Chapter 101 Strange Formation

Chapter 101 Strange Formation

After the start of the game, Rijkaard has been standing on the sidelines and did not return to the coach's bench. Even after five minutes passed, he did not move, just watched so intently, which is rare in Barcelona's previous games.

"Frank! What are you looking at?" Assistant coach Vilanova came over.

Rijkaard still stared at the field intently: "Fiorentina's formation!"

Fiorentina's formation?

Vilanova is a little strange, I don't know what's so interesting about it, haven't they discussed it countless times before the game started?

In fact, before the end of the group stage, Barcelona had already regarded Fiorentina as the number one enemy, and their research on Fiorentina had never stopped.

But hasn't Florence's tactics already been discussed?

The four defenders are positioned in echelons and the three midfielders are configured. Like Barcelona, ​​they emphasize the speed of attack and are used to short passes. However, compared with Barcelona's orthodox KK, this tactic is at best a counterfeit.

Barcelona has a lot of experience in dealing with teams with this style of play. Why do you think Rijkaard's expression is so dignified?

Vilanova did not bother Rijkaard, he knows this partner very well, Rijkaard is a very smart person, anyone who knows him well knows that when he was a player, he was well versed in Dutch Total Football The concept, especially under the influence of the founder of this concept Michels for a long time, has a very deep understanding of the concept of Total Attack and Total Defense.

He is in the middle and backcourt on the court, and his ability to read the game is much better than the other two members of the Three Musketeers. When he was in Milan, someone once said that Rijkaard on the court is equivalent to half of the team. a coach.

After retiring from Ajax, he immediately became the assistant coach of the Dutch team Guus Hiddink. In 1998, he won the fourth place in the World Cup in France. When he led the Dutch national team in the European Cup in 2000, he fully implanted his insights into the team. The Dutch team reached the semi-finals with unstoppable momentum. They swept the former Yugoslavia 6:1 in the previous game. The championship is close at hand.

But maybe in order to test this young coach, God made a joke with the Dutch team in the semi-finals with Italy. In the end, the Netherlands was defeated by the Italian defense and stopped the semi-finals. Rijkaard also left the position of coach angrily. During the coaching period, he led the Dutch team in 22 games, with a record of 8 wins, 12 draws and 2 losses.

In the 2001/2002 season, he served as the coach of Rotterdam in the Eredivisie League. Because he led the team to only 34 matches, 4 wins, 12 draws and 18 losses, they only ranked second to last with 24 points. They were relegated tragically and resigned after the season.

Although he did not have a brilliant record in coaching, he was still favored by Barcelona club owner Laporta. On June 24, 2003, he officially replaced Antić as the head coach of Barcelona.

After coming to Barcelona, ​​Black Swan continued to stick to his philosophy. He encountered a lot of trouble at the beginning. The team's record was not good, and he was under great pressure.

In the 2004/2005 season, after the introduction of many urgently needed players, Rijkaard's Catalan army began to show its power. Although the Blues lost in the Champions League quarter-finals, the Blues bid farewell to the European arena prematurely, but Barcelona finally won. Won the league championship trophy that season.

In the 2005/2006 season, Barcelona continued to advance and won the league championship trophy again. For a while, Barcelona's advantage in the league could not be shaken.

But last season, due to internal turmoil in the team, Barcelona lost the league championship. This season, Barcelona's record in the league is also not good, and Rijkaard is also facing great pressure.

The huge pressure also made Rijkaard less and less courageous. In order to ensure the stability of the locker room, he kept compromising with many stars. In order not to affect the overall direction of the team, he learned to remain unchanged.

Rijkaard has been in Barcelona for nearly five years. In the first three seasons, Rijkaard did a great job and successfully injected his football philosophy into the nerves of Barcelona. When people talk about Barcelona, It is always said that Barcelona have a fast and fluid attack.

But as Ronaldinho indulged himself more and more, his state became worse and worse. Today, the speed is gone, and the fluency is gone. The only thing people talk about is the Barcelona stars.

These stars play the role of super killers in Football Manager or Pro Evolution Soccer, and they are nowhere to be found. But on the real stage, they trail leaders Real Madrid by eight points in the league.

There are many reasons for all this. The first is that Barcelona's tactical thinking is not clear, and Rijkaard's dependence on stars.

First of all, there is no doubt that a team must have its own technical and tactical characteristics.

What are technical and tactical characteristics?

First of all, look at the technical style of the players in the team. The head coach needs to know what technical characteristics his players have. For example, in people's impression, the German team is physically strong, strong-willed, and has excellent forward-line header skills. Then the German team's tactical thinking came out. It is as simple as that. The tactics have been tried and tested, and even left the fans with the impression of "Germany's head team".

In other words, if the German team must play ground penetration like Spain, then it is estimated that no coach will intend to sit as the head coach of the national team.

