Standing under the Irish sky, looking up, you can always see dense dark clouds, making you wonder when it will rain.

But put down your head and look straight ahead, you will see a green grassland, especially in summer, dotted with a few tall and lush green trees, connected to the dark clouds at the distant end, which will make people feel very alternative.

In fact, many people say that it is true that it likes raining in the British Islands, but sometimes it depends on luck.

Tottenham Hotspur came to Dublin from London for training | It has been four days since I saw a drop of rain before. I am really lucky because it has always been this kind of shady and cool weather, which is very suitable for teams to train |

Goalkeepers: Peter Cech, Joe Hart;

Defenders: Daniel Alves, Juan Manuel Vargas, Aveloa, Thiago Silva, Brad Hangland, Kompani, Michael Dawson, Gareth Bale;

Midfielders: Mascherano, Yaya Toure, Davis, Fabregas, Heddlestone, Lucas, Ribery, Ashavin, Messi, Ashley Young;

Forwards: Van Persie, Van Nystruei, Cavani and Carroll.

This is the first-team roster of Tottenham Hotspur coming to Dublin. Allen Lennon did not come to Ireland with the team. His agent has notified the team that he hopes the club can consider the offer from Manchester United and Chelsea. Ye Qiu did not put him in the roster in the end, but he refused to give in, saying that Allen Lennon is not a seller.

This time, Tottenham Hotspur training camp | The location is not in Dublin, but in the small town of Maynus, 20 to 30 kilometers away from the west of Dublin. They stayed in a castle hotel called Katon Manor on the outskirts of Maynus.

This hotel is very old and covers a very wide area. It is nearly two kilometers from north to south. It uses single-family castle buildings to make rooms. The most famous of this hotel is that it has two World Championship standard 18-hole golf courses and a luxurious A-center. All the buildings of this hotel adopt a wonderful style and atmosphere formed by a combination of ancient and modern times, but conflicting with each other.

In fact, Tottenham Hotspur had a total of nearly 70 people. The cost of staying in this hotel was not high. Because the hotel fully considered the advertising effect, it almost used a half-buy and half-get to invite Tottenham Hotspur to stay. It even took the initiative to help Tottenham Hotspur contact the only open-air football stadium in Maynus town to serve as a training ground for the team.

In fact, in Maynus, there are green grass everywhere and you can play football everywhere, but after all, it is better to have a professional training ground, so that the team will naturally be more convenient for drilling and training.

At this moment, Ye Qiu was standing in the training ground in Maynus, watching chief assistant coach Mauro Tassoti explain the players' running and assisted defense strategies when defending.

During my stay in Dublin, Tottenham Hotspur had three training classes and a tactical meeting every day, which was very intense. We had to get up early in the morning, rest for a while after breakfast, and conduct a stretching training, mainly to recover our bodies, and after resting, we will hold the second training class until almost noon. This is physical fitness intensive training.

Have lunch and have a tactical meeting in the afternoon. The main thing is that the coaching staff explains tactical details and key points to the players. The most important thing is to instill in the players, letting the players know what the head coach wants him and what he should do in the game. The last training class is in the evening, which is specifically technical and tactical training.

The Premier League this season started on August 19. Tottenham Hotspur’s first game was to challenge Bolton away. Before that, Tottenham Hotspur had no matches, so the entire league preparation period was five weeks.

Five weeks are not very long, but short is not very short. It depends on whether a team can be well-done. Five weeks are indeed very urgent, but for a mature team, adjusting their condition is simply a breeze, so Ye Qiu attaches great importance to preparation.

While he was busy with transfer operations and club management, the coaching staff had already formulated a very detailed pre-season preparation. Tottenham Hotspur's pre-season warm-up matches were arranged in a total of six games, mainly in the middle and late stages of the training camp, one after another, very close because the team needs more games to inspect the team, find problems, and solve problems.

In the early stage of training, the most important thing is to instill the team's tactics into the players.

Ye Qiu formulated a tactical approach for Tottenham this season to lead the new, which is indeed a pity. He originally wanted to get Zambrota and Toram, and even offered a package price of 25 million euros for this, and promised to pay the two players their annual salary at Juventus, which has exceeded the current salary structure of Tottenham.

Especially for Toulam, the veteran who has obviously gone downhill can get such a contract, which is a big temptation in itself, but they all chose to go to Barcelona in the end because Tottenham Hotspur cannot play in the Champions League.

Edgar Davis is old and his condition is getting worse every day, but it is still useful for the time being, but it is not guaranteed. Ye Qiu hopes that he can lead more young players in the team. After all, he and many young players in the team were teammates when they were Chelsea. Now when Tottenham Hotspur, they should naturally take care of each other.

Fanny is the only forward who Ye Qiu can trust and rely on. Van Persie is very strong and there is no adaptation problem, but he needs to strengthen his physical strength. Ye Qiu is now planning to put him in the middle and let him try to play center. Cavani's body is still too thin and lacks ability to fight. Carol is too young, so it is still OK to play as a substitute.

