In the morning, Yang Yang began his daily routine morning exercises in the northern suburbs of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in Berg Park.

For more than ten consecutive days, he has been fighting against Porto's left-back Nuno Valente in the super training ground, and the steel-like defense line of the Portuguese Super League team, but the final result is difficult to satisfy.

Jose Mourinho has built a team with excellent defensive strength, and this group of players in Porto has very high tactical execution. They always meticulously execute Mourinho's tactical instructions, making the team's defense indestructible, especially in the Champions League knockout stage.

Sometimes, confidence is played out one after another.

Both teams that reached the Champions League final this season performed poorly in the group stage. Ajax advanced thrillingly, and Porto also learned a painful lesson from losing 1-3 to Real Madrid at home, and in the end they all qualified as the second place in the group.

In the quarterfinals, both teams encountered Premier League teams. Ajax eliminated Arsenal and Porto was not inferior. He killed Manchester United, who defeated Ferguson. Both games shocked the entire European football world.

In the quarterfinals knockout stage, Ajax was even worse in luck. He met Real Madrid and Porto encountered Lyon. The former completed an epic reversal, while the latter advanced without any danger.

But the situation in the semi-finals was the opposite. Ajax defeated Monaco without any danger, but Porto narrowly eliminated La Coruna away, and the two teams advanced to the finals together.

Goalkeeper Baia, defense line Valente, Carvalho, Jose Costa and Paul Ferreira, can be said to be the most unbreakable defense line in European football this season and the best performance in the Champions League.

But relying on one defense line is obviously not enough. Mourinho arranged three midfielders in the midfield, Maniche, Costinia and Mendes. These three midfielders built an unbreakable midfield defense line for Porto in front of the defense line, which was equivalent to playing the second insurance for Porto's goal.

Porto's midfield core is called Deco, a Brazilian, but he is not a typical Brazilian player. His style of play is not gorgeous and fancy at all, but is very practical and has excellent strength. There are reports that many teams such as Barcelona, ​​Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, and Chelsea are poaching him.

It seems to be a lineage. Porto's forward line is not strictly sharp, but it is very mobile. The two forwards are like Rangers in the frontcourt, constantly sweeping, pressing and oppressing the opponent's defense line, and can also actively return to defense, and make up for wherever there are loopholes.

The three lines in front, middle and back are integrated, Porto is like a hedgehog curled up, making people have nowhere to start.

What's even more terrible is that when you can't attack and you accidentally leak a flaw, it will suddenly stab you in a thorn.

Even Ajax's head coach Ronald Koeman has to admit that this is a team without obvious weaknesses.

When facing such a team, generally speaking, there is only one way, which is to fight to the death.

Just like Ajax is fighting against Arsenal, he can only fight against Porto. In the defensive formation without loopholes, he has created loopholes, but at the same time he has to be wary of the opponent's counterattack to avoid conceding goals.

If you play a team like Porto, you will concede the goal first and you will lose most of the game.

...

Yang Yang was playing the ball, running all the way, thinking all the way.

These were what the coaching staff immediately called the players to meet after the team arrived at the hotel in Gelsenkirchen yesterday, and assistant coach Luther Carroll instilled in the players.

In the past ten days, Ajax players have been studying Porto and the players they face. It is no exaggeration to say that Ajax's preparations are unprecedentedly meticulous, but they still have not been able to find out Porto's obvious weaknesses.

Gelsenkirchen is located in western Germany, very close to the Netherlands, but Ajax still flew from Amsterdam to Germany two days in advance and borrowed Schalke Zero 4's training ground, which shows the club's attention.

Yang Yang simulated Porto's defense line in the super training ground, and he always won less and lost more.

When Yang Yang thought of this, he felt sulky and shouted softly. After kicking the ball out with his big feet, he rushed forward as fast as possible, chased the ball after chasing it and then kicked it out at full speed.

Yang Yang stopped until he was exhausted and panting.

In the past half a month, he has done three things in the super training ground, simulating Porto's defense to practice, and continuing to polish and train these two star skills.

The game still needs to be verified by the entry, but he is very clear that Porto's battle will be the most difficult, but also the most important game since his debut.

He had the same idea as everyone in the team. He finally reached the Champions League final, the Eredivisie champion and the Dutch Cup championship were all won, and he was one Champions League champion from the legend, and no one was willing to give up easily.

Everyone in the team is determined to fight to the end and wait for the game to come.

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The Champions League finals are proud to be Schalke in the northern suburbs of Gelsenkirchen, while the hotel Ajax stays at Slausberg Hotel is located further north of the stadium, located in the Berg Park.

