Born to be a coach [soccer]

Chapter 103

Messi stretched out his foot to flick the ball, looked up at the defender in front of him, and nodded to Hyypia, indicating to come again.

In the offensive and defensive drill just now, the defender conceded the ball too quickly and too easily, Hyypia shouted loudly at this time, I hope everyone cheers up - facing a player like Messi, how can you not be [-] points and concentrate all attention?

"Come again-"

Assistant coach Russell commanded from the side: "It's time to help defend, you just do everything you can to prevent him from scoring!"

"understood!"

The defensive side got ready again, and everyone stared at Messi and the ball under his feet.Especially Pickford-this young man almost saved Messi's shot just now, and this time he has to show his skills in everything to save face for himself and his teammates.

Messi flicked the ball and took it to the left.

Flanagan, who was squatting on the right to intercept: ... looking for me again?

Godin, who acts as the central defender on the right, is worried about this "rich second generation", so he came up to help defend.Who knew that Messi stopped the ball by himself again, took a trip, and then led it to the right.

Everyone finally began to gradually understand Messi's routine today: the boss of feelings always likes to test first, and then suddenly speed up and launch an attack after testing - that's when it's real.But don't be blinded by appearances.

If he doesn't move, I can't move first;

Of course, the next sentence will most likely be:

Since he moved, it was too late for me to move...

Just as the players had foreseen, Messi suddenly started. This time, he took the ball directly to the right of the center and rushed inward. The attack was on the side of the defender Horton, who was relatively weak in interception.

In an instant, from Hypia down, all the defensive players in the penalty area gathered, everyone wanted to contribute, just to see if the bus tactic could stop Messi.

The same is true for Pickford, who opened his arms, adjusted his footwork, and stared closely at the direction Messi rushed, ready to make a save at any time.

Unexpectedly, when everyone was rushing to intercept, Messi suddenly stretched out his foot and took the ball to the left.

There was a dark shadow behind him who jumped in at high speed. He didn't hesitate to receive Messi's goal, and just pushed gently towards the goal with the arch of his foot.

Pickford's attention is all on Messi, how can there be any reaction at this time?

With a "bang", Vardy dribbled the ball straight into the goal.Outside the restricted area, there was a crowd of people turning their backs on their backs—God, so light?They were all "swayed" by Boss Mei so easily, and assisted Vardy who did not know when he had started.

No wonder people say that Messi plays easily on the court, just like walking in a courtyard. It turns out that it is really easy for him to play football.

Now Sunderland's defense was very discouraged.Hyypia stood on the court and spread his hands to Anton who was standing on the sidelines, as if to say: the other party took the lead in using "cheats", how to play this game!

Their defense line, which has just been put together, has to deal with Messi's powerful attack line as soon as it comes up. To be honest, every time it is penetrated, the players' confidence will be lowered once.

Anton took two steps forward, but said nothing, he came to observe the players' reactions.

Excited, Vardy rushed to Messi to give his new team-mate a high-five.Apparently, the self-confidence that was just blown back is now back.

The defenders looked a little downcast. After all, Messi broke through the defense so easily, and none of them could defend it once.

Among these players, only Pickford is an outlier.This child also has a big heart, waving his hands and shouting at everyone: "Hey, this is not very good, everyone has seen a really powerful striker!"

Sunderland players: Of course we all know that Messi is great, but this... in the face of real people, Messi is even more powerful than the players can imagine.

Pickford continued to pat the goalkeeper's gloves: "No matter how good you are, you are still our teammates. Why are you so worried?"

His teammates: ...that makes a lot of sense!

Everyone cheered up a little bit, only to see Anton waved suddenly, called the defenders to the sidelines, and said something to them.

Messi has also strolled and sprinted, and is standing on the sidelines to rest at this time.Suddenly, he felt that Anton was pointing in his direction, and the defenders also looked in his direction——

There is a situation!

Messi suddenly felt something was wrong.

His little brow furrowed.

Immediately afterwards, the defensive players on the court ran away together, and it didn't take long for everyone to move a "tin woodman" back.

These "tin men" are a kind of props used by players during training, and are generally used when training set balls.But after the defenders brought up all the tin men, they put them in their positions just now, and then everyone backed away laughing and laughing.Only Pickford was left alone, and continued to stay in his goalkeeper position.

Messi's little brow frowned even tighter.

——Is this changed to training set kicks?

Messi looked at Anton.

Anton shook his hand at him, signaling that no, it was still a mobile battle.

In other words, the current training requires Messi alone, or in cooperation with Vardy and other teammates, to pass so many "tin woodmen", and then face the goalkeeper and score the ball.

