super storm

Chapter 160 Fight to the death

In the morning, in the Berg Park in the northern suburbs of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Yang Yang started his daily routine morning exercises.

For more than ten days in a row, he fought hard against Porto's left back Nuno Valente and the steely defense line of the Portuguese Super League team in the super training ground, but the final results were not satisfactory.

Jose Mourinho has built a team with excellent defensive strength, and the tactical execution of this group of Porto players is quite high. They always execute Mourinho's tactical instructions meticulously, making this team's defense It can be said to be indestructible, especially in the Champions League knockout round.

Sometimes, confidence is played out game after game like this.

The two teams that reached the Champions League final this season did not perform well in the group stage. Ajax advanced in a thrilling way, and Porto also suffered a painful lesson of losing 2-[-] to Real Madrid at home. In the end, they both qualified as No.[-] in the group.

In the round of [-] knockout rounds, both teams encountered Premier League teams. Ajax eliminated Arsenal, and Porto was no less impressive, killing Ferguson's Manchester United. These two games shocked the entire European football world.

In the knockout round of the quarterfinals, Ajax had even worse luck. They met Real Madrid and Porto met Lyon. The former completed an epic reversal, while the latter advanced without any risk.

But the situation in the semi-finals was the opposite. Ajax beat Monaco without any risk, but Porto narrowly eliminated Deportivo in the away game. Both teams advanced to the final together.

Goalkeeper Baia, defense Valente, Carvalho, Jorge Costa and Paulo Ferreira, this can be said to be the most unbreakable defense in European football this season, and it is also the best defense in the Champions League.

But relying on one line of defense is obviously not enough. Mourinho deployed a three-back midfielder in the midfield, Maniche, Costinha and Mendes. These three midfielders built an unbreakable midfield defense line for Porto in front of the defense line.

The core of Porto's midfield is Deco, a Brazilian, but he is not a typical Brazilian player. His style of play is not flashy at all, but very practical, and his strength is quite good. It is reported that Barcelona, ​​Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Chelsea and many other teams are poaching him.

As if in the same line, Porto's striker line is not strictly speaking sharp, but it is very mobile. The two forwards are like rangers in the frontcourt. They keep sweeping and pressing the opponent's defense line.

The front, middle and back lines are integrated, and Porto is like a curled up hedgehog, which makes people have nowhere to start.

What's more terrible is that when you can't attack and you accidentally leak a hole, it will suddenly stab you all over the body.

Even Ajax coach Ronald Koeman has to admit that this is a team with no obvious weaknesses.

In the face of such a team, generally speaking, there is only one way, which is to die.

Just like Ajax slamming Arsenal, they can only slam Porto. In a defensive position that has no loopholes, they forcibly dig holes, but at the same time they have to beware of the opponent's counterattack to avoid conceding goals.

Against a team like Porto, if you concede a goal first, you've already lost most of the game.

……

Yang Yang bounced the ball, ran and thought all the way.

These are what the coaching staff called the players for a meeting as soon as the team arrived at the hotel in Gelsenkirchen yesterday, and assistant coach Luther Carroll instilled in the players.

In the past ten days, Ajax players have repeatedly studied Porto and the players who are playing against them. It is no exaggeration to say that Ajax's preparations are unprecedentedly detailed, but they still failed to pick out Porto's obvious weakness.

Gelsenkirchen is located in the west of Germany, very close to the Netherlands, but Ajax still flew from Amsterdam to Germany two days in advance, and borrowed Schalke [-]'s training ground, which shows that the club attaches great importance to it.

And Yang Yang simulated Porto's defense line in the super training ground, and he always wins less and loses more.

Thinking of this, Yang Yang felt sullen and gave a soft cry. After kicking the ball with his big foot, he sprinted forward as fast as he could. After catching up with the ball, he kicked it out and chased at full speed.

Yang Yang didn't stop until he was out of breath from exhaustion.

In the past half a month, he has done three things in the super training ground, simulating Porto's defense for pair training, continuing to polish the two star skills of [Ronaldo's assault] and [Beckham's cross], and training [Bergkamp's stop].

It still needs to be verified by the game, but he knows very well that this battle in Porto will be the most difficult but also the most important game since his debut.

He thought the same as everyone else in the team. He managed to reach the final of the Champions League. He has already won the Eredivisie and the Dutch Cup. He is only one Champions League away from the legend. No one is willing to give up lightly.

Everyone on the team has already embraced the determination to fight to the end, just waiting for the game to come.

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The venue for the Champions League final is proudly going to Schalke in the northern suburbs of Gelsenkirchen, while the hotel Schlossberg where Ajax stayed is at the further north end of the stadium, located in Berg Park.

