Li Ang was very satisfied. The tactic he set for the team was actually a variation of the combination of the Christmas Tree tactic and the side attacking midfielder tactic. Modric's role was similar to AC Milan's Pirlo, holding back and organizing, while Ribéry and Juan Arango formed the bilateral attacking midfielders. It was a pioneering move that made up for the lack of an attacking midfielder.
The biggest feature of this tactic was that it did not entangle with the opponent in the midfield. It made use of the width of the field, the passing of the ball behind the back, and the flanks to avoid Barcelona's midfield stars. Sporting de Gijón's midfield was not as strong as Barcelona's attacking group, so they did not compete with the opponent in the midfield. Then, Li Ang came up with this formation and tactic after much thought. It was tailor-made by Li Ang for this game and for Rijkaard's Barcelona.
Rijkaard did not fly into a rage on the sidelines because of the goal concede. Rijkaard was well prepared for today's game. It was impossible for him not to have thought that the team would concede the goal first. If there was one thing that surprised him, it was that the goal was conceded so quickly. However, after coming out of the depressed mood after the goal concede, Rijkaard comforted himself. It was better to concede the goal at the beginning of the game than to concede the goal at the end of the game. It meant that Barcelona had almost the entire game to reverse the game.
Rijkaard stared at the field. He had calmed down and was thinking about the mistakes he had made before.
He did not expect Li Ang to let Diego Milito start. It was really unexpected because Diego Milito had been out of action for more than two months after recovering from his injury. He had not officially made a comeback so far and his condition was unknown. He did not expect Li Ang to trust Diego Milito so much that he directly let Diego Milito start in such an important game.
Because of this, he did not make any specific arrangements for Diego Milito during the pre-game preparations. This directly led to his players not knowing how to deal with Diego Milito on the field.
Of course, this did not mean that Barcelona's players did not know how to play without the manager's instructions and arrangements. However, the starting of a player was not only the significance of the player's existence, but also in a sense, it represented the tactical change of the team. Obviously, without Rijkaard's arrangements, Barcelona could not form a targeted defense against Diego Milito.
Perhaps ten minutes after the start of the game, Rijkaard's tactical instructions would have been transmitted and the players on the field could have adjusted themselves to deal with this change. However, Sporting de Gijón's counterattack this time came too quickly. Before Barcelona's players could react, they had already lost the ball.
In addition, Modric's tactical position today also caught Barcelona off guard. Modric had always been placed in the position of right midfielder by Li Ang, or sometimes he would form a double defensive midfielder with Carlos, and occasionally he would play in the attacking midfielder position. Therefore, in today's game, with Carlos and Marcos already forming a double defensive midfielder, Modric started. Sporting de Gijón's strategy of using a single striker made the Barcelona players subconsciously think that Modric would be Sporting de Gijón's attacking midfielder.
*****
This was an inertia of thinking!
It was this inertia of thinking that caused Barcelona to suffer. When Sporting de Gijón's attack this time, Modric's position was very far back and he retreated very deep. He was very close to Carlos and Marcos, which made Barcelona's players somewhat confused. They did not understand what role Modric played in the opponent's tactics today. Under these circumstances, when they saw Modric was far away from their own penalty area, they could only selectively ignore this player.
Modric was close to the two defensive midfielders. The most direct effect of this was that he was able to get the ball immediately after his teammates counterattacked. Then, the young Croatian player beautifully controlled the ball. After he got rid of his teammates, he quickly passed a wide range of passes. Sporting de Gijón did not plan to use a combination of passing and cutting to pass through the midfield. One transfer of the ball tore apart Barcelona's defensive line.
Barcelona, who had not yet gotten into the game state after the start of the game, the strong Barcelona team was penetrated just like that.
Although this goal concede was partly due to Marquis and Belletti's joint mistakes, Sporting de Gijón's tactics were very successful in this attack from a tactical perspective.
Rijkaard gritted his teeth. He had to admit that Li Ang was very cunning. At the same time, this Chinese player was clearly a master of psychological warfare. He was very good at figuring out the psychology of others. He predicted his own inertia of thinking and did the opposite, catching Barcelona off guard …
*****
Rijkaard laughed bitterly. He had to admit that he had made an empirical mistake. He had taken things for granted when he studied Li Ang's starting lineup and the game's tactics.