Judging from the training camp! In the past few days, Ye Qiu has already vaguely got a prototype trying to get it in.

The goalkeeper is Cech, the defense is Vargas, Hangland, Thiago Silva and Alves, the midfield is Yaya Toure, Mascherano and Fabregas, and the forward trident is Ribery, Fanny and Messi.

Fanny is the kind of scorer who stays in front and waits for his teammates to pass the ball. His scoring ability will definitely surprise you. As long as you can create enough opportunities, Ye Qiu's most important thing now is to let the team have a stable tactic as soon as possible to deal with the league that is about to arrive.

Ribery is very strong, and his outstanding performance on the World Cup field also made him feel confident. Although Fabregas and Messi are young, they are very strong, especially Fabregas, who is very mature and steady. Although his midfield organization is a little immature, his passing is very threatening, and his overall view and ability to sort out the midfield are also very outstanding.

Mascherano will drag back and protect the defense line. This is his responsibility in Ajax, and he does a good job. Yaya Toure is more of a feature of his large-scale running and pressing to fill in the loopholes in the midfield, and he also needs to support the front and back at any time.

Ye Qiu's tactics are actually not difficult to understand, that is, the two wings fly together.

With Ribery and Vargas on the left, Messi and Alves on the right, taking turns to attack the opponent's wing, tearing the opponent's defense from the wing, and then creating a scoring opportunity for Fanny in the penalty area.

Of course, this is just a framework, but there are many details in it. For example, Ribery and Messi can switch positions anytime and anywhere. Ribery is a player with excellent left and right feet. Although Messi is a left-foot player, under Ye Qiu's supervision, his right foot ability is not bad. The two frequently switch positions, cooperate to break through the bottom, get the ball to meet teammates, or drive the ball to cut and pass the ball, which can create murderous intent, and it is necessary to practice a variety of offensive routines to enrich the team's offensive methods.

Unlike Chelsea, this time Ye Qiu not only has to control the rhythm, but also compete for the ball control, but there is one thing that has not changed, that is, high-level defense

Even though it has been four days, the players' defense on the training ground still looks messy.

Van Persie, Fabregas, Messi, Ribery, Mascherano, Yaya Toure and Thiago Silva are the ones who know Ye Qiu's tactical intentions best, because they both play high-level defense at Chelsea and Ajax. Even if the high-level defense at Ajax is different from Ye Qiu's requirements, it is not difficult to adapt, because some things are the same.

The biggest difference between high-position defense and ordinary-position defense is that the defense of ordinary-position defense usually requires that other players who are close to the ball holder return to their positions as soon as possible, which is called landing.

But high-level defense is different, because behind you is a blockbuster gap, so once you lose control of the ball, the next few seconds will be very critical and important. You must do your best to regain the ball. Even if you can't get it back, you will definitely not be able to make the opponent strike quickly, because you will never run faster than the ball.

Therefore, a very important point in high-level defense is the pressure and counter-attack of the midfield. This requires players not to take the position as soon as possible, but to quickly defend the players close to each other quickly, and other players will surround them as soon as possible to form a number advantage in some areas, maximizing the possibility of winning the ball.

This requires players to adjust and change their awareness, ideas and playing habits, which takes some time to adapt.

Also, many head coaches have always had a misunderstanding about high-level defense, believing that high-level defense requires many prerequisites. For example, some say that they should have excellent technical and tactical awareness like Barcelona, ​​and some say that they should press frantically in the midfield, but in fact, these are not mentioned to the core.

The core of high-level defense is in the midfield.

All teams that have played high-level defense have an interesting feature, that is, the midfield is easy to stretch and contract.

For example, in Benitez's Valencia, the Bat Legion has two double midfielders with excellent interception and running abilities. So how do you do double midfielders when defending at high positions?

When the team is attacking with the ball, they drag back and always stay around the 30-meter area, and do not easily enter the 30-meter area, because when all teams playing high-level defense attack, the opponent's 30-meter area will become crowded because you have already pressed up and the opponent's three lines have been retracted, and it is not crowded yet?

At this time, there is a requirement for midfielders, which is that they cannot put frontfield players in an isolated situation, and cannot create congestion for their offensive players. This undoubtedly tests the wisdom of midfielders.

Therefore, midfielders generally do not easily enter the 30-meter area for all teams that play high-level defense, but once they enter this area, they will definitely cause threats, either threatening the opponent, or being intercepted by the opponent and counterattacked.

This is when you attack with the ball, so when you concede the ball and defend?

Press up

Some people just say, you are stupid, there is such a big gap behind you, are you still pressing forward?

