Chapter 180 A Surprise for Leverkusen

Ajax emerged from the group of death in the Champions League and was praised and praised by the media and fans across the Netherlands. Many Dutch teams, such as PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord, and even teams like Nijmegen were indignant. They thought the media was exaggerating.

In the past three years, Neeskens has been living under the shadow of Ye Qiu, because in 2000, the first candidate for Nijmegen's head coach was Ye Qiu, who had just led Ajax II to win the Dutch Cup. But later Ye Qiu stayed in Ajax, and Nijmegen chose Neeskens.

This made the former Dutch superstar dissatisfied, because in his career, he was always dazzling, and even Cruyff could not suppress his style. When has he ever been suppressed like this?

In the previous two seasons, NEC Nijmegen performed generally, and its results were always in the middle and lower reaches. However, this season, Nijmegen performed very well. Now, they have even begun to ambitiously covet the qualifications for European competitions, and even have the hope of qualifying for the Champions League. This also makes Neeskens feel that he has the confidence to challenge his old club.

Regarding the words that doubted Ye Qiu and Ajax's strength, Neeskens was more for the purpose of motivating his own players and hitting Ajax's morale. This is very common in professional leagues, so at the Arena Stadium, Nijmegen really put on the posture of a weak team and showed weakness to the enemy.

Defense counterattack is the reason why Nijmegen has performed well this season. In the Eredivisie, which is aggressively offensive football, defense counterattack can still achieve results. Neeskens's transformation naturally paid off, but there is a prerequisite.

That is, your defense must be able to withstand the opponent's attack, otherwise, how can you talk about counterattack?

However, Neeskens' solid defense did not last more than 20 minutes at the Arena Stadium. Strictly speaking, they only lasted 18 minutes and 23 seconds, and Huntelaar's goal completely shattered Neeskens' dream.

But the score of 1:0 in the first half still left hope. Neeskens was obviously not ready to give up during the halftime break.

But at the beginning of the second half, Ajax played their best offensive tactics. Huntelaar scored another goal 2 minutes into the second half, 2:0, and the lightning attack completely stunned Nijmegen.

Just 5 minutes later, Van der Meyde's goal further expanded the score to 3:0!

Neeskens' adjustment and the strategy of giving up the attack failed to stabilize his defense and restore the team's morale.

In the 72nd minute, Hleb's rare goal continued to expand the score to 4:0!

5 minutes later, Yaya Toure's goal changed the score to 5:0!

The entire Arena Stadium was completely transformed into a sea of ​​celebration, and everyone was surprised by Ajax's performance.

After that, Ye Qiu made some substitutions, and Heitinga, who came on as a substitute, scored the last goal, 6:0!

Before the game, Neeskens, who was ambitious and vowed to beat Ajax at the Arena Stadium, became a complete loser at the Arena Stadium after 90 minutes. He lowered his proud head and had to congratulate Ye Qiu in a helpless but convinced tone.

At the same time, PSV Eindhoven lost 1:2 to Feyenoord at home. Van Marwijk's team scored two goals in the first half, and Hiddink's team scored a goal in the second half by Rommedal, but failed to beat Feyenoord.

Because Ajax had focused more on the Champions League and lost several games in the Eredivisie, PSV Eindhoven's points were tied with Ajax. After this game, Ajax surpassed Hiddink and got a 3-point lead.

As many media close to Ajax said after the game, Hiddink's so-called world-famous coach's sign was now torn off by Ye Qiu. Maybe he is very good at training defense, because PSV Eindhoven's defense this season is excellent and is the best defensive team in the Eredivisie, but Ye Qiu's team is obviously better at attacking and more aggressive.

Taking advantage of this rare week of rest, Ye Qiu made temporary adjustments to the problems exposed by the team before, especially the team's defense. The focus is on carving De Jong and Mascherano's midfielders and the cooperation between the back line.

A week passed quickly. Ajax challenged Heerenveen away. Van der Meyde scored in the 6th minute. Immediately afterwards, Arteta's goal gave Ajax a 2:0 lead before the halftime break.

After the second half, Arteta was injured and left the field, but Van der Meyde's goal in the 76th minute sealed the victory again, and finally helped Ajax beat Heerenveen 3:0 away.

After this round of the league, Ajax went to Germany to challenge Leverkusen away.

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The live commentator of the Champions League once raised an interesting question before the game, that is, what will happen when an unlucky player meets an unlucky team?

The commentator Effenberg smiled and said, whoever is more unlucky will lose!

I didn't expect that Effenberg really said this.

Ajax seems to be going smoothly this week, but in fact it is also quite unlucky.

First, Van der Vaart was injured before the match with Nijmegen. Van der Vaart played two league games in a row, scored in both games, and performed very well. In this game, Van der Vaart was still the starter, and Van der Vaart was pressed on the bench by Ye Qiu.

Then Arteta was injured. Although it was not serious, he also did not start and was still a substitute.

