Chapter 6 Objective: Win the First Round

How the new season is about to start, no one can tell, but this summer, English football is definitely lively enough.

Like last summer, Chelsea, where Abramovich, the richest man in Russia, has settled in, has become the protagonist of the whole of Europe, and they spend a lot of money in the European transfer market at almost no cost.

First of all, the most noteworthy is that Porto champion coach Mourinho joined Chelsea. This news has been confirmed before June. Mourinho has almost decided to join Chelsea after leading Porto to the championship. .

The media broke the news that Mourinho has received the highest salary of a coach in the world, and Chelsea has prepared a new four-year contract for him. The 41-year-old Mourinho will surpass England coach Elaine with an annual salary of 5 million pounds. Ricksen has become the highest paid football manager in the world - £100,000 a week is on par with Crespo and Veron, the highest paid in Chelsea, and even twice as much as Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger!

Mourinho has won two major European Cups and countless domestic championships for Porto. Before leaving, Mourinho wanted to give the club another generous gift. At present, the Porto club is in debt of 40 million pounds. If Mourinho can convince Abu The purchase of several Porto players would be something that Porto president Da Costa would like to see - although Da Costa is still threatening to sue Chelsea for "illegal contact" with UEFA, but the club is actively From the point of contacting Real Madrid's abandoned coach Queiroz to take over as Mourinho, the Porto chairman has already "resigned".

Then, Deco, Del Lai, Costinha, Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira are all associated with Chelsea's name. Although Bayern also has interest in Deco, I believe that it is still a good idea to follow his mentor to England. Portugal's "Magic" first choice, in addition, Mourinho also wants to play in the Champions League final defender Carvalho also brought to Stamford Bridge. To replace the aging old captain Desailly.

Just when many media questioned Mourinho's 'right' in Chelsea, team chairman Roman Abramovich gave Mourinho the greatest support, saying that Mourinho would have the club's transfer 'top leader' Right, that is to say, all Chelsea players are sold and sold by Mourinho alone.

And so the transfer storm began.

First Ricardo Carvalho, Paulo Ferreira, Thiago Mendes. Then Cech, Robben, Kežman, Drogba... before the end of the European Cup. Chelsea almost completed a series of transfers at lightning speed, the biggest of which was Drogba's £24 million, which is definitely the world's top player, but Drogba was not very famous before, which made many The media treat Chelsea as if they were taken advantage of.

In just one month, Chelsea spent £95 million on a star, meanwhile. Their low price and even outright cancellations eliminated some players who were not in the plan. This has made Chelsea look completely new at once, and they can be described as 'star-studded' more than last season.

So they immediately became the focus of the English media.

In contrast, another notable team is Liverpool. Liverpool also completed a coaching change in the summer. The Spaniard Rafael Benitez succeeded Houllier. He was only 43 years old. Also a champion coach. Even the age is only a year older than Mourinho.

In terms of coaching experience, Benitez spent three years in Valencia. Helping the team win two La Liga trophies, a Copa del Rey and a UEFA Champions League trophy is not as good as Mourinho leading Porto to a 'triple crown' honours, but consider Valencia It is a La Liga team. They have to face the competition between the two giants-Real Madrid and Barcelona. Benitez's team performance has been quite perfect. Small treble 'achievement, Benitez attracted the attention of the whole of Europe, after a peaceful parting with Valencia, he came to England to become the head coach of Liverpool club.

Compared with Mourinho, who immediately became the focus of attention when he came to England, Benitez seemed much more low-key. Perhaps, this is also because Liverpool, whose economy cannot catch up with Chelsea, could not get him this kind of attention, but Liverpool's signings still cost money. A lot of money, Xavi Alonso, Luis Garcia, Josemi, Cisse four players also cost Liverpool 30 million pounds, but at the same time they sold Husky, Murphy, especially Most importantly, they sold England's golden boy Michael Owen to Real Madrid, which made the English media and fans quite dissatisfied, so you can imagine what evaluation Liverpool can get.

But Liverpool are actually pretty good.

They have surprisingly become the 'second focus' behind Chelsea in the summer, which was very difficult before. Although they are one of the Premier League giants, they have not won anything since the formation of the Premier League. Results, many fans are on the verge of forgetting Liverpool - even though they are still contenders for a Champions League spot every season.

The traditional "overlord" of the Premier League, Manchester United and last season's league champion Arsenal, are much more low-key.

Manchester United seem to have only done one thing in the summer - chase Everton star Wayne Rooney, that's been the news since March, and it's still been the news, the only change is that everyone knows that Everton is sure It is to sell Rooney, and Manchester United must buy Rooney, but because of this, Everton can't wait to slaughter Manchester United. Manchester United is difficult to accept, and at the same time they want Rooney very badly.

The news about Manchester United in July seems to be the only one. In contrast, the joining of Alan Smith and Heinze does not seem to attract people's attention at all. Perhaps these two players are also very difficult to attract the attention of fans. After all Their worth is not high, for a team of Manchester United's level, a player worth millions of pounds is nothing.

