World's No.1 Football Manager

Chapter 149 Fighting Evergrande

Gao Yuan was promoted to be an assistant coach. He was mainly in charge of intelligence collection and data analysis, but his status had changed significantly. The former master, Lao Lin, had now become his subordinate. With people working under him, Gao Yuan's work became more handy.

As the core of the coaching staff, Gao Yuan also has the opportunity to get more deeply involved in daily training and pre-match tactical preparations.By the side of Fabio and others, Gao Yuan has more opportunities to observe, learn and ask for advice in detail, his vision has been further broadened, and the values ​​​​of various abilities have also been rapidly improved.

A week later, the national players at all levels finished their training one after another and returned to the team. The Taishan team finally assembled the strongest lineup, with strong troops and strong horses, waiting for the game.

The first game of this stage is to face the domestic football overlord-Yangcheng Evergrande at home.

Yangcheng Evergrande is the well-deserved overlord of the Chinese Super League. Since being promoted to the Chinese Super League in 2011, it has won 8 Chinese Super League championships, 4 Super Cup championships, and two AFC Champions in 2012 and 2016.There are so many strong players in the team, almost all domestic players have the experience of national brands, foreign players are even more big-name, only unexpected, there is nothing impossible to buy, with sky-high prices after sums of money, constantly breaking the record of Chinese football transfer fees.

In the past two years, with the aging of the players in the team and the departure of famous coaches such as Lippi and Scolari, the dominance of the Evergrande team has declined.But it is still the sufferer of the Taishan team. In the confrontation records of more than ten years, the Taishan team has more losses than draws, and it is difficult to win a victory for many years in a row.Following the previous "Korea Fear", in recent years, he has suffered from "Hangtophobia".

As a die-hard fan of the Taishan team, Gao Yuan naturally hopes that the team can break the fate of losing streak against Evergrande.Therefore, in addition to carefully collecting and sorting out the intelligence of the opponent, he also put forward his own strategy for defeating the enemy in the report.

Gao Yuan believes that the state of the Evergrande team has not been good recently. Many of the main players in the team are absent, and only Talisca and Paulinho can play as foreign aid. Although the coach Cannavaro is a former World Player of the Year and plays first-class football, he is not a successful coach. He has obvious shortcomings in on-the-spot command.

Gao Yuan suggested that in view of the above situation of the opponent, the Taishan team should make a surprise victory. In terms of lineup selection, they should focus on players with strong attacking power, play offensive football, and win the Evergrande team at home with the momentum of "swallowing thousands of miles like a tiger".

But his proposal was opposed by other members of the coaching staff.

Hao Wei has served as an assistant coach of the Evergrande team for a period of time and knows the strength of the Evergrande team very well.

He took the lead in objecting: "Even though the strength of the Evergrande team has declined now, the lean camels are bigger than the horses. I think their strength is still higher than ours. Especially Talisca and Paulinho, two super foreign players. One-on-one can't defend at all, and they must be defended as a whole, so I think we should still focus on defensive counterattacks."

Fabio also disagreed with Gao Yuan's opinion: "This series of matches is very important, and the first game at the beginning is even more important, so it must be treated with caution. Be safe, draw a strong opponent at home, and get 1 point is acceptable strategically."

Pep also agrees with both of them.

Other members of the coaching staff objected, and Gao Yuan could only pin his hopes on the coach Li Xiaopeng, after all, he is the final decision maker and speaker.

Li Xiaopeng pondered for a while, and finally rejected Gao Yuan's proposal in the name of the minority obeying the majority.

Gao Yuan was very disappointed. He had thought carefully and carefully prepared for this game, and repeatedly deduced it based on the data in the system. He firmly believed that he was right.But his own words are light and cannot change the final decision of the coaching staff.

Gao Yuan was not surprised by the statements of Fabio, Hao Wei and others. Although they had rich experience, it was precisely this kind of conventional experience that shackled their thinking.Assistant coaches are assistant coaches after all. Among their coaching attributes, the training attributes are high, but the values ​​of courage and determination are generally low.This also limits their career development. It is more than enough to be an assistant coach, but it is difficult to be a coach to lead one side.

What really disappointed Gao Yuan was Li Xiaopeng's attitude.Li Xiaopeng has been his idol since he played football back then, and he has been a die-hard fan of Li Xiaopeng for so many years.According to Gao Yuan's observation, Li Xiaopeng's coaching attributes are second to none among domestic coaches, even among coaches of this age group in the world.But the shortcomings of domestic coaches are too obvious after all. According to the "barrel theory", it is the shortest board that determines how much water a barrel can hold.

The lack of decision-making ability ultimately determines that Li Xiaopeng cannot become a world-class coach.

Gao Yuan couldn't help thinking of what Li Xiaopeng said that night in the library, "These are my shortcomings, and they are also the common faults of our generation of domestic coaches. The outside world says I am a young coach, but now I am 45 or 6. It is not so easy to learn new things. If Chinese football wants to really change, the hope is not on us, but on you young people."

Maybe when the time is right, I should go out early, be on my own, and see the bigger world!
After the start of the game, as Gao Yuan expected, the Evergrande team only had two foreign aids, Talisca and Paulinho, but after seeing that the Taishan team did not dare to attack rashly, they turned their backs and began to exert pressure frequently, constantly attacking the Taishan team's defense.

The Taishan team focuses on stability, and most of the starting players they send are old players who are good at defense and lack offensive vigor.Guedes, who is good at kicking the ball and breaking through, did not play. The tall Pellet, without the support of his teammates, was like a kite with a broken string, floating in the opponent's penalty area, isolated and unable to pose any threat.

Seeing that the Taishan team was only beaten and did not fight back, the Evergrande team became more confident and bold to attack.All kinds of short-pass coordination, long-pass transfer, personal breakthrough, and long-range firing are handy.In particular, the two foreign aids were in great shape, frequently relying on their personal abilities to create damage, and the sudden Taishan team's defense was turned on their backs.

In the 26 minutes of the game, Talisca was brought down by Fellaini and won a free kick in the frontcourt. Talisca took the penalty himself. Although it was 36 meters away from the goal, Talisca's free kick was extremely fast, powerful, and extremely strong.

Evergrande won the corner kick, and when the home fans were still worried about the free kick just now, Talisca stood up again, using his own height of 1 meters, broke through the encirclement, nodded the ball in front of the net, and headed the ball into the net.
0:1, the Evergrande team leads.

Since then, the Taishan team has stepped up its offensive, and the scene has improved slightly.The two wingers strengthened the bottom pass, which made Pellet in the penalty area useful.

However, the Taishan team's offense is not very good. Due to the absence of offensively talented players, tactically they can only rely on the simple routine of crossing from the wing to organize the offense.

Li Xiaopeng looked stern, pacing back and forth in the coaching area, as if he was engaged in a fierce ideological struggle, thinking about whether to change formation in the second half.

But his troubles did not last to the midfield. Towards the end of the first half, the Taishan team ushered in a free kick from the side. The tall Pellet finally grabbed the first point and broke through the goalkeeper of the Evergrande team.

This goal was a bit of a fluke, and it relied entirely on Pellet's personal ability.But if this is the case, it also dispelled the concerns of the coaching staff of the Taishan team. They did not adjust during the halftime break and continued with the previous formation and style of play.

The hesitation of the coaching staff also caused the Taishan team to miss the last chance to win the game.

(End of this chapter)