Chapter 34 The People Nottingham Forest Relies On

Nottingham Forest's solid defense mainly relies on three people, one of whom is their main goalkeeper, Peter Johnson, who is only 21 years old this year.

He is also the main goalkeeper of the England national team.  M

He is two meters tall, but not clumsy, very flexible, and has a particularly long arm span, which allows him to easily save many balls that ordinary goalkeepers have to struggle to save.

This is his advantage.

He is a supernova who rose from Nottingham Forest two seasons ago. He has been hyped up by the English media as Casillas II - meaning that although he is tall, he is agile, good at saving dangerous balls, and has a fast reaction. The most important thing is his role. His role in the England national team is almost equivalent to Casillas' role in the most chaotic period of Real Madrid. Defense basically depends on him...

So in fact, this nickname sounds more like the English media's self-mockery of the poor defense of the England national team...

But his performance is indeed very good. Because of his rapid rise, the 34-year-old England goalkeeper Joe Hart has retired from the main position of the national team and became a substitute for Peter Johnson.

The goalkeeper is the last line of defense for a team, but if a team wants to defend well, it is obviously impossible to always expect the goalkeeper to perform exceptionally and fly to save the ball.

If it only relied on the goalkeeper, Nottingham Forest would not be able to become the best defensive team in England and keep a clean sheet in the Champions League group stage.

Their good defense is mainly due to their strong midfield.

At this time, we must mention two other important figures in this team.

Chen Jian.

At the age of 26, he plays as a defensive midfielder and is a double main player of the Chinese national team and Nottingham Forest. He was also a player sent abroad by the "Star Project" company that year. At first, he went to Spain. He was still very young at that time. Later, he gradually played and became more and more famous.

He was selected for the Chinese national team. He played a lot of games and was valued by Nottingham Forest. Nottingham Forest dug him from the Yellow Submarine after being promoted to the Premier League.

His characteristics are flexible body shape, and his defense mainly relies on excellent positioning awareness and flexible and agile running. His physical confrontation ability is slightly weak, but his brain makes up for this disadvantage.

In the Chinese national team, he is the only one responsible for sweeping the midfield, and the other players of the Chinese team can attack with confidence, which shows how good his defensive ability is.

In the Nottingham Forest team.

He partners with George Wood, and the two cooperate well.

Last season, he won the best foreign aid award selected by the Premier League.

Moreover, Nottingham Forest has just successfully renewed his contract with him and gave him a six-year long contract. The annual salary and bonus have been greatly increased. Tony Twain directly told the teams interested in Chen Jian at the press conference of the successful renewal. Chen Jian is priceless and will not be sold.

George Wood.

The captain of Nottingham Forest, only 24 years old, is already a world-renowned midfielder.

A representative of the top local players cultivated by Nottingham Forest's own youth training system.

He has excellent physical fitness, fast speed, good physical strength, and first-class confrontation ability. He is a top midfielder.

He is only 24 years old, but he has already had a four-year international career, which means that he became an international player of the England national team at the age of 20.

With his strength, he should actually play for those European giants. And European giants have also seduced him a lot.

However, he is a native of Nottingham, and he has a deep affection for the Nottingham Forest team, so he would rather stay in Nottingham Forest than leave.

After playing a professional first-team game for Forest for the first time at the age of 18. He has always been the main midfielder of Nottingham Forest.

With him, everyone will feel very at ease.

In addition to defense. George Wood also has excellent long-range shooting and long-passing abilities. The main reason for Nottingham Forest's sharp counterattack is that his long pass dispatch is very accurate.

In midfield defense, George Wood is generally responsible for grabbing, while Chen Jian is responsible for filling in behind him.

The two people cooperate very well, which can be seen from Chen Jian's first game at Nottingham Forest.

Their tacit understanding is also reflected in the transition between offense and defense.

After Chen Jian grabs the ball, he will immediately pass the football to George Wood, who will launch a long pass counterattack.

If Wood gets the ball, he will pass it directly if he has a chance, otherwise he will pass it to Chen Jian next to him and then run.

Chen Jian will quickly pass the ball to George Wood who is cutting into the air, and then George Wood will launch the attack.

Chen Jian and Wood will not hesitate in this regard.

The tacit understanding and efficiency of the two of them are also another major reason for Nottingham Forest's sharp counterattack.

Because they will not drag their feet in the midfield, and the attack and defense transitions are very good.

In modern football, the better the attack and defense transitions are, the more advantages a team will have.

