On February 7th, Nottingham Forest resumed their journey in the First Division. After more than ten days of rest, they beat Coventry City 1: 0 at home. Although the pause of more than ten days gave Tang En time to adjust the team's tactics and prepare again, it also disrupted Forest's rhythm. They played the game very hard on their own home ground. In the end, they relied on a goal that was suspected to be offside to defeat their opponent. After the game, the Coventry City manager chattered about the penalty, believing that his team should have been the winner. Tang En, who had taken advantage of the situation, insisted that the referee was right and did not want to talk about the goal.
To Tang En and Forest, it did not matter if the goal was offside or not. The Coventry City manager should be the one to argue about it, not him. He only needed to know that his team had obtained another precious three points.
Victory was the most important. The process was only a part of the road to victory. No matter what method was used, it was enough as long as they reached the end.
A week later, Nottingham Forest's winning streak finally came to a halt. In the 31st round of the league tournament, they were forced to a 1: 1 draw by Walsall at home. Because they had one game less, they were still in 14th place. A draw did not affect them too much. After all, they did not lose.
From this, it could be seen that Tang En's insistence of "Don't lose even if you can't win" was correct.
On February 17th, in the 24th round of the make-up match, Nottingham Forest challenged Gillingham Forest in an away game. From the looks of it, Forest was still at a disadvantage. The problem of the unstable performance of the young players was fully exposed. They could win in a row or not win in a row. The final score was 0: 0. Tang En relied on defensive tactics to obtain a point in an away game. They still did not lose. This was the result that he was most gratified with.
He was beginning to understand the pressure of being a manager more and more … Every time he saw the other team bombarding his own goal, his heart would be in his throat, and every shot that missed the goal would make his heart stop. It was not a good feeling at all.
The EFL Cup final was on February 29th. Before that, Nottingham Forest had three matches a day: the 14th, the 17th, and the 21st of the league tournament. This was a point that Tang En was rather critical of when he was interviewed. He complained that the league committee did not know how to be flexible. They still arranged such intensive matches before such an important game, leaving his team no time to rest.
In fact, there was nothing wrong with the league committee's arrangement, because one of the three games was a make-up game, and they also postponed the 33rd round of the league tournament between the Forest team and Bradford team. If it went on as usual, the kickoff time for that game would be February 28th …
On February 21st, in the 32nd round of the league tournament, Nottingham Forest continued their away tour. This time their opponent was Rotherham, and the final score was 1: 1. It was another draw. The Forest team welcomed a draw after a winning streak and finally did not lose in a row.
Tang En breathed a sigh of relief. He had to fully prepare for the EFL Cup final against Middlesbrough again. There were still eight days until the finals, and the media reports had gradually increased.
Because the Forest team was a First Division team and was returning to the finals after 12 years, they received more attention. Looking at the media reporters loitering outside the training ground all day, even Tang En felt a little nervous. But this nervousness could not be shown in front of outsiders, because he was the boss of these people. The boss could not be nervous, could not hesitate, and could not let them down.
※ ※ ※
Des Walker gave the new training plan to Tang En. Today was February 23rd, and they still had six days to carry out targeted training. Before the day's training session, the coaching staff had to get together to discuss the schedule.
Tang En looked at it and deleted all the training related to offense, except for the "offensive set-piece practice." Then he passed it to everyone present.
Walker and the coaches looked at this "new plan" and looked at each other.
Seeing their puzzled expressions, Tang En smiled. "It's very simple. In the match against Middlesbrough, we won't go head-to-head with them. We'll defend and let them attack. Not only that, but there's also another training plan in this plan — increase the number of penalty practice times, and add an additional 20 minutes of penalty practice at the end of every day's training. "
"Tony, you want to bet on penalty kicks?" Walker asked.
Tang En nodded. "Yes. From tomorrow onwards, the training time for the team's media and fans will be reduced to half an hour. This week, we've been practicing our defense non-stop. Middlesbrough and Bolton Wanderers, who we injured in the semifinals, seem to be similar, relying on loans or buying past their prime to support the team. But their attacking ability is stronger. If we press out and play like we did against Bolton Wanderers, McClaren (Middlesbrough's manager) will be very happy. Have any of you paid attention to the media reports from Middlesbrough? "
Everyone shook their heads. Clearly, not many people would care about those things. But Tang En cared. "I've been collecting all sorts of news from there recently. Although we can't go directly to their team's training ground to understand it. But I can tell from these media reports that the Middlesbrough team as a whole has an optimistic attitude. I think the Middlesbrough people will be very happy to know that their opponent in the finals is a team ranked in the middle of the Division Two League. "
The coaches understood what Tang En meant. Middlesbrough felt that they had a higher chance of winning against a Division One team.
