive backup. The rotation of Di Maria, Lautaro and Alvarez can bring many changes in offensive rhythm to Argentina.
This is a team that is born to play offensive football.
They have the courage to fight with strong opponents with bayonets, nor the tenacity to fight continuous offensive battles.
The soul of their team, Messi, used his rich experience in major competitions and good performances at crucial moments to lead a group of young teammates to break through the defenses of one knockout opponent after another.
Teams that underestimated their offensive firepower have paid the price.
And Li Chen will never make the same mistakes as his peers.
On December 12, the morning of the World Cup final, Li Chen let out a long sigh after reviewing the tactical plan for the last time at the training base.
He only slept for five hours last night and couldn't fall asleep. After getting up in the early morning, he went straight to the office. While drinking coffee, he reviewed the tactical arrangements made before the game in detail.
Afterwards, he watched the highlights of Messi's performance in this World Cup edited by the coaching staff without any sleepiness.
Then there are the highlights of goals scored by Argentina's magical substitute Alvarez.
After the players got up in the morning and gathered for lunch, Li Chen walked out of the office in high spirits.
Today's pre-match activation training was not too intense, mainly focusing on tactical detail drills and warm-ups.
The English players, who were a little nervous at first, calmed down a lot immediately after seeing Li Chen still full of confidence.
After taking lunch break and having a meal before the match as planned, the England team embarked on their final journey in this World Cup under the pre-match mobilization of Li Chen!
The Lusail Stadium looks very beautiful in the evening.
The shape that resembles a date bowl sparkles golden under the sunlight.
Inside the packed stadium, more than 9 spectators have used their enthusiasm to create the atmosphere of the battle to the fullest!
Due to the huge tension between the England and Argentina fan groups, Qatar officials mobilized twice as many police forces as originally planned to maintain order at the scene today.
Li Chen had heard about the grievances and conflicts between the two countries, but his mind was still entirely focused on competitive sports.
During the pre-match mobilization, he also emphasized to the players not to bring too many personal emotions into the World Cup final.
The competition on the field ends on the field. They are pure coaches and athletes. Regardless of winning or losing, once they walk off the field, they are just ordinary players.
Seeing Li Chen's serious expression, the English players nodded one after another, telling Li Chen that they would definitely not cause any extra trouble.
After solving this small problem, Li Chen focused on encouraging Kane and told him to keep a clear head at all times.
"Once the situation on the field is in trouble, the young teammates will unconsciously expect you to stand up, and if you want to win the Golden Ball, you must make a difference in this final!
I never worry about your ability, Harry, but you have to stimulate your ambition, the kind of ambition that you must do everything you can to seize the opportunity to show yourself to the world!
Believe that you can do things that ordinary people cannot do. Only by firmly believing in yourself can you create miracles.
Harry, this is your stage and your moment, be your own hero, the whole of England will be proud of you, and win the World Cup championship that may only come once in your lifetime! "
……
Harry Kane, who was so excited by Li Chen's encouragement, had his fingertips trembling slightly when he walked out of the player tunnel.
However, as soon as he stepped onto the grass of the stadium, his excited heart seemed to immediately find a harbor and quickly calmed down.
The deafening roar from more than 9 fans at the scene was truly breathtaking.
But all this could no longer disturb Kane's mind. After taking a deep breath, when he opened his eyes again, there was only a strong desire to fight and determination.
After the parade, the English starting players quickly threw away the distracting thoughts in their minds. The emotions in their eyes and those of the Argentine starting players gradually became hot.
This passion is the desire for victory, the desire for the supreme championship glory in football.
And with the referee's whistle a moment later, the burning desire in the hearts of the players of both teams turned into motivation, driving them to run passionately on the court!
The competition has officially begun!
Today, both England and Argentina adopted a 433 starting formation on paper.
Argentina team:
The starting front trident consisted of Di Maria, Alvarez and Messi.
In the midfield, McAllister, Enzo and De Paul are in charge.
On the defensive line, Otamendi and Romero form a double central defender, with Tagliafico on the left and Molina on the right.
Starting goalkeeper Damian Martinez.
England team:
Starting center Kane, Madison and Saka were on his left and right sides.
The two central midfielders are Sean Longstaff and Bellingham, and the defensive midfielder is Rice.
On the defensive line, Luke Shaw, Maguire, Stones and Ben White lined up.
Starting goalkeeper Pickford.
Argentina, which took the lead in kicking off, quickly launched an attack to test England.
Enzo got the ball and passed it to McAllister, who without hesitation handed the ball to Di Maria, who started as a left winger today.
England quickly contracted its defense line. Bellingham moved to the side immediately to assist Ben White in decisively double-teaming Di Maria!
When Di Maria saw the defensive posture adopted by the England team, he did not dare to be careless and chose to pass the ball back to McAllister safely.
After McAllister got the ball, he dribbled vertically, but finally he could only pass the ball to Molina who was running forward on the other side.