The players who were supposed to be on the field, defending Messi so nervously, are now standing on the sidelines together, shouting and cheering to Messi: "Come on!"

"Leo, trust you!"

But Messi frowned tightly, obviously a little suspicious of life.

--what's going on?

The head coach actually let him face a group of tin men and attack through sports warfare?

This... he won't!

Messi turned his head again, looked at Anton, and made a helpless gesture.

Anton smiled on the sidelines and pointed to Pickford who was guarding the goal.The young goalkeeper was staring at Messi in the distance, with sweat dripping from his freckled nose.

Messi thought to himself: Maybe Anton just wants to test the little goalkeeper!

So he started to dribble the ball, watching the "position" of the tin men on the field while dribbling, and prepared to "sway" these tin men one by one.

The "Tin Woodman" can't move, which instead makes Messi feel weird when he is dribbling the ball.It seems that his previous methods of surpassing others are no longer effective, and sometimes he almost loses his focus by shaking.

Fortunately, Messi has excellent footwork, with balanced left and right feet, and quickly dribbled the ball to "bypass" the Tin Woodman, and it was just one kick to the goal.

Pickford usually seems to be joking, but he is not ambiguous in training.Messi's shot was very tricky, but fortunately there were no other factors interfering. The young man flew up and lifted the ball over the crossbar.Messi failed to score the goal guarded by Pickford.

It's really strange to say that Messi was elusive in those two attacks just now.But this time facing a group of "tin woodmen", the difficulty is the lowest, but Messi just missed the goal.

This time Pickford was so happy that he took off his gloves and rushed up to high-five Messi.

After Messi and Pickford high-fived, he was still doubting his life-the outstanding performance of the young goalkeeper is certainly worthy of encouragement, but what happened to him not scoring this goal?What the hell is the training method using the Tin Woodman?Could it be that some mysterious formation from the east could prevent him from scoring?

He turned around and found that, except for him and Pickford, all the players were standing on the sidelines of the training ground, surrounding Anton.

Anton is asking these players: "Did you all see clearly just now? How do you feel?"

Just now, all Sunderland players were watching Messi's "performance" from the sidelines.Messi's small dribble moves very quickly, and passes "people" very smoothly.The sidelines are full of professional players. In their eyes, although Messi's movements are fast, every move and style is clean and unambiguous.It's like a very powerful rapper who sings very fast, but can sing every word clearly.

But in the eyes of the players, Messi's "sports battle" attack this time lacks the "mystery" of the first two times, and it lacks the feeling of being in a dream and being passed by without knowing it. .

Anton asked them why, and the players couldn't help but feel a little confused when they thought about it carefully: why is this, why can the Tin Woodman accomplish better defensive tasks?Is the coach saying that they should also turn into "Tin Woodman" and stay still when they are defending on the field?

Obviously not!

Among the players, Hyypia had rich experience and knew the answer, but Anton glanced at him, and he kept his mouth shut for now—he was a Finn anyway, so he wished he could keep his mouth shut.

The other players looked at me and I looked at you, and some were bowing their heads in thought.

Messi ran over to listen and looked at everyone suspiciously, wondering if everyone was doubting life like him.

At this time Royce said: "Coach, what do you mean, is it a change in rhythm..."

The kid had been carefully observing from the sidelines before, thinking while observing.

The rhythm of Messi's feet is always unpredictable. One second, you can see that he is still leisurely strolling in the courtyard, and the next second, he is like an arrow from the string, quickly getting rid of the marking...the next you hug It's a pity because your goal has been declared lost, and you don't even have time to stop and think about how Messi let you just watch him score just like that.

The magic of Messi is that his opponents can never predict his rhythm. Of course, if his "opponents" all become unconscious tin men on the field, the power of this rhythm will never be able to be exerted, and finally evolved into Messi vs goalkeeper.

Royce seemed to understand a little bit.

Anton praised him: "You understand well. Modern football, to put it bluntly, is a competition for time and space on the field. All offense and defense are the occupation and use of space by both sides. All rhythm, It's all about timing control, from a small attack to a whole game... If you can make the opponent lose control of the timing and control it yourself, you have the initiative."

At this moment, Messi came over. He didn't hear what Anton was saying, so he still had that extremely confused expression on his face—what's the situation?

Anton nodded and sighed: "It's just that this kind of control is almost innate for some people, while others need to be cultivated slowly."

Hypia patted his forehead intentionally at this time, and half-jokingly said: "So it's not about replacing all of our defenders with tin men!"

All the defenders turned their faces to look at Hyypia: Come on boss, this joke is very cold and not funny!