Chapter 595 Volume Five Red Benitez

The UEFA Super Cup is a traditional competition that has been held since 1972.

It was said before that Nottingham Forest is the European champions because they are the European Champions Cup winners. But in Liverpool, Liverpool fans also think they are European champions because their team has just won the UEFA Cup.

In this way, there are two more European champions, but there must be only one champion, and there can only be one. How to do it? Then there will be a match between the champions of these two events to determine the final winner. This method is a bit like "king among kings". Everyone is king, but which king is stronger? I believe that many fans will be very interested in the answer to this question.

Originally, there were three major cups in Europe, the European Champions Cup, the European Cup Winners' Cup, and the UEFA Cup.

The European Champions Cup, as the name suggests, is a cup competition that only the league champions of various countries can participate in. This is the championship with the highest gold content, and it is also the honor that countless wealthy teams dream of.

The European Cup Winners' Cup is attended by national cup champions, followed by the Champions Cup.

The UEFA Cup has the shortest history. Its predecessor was the "Exposition Cup". The participating teams are neither league champions nor cup champions, but several teams other than cup champions and league champions. Each national league is finally assigned to The quotas are not the same.

The European Super Cup was originally a competition between the champions of the Champions League and the winners of the Cup Winners' Cup. The level of the Cup Winners Cup has declined, and its attractiveness has declined. It can no longer attract richer sponsors, so a cup reform was carried out, merging the Cup Winners Cup and the UEFA Cup, and canceling the Cup Winners Cup. The eight-year-old cup was replaced by the UEFA Cup.

The two participating teams in today's UEFA Super Cup have become Champions Cup champions and UEFA Cup champions. The competition system of the Super Cup has also changed from the previous two rounds of home and away games to a single game. The game has been held since 1998 and has also been fixed in the tourist attraction Monaco.

Monaco is indeed a beautiful country, where the sea is blue and the sky is blue, and there are always all kinds of luxury yachts parked in the port. Only the real rich are eligible to enjoy it. For someone like Tang En, he doesn't have enough money to maintain a yacht, even Shania doesn't have enough money. Of the people he knew, perhaps only Wood's agent, Billy Wooks, was the most likely to own a private yacht.

Monaco is most famous for motorsports, while Monte Carlo is the famous F1 track. Before becoming the head coach, Tang En's understanding of Monaco came from two aspects, one was racing and the other was football.

Monaco also has its own professional football club and participates in the French Football League. It is not a force that can be easily ignored in French football. Tang En impressed them the most when former Real Madrid striker Morientes was loaned to Monaco, and then in the knockout round of the European Champions Cup, he used a goal to avenge Real Madrid who abandoned him-his goal The ball helped Monaco eliminate Real Madrid.

After the game, the scene of Morientes comforting his good friend Raul made Twain unforgettable.

It was a Champions Cup full of legends. Neither of the two teams that entered the final was the most famous and powerful team in Europe at that time. That cup made two young marshals—the head coach of Monaco, France Didier Deschamps, Portugal's Porto coach Jose Mourinho. In the end, Mourinho had the last laugh and won the Champions League. He also completed the triple jump from the league champion to the UEFA Cup champion, and then to the European Champions Cup. He became the hottest head coach in Europe. The story after that Everyone will know.

The same thing just happened to Twain last season. Dunn, who led the team from the First Division to the Super League, and then to the Champions Cup, also completed a triple jump no less than that of Mourinho. Considering that he is in the more competitive and stronger Premier League , maybe even more difficult than Mourinho was at the time. Today's Tony Twain has also become the hottest young head coach in Europe. There is nothing unusual about high-achieving head coaches. This profession depends on experience and wisdom, and wisdom and experience are traded by time—age. Older head coaches have more experience and wisdom. I think Think of Ferguson, Wenger, Capello, Scolari, Bosque, Aragones... Which one is not over 50 years old, and their gray hair makes them more intelligent.