Kivu was also injured and did not even make the big list. Kolo Toure got the starting qualification.

There is a saying that when people are unlucky, they will choke even if they drink water.

In this game, Ye Qiu adjusted the starting lineup. The goalkeeper is Van der Sar, the defense line is Abidal, Lucio, Kolo Toure and Heitinga, the midfield is De Jong, Mascherano and Sneijder, and the front trident is Robben, Ibrahimovic and Van der Vaart.

To say that this lineup is indeed not bad, but sometimes it is just unlucky.

Ajax played smoothly throughout the first half. Because they were playing away, Ye Qiu arranged a double defensive midfielder combination of De Jong and Mascherano to play more conservatively. Unexpectedly, in the 36th minute, Leverkusen midfielder Babic took a corner kick, and Ajax's penalty area was missed, and Berbatov scored with a header in front of the goal.

How embarrassed was Ye Qiu standing on the sidelines?

The cool guy who claimed that his head could be cut off but his hairstyle could not be messed up actually scored a header into his own goal. What can he say?

You know, Berbatov is really unlucky this season. Halfway through the league, he has no goals and no assists. If it weren't for the head coach Top Muller who supported him, he would have been sprayed to death by the saliva of fans and teammates. How could he still stand on the court?

Do you know what Leverkusen fans say?

"If that Bulgarian dares to score, I will smash the ashtray on the TV screen!"

Ye Qiu really didn't know if the fans who said this really smashed the TV screen with ashtrays, but he knew very well that he really had the urge to smash the TV screen now, because he was too depressed. A corner kick, a muddled miss, what could he say?

Watching Berbatov run out of the stadium excitedly, hugging his head coach Top Muller who had always supported him, and celebrating his first goal of the season, Ye Qiu really wanted to smash an ashtray on Berbatov's head.

"Unlucky!" Ye Qiu kept shaking his head.

Bobby Hams shook his head helplessly and smiled, "Sometimes it's like this, when luck is not in your favor, you may lose at any time, and you can't find the reason. I can only say that our players suddenly had a brain short circuit at that time."

Although Ye Qiu didn't think it was funny, he still laughed, but sighed again and looked ahead.

"We should change our tactics, Bobby!"

According to Ye Qiu's pre-match plan, it is always difficult to play against a Bundesliga team, and it is an away game, so he adopted a more cautious strategy in the first half. Knowing that the German team is good at physical fitness and will, his most important goal in the first half is to dampen Leverkusen's spirit, observe their tactics, find loopholes, and counterattack in the second half.

But now it seems that the plan has changed.

After Ballack transferred to Bayern Munich, Top Muller introduced Hanno Balic from Cologne. The German was born as a right back, has good offensive ability, and defensive ability is not bad. He was transformed into a defensive midfielder. Top Muller obviously still wants to use him to play the role of Ballack, but sometimes football tactics are not this simple one plus one, but more complicated.

At least Hanno Balic can't replace Ballack's role at all. The two players seem to have similar styles, but in fact they are far apart, especially in consciousness.

"Van der Meyde was not in good condition in this game. Leverkusen's left side restricted him a lot. Heitinga was also disturbed by Croatian winger Babic. The entire right side was ineffective. We need to change!"

"Let Van der Vaart warm up. Oh, and Arteta!"

When he said this, Ye Qiu grinned, "Let's give Leverkusen a surprise in the second half!"

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The surprise that Ye Qiu mentioned really scared Top Muller.

During the halftime break, when he counted the players from Ajax walking out of the player tunnel, he suddenly found that Van der Meyde and De Jong were gone, replaced by Arteta and Van der Vaart, which surprised him a little.

Changing two players in a row at halftime, and at halftime, this courage is also great.

But the bigger surprise came after the opening, he found that Ajax changed the safe tactics in the first half and played more adventurously. They boldly pressed forward, adopted high defense, and actively attacked from the beginning.

Faced with the sudden change, Leverkusen was still prepared to continue using the strategy of the first half to deal with Ajax, but Ajax soon dealt Leverkusen a fatal blow.

Basturk dribbled the ball and wanted to break through, but Arteta retreated to defend and successfully intercepted the ball from behind, poking the ball to Mascherano. The Argentine did not stop the ball and pushed it forward. Arteta turned around and chased him and quickly counterattacked.

As soon as the entire attack line of Ajax saw the opportunity to attack, they immediately rushed forward like wolves and tigers.

Facing the defense of the defensive midfielder Baric, Arteta chose to pass the ball to Sneijder who ran over to receive the ball. The Dutch midfielder saw the ball coming and pushed it forward without stopping. The ball was almost close to the ground and came to Ibrahimovic's feet.

In a one-on-one contest with Ramelo, Ibrahimovic stopped the ball steadily and wanted to get rid of it. This immediately attracted the attention of Leverkusen's entire defense line. After all, Ibrahimovic's technical skills as an atypical center forward have spread throughout Europe, and everyone knows to pay attention to Ajax's difficult center forward.

