Chapter 89: Using Slowness to Beat Speed

After the game started, Dong Qiudi sat in the stands and watched the game with the Lazio fans around him.

The Lazio fans around him were quite relaxed.

Because first of all, no matter what the result of this game is, it will not affect Lazio's qualification as the first in the group. They don't believe that Lazio will lose the first place in the group.

Secondly, they don't think Tottenham Hotspur can still beat Lazio, even at Tottenham Hotspur's home court.

This relaxed mentality comes from their confidence in the team.

In the past five seasons, the winning team has proved with actual results that they have reason to be optimistic about Lazio. This Lazio is indeed worthy of their high hopes and never disappointed.

So in the days of following Lazio's battles, they learned confidence by victory.

Even at the White Hart Lane Stadium, they were suppressed by Tottenham Hotspur fans and could hardly make their own voices, but they were not worried.

Many people even crossed their arms and crossed their legs on the chairs to watch the game.

How can this be like watching a passionate game? Dong Qiudi was more excited than them.

Dong Qiudi was excited but he did not forget his work. He wanted to watch the game live to see if his analysis was correct - Changsheng did not tell him the result after getting his report, so he did not know whether he was right or not.

After the game started, Tottenham Hotspur did focus on attacking the two flanks of Lazio, because their flank attack was very sharp.

This is Redknapp's tactics.

The essence of tactics is to use our strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses, which is to say, to bully the weak. Even the so-called weak defeating the strong is based on the formation of our strength and the enemy's weakness in local key links, and then continuously expanding it to the overall level. In terms of the rationality of tactical arrangements, the commander must hide and make up for his own shortcomings and weaknesses as much as possible, and continuously accumulate and expand his own advantages. And try to take the initiative. Use our strongest to attack the opponent's weakest, to obtain the greatest possibility of winning and pay the least risk and cost.

Redknapp's choice was right in Dong Qiudi's opinion, and it was the only choice he could make. Tottenham's most powerful offensive weapon is the wing attack. Their two wingers have outstanding personal abilities. Gareth Bale is on the left and Lennon is on the right. They are both fast and good at dribbling.

If you don't play to your strengths, you are mentally ill.

As for the organization of the midfield, that is the weak link of Tottenham.

Neither Hoddlestone nor Jenas is a pure organizer.

Tottenham has only one Van der Vaart who is considered a front midfielder.

With Lazio's muscular midfield, it is easy to contain Van der Vaart.

Dong Qiudi thought that Changsheng should have seen this.

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Changsheng certainly saw this.

In fact, he knew it better than Dong Qiudi.

Because there is no Modric in Tottenham now, there is only Van der Vaart who came to Tottenham from Real Madrid to heal his injury.

Van der Vaart was originally the absolute core of the midfield in Hamburg, but after going to Real Madrid, he performed well at the beginning. Then he quickly fell into decline, and injuries and ups and downs affected his position in Real Madrid.

This summer, with the joining of Ozil and Canales, Real Madrid has completely lost the place of this Dutch midfielder, so he had to switch to Tottenham Hotspur, and the transfer was successful at the last minute before the transfer market closed.

The transfer fee was 10 million euros.

After coming to Tottenham Hotspur, to be honest. Van der Vaart's performance was still good.

But injuries still affected his performance.

In the last round, Tottenham Hotspur challenged Lazio away, and Van der Vaart was also unable to travel with the team to Rome because of a minor injury.

Redknapp obviously thought that this away trip was more dangerous than good.

So he simply gave up the game. The most important cards were left at home.

Van der Vaart is his trump card, and there is Giroud, the team's top scorer who has scored six goals.

But in Changsheng's view, Tottenham Hotspur's offense, which only relies on Van der Vaart, Bale, Lennon and Giroud, still seems to lack layers and is too simple.

Giroud knows it very well. Because he cultivated it himself.

In the last round, Lazio had already figured out the characteristics of Bale and Lennon.

Van der Vaart is even simpler.

In that time and space, Tottenham Hotspur had Modric. That was their real midfield core. Modric's presence made Tottenham Hotspur's offense more layered and three-dimensional.

And now, Redknapp can only rely on Van der Vaart's dispatching and organization in the midfield.

But his position is attacking midfielder. With the current trend of football development, the organization function of attacking midfielder has become increasingly weak. Although many attacking midfielders are called attacking midfielders, they actually do the work of shadow strikers, such as the typical trick attacking midfielder Kaka. He is best at scoring with the ball in a surprise attack during a defensive counterattack, rather than organizing the offense with the ball.