In the coaching circle, people in their forties are considered young coaches, but if they are players, they may have to be called "old men". Mourinho was already over 40 years old when he won the Champions Cup, but Tang En was under 40 years old. With such a high achievement at such an age, it is difficult not to attract attention. The success of the young coaches shows that they still have more glorious years to look forward to than the old man. The old man will grow old after all. At that time, this football will be dominated by young people. Tang En does not mind taking advantage of his age to dominate the world. Thirty or forty years or something...

After Nottingham Forest won the Champions League, some Forest fans worried that a rich man like Abramovich would poach their "leader" with a high salary. After Mourinho also relied on Porto to win the Champions League, he jumped to the higher Premier League.

In this regard, Twain promised that he would not leave the forest in front of more than 30,000 fans and countless TV viewers at the celebration that night. He didn't say "I won't leave during the contract period", nor did I say "I won't leave for many years in the future", what he said was "I will never leave".

He did receive coaching invitation letters from some clubs, hoping to invite him to coach those teams.

The most famous of these is Real Madrid.

Chairman Calderon and Real Madrid fans thought Capello's Real Madrid was too rigid and lacked the style of artistic football and beautiful football, so after winning the league championship, Capello was kicked out. So when Tang En received this invitation, he felt both funny and funny. Could his football look better than Capello's? Nottingham Forest has always been criticized by the European media as a representative of ugly football and negative football. Letting a team like Nottingham Forest win the Champions League is simply a regression of modern football... Wait, why did Calderon like him?

So Tang En took this invitation as a joke and didn't reply at all. Soon afterwards, he heard that Real Madrid had finally won Schuster, and they paid Getafe a liquidated damages, and Getafe agreed to release him.

That's right. Schuster played pretty good football when he was coaching a small team. He used to be a Real Madrid player. He is currently the most suitable head coach for Real Madrid. I, Twain, don't have nothing to do to join in the fun...

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Monaco is a very beautiful seaside city, but the Forest team is not here for vacation. They came to Monaco two days in advance to do training to adapt to the venue. The life of these two days is two points and one line in the hotel and the stadium.

The hotel where the Liverpool team stayed was not far from the hotel where the Forest team stayed, and it only took 20 minutes to walk. Monaco was originally a pocket country, and the narrowest place from north to south was only 200 meters away.

Living so close, even if you go for a walk, you may run into each other. After the hype of the media, the two teams are now at war. So it's better not to meet if it's okay, especially the "culprit" who provoked this war of words.

At this moment, this man who has been scolded by countless Liverpool people hundreds of millions of times is sitting in the hotel lobby, drinking coffee while accepting interviews from the Chinese media group, looking very leisurely.

Why is it called "media group"? Because there were reporters from more than one media, and there were ten people around Tang En, all of whom were reporters from China. Since the World Cup in Germany, Tang En and Tang Jing have been working for the newspapers who have been writing articles, so he has known many Chinese media. During the Asian Cup this year, as a foreigner, he scolded the Chinese team from the Football Association to Players, caused an uproar in China. But after all, there were only repercussions in China, and Twain didn't take it to heart, and let the media and fans toss about it.

This interview was agreed upon during the Asian Cup, and he was just fulfilling his promise.

The reporters asked a wide range of questions, from the Super Bowl that will start tomorrow, to the previous Asian Cup, and some of Tang En's personal hobbies...for example, why he likes Chinese culture so much.

Tang En answered their questions in Chinese very freely, getting over the addiction of speaking "mother tongue".

A Chinese reporter kindly reminded him: "The competition is coming soon, Coach Twain, aren't you worried about tomorrow's competition?"

Tang En was a little dumbfounded: "Whether I'm worried or not has nothing to do with me accepting your interview here, right?"

"As far as I know, Coach Benitez is busy studying opponent data at this time."

"That's just because you didn't know when we were researching our opponents." Tang En's face became serious, and he suspected that this blind-eyed reporter came to intentionally mess things up.

It was Tang Jing who hurried out to make peace with Si Ni.

"Coach Twain, can you give us an outlook on tomorrow's game?"