There are three lakes around the hotel in a zigzag shape. The largest is Lake Berg, surrounded by sports centers and tennis clubs. The hotel is next door to the famous beer garden, but now the entire hotel is taken over by Ajax.

Since the hotel is not big, it can only accommodate the first team and the coaching staff. Therefore, the relatives of the players can only live in the urban area. The club has also made special arrangements for this, so that the players can concentrate on preparing and competing.

When Yang Yang returned to the hotel from the park outside, he ran into Luther Carroll.

As soon as the assistant coach saw Yang Yang, he immediately guessed that he must be out for morning exercise again.

"Fortunately, this is a suburb, and there are no Porto fans, otherwise you won't be able to come back." Luther Carroll joked.

Yang Yang smiled, "If there are really Porto fans, then I won't go out."

The assistant coach laughed, and immediately asked Yang Yang to go back to shower and change clothes, "After breakfast, we have a meeting."

Yang Yang didn't dare to be careless, and returned to the room, just in time to see Sneijder getting up, he said hello and went directly to take a shower.

Ajax's management is still very strict. For example, meals must be at the same time, anyone who is late will be punished, and there will be another meeting after breakfast. It can be seen that the coaching staff must have figured out something last night.

The first meeting after the team arrived yesterday was mainly to analyze the opponents in combination with the video. The video included the highlights of all Porto's UEFA Champions League games this season. Each clip was carefully selected by the coaching staff and believed to be the most representative of Porto.

Today's meeting is mainly about arranging game strategies.

There is also a training session in the afternoon. The coaching staff will arrange the targeted training in the afternoon according to the game strategy arranged in the tactical meeting in the morning. Therefore, this morning will be very important.

So far this season, the opponents have basically run out of cards that can be played, and neither of them has any secrets to speak of. The most important thing is to see how the two sides play their cards and how to deal with them.

Ronald Koeman believes that Porto must still play a defensive counterattack in this game. This is an opportunity for Ajax, but it is also a challenge. If they can take the opportunity to grab the goal first, then Porto will have to press out. At that time, Ajax will be able to deal with Porto with a defensive counterattack.

For Ajax, this is definitely the most ideal process.

The worst result is that Ajax can't attack for a long time and makes a serious mistake. Porto seizes the opportunity to counterattack and score. At this time, Porto's defensive counterattack will be more resolute, and Ajax's situation will be even more embarrassing.

Of course, there is another possibility that both sides are conservative, neither will take risks, nor give the opponent a chance, so it depends on the on-the-spot performance of the players on both sides.

As the saying goes, there is no good game in a big game. Last year's Champions League final was a confrontation between two Serie A teams. As a result, the two sides scored 120-[-] in [-] minutes. On the one hand, it can be said that both sides have strong targeted tactics and the players have high tactical execution ability.

Mourinho's Porto will definitely do this. This team's midfield defense is better than Ajax, but its offensive ability is weaker than Ajax. Mourinho will definitely put himself in the position of not making mistakes or conceding goals, and even dragging the game into overtime and penalty shootouts.

Ajax's biggest problem is that the players are too young. Both Ronald Koeman and Van Gaal are very worried that the players will be too reckless in the game and make active mistakes, giving the opponent an opportunity. This is quite terrible.

Therefore, in the pre-match meeting, the coaching staff repeatedly emphasized the point that the mentality must be stable.

"In the game, any kind of situation may appear. We may score first, but this is not enough to make us happy; we may also concede first, but we don't need to be discouraged, because we have not fallen behind before, but we have equalized and reversed again and again. We have such strength."

At the end of the meeting, Ronald Koeman still repeatedly reminded the players to maintain a stable mentality.

"I have experienced three Champions League finals in my career. The first one was in Eindhoven. At that time, we faced Benfica in the Portuguese Super League. The result was a zero-to-nil match between the two sides. In the final penalty shootout, we were slightly better. That time we relied on our unbreakable defense and tenacious will."

"The second time we entered the Champions League final was in Barcelona. We faced Sampdoria in Serie A. The game was very difficult. At that time, the Seven Sisters of Serie A were at their peak. You can imagine how solid their defense is. In the game, both of us got excellent opportunities, but we didn't grasp them. In the end, we scored the winning goal in overtime."

"The last time is the one that everyone is familiar with. In the final, we met Capello's AC Milan. In the end, we lost [-]-[-]. The main reason for that game was that our mentality was out of balance, so we lost completely."

Ronald Koeman used his personal experience to remind every player in the conference room.

(End of this chapter)