Chapter 153 The Old Fox

"Abanglaho!yes!yes!yes!Abanglaho!"

The English fans in the stands jumped from their seats and raised their arms to cheer for their goal heroes. It seemed that an earthquake was happening at the Bernabeu stadium, and even the camera cameras were trembling.

Amid the cheers like tsunamis, Abang Laho broke free from his teammates, ran wildly to the coach's seat, and hugged Tang En. Everyone knew that he could appear in the finals and had a great relationship with Tang En. And his goal was also the best reward for trust from his boss.

"Aha! Tang En's unexpected adjustment this time made the Italians completely unable to react! In the 24th minute, we led with one goal! Beautiful work, Abonrajo! Beautiful work, Tang En!" John Motson did not question Tang En's substitution in the previous commentary, so he seemed confident to say this at this time.

After hugging Donn, Abanglaho found Mitchel in the crowd and rushed up to hug him.

"This goal is dedicated to you, Aaron!" The excited Abanglaho yelled in Mitcher's ear.

Mitcher was a little surprised, but he was soon infected by the emotions of the players around him. He bent down and hugged his teammates who were twenty-one centimeters shorter than him. They were dual teammates, from the national team and the club. He felt that perhaps it was because of this relationship that Abanglaho would hug him after scoring the goal.

"Good job, Flash! Score another goal!" Mitcher called him intimately to the nickname he gave Abanglahoqi.

Tang En was very satisfied when he saw this scene next to him. The atmosphere in the team's locker room was very harmonious. This team was united. With such a team, he was not afraid of any opponent.

The English were cheering for their lead, while the Italians were collectively silent.

Lippi was not furious on the sidelines because of this goal. In fact, no matter what the situation was, it was hard to see him showing his emotions on the sidelines. Now he is just sitting in the coach's seat, staring at the court with his eyes hidden behind the golden-rimmed glasses. He is thinking about the mistakes they made before.

He didn't expect that Don Eun would start Abang Lajo, which was really unexpected. He did not make any targeted arrangements for Abang Lajo in the pre-match preparations. This directly led to his players not knowing how to deal with Abang Lajo on the court. It would be nice if England's No. 18 performance was a little more active, and Italian players could know that this was an important person based on experience, so they would naturally shift the focus of their defense to him. However, Abang Lajo's previous performance was like a sleepwalking, which made everyone, including himself, reduce his positioning by several levels. They thought that this performance was not a threat...

Now it seems that Tang En is indeed a master of psychological adjustment and is very good at guessing other people's psychology. He guessed his own thoughts...

Lippi admitted that he had made an empiricist mistake, and he took it for granted when studying Don't En's starting lineup - James Vaughan performed well in the semi-finals, and there was no news of injury in the training these days, so he would definitely start in the finals. Unexpectedly, Don't expect that Don't actually dared to put Vaughan on the bench under huge pressure.

This opponent is interesting.

He got up from his seat, walked to the sidelines, and gestured to the players inside.

He wants Chiellini to strengthen his defense against Abanglaho. Don’t give him such opportunities easily. I believe that with the abilities of the Italian defenders, as long as they value Abanglaho, the opponent should have no room for performance.

Lippi's adjustment was expected by Don Endi. Because if he was still indifferent after seeing Abanglaho performing actively and scored the goal, then Lippi must have been replaced by an alien. It's too abnormal.

He was not worried about the fact that Abanglaho would be stared at. Now they are ahead of Italy, and even if Abanglaho was later defended to nothing, it would not matter. The important thing is to defend this advantage and then use this advantage to lure the Italians out so that their tight defense no longer exists.

He just asked the team to pay attention to defense for the next period of time.

Lippi did not intend to rush to equalize the score in the first half, although the players will definitely fight back after conceding the ball. But they will naturally come back after a while.

The reason he is not in a hurry to equalize the score is that a one-point lead will become a huge psychological burden for England. It is like a long-distance marathon, being the leader from the beginning is unwise, and no coach will let his athletes develop such tactics. The person who is truly capable of winning the championship must be hiding in the second group and maintaining pressure on the leader at any time. He will not overtake it until the last moment.