Tang En stood up. This was the last question. He didn't have so much time to spend playing word games with reporters. "Look forward? What's there to look forward to? Of course we will win." After speaking, he grinned and made a gesture of victory. The photographers pressed the shutter of their cameras very cooperatively.

After the interview was over, Tang En shook hands with the reporters and said goodbye. He was going back to his room to prepare for the night's tactical meeting.

"Say something good about me in front of Chinese readers. I know my reputation in China doesn't seem to be very good now." He said jokingly, which made the reporters laugh. "Maybe I will have a chance to go to China in the future, please take care of me then!"

He clasped his fists and made a very Chinese gesture.

Then he turned around and left.

Was he joking? Some people think it is, some people think it is not, such as Tang Jing.

The Nottingham Forest team has a Chinese player, a Chinese assistant coach, and a head coach who loves Chinese culture and has chosen to go to China twice for vacation... How can such a team with close ties to China be so sympathetic to China? Virgin land" turn a blind eye?

Real Madrid has been to China, Barcelona has also been to China, and Manchester United, Chelsea... The Premier League is very loyal to the development of the Asian market. These teams have come, so will the new European champion be far behind?

She looks forward to it.

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Tang En didn't go back to his room, he went straight into Tang's room, where the coaches were all there, and they were discussing the relevant issues in the night's tactical meeting. Seeing Tang En coming in, everyone just looked up and went on with their business, no one cared.

Tang got up to meet him.

"How was the interview?"

"It's much easier to deal with than the British media." Tang En scanned the room, "Still discussing?"

"It's basically gone, just some divergent discussions." Tang introduced.

Divergent discussion refers to the discussion that is not aimed at this game, but the issues that are derived from it. In fact, to put it bluntly, it is "off topic", but this off topic is more professional...

The coaching staff believes that Benitez will choose a more moderate tactic in this game, that is, he will not focus on defense or overemphasize offense, but will patiently deal with the Forest team, even if it is delayed to a penalty shootout. Then start from this topic, running to Benitez, what he likes, what habits does he have, and what influence does his identity in Spain have on the football tactics he chooses. After all, the Spanish football philosophy is completely different from the English football philosophy.

Then, continue to run, ran to the tradition of the Liverpool team, and the topic quickly changed again. This time, Twain became the protagonist, and everyone was discussing the war of words between Twain alone and half of the population of Liverpool City (meaning Liverpool fans).

This time seeing Tang En sitting next to him, everyone looked at Tang En and laughed while discussing.

Chris Lack was still joking with Twain, telling him not to travel to Liverpool for the rest of his life, otherwise he might be in personal danger.

Tang En sat on the side and did not join their off-topic meeting. His thoughts followed the discussion of these people upstream, and then stopped on the topic of Benitez.

As a head coach, researching a team will naturally start with peers. He knows Benitez, very well. Thanks to advanced information dissemination technology, he can easily know as much as he wants to know.

Like him, Benitez is a master tactician and a coach who is good at commanding on the spot. Remember the European Champions Cup final in the 2004-2005 season? Benitez created a miracle night in Istanbul in his first season at Liverpool.

Twain knew that he was directly promoted to head coach from a rookie. He did not have an orthodox education. Apart from relying on his own talent, he was constantly learning from other people's experience and knowledge. So he read a lot of tactical notes, studied the methods of other head coaches, and studied many classic battles in football history, from the middle battles to the shining points left by the seniors.

Ordinary fans only watch the performance of the stars when they watch the game. Twain is a fan who likes to study tactics since before time travel, so he only plays CM and FM when he plays games, but he is a complete rookie when he plays live football. If you don't win, let alone fight against people. Playing football manager games is different, he plays against people online and always wins. He has benefited greatly from these habits. There are always things worth learning and drawing lessons from those classic battles.

In the Champions League final match against AC Milan, George Wood followed Kaka every step of the way. It cannot be said that he was not influenced by Benitez. Remember that Champions League final? Liverpool defender Finnan was injured, and Benitez replaced Finnan with Harman, and Liverpool played 352 instead. Hamann's debut gave the Red Army a special man to mark Kaka. As a result, the Brazilian, who was extremely active in the first half, disappeared without a trace.