Players like Van der Vaart found it increasingly difficult to mix in the following days, and finally simply mixed back to Hamburg. He has rarely appeared in the eyes of the mainstream media in Europe. In addition to his frequent injuries, the change in the tactical style of the football environment is also a reason.

To counter Van der Vaart, Changsheng did not let the three midfielders stand in front and back in the midfield, but instead let them stand in a line with three defensive midfielders.

In this way, Ledesma and Meireles can focus on curbing Van der Vaart, and Modric will not be delayed in organizing the attack.

Bale and Lennon rely on Gotze and David Silva to cooperate with two full-backs Balzaretti and Azpilicueta to suppress.

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Giroud was very active after the start of the game, but unfortunately he couldn't get the ball, so even if he ran a lot, he was not threatening.

Lazio's targeted defensive arrangement was very effective.

In this game, Changsheng sacrificed the offensive ability of the midfield, strengthened the defense, and curbed Van der Vaart.

Especially the crazy tackles of Ledesma and Meireles put Van der Vaart under a lot of pressure...

He has suffered from frequent injuries in Real Madrid for two seasons, so he is afraid of injuries now, and he has just returned from injury before this game. He is even more afraid of injuries.

As long as Ledesma and Meireles fight more fiercely, Van der Vaart will have to focus more on how to protect himself from injuries, rather than how to organize the attack.

Not long after the game started, Van der Vaart was trapped in the muscle jungle of Lazio.

Even the commentator could see that Van der Vaart was not in good condition today.

"Van der Vaart put too much energy into the physical confrontation with Ledesma and Meireles... and Tottenham's attack made no progress..."

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Van der Vaart was restricted, so Tottenham could only rely on two flanks again.

Especially Bale.

But this time was different from the home court.

Lazio did not need to rush to attack.

Changsheng's tactical thinking in this game was defense.

Yes, you read it right, it was defense.

Lazio, who held high the offensive football, did not choose to attack. They actually chose to defend!

-Taka was used by Changsheng for defense. Lazio emphasized control more in this game.

When the ball was at their feet, their speed slowed down, and they were not in a hurry to attack forward, which was completely different from Lazio's style before.

They passed it back and forth. Even when attacking, they pushed forward layer by layer, trying every possible way to consume more game time.

This is why Cruyff was unhappy with Changsheng.

At first, when Changsheng played -taka in Valencia, Cruyff was very happy, because it meant that his set had achieved results, although it was not seen in Barcelona. But he hoped that his tactical ideas could be accepted by more people, and when Barcelona was not working, other teams could help him preach. He was also very happy.

So at that time he also wrote a special article to praise Changsheng.

As a result, he later found that Changsheng actually used -taka to defend, and he was unhappy.

He felt that such a beautiful tactic was completely blasphemed by Changsheng.

From then on, Cruyff turned to a lifelong hater of Changsheng.

He criticized Changsheng in his newspaper column whenever he had nothing to do. This continued until Changsheng left Valencia and went to Italy, and the frequency was much less.

However, it also laid the groundwork for the verbal war between Changsheng and Cruyff after Lazio eliminated Barcelona.

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Contain Tottenham's two wing attacks. The principle is very simple, that is, do not give the opponent space. Then just shrink the defense.

If the opponent plays a quick counterattack, then destroy their attack as soon as possible, whether it is by normal means or fouls.

In this way, the advantages of Bale and Lennon are gone.

And Lazio has another advantage in this game. They have already won Tottenham at home. In this game, they are playing away and do not need to care too much about the scene like at home.

This kind of defensive tactics, there is no pressure at all when playing.

So Tottenham, who was full of blood and planned to fight Lazio to the death at White Hart Lane, was dumbfounded.

They felt that their full-strength punch hit cotton and did not hurt Lazio at all.

Originally, Tottenham planned to fight Lazio to the death with speed, because Lazio's characteristic is also fast.

That is to compete in speed and see who is faster.

But I didn't expect Changsheng not to compete with them in speed! Changsheng chose full, using control to curb their speed.

The ball was more at Lazio's feet, so Tottenham's speed naturally couldn't be played. Any team without the ball at their feet would not be able to do well.

Dong Qiudi's analysis report for Changsheng was almost accurate, except that he didn't expect Lazio to defend so resolutely, using ball control and slowing down to deal with Tottenham's fast pace.

He thought Lazio would insist on attacking.

But he underestimated Changsheng's utilitarianism...