De Paul moved inward to the middle to clear the side passage, and Messi retreated to receive the ball, but as soon as he turned around, he was closely marked by Longstaff!
Messi protected the ball and passed it horizontally, and De Paul chose to hit the ball into the gap in the defense left by Longstaff after he intercepted the ball.
However, after receiving the ball, Alvarez on the side was quickly double-teamed by Luke Shaw and Rice, and had no choice but to pass the ball back again.
Argentina's offensive attempts on both wings soon ended in failure.
In particular, Li Chen's tactical arrangement of arranging Longstaff to focus on Messi made Scaloni frown on the sidelines.
England's midfield double-teaming defense at the beginning of the game was too resolute, and they had no intention of letting Argentina push the line across half court and wait for an opportunity to counterattack.
Moreover, Li Chen seemed to be very afraid of Messi's performance and would rather use the exchange tactic directly, letting Longstaff, who has excellent physical fitness, closely guard Messi and consume Messi's physical energy as much as possible in advance.
Under this kind of tactic of special man-marking, Messi, who is no longer in his prime, will certainly not be able to frequently get the ball to break away and sprint forward.
Messi, who was unable to give full play to his abilities when holding the ball, could at best leave England with one less player in midfield.
But England only lost an engineer midfielder, while Argentina lost the soul of the team and the engine of attack!
Without Messi's ball control and distribution, Argentina must rely on McAllister's positioning to operate the offensive system.
But in this case, Enzo would have to shoulder too heavy a task to manage the ball in the backcourt.
De Paul can only help him a little in this regard. Can the young Enzo withstand the pressure and complete the task of passing the ball forward?
Scaloni was a little hesitant, and he was also worried that if McAllister stood too forward, Argentina's midfield defense would be unbalanced.
After weighing the pros and cons, he finally decided not to adjust the positions of several starting midfielders.
"Damn it, Leo is not playing well, so our offensive movement in the front court is no longer smooth. How could Li arrange such a rogue tactic!"
Scaloni's assistant coach and former football star "The Joker" Aimar complained somewhat depressedly.
At this moment, there are many Argentine fans who, like him, complain or even curse Li Chen's tactical arrangements.
On the field, Messi once again received a safe pass from his teammate.
This time, even though he changed his position to the middle of the midfield, Longstaff still faithfully and quickly moved towards him, not caring at all about his defensive position.
Messi understood that he might not be able to escape the opponent's targeted defense in this game.
But he was not angry, after all, he had encountered such situations too many times in his career.
He tried to use his teammates' screens and his own dribbling to create opportunities to move forward.
But Longstaff, who had received a separate defensive lesson from Li Chen, obviously had a deep understanding of Messi's playing style in this World Cup.
He defended very smartly, not being fooled by the opponent and not kicking the ball easily. He would use his physical strength to consume Messi's energy whenever he had the chance.
Even if Messi occasionally makes him move away from the opponent, he can still quickly catch up.
Who makes him so physically fit and young enough?
The 35-year-old Messi's explosiveness is no longer as good as before.
Perhaps his footwork is still unrivaled and his core strength is still well maintained.
But without the explosive speed of his youth, Messi can no longer dribble past defenders as easily as he did in his peak period.
Feeling his energy being rapidly depleted, Messi had to stop his choice of forcing his way past Longstaff.
He calmly handed the ball to his teammate Di Maria.
There is still a long time left in the game, and as long as he is patient enough, he will always be able to wait for the opportunity to get the ball and play.
To put it another way, even if he had little room to play in this game, he at least helped his teammates to pin down one of England's main midfielders.
He believes his young teammates can find a way to break the balance of the game.
If it really doesn't work, he can save his energy for the crucial period of the second half...
Messi made a rational choice and placed his hopes on Di Maria and his teammates.
Di Maria, who had already decided to burn himself in this final, spared no effort in trying to break through on the left!
But he ultimately underestimated how much Li Chen valued him.
When he was at Real Madrid, Li Chen saw with his own eyes that Mourinho chose to use Di Maria to open the path to victory in countless difficult situations.
You have to know that at that time Real Madrid had a football historical superstar like Cristiano Ronaldo at his peak.
But Mourinho still believes more in Di Maria's breakthrough.
This shows the Argentine Angel's single-point blasting ability.
Di Maria is old now, but he still has his explosiveness and, like Messi, has rich experience in major competitions.
Li Chen, who knew his strength well, naturally did not want to give him room to perform, and decisively arranged for double-teaming on both wings.
If the combination of Bellingham and Ben White still cannot limit Di Maria's performance, Li Chen will make decisive adjustments and let Rice and Ben White double-team him!
Anyway, the tactical requirements are there, and Di Maria must not be given a one-on-one opportunity to pass within his own defensive third zone.
If it doesn't work, use a tactical foul to stop him outside the defensive third zone!
Anyway, Li Chen has a lot of right-side backs at his disposal.