"If they think that, then they're very wrong!" Tang En said with a smirk. "When they're full of hope and intend to end the battle by attacking, we'll make them hit a wall!" He punched his fist hard into his left palm.
※ ※ ※
After the regular meeting with the coaches, the entire coaching unit began to "build the wall" according to Tang En's request. Even Eastwood, who usually did not need to participate in defense, was specially instructed by Walker during training this time: if he lost the ball, he had to counterattack on the spot. If he failed to counterattack on the spot, he had to immediately turn around and chase, or pass the target to the defending midfielders and run back to take over the midfield position himself.
This was not just a request for Eastwood alone. All the offensive players had to follow this request. If someone only extended their leg symbolically after losing the ball and spread their hands after being passed, they would immediately hear a piercing whistle and Walker's reprimand.
Especially the side midfielders, they were almost used as a second full back. When attacking, they pressed to the opponent's baseline. When defending, they retreated to their own baseline.
In addition, Tang En was determined not to practice the offside tactic. For Nottingham Forest, who had to face the extremely fast Middlesbrough side, creating an offside position was tantamount to suicide.
The key to defense was to compress the opponent's ball control and passing space and time. Creating an offside position was not an ideal choice. The Forest team's three lines had to maintain a tight distance in the game, so it was not surprising for the strikers to return to the center circle to defend.
For the current world of football, asking a team to defend like this was equivalent to passively playing the game, which was very annoying. But Tang En knew in his heart that after this summer, the whole world would realize the benefits of such a compressed defense. Why? Because the Greek team had won the championship. In the World Cup in Germany two years later, it was the Italian team that had the better defense that had the last laugh. Those teams that refused to compress their defense and instead played offensive football that was respectable and popular, but in the end, they all died miserably.
The players did not understand why Tang En would tell them in between training that doing so was the only way to win the championship trophy. Those who wanted the championship and glory should do so. Those who didn't want it … Were they still professional players? Were they still men?
Des Walker had fully experienced the true meaning of Tang En's set of "there are no immutable tactics. As long as we can win, I don't care if it's defensive counterattack or offensive football." In order to advance to the finals, he could decisively abandon the plan of conceding fewer goals and the idea of defense in the situation of conceding a goal first. He could go head-to-head with Bolton Wanderers in both home and away games and fight to score a goal. In the end, he relied on a precious away goal to get a ticket to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
But once he entered a finals where the outcome was determined, he would throw the concept of "offense" out the window and focus on defense with all his might. He would rather drag the match to a 50-50 penalty shootout than fight to the death with his opponent within 90 minutes. Because that was "more risky" for him.
Tang En once said to Walker, "Des, you know I'm very obsessed with China's culture, their food, their traditional customs, their history … even their art of war. Do you know 'The Art of War'? "
Seeing Walker shake his head, Tang En expressed his understanding and then explained, "It's a very famous book in China on the art of war. It talks specifically about how to fight a war. Gathering the wisdom of more than 3,000 years, it's no longer just a book on the art of war. I think it can also be used in football. After all, football is war. There's a saying in it that goes like this: 'Water flows because of the land, and soldiers win because of the enemy. Thus, soldiers have no fixed momentum, and water has no fixed shape. '"
Walker was puzzled by Tang En's sudden use of Chinese. Tang En smiled and explained, "In translation, it means that 'water will change its flow because of the terrain. When using troops, we should decide on the strategy to win based on different enemies. Therefore, when using troops to fight a war, there is no fixed and singular situation. The flow of water will also not have a fixed shape. ' War is the same as a football match. I always avoid being seen through by our opponents. Whether it's defense or offense, it depends on what kind of opponent we're facing, what kind of match, what kind of situation … I know that this might be a little high for the team now. But … "
He pointed to the players training on the field and said proudly, "We train them. When we need them to do it, they'll be able to do it."
(To be continued. If you want to know what happened next, please log on to WWW. CMFU. com. More chapters. Support the author. Support original reading!)
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