Lippi’s current idea is the same as those long-distance running coaches. He wants to throw the huge psychological pressure of leading to his opponent. Because this is not an ordinary game, this is the final, the final of the European Cup. As time goes by, a goal lead will become a huge psychological burden for English players. Everyone will think in their hearts--you must never lose the ball, otherwise our championship will be gone...

This idea will get heavier and heavier over time until it completely crushes England.

Lippi decided to make adjustments at the halftime break. He only made efforts in the second half. As long as the score is equalized, the huge psychological advantage will turn to Italy, and the situation on the field will also undergo a fundamental reversal. At that time, there is little time left for the game, and his morale is high, while England will suffer a major blow, and the final victory will definitely belong to Italy.

After the Italian team re-telephone, they organized several waves of offensives to equalize the score. But in the face of England's intensive defense that had been prepared, they did not get any advantage and retreated.

Tang En was very happy at first - the Italians finally pushed it out. But before long he laughed, he discovered a problem.

The Italian team did not panic because they lost a goal in the final and rushed up to bombard England's penalty area - although this was what Don En hoped to see. After attacking several times, they immediately retreated and returned to their previous defensive counterattack. It seemed that they were the ones leading the way.

This is obviously related to the white-haired old man who was directing the game on the sidelines.

Tang En lowered his head and pondered for a while, and he guessed Lippi's thoughts.

As he often said to the players, "leading one goal is the least safest score in the world." This is not his originality, but just a general statement he summarized. Football coaches all over the world know that even 1:0ists, they must often suffer from the psychological pressure of being bombarded by the opponent around the goal during the game, worried that they may be equalized at any time.

Lippi must think so. She intends to pass on this psychological pressure to the leading Englishman.

From this perspective, taking the lead too early is not a good thing...

In a long marathon, the Englishmen were the first to rush out of the large army and took the lead. The experienced Italians were hiding in the large army and always maintained a distance between them and the leading Englishmen. At the beginning, this was a competition of technology and strength. But when we approached the finish line, technology and strength were no longer important, and it was the psychology that decided that the final champion belonged to.

Since that's the case, let the team continue to strengthen their offense and turn one goal lead into two goals!

Don Eun walked to the sidelines and looked inside the field. Then he remembered: After Lippi asked Chiellini to strengthen his defense against Abanglaho, the England ground forward line had basically been frozen... Even if he wanted to strengthen the attack, how should he strengthen?

Tang En cursed in his heart: "Old fox!"

After all, Abang Lajo is not a pure center. Once he is stuck with the opponent's defender in the penalty area, the role he can play is actually quite small. At this time, Done will miss Mitchel very much. At least he heads the ball and will help the team tear open Italy's defense line.

With the two head coaches secretly competing with wits, the game born in the first half is no different from before the goal. England attacked strongly, hoping to score another goal before the end of the first half, while Italy stabilized its defense and accumulated strength, and refused to let the English succeed.

Until the last moment, Don En did not see his team score for the second time.

England entered the locker room with a goal lead. The Italian, who was behind with one goal, was not very depressed. When Lippi walked back to the corridor, his cousin on his face was very calm, making people unable to guess whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied.

Commentators from various countries expressed optimism about England.

"England leads with one goal! In such a final, the first goal must have an advantage, and what is more beneficial is that they maintain this lead until the break!"

"England's tactics are quite successful. The Italians did not expect Abonrajo to become the England goalkeeper, and they neglected to mark him. Although they then carefully marked England's No. 18, the fact that one goal was behind has formed..."

"The first half was really exciting! It didn't happen the dull scene I expected. England's aggressive offensive attitude won my respect. They took it for granted - one goal lead! The championship belongs to the active offensive side and is an offensive football!"

Even England fans were very satisfied with the result.

In the stands. Skinny Bill was excited about the first half: "Great! We actually took the lead!"

"Hey. Bill, what do you mean? Shouldn't we be ahead?" Someone next to him pretended to be angry.

"Nonsense. Of course, it should be ahead! I just didn't expect it to be so smooth! As long as we keep this result, we can win the championship! Tony is the best at defending, and under such circumstances he can always win the game! Now it's only an hour since we won the European Cup for the first time in our history... I was excited just thinking about it!" Bill didn't lie, he was trembling slightly now.

"Tony really has an idea to start Abanglaho, even I, a Forest fan, didn't expect it. I think Lippi and the others wouldn't expect it, otherwise why wouldn't anyone specifically defend Abanglaho?"