There are three lakes surrounding the hotel in a shape of a font. The largest is Lake Berg, which is surrounded by sports centers and tennis clubs. Next to the hotel is the famous beer garden, but now the entire hotel is wrapped up by Ajax.

Since the hotel is not big, it can only accommodate the first team and coaching team, so the players' relatives can only live in the city. The club has made special arrangements for this, so that players can prepare for the game and the game without distraction.

When Yang Yang returned to the hotel from the park outside, he happened to run into Luther Carroll.

As soon as the assistant coach saw Yang Yang, he immediately guessed that he must have gone out for morning exercise again.

"Luckily this is a suburb, and there are no fans in Porto, otherwise you won't be back." Luther Carroll joked.

Yang Yang smiled and said, "If there are really Porto fans, I won't go out."

The assistant coach laughed and immediately asked Yang Yang to go back and take a shower and change his clothes, "We will have a meeting after breakfast."

Yang Yang didn't dare to be careless, and returned to the room and happened to see Sneider get up. He said hello and went straight in to take a shower.

Ajax's management is still very strict. For example, dining requires a unified time, anyone who is late will be punished, and a meeting will be held after breakfast. It can be seen that the coaching team must have figured out something last night.

The first meeting after the team arrived yesterday was mainly based on video to analyze the opponents. The video included a collection of all the matches in Porto's Champions League this season. Each clip was carefully selected by the coaching staff, and it was believed that it could best represent Porto.

Today's meeting mainly focuses on setting up competition strategies.

There is also a training class in the afternoon. The coaching team will arrange targeted training in the afternoon based on the game strategies arranged by this tactical meeting in the morning, so this will be very important in the morning.

Until now this season, the cards that both sides can play against each other have basically been played. There is no secret to each other. The most important thing is to see how both sides play cards and how to deal with them.

Ronald Koeman believes that Porto will definitely play defensive counterattack in this game, which is an opportunity for Ajax, but it is also a challenge. If you can take the opportunity to grab the goal first, then Porto will have to suppress it, and Ajax will be able to use defensive counterattack to deal with Porto.

For Ajax, this is definitely the ideal process.

The worst result is that Ajax could not defeat for a long time and made a serious mistake. Porto seized the opportunity to counterattack and scored a goal. At this time, Porto's defensive counterattack would be more determined, and Ajax's situation would be even more embarrassing.

Of course, there is another possibility that both sides are conservative, neither of them takes risks, and do not give them a chance to the phone, which depends on the on-the-spot performance of the players on both sides.

As the saying goes, there is no good game in the competition. Last year's Champions League final was a match between two Serie A teams. As a result, both sides hit zero to zero in 120 minutes. On the one hand, it can be said that both sides have strong targeted tactics and the players have high tactical execution. But at the same time, it can be said that both sides are quite conservative, with the premise of not taking risks or making mistakes.

Mourinho's Porto will definitely do this. This team's mid- and backcourt defense is better than Ajax, but its offensive ability is weaker than Ajax. Mourinho will definitely put himself in the position of not making mistakes and not losing the ball, and even drag the game into overtime and penalty shootouts.

Ajax's biggest problem is that the players are too young. Ronald Koeman and Van Gaal are both very worried that the players will be too rash in the game, take the initiative to make mistakes, and give their opponents an opportunity to take advantage of. This is quite deadly.

Therefore, at the pre-match meeting, the coaching staff repeatedly emphasized the most, that the mentality must be stable.

"In the game, any situation may occur. We may score first, but that is not enough to make us happy; we may also concede first, but we don't need to be discouraged, because we have not been behind, but we equalize and reverse again and again, and we have such strength."

At the end of the meeting, Ronald Koeman still repeatedly reminded the players to keep a stable mindset.

"I have experienced three Champions League finals in my career. The first one was in Eindhoven. At that time, we were facing Benfica from the Portuguese Super League. As a result, the two sides played zero to zero. In the final penalty shootout, we were slightly better. That time we rely on unbreakable defense and tenacious will."

"We reached the Champions League final for the second time in Barcelona. We faced Sampdoria in Serie A. The game was very difficult. It was the peak period of the Serie A seven sisters. You can imagine how strong their defense was. In the game, we both got excellent opportunities, but we were not sure. In the end, we scored a winning goal in overtime."

"The last time was the one that everyone knows. In the final, we met Capello's AC Milan, and we lost zero to four. The main reason for that game was that our mentality was unbalanced, so we lost miserably."

Ronald Koeman used his personal experience to remind every player in the conference room.
Chapter completed!