Similarly, Chelsea gave people the impression of a perfect defensive system coupled with a sharp and efficient counterattack, while Valencia is an excellent two-winged wing coupled with a tough central defense.

And where are Barcelona's tactical characteristics reflected?

Some people would say that the characteristic of Barcelona is that the players have excellent skills and often play beautiful wall cooperation.

But this is just a local small routine, not an overall tactical system.

Just like playing live football, the quality of a player is not that he can use the combination keys to play ne-coordination, not that he can play the Marseille maneuver, but that he can use the skills of eleven players on the field characteristics, and formulate overall offensive and defensive tactics.

Looking back at Barcelona's tactical thinking, everyone in Barcelona's frontcourt has excellent skills, but they are limited to personal breakthroughs or small-scale coordinated attacks, but there is no focus of attack.

The focus of attack is not to say that you often have to give the ball to a certain star for him to attack, but the direction of the ball and the movement of the players.

For example, in Barcelona's 4-3-3 attack, the attack of the two wings should be very threatening, so first of all, it should attract the opponent's defense in the middle, and when the wing is free, the ball should be stuffed into the space in time , the most threatening attack is launched by the winger or the assisting full-back.

In this offensive routine, players like Harvey or Deco in the middle are the starting point of the team's offense, and can also be said to be the team's command tower. He controls the direction of the ball, and Messi or Henry on the wing is the offensive player. They are responsible for launching an attack in the most threatening area near the penalty area, or making a pass from the bottom, or cutting in to shoot, and then the full-back who inserts the assist is the protector of the offense. When Messi or Henry is pegged or When there is no chance, their space guarantees the control of the ball. Messi has no chance. After passing the pass to the full-back, the full-back can pass from the bottom, can control the ball and cooperate with Messi, of course it is okay Pass back to Harvey or Deco to restart the attack.

In the past few seasons, Barcelona was indeed playing this kind of football, but Ronaldinho appeared in Henry's position at that time, but what about now? What people see are more personal breakthroughs and improvisation.

An excellent coach can take advantage of the loopholes in the opponent's defense to carry out targeted offensive deployment. For example, the opponent's left back is in poor condition, so there is no doubt that this point should be played more. The team's main attack point is here, so as to carry out targeted A series of arrangements, such as the right back should often assist the right winger, the right center back should make up for the space left by the right back in time, then the left back should reduce the assists so that the team's defense line maintains the relative defense of the three defenders. safe situation. But it goes without saying that Rijkaard's tactics remain unchanged, and even his own team's tactical characteristics have not been brought into play. This should be worthy of reflection.

Of course, there are many reasons for all this, such as the signing policy of the club's board of directors. The introduction of Henry was not linked to Rijkaard's tactical thinking at all. Of course, using Henry for more than a season has not allowed him to play to his due level. As the head coach, Rijkaard should also say that it is difficult. Escape the blame, use it if it's not good enough, don't use it at all, or adapt to Henry, or let him sit on the bench instead of letting Henry, who is not in good form, play frequently. This can only be said that Rijkaard is not tough enough.

Of course, this also involves Rijkaard's dependence on stars. Why is Barcelona's current tactical play not focused, and the team has no main attack direction?

Because everyone on the court is a star, everyone is a wrist, and everyone has to attack the opponent's defense in their own way.

A simple example, after Messi gets the ball, he always dribbles through by himself. Even if the full-backs around him put in the assists, it is basically nothing to pull Messi out. It is said that Messi needs to improve his passing skills. In fact, Messi Xi's passing is not bad. Many of the balls are taken by himself and are double-teamed by two or three defenders of the opponent. There is no way to pass them out.

Either the body is held by the opponent, the technical movements are out of shape and the pass is not in place, or the opponent is double-teamed and basically unable to face the goal, the probability of passing a threatening ball is reduced.

One is an active pass and the other is a passive pass. Which one is more threatening?

Of course, it is good for a team to have stars, but stars also need a unified tactical thinking to play their best. And Rijkaard basically puts everyone in a 4-3-3 formation, puts everyone in their place, and expects Henry to shine today and Messi to clone Maradona tomorrow, at least on the surface This is the case.

You can't expect Super Harvey to be the savior in every game, and you can't expect Messidona to have two flashes of inspiration in every game. In the end, the leader of the team is still the head coach. The understanding is conveyed to the players, the players are just pawns in the tactics, and every pawn cannot be turned into a hero to save the chess players.

The ambiguity of tactical thinking is closely related to Rijkaard's dependence on stars. It is precisely because of Rijkaard's unclear tactical thinking that players have no focus on attack and can only use cooperation in a small area to tear apart the opponent's defense. Rijkaard's personal performance has contributed to Rijkaard's dependence on the star, and his dependence on the star has made Rijkaard question his own tactical thinking. Every change ended in failure, and the result was the star's personal Play to save the team, well, no change, 4-3-3 is fine, it seems to be entering a dead end, an endless loop.

