Chapter 648: Back Midfielder

Once a trainee in the coach training class asked Ye Qiu a very interesting question. He said, in modern football tactics, what elements are the most important to ensure the team's victory.

Ye Qiu thought this was a very complex and huge problem, so he promised that if he had the opportunity to teach in the coach training class again next time, he would consider taking this as a topic, and later he himself thought about this question very carefully in preparation for this class.

What is the most important thing? Or is it the quality that a team must have?

The ability of the players is undoubtedly very important. Just as Ye Qiu had previously evaluated Bielsa's Chile, whether it was Chile during the South Africa World Cup or Chile during the America's Cup, a problem was exposed. The tactical level had reached a certain height, but their personal strength limited their performance.

In the game against Spain, Chile obviously could not break through the Spanish goal because of the limited personal ability of the players. If the strength of their players was at the same point as Spain, or even the gap was not so big, Chile would be the first to break through the Spanish goal and rewrite the game, instead of letting Villa pick up an empty goal.

From that game, we can also see that the ability of the players is crucial to a team. When the strength gap reaches a certain level, the tactics cannot be changed much, or as Beckenbauer said, excellent tactics can only help you increase the probability of winning.

Assuming that the probability of winning or losing between Chile and Spain is 30% to 70% in terms of strength, then Bielsa helped Chile increase the probability to 45% to 55% through excellent tactics. At least from the beginning of this game, you will find that Chile is more threatening and creates more scoring opportunities, but it just didn't grasp them.

And when you watch the Chilean team play, it is not difficult to find that they are often a little bit short. If they pass a little better or run a little more, the situation may be completely different, and this little bit is exactly the embodiment of the players' strength.

Does that mean that the personal strength of the players is a necessary element for a team to succeed?

Ye Qiu can answer very confidently that it is, but it is not the most important!

So what is the most important thing?

Ye Qiu couldn't answer because he felt that tactics were also crucial.

This must mention another game, which is the two games between Mourinho's Inter Milan and Barcelona in Ye Qiu's previous life. Ye Qiu thinks that they are the two most representative games in Mourinho's life.

It can be said that the role of tactics played a crucial role in these two games. Without excellent and reasonable tactics, it would be impossible to create Mourinho's Inter Milan's victory.

So is the individual ability of the players important, or the overall tactics of the team important?

Ye Qiu thinks that the ancestors are right. The doctrine of the mean, a set of overall tactics that can bring out the individual abilities of the players, is the most important way for a team to win.

Whether in offense or defense, creating an efficient and orderly tactical system based on the technical characteristics of the existing players is undoubtedly the most important responsibility of a head coach, and it is also the football creed that Ye Qiu has always admired. He has almost been adjusting and exploring his football tactics, even if the exploration is often unsuccessful.

For example, in the past two seasons, Tottenham Hotspur's progress is not so obvious.

Why did Mauro Tassotti say that it was easy for him to write about the wave-style defense system, but when he decided to write about the wave-style offense and explain the team's offensive and defensive transitions, he got into trouble?

This is actually not surprising. If he can easily write about the offense and the offensive and defensive transitions, it is undoubtedly impossible for Ye Qiu to want the wave-style offense. It is more of a routine.

How to maintain the most stable and orderly tactical order when defending, and how to give full play to the ability of offensive players when attacking, rather than restricting players in the system and letting them move and run without scruples, this is the offense that Ye Qiu wants, and it is also an important feature of Tottenham Hotspur's offense.

Therefore, it is easy to say that defense is easy, but it is difficult to explain offense clearly!

Of course, this does not mean that defense is easier than offense, or that it is belittling defense. You must know that in the modern football tactical system, offense and defense are actually inseparable. You can't tell what is offense and what is defense. They are integrated.

Ye Qiu has recently been studying some tactical ideas of Kushner, the Hungarian international who rewrote the history of South American football and laid a solid foundation for Brazil's later status as a football kingdom. It can be said that he further promoted Jimmy Hogan's ball control concept and added the concept of diagonal attack, which created the glory of Brazilian football later.

In Kushner's tactical theory, he believes that Jimmy Hogan's concept is perfect, but also very serious. Everything is full of planning, even the players' running routes are the same, but this is a big limitation for offense.

So, in Kushner's mind, what is the most important thing about offense?

He believes that it should be facing the defense line to lead the offense!

How to explain it?

That is, when your players have their backs to the defense and the goal, you have no way of seeing everything behind you, neither your teammates nor the opponent's defensive changes. This is when your offensive vision is the worst and you lack creativity the most.

It is not difficult to understand that the first element of many people's defense is to prevent the opponent's ball holder from turning around.

This principle applies not only to defending the center, but also to defending the opponent's midfielder and defender.

Kushner believes that the most important thing in offense is to create enough opportunities to get the ball in front of the defense. When you have enough such opportunities, you can play the best and most threatening offense.

At that time, the middle road seemed very crowded, so Kushner proposed a diagonal offensive tactic, which is actually a diagonal pass to the side.