Arsenal . . . even more low-key.

Everyone knows that they are raising funds for the construction of a new stadium. It is difficult for the club to have any transfer fees. In this case, it is understandable for Arsenal to be low-key. The only news that the media revealed about Arsenal is that they bought a Dutch star Van Persie. , but only a forward. If you look at Arsenal's striker, you can see that this young boy must be adding depth to the bench, so no one cares at all.

Other than that, it's gone.

This is Arsenal in July.

Compared with the four major teams in England, Derby County is naturally unknown, even if in fact Derby County still has two million-level transfer news. But it is also difficult to attract the attention of the English media. After all, this is the Premier League, and transfers of millions of pounds abound in the Premier League. In particular, the players purchased by Derby County are very unknown, and it is even more difficult to attract media attention.

So since the start of preparations for Derby County, the name of the team has hardly been seen on the news.

Maybe some media reporters want to know what Derby County is doing, but the team's training is closed, not even open to the public for two consecutive weeks. This caused some media dissatisfaction. Many Derby County fans also wanted to see the team, but Wansheng insisted on closed training. Except for the two warm-up games, the team was not allowed to contact the outside world at all, and they concentrated on training and preparing for the new season.

This persistent training is very effective.

Everyone can feel the improvement in the team's tactical training, which makes everyone more confident, and naturally has a lot less complaints about the hard training, which is especially reflected in the new players.

at the beginning. Van der Vaart and others don't understand the training of the team, they don't know why everyone thinks that. It's just training, just stay in shape and know how the team can play or not? But after a period of 'no way but to keep working hard', they became a lot more active, because they obviously felt their improvement, and at the same time they could feel the improvement in the tactical training of the entire team.

This is surprising.

In just two weeks, you can feel a significant improvement, which is unbelievable to many people. It is like learning a sport. At the beginning, it is completely impossible. Generally, it takes a long period of practice to become proficient. In terms of football tactics, this is a long period of time. Generally, teams are calculated in months or even years. Compared with skilled tactics, two weeks is almost the same as the beginning. Tactics are already very proficient, and can even apply tactics to the game.

It's a surprising feeling, old players are used to it, they attribute it to Wansheng's ability, in their words, "This is the sport of science."

Van der Vaart and others began to dismiss it, but now they feel that what their teammates said is correct, otherwise how can they explain that they are quickly familiar with the tactics and can practice it? What excites them in particular is that they adapt very quickly to the team. They originally thought that they would have to overrun for a period of time before they can fully adapt to the team, but now they don't have this trouble anymore, they feel that they can fully adapt to the official game. Appears on the field, and can adapt to the position and has a good cooperation with his teammates.

In this case, Wansheng also arranged two warm-up matches, one against Gillingham and the other against Middlesbrough.

Gillingham is a British Championship team (in the summer of 2004, the English Champions League was formed, replacing the previous League One), the two teams were still in the same level before, but now they are completely different, this is Derby County's first summer In the warm-up match, there was still a lot of attention, but in the end Derby County only played a 1:0. Although the victory was good, it only won by one goal, which is still a bit small.

After the game, the media's evaluation of Derby County's performance was, "The whole team played very well, and it seems that it is not as good as last season."

After that, Derby County played a second warm-up match against Middlesbrough led by McLaren. This was a warm-up match that Wansheng contacted himself. He had a good personal relationship with McLaren and decided after a phone call. warm-up match.

This warm-up match is a match between two Premier League teams. Before the official start of the league, it was still a lot of attention. Even the opponents in those leagues noticed a lot of the match between the two teams, but the match was actually nothing to watch. Both coaches frequently adjusted their tactics and made frequent substitutions during the game. Neither team cared about the result at all. In the end, the game ended 2:2, and the two teams drew and ended peacefully.

In the game, Derby County's play is still mediocre.

To apply the more positive comments of the media, "Derby County's performance is not as good as last season, their strength has declined, and the new season can only be aimed at relegation."

This disappointed many Derby County fans.

At the same time, the attention of the English media to Derby County has also decreased significantly. Although they were the stars of last season and were also expected to be in the summer, these two warm-up games and Derby County's low-key proved that they are just an ordinary team. .

Many people also feel normal.

Derby County was excellent last season because they participated in the second-tier league. If they are strong, they will naturally perform well. But this season, they have reached the top-level league. Every game in the league will be a strong opponent. The games were tough for them, so they were reduced to normal teams.

After all, Derby County is really nothing compared to the massive investment of Chelsea and Liverpool, and the historical strength of Manchester United and Arsenal.

And just in that kind of coverage and perception, even fewer are paying attention to Derby County.

But what many people don't know is that after the game against Middlesbrough, Wan Sheng led the team back to Derby County, and when all the players got off the bus, the first thing he said to the players was, "Today everyone The performance is good, as long as we can maintain the state after a week, we will definitely win the first round of the league!"

His voice was full of confidence.

Many players also clenched their fists and were full of fighting spirit, because in the first round of the league, their opponent was last season's Premier League champion Arsenal. (To be continued ~^~)