Yes, 4-3-3 is very good, and the star's ability is also good. What Rijkaard has to do is to add some key points on the basis of the current tactics, and add some detailed deployment to bring out the characteristics of the team.

Regardless of whether it is flying on both wings or pressing in the frontcourt, the characteristics of Barcelona cannot disappear. Even if they cannot win the championship in the end, they cannot let the players play for a season and cannot sum up the strongest tactical routine of the team.

The team needs a trump card. The trump card should not be the individual ability of a certain player, but the collective wisdom of the entire team. Behind a person's eye-catching performance should be a group of people who pave the way for him, instead of letting him alone from beginning to end. Take the lead.

In addition to these problems, Barcelona also has a problem of too concentrated scoring. Eto'o is not the core of Barcelona, ​​but the distribution of Barcelona's goals this season has always given people such a feeling.

The current Barcelona feels like a personal Barcelona-Eto'o's Barcelona.

Barcelona has always been a team that relies on the overall offense to win, but now it can only rely on Eto'o for scoring. Coach Frank Rijkaard is to blame for tactical adjustments.

When Eto'o was injured before the winter break, Rijkaard did not make any personnel adjustments to the team's overall mix, except to simply let the Icelander top Eto'o's center position.

If Eto'o and the Icelanders have the same style, such an operation is acceptable, but in fact the two have very different styles, one depends on technique and speed, and the other depends on height and header.

After a period of experimentation and found that the Icelanders could not get shell support, Rijkaard strengthened the assists on the wing, and the effect was significantly improved.

Now the Icelander is also injured, and Rijkaard simply puts Eto'o, who has returned from injury, in the center position and returns to the previous tactics. Harvey injured Iniesta on top, and Puyol lost his father. Replaced with Thuram, Thuram yellow card, Oleg replaced, the Spanish media sarcastically said: such a simple addition and subtraction, I am afraid Rijkaard should not do.

The goal is too concentrated, which is a microcosm of Barcelona this season. Barcelona lacks a second person who can take on the task of completing the last shot.

In this game, Eto'o still played with an injury. Originally, Rijkaard planned very well, that is, to use the gap between the Fiorentina central defender and the defensive midfielder to destroy Fiorentina through the attacks of Messi, Henry and Eto'o in turn. Defensive system, open the gap, and strive for goals.

But judging from the past few minutes of the game, Fiorentina seems to be completely different from what he imagined. There seems to be no clear division of labor between the midfield and the backcourt. Modric, who has excellent offensive ability, even retreated to the penalty area when defending. Inside, behind the central defender.

What kind of play is this?

Rijkaard frowned, not knowing why!

Not only Rijkaard didn't understand, but the commentators sitting in the studio were also very surprised. Modric retreated into the penalty area to make up for it, Ledesma was fighting for a header with Eto'o, but Marchena After crossing the half court, Harvey was closely guarded. Even Digan and Mutu frequently went to the side to participate in the defense.

Is Fiorentina planning to admit defeat in this game and plan to fight for a draw at Barcelona's home court?

Unlike Rijkaard, Prandelli sat firmly on the coach's bench from the beginning of the game, crossed his legs, and watched the development of the game leisurely.

Gradually, Rijkaard also discovered some problems. Fiorentina's midfielders frequently switched positions, which made Fiorentina's defense very tight. Although Barcelona's small-scale cooperation in Fiorentina's half was very smooth, they just couldn't pass in. , and couldn't find the space to complete the fatal pass.

Coupled with the core midfielder Harvey being entangled by Marchena, and Hamsik interfering from time to time, he wants to step forward to participate in the attack, the route of connecting the ball, and the route of passing the ball are all different. was cut off.

Moreover, Fiorentina is not blindly defending. After grabbing the ball, they counterattacked very resolutely, often reaching Barcelona's dangerous area with a long pass from the backcourt.

In front of Fiorentina, there is a powerful center like Digan. Whether it is Puyol or Edmilson, if he wants to compete with Digan for a header, it is simply humiliating himself. Maybe if Thuram is not injured, I can still fight.

Fiorentina's offense does not go through the middle at all. In this way, the triangle formation that Barcelona is proud of has no meaning at all.

Ten minutes into the game, Barcelona didn't even have a shot, but Fiorentina made a murderous move in the eighth minute, or kicked the ball from the backcourt. Degan's header was diverted to Antonini, who made a cross. After point shovel shot, was blocked by Valdez out of the bottom line.

The defensive pressure is not too great. The biggest problem for Barcelona now is how to break Fiorentina's defense. In the end, the winner of the game still depends on the goal, but now Fiorentina doesn't even have a shot.

Messi!

Rijkaard involuntarily thought of relying on the personal performance of the stars.

"Messi dribbled the ball and was intercepted by the opponent's Thiago Silva. Fiorentina's counterattack!"