One advantage of diagonal passing is that the person receiving the ball is very comfortable, and the passer is also comfortable, because he only needs to pass the ball in front of the receiver, and the latter can receive the ball by rushing forward directly. Although the straight pass is more penetrating, it is more likely to be intercepted by the defensive player, because the defensive player can see your passing route very clearly.

This is why direct passes are more difficult and less successful than horizontal and diagonal passes.

Football has developed to the present, and the entire tactical system is much more meticulous and complex than Kushner's back then.

Diagonal attack is now not just about diagonal passes, but also includes diagonal running, diagonal advancement, etc. It has long been a very effective and practical tactical routine, and many head coaches are using it.

Why Ye Qiu is obsessed with the forward insertion of two full-backs, a very important factor is that from a big picture perspective, the forward insertion of full-backs is an important part of the diagonal attack. This can be seen from the fact that after Kushner proposed the revolutionary diagonal attack, Brazil has created a peak of wing players in the past century.

Another important factor is that the full-back always faces the attack direction when he moves forward. The pass from his teammates to him is a diagonal pass, and the pass from him to his teammates is also a diagonal pass. In other words, this diagonal attack can maximize the creation of offensive opportunities facing the defense line, and it is very threatening.

Many people say that the triangle tactic is the root and foundation of modern football tactics. It consists of two diagonal lines and one horizontal line. But you should know that the current tactics, especially those of top teams, basically do not adopt triangle tactics, but evolve on the basis of triangle tactics, such as adding a fourth player to form a diamond, adding a fifth player or even a sixth player to form a polygon.

Four players form two triangles, and the role of the middle horizontal line is weakened, but the four diagonal lines are very important.

The same reason is also in those polygonal tactics, all for more penetration and more opportunities to face the ball, and the diagonal line is undoubtedly becoming more and more important.

Why did Ye Qiu introduce Pirlo?

The reason is very simple. Pirlo is the best organizing midfielder in today's football who is good at passing diagonal lines. Even Xavi, Xavi Alonso and others are not as good as him. Beckham used to be the first master of diagonal attack on the right. After moving to the middle, his diagonal pass from the middle to the two wings was also excellent, but now he is old and can't meet the requirements of the main lineup.

So, is it appropriate to use Pirlo to play a single defensive midfielder? Especially in the Premier League where the competition is so fierce and the rhythm is so fast?

Ye Qiu believes that this must take into account another current situation, which is another trend in modern football tactics, frontcourt pressure.

Speaking of frontcourt pressure tactics, Ye Qiu is an expert. When he was at Ajax, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, he highly praised high-intensity frontcourt pressure, but the problem is that this tactic has been no longer high-end and classy in the past few years, and has become the standard configuration of almost all strong teams.

If all strong teams play frontcourt pressure, how can you still reflect your advantages and value?

Mancini wants to get Yaya Toure, not to let him play as a defensive midfielder, but to play a role similar to a free midfielder.

Ye Qiu thinks that Mancini's idea is not advanced enough, or he should take a step forward and put the defensive midfielder forward!

This must bring up a concept. Many people think that the so-called front midfielder is to pull a front midfielder to the back midfielder position to play, that is, the front midfielder is back. If this is true, then Pirlo's value is underestimated.

The definition of a front midfielder is a back midfielder with the delicate skills and organizational ability of a front midfielder. First of all, he must be a back midfielder, that is, his sense of position and interception and stealing awareness must meet the needs of the back midfielder position, and at the same time, he has the delicate skills and organizational ability of a No. 10 front midfielder.

Or someone will say, you are bragging, Pirlo has the defensive skills of a back midfielder?

Yes, Pirlo is not a back midfielder in the traditional sense of Gattuso, Essien, Makelele, and even he is not a back midfielder with both offensive and defensive capabilities like Keane, Vieira, Redondo and Guardiola, but his most valuable thing is that he has been immersed in the Serie A and Italian national team with the best defensive system for more than ten years, and his defense is more based on positioning and prediction.

For example, Gattuso used to be a troublemaker in the front, and Pirlo took the ball down by blocking and positioning in the back, and what was reflected in the live broadcast was that Pirlo happened to appear there, just like many people say that Inzaghi happened to appear in the position where he could score.

It turns out that if you appear there once or twice, it is a coincidence, but if you always appear there, it is a conscious behavior.

Of course, it must be noted that Pirlo is no longer the Pirlo who could run 11 kilometers in a game, so he needs strong support from his teammates in front when he plays as a single defensive midfielder, and Tottenham Hotspur's wave defense ensures that there is always a central defender near Pirlo.

At least Pirlo's weakness is still obvious when facing the opponent's large-scale pulling and using personal ability and speed for one-on-one assault, but this can be compensated by the team defense system.

Therefore, whether it is Ye Qiu or Mauro Tassotti, they think that Pirlo has no problem playing as a single defensive midfielder.

So, what about the front midfielder?

It is the same as the front midfielder. The front midfielder must first be a front midfielder, with the ability to insert from behind, and the footwork to hold the ball at the front of the penalty area with the most intensive defense in the whole game. At the same time, he must be able to complete the task of defending the defensive midfielder, such as when losing possession of the ball, he will immediately invest in counter-grabbing and pressure.

What are the benefits of doing this?