"Yes! Before the game, everyone was talking about Vaughan, Vaughan's... I was annoyed by it. The best result was that England won the European Cup, and our Nottingham Forest players scored the only goal, haha!"

The fans and the commentator were very optimistic. But Don was not optimistic at all. When he walked into the locker room, every English player could see the wrinkles in the middle of his eyebrows. Obviously, they were not happy because they were leading with one goal. On the contrary, they were worried about something.

Players always think less than coaches because they are players and they are only responsible for implementing the coach’s tactical intentions on the court. To put it bluntly, they are tools. The head coach is the helmsman of a team. He must think more than any smart player and see further, otherwise his ship will encounter a reef that is unknown, at the least it will be stranded and at the worst it will sink.

No player can think of the crisis they will face later. Maybe that won't happen at all, but Tang En thought that whether it would happen or not. He had to consider it. His mission was to try his best to prevent bad situations from happening.

"We took the lead with one goal, which is good, guys. I should praise you and congratulate you at this time. But I'm sorry, I can't do that at the moment." Tang En shook his head and said. "I thought about the crisis we might face in the second half. I hope you know that one goal lead is definitely not a good thing."

The players think their head coach is going to say again that "a goal lead is the least insurance score in the world", but no.

Don En just said: "The Italian team is used to taking action. Think about the final of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. How did the Italian team equalize the score while falling one goal first and drag the game into a penalty kick. Finally defeating the French team to win the Golden Cup? The Frenchman is our lesson, and we cannot be satisfied with this score. If possible in the second half, I hope you try to seize the opportunity to score..."

"You guys did a good job, gentlemen." Lippi said to his players in the locker room. He was not in a hurry, and his tone and manners were still elegant. "I'm not mocking you guys. In fact, you only lost one goal in the first half, which made me feel very relieved. Now, it's time to consider our counterattack."

"In the first half, we gave England a chance to get the ball at will in our midfield.   In this case, the second half will not exist again.  We are going to regain control of the midfield." He glanced at De Rossi and Aquilani, and these two people would be the key.

"Their two sideways are under pressure, and we should make more use of this when we attack in the second half. Parosky, you should run more to the sideways in the second half so that you can get more opportunities. Forti, you continue to stay in the middle. We need your response transition in the middle, press their defense line inwards and create space for our midfield."

The two forwards nodded.  They hardly saw them in the first half, and some even suspected that they did not play.   For them.   Forty-five minutes in the first half was really a torture.   They urgently needed to perform in the second half.    It was also the final of the European Cup.   No one wanted to do nothing in such a game.  Look at Abanglaho, that kid was sleepwalking before.   But once he scored the goal, he became a hero.

"In the second half, we no longer continued to attack hard, but instead attacked steadily."

When Tang En said this, no one was surprised. Because this was something they knew the day before the game. According to their plan, they fought for a goal in the first half, then gradually narrowed their defense line in the second half and started to play a defensive counterattack. They either kept the advantage of this point, or took advantage of the opponent's attack and were eager to equalize the score, and waited for an opportunity to sneak attack and expand the gap.

This is England's wishful thinking, but it's hard to say whether it can be done or not.

"The speed should be fast when counterattacking..." At this point, Tang En glanced at Abanglaho. He would continue to play in the second half without being replaced immediately. Because he had amazing speed, this was a very important weapon in the counterattack.

"Gabriel." Done called his name, "You don't have to be in the front in the second half. You have to actively retreat and come to the midfield to catch the ball. Our pass also try to pass the ball in front of us, giving Abanglaho and Rooney space to run. But if the counterattack is blocked, stabilize immediately, hold the ball under your feet, and don't waste the opportunity to attack easily."

Hearing Tang En say this, Abang Laho knows that he won't be replaced early. And the other person is not feeling well.

James Vaughan knew that Abanglaho would continue to gain trust, so he looked down at his jersey. He also wore a T-shirt with it saying "We're with you, Aaron". This was specially prepared for Mitcher.

But now it seems that it may not be of use. He was wondering whether to take it off for a while, after all, wearing two T-shirts is a bit hot.

Since you can't show up, what should you do if you keep this T-shirt with the words written on it?
Chapter completed!