He predicted that Sporting de Gijón would go head-to-head with Barcelona, so Barcelona did not place Marquis in the defensive midfielder position today. Instead, they let the Mexican play as the center back. In this way, Barcelona's midfield was a combination of Harvey, Iniesta, Decaux, and Giuly. Other than Decaux, who had a certain fighting and intercepting ability, Barcelona's midfield basically had no defensive ability. In addition to Ronaldinho and Eto 'o on the front line, Barcelona was a pure attacking lineup in today's game. There was a lack of protection in the midfield.
This was also one of the reasons why Modric's one transfer of the ball could tear apart Barcelona's defensive line so easily!
The more Rijkaard thought about it, the more he felt that Li Ang was simply too cunning. He had guessed all of his team's thoughts and made the most tit-for-tat arrangement.
This opponent had improved a lot since the last time they played against each other. He was even more terrifying.
The last time the two sides played against each other in the league, Sporting de Gijón and Barcelona went head-to-head. This, of course, surprised Rijkaard and caused Barcelona to lose the game. However, in that match, Barcelona did not know much about Sporting de Gijón. They were very unfamiliar and were caught off guard. To a certain extent, this also explained Li Ang's methods. However, that was an encounter. In Rijkaard's view, it was an exception. He thought that if he met Sporting de Gijón again, he would definitely be able to learn a lesson and win. However, this time, Sporting de Gijón adopted a conservative strategy. In this conservative strategy, they hid so many dangers and traps. This was amazing. At least in Rijkaard's view, as the person who had the most direct experience at the moment, Li Ang had improved a lot and was even more difficult to deal with.
*****
Rijkaard got up from his seat and walked to the sidelines. He gestured to the players inside.
He wanted Puyol to strengthen the defense against Diego Milito and not let the Argentine get an easy shot. He believed that with the Barcelona captain's ability and experience, as long as Puyol was alert, the possibility of Diego Milito getting any good chances would be greatly reduced.
At the same time, Rijkaard also asked Decaux to pay attention to Modric's interference. Although Decaux was not a defensive player, the Portuguese was good at offense and defense. It was still possible to let Decaux interfere with Modric to a certain extent. Of course, more importantly, Barcelona's current midfield, other than Decaux, the defensive ability of the other players was even worse. Sacrificing Decaux's offensive talent to restrict Modric, Barcelona still had offensive talents like Harvey, Iniesta, Giuly, and Ronaldinho. There was no need to worry about their offense.
After Rijkaard's review and reflection, he did not choose to make any substitutions. The game had only started a little more than a minute ago, so it was naturally impossible to make any substitutions at this time. Rijkaard could only make adjustments based on the existing starting lineup. His adjustments were very direct. He focused on marking Sporting de Gijón's key players, Diego Milito and Modric. Modric looked like the initiator of Sporting de Gijón's offense today, and Diego Milito, as the only center forward, was Sporting de Gijón's only offensive fulcrum. As long as these two points were defended, Sporting de Gijón's counterattack could basically be curbed.
Then, what Barcelona had to do was to play the strength of their offensive group and strive to score as soon as possible to equalize or even surpass the score.
*****
Rijkaard's adjustments were within Li Ang's expectations. Because if he still did not do anything after seeing Diego Milito's offensive role and Modric's central role in this goal, then Rijkaard would not be the most popular representative of the young coaches in today's football world.
That's right, the forty-three-year-old Rijkaard was considered the representative of the young coaches in European football. Another representative of the "young coaches" was Mourinho, who led Porto to the UEFA Europa League last year. After seeing Cruyff's success, Barcelona used the Netherlands as a spiritual guide. From Cruyff of the Dream One team, to Van Gaal, to Rijkaard, the Dutch blood had been relaying in Barcelona. During this period, Koeman, Overmars, the De Boer brothers, Kluivert, Cocu, Rezig, and Zenden. Camp Nou always had the presence of the Dutch. Rijkaard led Barcelona to show the vitality of the return of the Barcelona dynasty this season, which was wildly praised by the media.