That is, when all the strong teams in the world play the organizing defensive midfielder, my defensive midfielder in front of the defensive midfielder can just restrain your organizing defensive midfielder, and you have to pay attention to it, because my front defensive midfielder can get into your penalty area anytime and anywhere to complete the scoring and threatening attack, and has the ability to get the ball and pass the ball.

But if you want to arrange defense in this area, it will force you to weaken the manpower invested in the offensive end.

This is a typical strategy of attacking instead of defending!

Therefore, Ye Qiu's midfield trio this season is Ramsey and Vidal forward, and Pirlo behind, but the distance between the three players should be about ten meters, and Tottenham Hotspur's overall formation will continue to remain in a compact flat shape of about forty to fifty meters front and back.

Ye Qiu has always been very convinced that players with high football IQ will become another mainstream change in the future trend of football, because they are better at completing offense and defense by positioning, running and cooperating with teammates. Maybe they are not good at physical confrontation, but they play smarter.

An important reason why I think there will be many players with high football IQ in the future is that Ye Qiu has always believed that with the improvement of training level and the advent of the information age, people will become smarter and smarter.

Of course, this kind of intelligence is not one-to-one, because it is difficult for someone to be smarter than Einstein. The intelligence that Ye Qiu said is the average wisdom level of all mankind. With this trend, there will be more and more players with high football IQ, and even wholesale mass production can be carried out directly.

Therefore, if you look closely at Tottenham Hotspur's team lineup, it is not difficult to find that the players introduced by Ye Qiu are generally not stupid, and they are all the type of players with strong plasticity.

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Tottenham Hotspur's pre-season training preparations lasted for a week in Theobald, and then went to Qatar to play a warm-up match with the Qatar national team. This is also a match that will be held every summer at the request of several Middle Eastern sponsors of the team, but it is a pity that Messi, Cavani, Thiago Silva, and the team's new aid Vidal are still playing in the America's Cup, so the quality of this warm-up match is not very high.

But Tottenham Hotspur still showed its strength very well, defeating the Qatar national team 3:0. Pirlo played half of the game and performed relatively averagely. On the contrary, the team's midfielder Ramsey performed well, with one pass and one shot, showing his strength, and Pogba, who played in the second half, was also impressive.

Phil Jones, who started in the midfield, was as brave as ever, and his defensive performance was also good, but his passing was slightly worse, which has something to do with Phil Jones's personality. After all, he is still very young.

I stayed in Qatar for four days. Fortunately, Qatar was not too hot this year, and Tottenham Hotspur deliberately arranged training in the morning and evening, so there would be no problems.

Flying from Qatar to Singapore, Tottenham Hotspur played a warm-up match with a professional team in Singapore. At this time, the internationals of Chile, Argentina and Brazil who were eliminated from the America's Cup also returned to the team one after another. They did not rest for two weeks after the game, but returned directly to the team to prepare for the team's new season. This was also highly praised by Ye Qiu and the fans.

But all the players who participated in the America's Cup did not participate in the warm-up match. At least Ye Qiu did not plan to arrange them to play for the time being, because they still need to adjust, especially in terms of physical fitness, after all, they have just finished a major competition.

Although there are no big-name stars participating, Tottenham Hotspur's overall performance is still as stable as ever. They defeated their warm-up opponents 2:0 and won two consecutive warm-up matches. Ramsey scored in two consecutive games, and Raul also scored a goal.

It's not that Ramsey's current performance is so good, but because the team's current offensive players do have some problems. Ribery is a little injured and didn't even play in the second warm-up match. Hazard's state is still being adjusted, and Coutinho, who has switched to the wing, is also mainly passing and organizing.

This has led to Ramsey's consecutive goals, and Wales's usual large-scale running coverage has more opportunities.

But a gratifying change for Ye Qiu is that when the team organization depends on the defensive midfielder Pirlo, Ramsey also showed a certain organizational ability and vision in the frontcourt. Ye Qiu also consciously cultivated his ability in this aspect. After all, if a midfielder with a large range of running has excellent ball-handling and organizational ability, it is almost a killer.

After the game, the team went to Hong Kong. After two days of rest, they played a warm-up match with the Hong Kong Zhijie team. This time the team performed well, 6:0 slaughtering the opponent. Ribery, who returned from injury, performed a hat trick, Hazard, Ramsey, and Raul scored consecutively, and Tottenham's offense was as fierce as ever.

Alba and Kyle Walker, who replaced the Brazilian wingers in the starting lineup, both showed strong assists.

Alba mainly won with technology and speed, while Kyle Walker's defense was stable, his speed was very fast, his sprinting ability was very strong, and his ability to run back and forth was also excellent, but more importantly, his crosses were more and more like Beckham.

The three consecutive wins in the warm-up matches did not satisfy Tottenham Hotspur. They kept their opponents scoreless in three games. Whether Kompany's partner was Nastasic or Varane, they showed convincing stability and defensive strength. Tottenham Hotspur's defensive lineup in the new season will not be a big problem.

The fans also felt relieved.

After the second warm-up match of the Asian tour, Tottenham Hotspur also ushered in the third opponent of the Asian tour, Guangzhou Hengda!