This undoubtedly requires skills. It is not blindly pushing forward, but when the frontcourt player surrounds the opponent's ball holder, predict the opponent's possible ball-out route and strangle these ball-out routes in time when the player surrounds the opponent's ball-holder as soon as possible, and then slams into pieces in time.

Therefore, midfield defenders who defend high positions generally cannot be large-scale running midfielders like Essin and Gattuso, but interceptors with excellent awareness, strong sense of position, and sufficient predictive ability.

Therefore, the core of high-level defense is not whether the technology is delicate. Of course, you must have the ability to get the ball and pass and catch the ball in a narrow gap, otherwise what high-level defense do you play?

However, the requirements for technology are limited to this, but there are very high requirements for the team's midfielders, as well as the overall rigor of the team's system from front to back, the players' awareness and execution ability.

Why are Benitez's Liverpool and Ye Qiu's Chelsea the two teams with the highest tactical execution back then? Because they both want to play high-level defense, and without excellent overall tactical execution, they are purely seeking death.

Why can't Manchester United play high-level defense?

Do you think Ferguson doesn't want to? He thought, and he was crazy about thinking, but the problem is that Manchester United players are not suitable for them.

After Ye Qiu came to Tottenham Hotspur, he sold Defoe and Robbie Keane, two generals, because they were not suitable for this set of tactics. Alan Lennon did not necessarily stay for Ye Qiu, because he might not be suitable for him, because his breakthrough on the wing was more about speed.

Ye Qiu watched the players' missed training situation on the court, and listened to Mauro Tassoti shouting the players' names, pointing out the problems in running and supporting the game, while goalkeeper coach Frans Hawke kept guiding them in front of Cech and Joe Hart, indicating that they should take the initiative to expand their defense range.

All of this makes Ye Qiu full of hope for the future.

When Tottenham Hotspur was preparing for the intensive training and preparation, Eliza Moon, who was in London, was operating the team in an orderly manner, carrying out some necessary repairs to the White Hart Lane Stadium, and contacting sponsors for the team, trying every means to increase the team's operating income, etc.

And the team started training! A week later, the transfer rumors of Allen Lennon, who failed to go to Dublin with the team, finally came to an end. Chelsea, who was eager to further improve his wing strength and felt that he was not satisfied with Duff, and Wright Phillips, was still unsatisfied with the two generals of Wright Phillips, finally got Allen Lennon for 25 million euros.

After the transfer was completed, Tottenham Hotspur announced the end of the transfer market this season. According to outside speculation and calculations, Tottenham Hotspur made a total of 30 million euros in the transfer market, but only the senior executives of Tottenham Hotspur, such as Eliza Moon and Ye Qiu, knew that Tottenham Hotspur had made a profit of 60 million euros.

This money will be used by the team to build the Theobord training base in the north of Enfield, and strive to build the Theobord training base into the world's top and most complete training center in two to three years.

Two weeks after arriving in Dublin, Tottenham Hotspur finally ushered in its first warm-up match. The opponent was the Irish league powerhouse Shamlock Rangers. This team is a strong team in the Irish Premier League, but it was relegated from the Irish Premier League last season, but the team itself is not weak.

Facing this team, Tottenham Hotspur played a sharp offensive football in Dublin. The breakthroughs on both sides were very fast and sharp, and the overall rhythm of the team was also light and fast. The rhythm style of a typical Premier League team obviously hoped to play more delicate cooperation, but they lacked tacit understanding and tactics were a bit disordered.

But even so, Tottenham Hotspur still defeated Shamlock Rangers with two goals from Van Nie.

In this game, Tottenham Hotspur got the UR ball possession rate, and its overall strength had an absolute advantage. However, the team still had obvious shortcomings in offense, and some problems were exposed on defense, that is, Hangland and Thiago Silva's tacit understanding in division of labor and cooperation.

According to Mauro Tasotti, any defense is not a problem for central defenders. The problem lies in whether the construction of the defensive system is reasonable.

Some people may say that players like Hangland, who are tall and strong, have outstanding frontal defense and air defense capabilities, are afraid of fast-moving players. But the question is, how can you clearly know this when you set up defense, but you still insist on letting him face the players he is afraid of?

If you encounter a fast player, let Thiago Silva go up and stare. Hangland dragged the back and helped defend, which not only formed a defensive level and depth, but also avoided Hangland's disadvantages and played to his advantages.

Of course, everyone knows that the opponent knows your player's weaknesses and will definitely take advantage of them. Therefore, in addition to the players' personal abilities and advantages and disadvantages, the level of tacit cooperation between the system and the players is also very important. In fact, Ferguson highly admires the latter, so he has never been willing to introduce defenders.

Three days after playing Shamlock Wanderers, the team ushered in another warm-up match. This time the opponent was the Irish Premier League team, University of Dublin. In the end, Tottenham Hotspur l defeated his opponents again, Van Nie, Ribery and Van Persie who came on the bench scored goals one after another.
Chapter completed!