It doesn't matter if Ben White gets a yellow card, he can still replace Trippier, Arnold and Kyle Walker.
At worst, he could just use a series of counter-attacks to exhaust Di Maria's energy. Face wasn't important at all. Li Chen only looked at the actual results.
As expected, Di Maria's attempt to break through failed again.
England was not in a hurry to attack at the beginning of the game. Their style of play based on midfield defense made it very difficult for Argentina, which was eager to advance the front line.
The advancement of both wings was hindered and the lineup was limited, so simple long passes were impossible.
If Scaloni wants to continue to maintain the team's offensive, he can only increase the number of attacking players or change the formation to try to attack England's flank defense more.
So after the 10th minute of the first half, the two Argentine full-backs made a big forward run.
Messi and Di Maria, who were supposed to move to the side, both retracted their positions and cooperated more with their teammates in passing and cutting, trying to cut into the flanks of England to get a chance to shoot.
But Rice and Bellingham's retreating positions quickly blocked England's half-space defence.
Longstaff continued to defend Messi, while England's two wingers retreated to the middle to assist their teammates in defense.
In this situation, Di Maria finally got the chance to have a one-on-one match with Ben White in the England half.
But Ben White, who resolutely followed Li Chen's requirements, used two tough confrontations to break Di Maria's dream of dribbling past others and creating danger.
This gave Argentina a set-piece opportunity in the frontcourt.
But at this time, the England team, which was crouching in the pit to defend, was not afraid of Argentina's set-piece threat at all.
Maguire and Stones have too much advantage in aerial duels.
Alvarez is not a traditional center and he can't compete with these two beast-like guys at all.
At this time, Argentina had already begun to press forward, leaving a large area of the back line open, which gave England an opportunity to counterattack.
In the 18th minute of the first half, Rice stole the ball from Di Maria and launched a bold counterattack!
The ball passed through McAllister's interception zone and landed accurately at Saka's feet.
With Li Chen's loud shout of "Pass him!", Saka took the ball and tried to cut inside, then he decisively dribbled to the outside and soon left Tagliafico behind, who was definitely not as fast as him.
Without waiting for Otamendi to make a breakthrough, Saka chose to knock the ball back from the wing.
Bellingham followed up without stopping for a moment and then made a cross after unloading the ball!
The cross was delivered too flat and too early, which was not conducive for Kane, who was still struggling with Romero, to compete for the header.
And if he were to use his feet to reach the ball, the conventional shooting method would definitely be predicted and interfered by Romero.
At the critical moment, Kane, who was very calm, decided to make a crazy and bold attempt!
He burst out with all his strength, slightly broke free from Romero's defense, and then jumped sideways with all his strength!
Kane raised his left foot high in the air, almost sideways to the football, and then kicked back hard towards the rapidly falling football!
Li Chen widened his eyes and suddenly stood up from the bench!
A string of words came out of his mouth that Carrick couldn't understand.
That is the Chinese pronunciation of “scorpion wagging its tail”!
The next moment, the football that Kane kicked hard towards the grass bounced up again, flew high over the hands of the shocked Martinez, and dived into the goal behind him!
"The ball went in?! The ball went in!!! Harry Kane! He used an incredible shot to send the ball into the Argentina goal!
Martinez was completely surprised by Harry Kane's shooting action! This is definitely an unconventional goal that is not Kane's style!
This goal reminds us of Zlatan! Fortunately, Kane has the same flexible body as Zlatan! This is incredible! This goal will definitely go down in the history of the World Cup final stage! "
The Sky Sports commentator celebrated passionately out of control at this moment!
Kane, who scored his eighth goal in this World Cup, seemed a little stunned at this moment!
Saka, shaking with excitement, jumped onto his shoulders and shouted in his ear, "This shot is so fucking beautiful!"
The other England players on the field who witnessed the historic moment also swarmed forward and soon overwhelmed the dizzy Kane.
Li Chen held his head in his hands off the court, then kept shaking his right hand while watching the replay of the goal on the big screen.
He was really amazed by Kane's scorpion kick!
This is the scorpion's tail swing on the World Cup final stage!
Just with this one goal, Kane is able to leave his glorious image forever in the history of the World Cup!
A ball worth a thousand gold!
After hugging and celebrating with the extremely excited Carrick, Li Chen forced himself to calm down and then looked at the court.
He originally wanted to find Madison or Bellingham and convey his new tactical instructions to them.
But let alone these two people, he couldn't even see the defenders in the backcourt at this moment.
They were all still celebrating passionately in the frontcourt.
Seeing this, Li Chen could only smile and shake his head and wait a little longer.
But soon, the figure of Messi, who was calling on his young teammates to cheer up, caught Li Chen's sight.
This is very different from the impression Messi left on Li Chen in the past.
It seems that Messi is really determined to make some changes in this World Cup.
pity…
"Who made you meet me, Leo? My teacher loves you the most, but he also knows how to limit your performance better than any other coach."
(End of this chapter)