Sometimes, a head coach's substitution adjustment does not need to be earth-shattering, it is more threatening to look inconspicuous. Benitez is such a restrained head coach. Most of his tactical masterpieces seem inconspicuous. Still that season, Liverpool took a 2:1 score at home as a guest in Turin to challenge Juventus. At that time, the public opinion was overwhelmingly optimistic about the Italians, but Liverpool just smothered the old lady 0-0 in the away game. The other fans in that game shouted dully. At 2:45 in the morning, people were drowsy, but Twain watched the whole game full of energy from the beginning to the end. He saw Benitez's tactical wisdom from it, and the change of the three central defenders received miraculous effects. Juventus, who are best at defense and boring battles, were suffocated to death by Liverpool, who suddenly changed their formation. Capello could only return with hatred again.

Twain still remembers his first season leading the team to the Premier League. At that time, he drew Arsenal 1:1 at home and beat Chelsea 2:1 at home. 4 defeat to Benitez's Liverpool. Even after more than two seasons, that game is still his biggest loss since he coached Nottingham Forest.

Up to now, he still remembers every detail of that game, because the score of 1:4 was too dazzling. All his tactical arrangements during the game were seen by the opponent, and his proud on-the-spot command was also suppressed by Benitez. No matter how he changed and adjusted, he could not call out the circle that Benitez had set for him. . At that time, he had a feeling of powerlessness that Sun Wukong couldn't jump out of the Buddha's palm.

Tang En is not a person who will be blinded by the anger of failure, he is willing to gamble and admit defeat. Now that you have lost, the only thing you can do is to study this game carefully, find your own shortcomings, and then improve it in future games. Fuck success when you fail, although this sentence is very vulgar, it is indeed a famous saying through the ages. He learned more from this game than winning streaks.

Afterwards, Twain was no longer the former Wu Xia Amon, and Nottingham Forest often had victories against Liverpool. The relationship between the two sides was no longer the relationship between the strong and the newly promoted.

The best thing about Tang En is that he has never been infected with the "phobia" in the bad habits of Chinese football, so he will not have any boring psychological shadow just because he once lost to an opponent, and then he will always trip over the same stone. He is a person who believes in the struggle philosophy of "If someone slaps me once, I will slap him back a hundred times." Every grievance must be retaliated"...

Benitez is a steady head coach, so Dunn did everything possible to provoke him to a war of words against Liverpool before the game, and even dragged the Spaniard into the water. But will Benitez really be affected by it?

He didn't respond to Tang En's provocation and insult to him in the media, and he only talked about the game and nothing else in the interview.

It seemed that Tang En's psychological tactics didn't work for him?

No, whether it is really ineffective or not will not be known until the competition.

Tang En recovered from his contemplation. His coaches had already changed the topic from Earth to Mars. A group of people are discussing with great interest a fat civilian star who has become very popular in the UK recently, Paul_Potts (Paul_Potts), who became famous by singing operas in the optional program of "British Talent".

"Okay, guys. If there's nothing else, you should go back. Don't you think it's too crowded here?" Dunn stood up and clapped his hands to interrupt their discussion. "After dinner, call the players for a meeting," he said to Chris Lark.

Chris Rack nodded, he didn't leave immediately: "What else?"

"Remind them to go to bed early today."

After explaining this, Chris Lack and other coaches walked out.

Then Tang stood in front of the sofa and looked at Tang En who sat down: "Aren't you going back to your room?"

Tang En was taken aback by the question, then he looked up and said oh. "So this is your room..."

Don didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and pushed him out. "I'll call you at dinner time, you'd better have a rest now, I think you're tired and confused."

Tang En muttered "I'm used to living with you" and walked back to his room.

Lying on the bed in his own room, before he closed his eyes and fell asleep, he was still thinking "What is Benitez doing at this time..."