Compared to Rijkaard, Li Ang, who was not yet thirty years old, was called the "young coach" and also belonged to the category of the "young coaches." Li Ang and Rijkaard, two people, one led a super dark horse, and the other led Barcelona, which had been in decline for many years, to restore glory. Before this, they had been leading the La Liga standings. As Sporting de Gijón's results got better and better, these two people echoed each other. The match between the two of them was considered the biggest highlight of this season's La Liga. However, because Rijkaard came from a famous family and Li Ang came from a grassroots background, the media was generally optimistic about Rijkaard. Not only were they optimistic about Rijkaard's present, but they were also optimistic about the Dutchman's future prospects …
Li Ang was very interested in the media's comparison. He knew the trajectory of history in the future and knew about Rijkaard's success at Barcelona. The Dutchman, who came from the Milan dynasty as a player and built the Barcelona dynasty's second dream team as a coach, was the best coach of this era. To be able to be compared and compete with Rijkaard as the "Twin Stars" also showed the media and the football world's recognition of Li Ang.
However, while most of the media were optimistic about Rijkaard, the proud Li Ang was in high fighting spirit. His chest was burning with the fire of war. La Liga's legendary duo was obviously not as impressive and proud as a dominant team.
Li Ang had a clear idea of how to compete with or even defeat Rijkaard's Barcelona!
*****
During Rijkaard's time, Barça paid attention to the control of the ball and emphasized large-scale movements in offense, as well as deep penetration. This was especially true for Ronaldinho, who attracted the defense in front of the penalty area, or kicked the wall for a two-over-one, or Giuly, who passed diagonally to the other side. This kind of offense was common in the games at that time. Decaux could be said to be good at both offense and defense. He was basically the player who attacked and was attacked the most in every game. To a certain extent, he made up for the strength of the defense.
However, Rijkaard did not solve two problems well. One was to break the dense defense, and the other was to defend against the opponent's counterattack. Breaking the dense defense was a worldwide problem, especially when Barça followed the original trajectory of history. At that time, after Barça won two championships, the La Liga teams took the initiative to retreat when facing Barça. They retreated from both sides to form a partial advantage in terms of numbers, causing the density of the half of the field to be too high. Once a strong beast waist was set up in the midfield, Barça had to pass back and forth more often. They were unable to pass deep and had no way to break the goal. At that time, Barça's passing back and forth could not effectively consume the opponent's strength because Barça's passing back and forth was mostly stationary.
Therefore, if Barça could not take the lead to break the goal at that time, it would lead to an impatient mentality. The more impatient they were, the less they could solve the problem. If they broke the goal, everything would be easy to handle, and there would often be a big score.
In the face of the problem of breaking the dense defense, Rijkaard had always pursued a tall center forward. From Maxi Lopez to Gudjohnsen later, Rijkaard's choice showed that he was helpless in breaking the dense defense. He had to pin his hopes on a tall center forward.
Another problem that Rijkaard did not solve during his tenure was defense. In terms of individual ability, Barça's defense could be said to be top-notch at that time, with Puyol, Belletti, and van Bronk. However, Barça's defense did not form a unity, especially in terms of air defense and quick counterattacks. The so-called lack of unity referred to the fact that after the players in the front field lost the ball, although they were aggressive in pressing for it, they could always find a passing point for the opponent. The opponent did not tangle in the midfield, but passed the ball to the front field in a few passes to find the center forward. The center forward would either pass the ball to the fast forward or directly attack from behind.
In the process of Sporting de Gijón's goal, Li Ang's tactics perfectly restrained Barcelona. He directly attacked from behind to tear apart Barcelona's defense. That was the reason.
*****
In the media area, Victor, a famous reporter and critic for French newspaper L 'Equipe, was tapping away on his laptop keyboard. He did an in-depth analysis of Sporting de Gijón's flash goal. The final conclusion was that Li Ang was better than Rijkaard and almost perfectly restrained Barcelona's tactics. The reason was basically similar to the previous paragraph: Rijkaard's Barcelona's defense did not form a unity. Li Ang's Sporting de Gijón's tactic of bypassing the midfield and penetrating the hinterland was simple, effective, and direct!
Victor, who was rather excited, finished writing the real-time analysis. After checking it again, he directly sent it out by email. About ten minutes later, the report and commentary appeared on L 'Equipe's official website, attracting the attention of everyone.
At this time, the game had already gone on for more than twenty minutes. After losing the ball, Barcelona did not immediately launch an attack. Instead, they stabilized for a few minutes to prevent Sporting de Gijón from taking the opportunity to attack. After seeing Sporting de Gijón's defensive line obediently shrink and have no intention of pressing forward, they began to launch wave after wave of attacks on Sporting de Gijón's defensive line!
However, the thunder was loud but the rain was small.
Barcelona faced Sporting de Gijón's intensive defense and were unable to break the goal.
PS: Everyone, have a good weekend. Weakly asking for support.
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