But just when Leverkusen was wary of Ibrahimovic's barbaric solo work, the Swede chose to pass the ball.

The ball was passed from the middle to the right, and Van der Vaart, who had just returned from injury and came on the bench, was like a flash of lightning, passing the Argentine defender Placent at a very fast speed. After getting the ball, he waded into the penalty area and faced the attacking goalkeeper Butt. A calm low shot went straight to the bottom of the net, 1:1!

This goal fully reflects the tacit understanding between Ibrahimovic and Van der Vaart. Ibrahimovic's pass was just right, and it landed exactly on Van der Vaart's sprinting pace, allowing the Dutchman to sprint into the penalty area without any adjustments after getting the ball.

Because Ibrahimovic gave the ball comfortably, Van der Vaart first thought of celebrating with the Swede after scoring.

"Leverkusen's goal was indeed not unfair. Rafael Van der Vaart's speed and awareness are very good, and the ball was passed by Ibrahimovic and passed to Van der Vaart's sprinting route. Such a ball is very difficult to defend." Effenberg also felt helpless about Leverkusen's goal loss.

Although he has not retired yet, he has begun to use his spare time to work as a commentator to find a way out in the future, and in this game he was obviously on the side of Leverkusen.

"Ajax's attack is still very powerful. We have competed with this team before, so I also said before the game that the most important thing is to prevent Ajax from playing an offensive state, but it is obvious that Ajax adopted a very different tactic in the second half from the first half, which caught Leverkusen off guard."

"This should be a decision that Ye Qiu had prepared in advance. It was very bold, but the effect was also ideal."

"To be honest, Leverkusen's goal in the first half was a bit lucky and hard-earned, but unexpectedly, Ajax equalized the score at the beginning of the second half. This was a big blow to Leverkusen's morale. This is also a test for Top Muller and Leverkusen. After all, they could rely on Ballack at critical moments before, but now they can only rely on themselves!"

Top Muller did think of a solution, defensive counterattack, so he replaced Burdaric with Neuville in the 55th minute. The latter's performance this season is indeed bad enough. If Neuville did not need to rest in this game, he would not have a chance to play.

But it was obvious that Ajax was not afraid of counterattacks at all. Ye Qiu had already said in the midfield that we should go all out. No matter how the opponent thought or played, we only had one idea, to suppress them and beat them until they had no chance to fight back!

In the 60th minute, after Van der Vaart got the ball on the right, he passed Plasent. The Argentine defender used an obvious pulling action, but failed to stop Van der Vaart from cutting inside with the ball, pulling Lamelo out of the central defender position and passing the ball directly behind him.

Ibrahimovic overpowered his opponent, rushed up and shot a powerful shot, and penetrated Leverkusen's goal again, 2:1!

Ajax reversed Leverkusen! !

This immediately boosted the morale of Ajax. The players were like chicken blood, and they bombarded Leverkusen's defense line, causing Leverkusen, whose morale was obviously weakened, to retreat step by step.

Seeing the situation was precarious, Top Muller immediately made a series of substitutions, even Berbatov was substituted off the field, further strengthening the defense, but he was still very embarrassed by Ajax.

Ye Qiu made the third substitution in the 76th minute, replacing Robben with Hleb.

As he expected, Robben's condition in this game was not ideal, especially in the final stage of the game, his physical strength was obviously insufficient, and his advantage required sprinting, and after Leverkusen contracted the defense, Robben was not left with enough sprinting space, and the Dutch Little Flying Man was not effective.

On the contrary, Hleb, the Belarusian who was more inclined to positional attack, had more abundant physical strength and was more adapted to this positional defense, so after he came on the field, he quickly planned several threatening attacks.

Until the 88th minute, Hleb cut in from the left, Ibrahimovic ran in front, attracted the attention of Leverkusen's defender, and left a gap and space for Van der Vaart who came in from behind. The latter received a pass from Hleb in the penalty area, and after a stop and a pull, the ball went straight into the bottom of the net from Butt's side, 3:1!

This goal also completely destroyed Leverkusen's will to resist.

After winning the three-time champion last season, Leverkusen left Ballack this season, which had a great impact on the team's midfield and offensive power. It is not an exaggeration to say that the glory of last season was achieved by Ballack alone.

But not only that, last season's main central defender Novotny was seriously injured and has not yet recovered from the injury, which makes Leverkusen's defense very fragile. It is not noticeable when the game is going well, but once it encounters a headwind and the opponent's massive attack, the loopholes in the defense will become obvious.

This is also why Ye Qiu chose to be more conservative in the first half, grinding away Leverkusen's edge, and then making a big effort in the second half. He dared to make such a decision because he saw through Leverkusen's weakness.

In the end, the players did not disappoint his high expectations, defeating Leverkusen 3:1 away and getting off to a good start in the second round of the group stage.