※ ※ ※

In addition, there is another person who cannot be avoided in any way when studying Nottingham Forest.

That is their head coach Tony Twain.

This Sherwood native in the northwest of Nottingham joined the Nottingham Forest Club at the age of 20, but not as a player, but as a coach.

He started as an ordinary training coach at the most basic level, worked hard to learn and improve himself, and climbed up little by little.

At the age of 34, he replaced his predecessor who was dismissed for poor coaching performance and became the youngest head coach in the history of Nottingham Forest Club.

Since then, Nottingham Forest has entered the era of Tony Twain.

He started from the youth training camp. When the club's financial situation was worrying, he boldly used young players and chose the defensive counterattack tactic according to the actual situation of the Forest team.

In the end, under his leadership, Nottingham Forest made a three-step jump in three years!

From the English First Division to the English Championship League, and from the English Championship League to the English Premier League!

Then he continued to improve his defensive counterattack tactical thinking and introduced a large number of players suitable for defensive counterattack.

It took two years to gain a foothold in the Premier League, and then the next two years to impact the European war.

Finally, in his seventh year as coach of Nottingham Forest, he led the team to qualify for the Champions League!

Fourth in the Premier League last season, participated in the Champions League play-offs. Defeated Lyon in the play-offs and qualified for the main competition.

Tony Twain has become a hot young and promising head coach in English football.

At the age of 41, he received many coaching invitations from big teams, but he remained unmoved and chose to stay in Nottingham Forest.

Just as he said to Nottingham Forest fans, he is a Nottingham native and he will not leave his hometown team unless someone drives him away.

However, the chairman of Nottingham Forest must be crazy to drive away such a capable head coach...

Coaching in England is completely different from coaching in Italy. In England, the head coach holds great power, almost more power than the club chairman, and has a higher reputation. That is natural and no one will think it is abnormal.

But in Italy, this is a heresy...

Changsheng cares more about the tactics chosen by Twain.

In the past ten years, because of Lazio's unprecedented success, a whirlwind of offensive football has swept the European football world, affecting almost everyone.

The scenes of many teams seem to be very homogeneous.

It's like the same team.

Choose any team's game, and you will find that they all focus on ground passing and advancing, pay attention to ball possession, and choose to siege the opponent in defense. Start from the front court.

These characteristics are very similar to Lazio's style.

Of course, this kind of football is very beautiful.

However, some people still complain that everyone plays this kind of football. When I watch all the teams' games, I feel like I am actually watching one team... Then what is the meaning of this kind of football?

Despite such complaints. But more voices still support this direction.

Because it makes football more beautiful on the basis of winning.

The smooth attack, like the precisely calculated back and forth pass, and the outstanding individual performances are fascinating.

In the eyes of supporters. Football should develop in this way.

Such thoughts really have a profound impact. Even around the world. Many teams have accepted this style of play. For a time, all teams were imitating Lazio.

It was in such an environment that Tony Twain chose the defensive counterattack tactics, and publicly stated many times that he looked down on the current football of many teams.

"...Many teams are imitating Lazio, and the media is full of praise for this imitation, saying that they make football more beautiful and get rid of the low taste of utilitarianism... This is really ironic. Do these teams imitate Lazio because Lazio's football is beautiful? Bullshit! They imitate Lazio just to win, because Lazio's football can win, it's that simple, and it has nothing to do with whether it looks good or not! Then isn't this a very utilitarian idea and practice? When the football world is full of such utilitarian ideas, how can we say that today's football has gotten rid of utilitarianism?"

When Tony Twain was interviewed by reporters again, he talked about his disdain and contempt for the current football trend.

At the same time, he put forward his own "ball control is useless theory".

"The more complicated the ball control, the less useful it is. It looks good, but it's just for show. It's actually useless. Most of the goals are actually scored with less than five passes. Too much ball control will cause the ball to stay too long at your feet. If you encounter a team with strong pressing ability, you will die ugly. I think too much ball control is useless. The team only needs to pursue necessary ball control. Let's give up the ball control to the opponent, and then let them worry about the ball at their feet!"

Tang En said this, and he also practiced what he said.

His Nottingham Forest has a lower ball possession rate than the opponent in almost every game, but they can win.

The play is not good, but it is very practical.

In this way, a team that has been unknown and silent for a long time was brought back to the Champions League by him.

This is also the reason why there are so many public opinions scolding him, but his fame and status are getting bigger and higher.