Chapter 96: Chapter 95: Some People are Born Masters (Second update, please subscribe)
"Ajax’s midfield is unsolvable!"
This was the final conclusion given by the technical team at Sporting Lisbon.
Keep in mind, this is the first-team technical staff of a club, coming to a conclusion about an Under-15 squad’s midfield.
It’s preposterous.
After the tactics class, Deng Kai stayed in the classroom, not leaving.
"Kai, is there something else? We have a discussion about the first team coming up, where we’re going to see if Quaresma is capable of taking Simon’s position..." Trigella didn’t treat Deng Kai like an outsider.
Essentially, this meant that Simon was definitely going to be transferred after the season ended, and his replacement had already been found.
And Quaresma would become the next Simon, participating early in the Portugal championship and becoming the next rising star of world football.
"I have a few questions about the Ajax matter," Deng Kai opened.
Trigella nodded, indicating for Deng Kai to go ahead and ask.
"If we adopt a strategy of man-marking combined with double-teaming, could we completely limit Van der Vaart?" Deng Kai asked.
The nearby video analyst directly provided an answer, "That’s difficult. Van der Vaart’s talent is simply too good, his dribbling and ball control are so inspired, he is unstoppable."
"If you truly intend to use man-marking and double-teaming, I suggest you focus on Sneijder. Although he is also excellent, in terms of dribbling talent, he’s far less gifted than Van der Vaart."
"Shift the offensive route through the middle, have the center forwards drop back more to pull the defense, and the other forwards make more runs through the middle to repeatedly strike. This puts huge pressure on Ajax’s central defense."
"Force Sneijder to drop back from the midfield position to the defensive midfield spot to assist in defense. This would mean that your forward line only needs to face Van der Vaart alone, but the trade-off is that your forwards have almost no chance of scoring in this attacking pattern."
"Even if your passing is excellent, the pathways left for you to pass through to the forwards are too limited, too easily disrupted. Not to mention that you also need to drop back at times to limit Van der Vaart’s attacks."
This was not difficult to understand. When the offense shifts from three routes to just one, naturally, there are fewer opportunities.
This is a sacrifice of offense to constrain Sneijder.
Deng Kai pondered for a while and agreed with the plan proposed by the other party.
But he didn’t think the other party’s thinking was correct.
It wasn’t that the other party overestimated Van der Vaart.
Van der Vaart indeed was an unstoppable player, especially when he played as an attacking midfielder.
Deng Kai believed the video analyst was mistaken because the analyst thought that forcing Sneijder back to the defensive midfield position meant neutralizing Sneijder.
But in fact... Sneijder was almost an indefensible player as well, even at the defensive midfield position, with his sharp long passes capable of greatly assisting the team.
If the encounters with Fan Peixi and Robben were a trial for C. Ronaldo.
Then the duels with Van der Vaart and Sneijder were Deng Kai’s trials.
This was a necessary step for him to become a midfield master.
Afterward, Deng Kai left the classroom to find his teammates on the training field.
He explained that they needed to rehearse a new tactic.
His teammates were used to this by now.
Different team leaders had different guiding styles.
Some leaders liked others to buy them burgers and drinks, carry their bags and shoes.
Some leaders enjoyed special privileges on the pitch, liking that even in training matches nobody dared defend against them for real.
But Deng Kai, the team leader, preferred organizing everyone to join him in "playing," studying various "not illegal but sick" series of tactics.
Like huddling together during a free-kick and then suddenly dispersing... Scatter like fairies.
Like squeezing together like a worm then suddenly spreading out... Exploding caterpillar.
Like using the Ground Cutter during a free-kick, and so on.
This kind of training, which didn’t benefit fundamental skills, was seen as a waste of time by the coaches and wouldn’t yield positive effects from a player development perspective.
But Maxa, regarding it as Deng Kai’s suggestion, didn’t stop everyone, and he euphemistically called it expanding the players’ thinking.
"C. Ronaldo, Lorenzo, Marcelino, you all try repeatedly sprinting in the center forward area... constantly dropping back to connect... right..."
"Veloso, you take the players who are the best at dribbling and turning in the team for one-on-one training, mainly using your physical advantage to suppress all sorts of plays. If you can intercept, intercept; if you can’t, bring the player down... The brother who is practicing against Veloso is going to have a tough time, but I have a football signed by Zidane here..."
In the football memorabilia market of Lisbon, there have recently been more signed footballs from Zidane, Ronaldo, and Ferguson appearing.
Ronaldo suspected this was related to Deng Kai’s attendance at the Golden Ball awards ceremony at the end of last year and found evidence in a warehouse in the Chinese community.
There, at least dozens of different signature footballs were stored, with the unsold Guardiola versions the most plentiful—they weren’t even given plastic wrap packaging!
...
The time finally came to April 20th.
Amsterdam Arena, the Youth Champions League semi-finals were about to kick off.
The Dutch were lucky to have drawn the home field advantage.
Construction of the stadium began in 1993, costing one hundred and forty million Euros, and it was completed two years prior, boasting more than fifty thousand seats.
In the future, on April 25th, 2017, on Johann Cruyff’s seventieth birthday, Amsterdam Arena will be renamed Johan Cruyff Arena in honor of this legendary star.
Because Ajax had lost their chance at the league title early in the season, the fans had to turn their interest to the Dutch Cup and youth competitions—the Youth Champions League!
Youth competitions usually aren’t enough to attract fans, but who would miss the first-ever occurrence of the Youth Champions League in European football history?
Before this, youth team matches were mostly for training and testing the effectiveness of training, rarely featuring such broad European honor disputes.
Therefore, the entire Amsterdam Arena was filled to capacity.
Fifty thousand spectators sang the Ajax anthem, cheering on the young players.
After both teams entered the field, the stands erupted with fervent calls for the players’ names, the loudest being Van der Vaart, followed by Sneijder.
For this match, the Ajax U15 team used their standard formation, 4231.
Sneijder played as right midfielder, Van der Vaart as the attacking midfielder.
This was almost exactly as Deng Kai had predicted before the match.
After all, it was a semi-final, and the opposing coach would hardly play tricks; there was only one Guardiola after all.
And this was precisely Lisbon Athletics’ opportunity.
With the referee’s whistle, the match officially began,
Within the first five minutes, after a series of exchanges, the teams solidified their understanding of each other’s strength and positioning.
Excluding stars like Ronaldo, Deng Kai, Van der Vaart, and Sneijder, the rest of the players’ abilities were considered normal.
This "normal" refers to a quite outstanding level among peers, not average.
But there are levels of normal.
The regular players from Ajax clearly surpassed those from Lisbon Athletics in terms of competitive standard.
They almost touched the "ceilings of the mortals".
This also proved that Ajax’s youth training was of a much higher caliber compared to Lisbon Athletics.
In some sense, they were even considered the best youth academy in the world!
Thus, in the subsequent game, Ajax dominated, taking the initiative.
Meanwhile, Lisbon Athletics was pushed into a defensive position.
In the sixth minute, Van der Vaart staged a dribbling show in the middle.
Deep-fried meatballs, Marseille Turns, sudden stops and starts, juggling and pulling the ball, he wove through three players surrounding him without losing possession.
In the end, it took a foul from Semedo to stop his performance.
The referee blew the whistle.
Free kick.
Twenty seconds later, celebrations rang throughout Amsterdam Arena.
Van der Vaart scored directly from the free kick!
He showed Semedo that while you can stop my progress with a foul, you can’t prevent me from scoring!
One to zero!
Ajax took the lead!
As mentioned earlier, facing off against talented players is an essential path for Deng Kai to become a midfield master.
But some people are born masters!
