Chapter 594 Raul's Value

In the past, Tottenham Hotspur's signings were mostly completed before the team's training camp, but the situation this summer was a bit special. Affected by the South Africa World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur's signings were a bit delayed, resulting in the last player Raul joining the team at the end of July.

Because of this, the Amsterdam Invitational held in the Netherlands became the first collective appearance of Tottenham Hotspur's first team. Considering that the other two teams participating in the Amsterdam Invitational were Roma from Serie A and Villarreal from La Liga, the warm-up was still very valuable and was a good test for Tottenham Hotspur.

In July, Tottenham Hotspur played a total of three warm-up matches, two of which were against lower-level English leagues and the other was against Celtic from the Scottish Premier League. Tottenham Hotspur won three consecutive games, but the performance was not very ideal. However, considering that the international players who participated in the World Cup failed to return to the team on time, this was not very convincing.

Just when everyone was looking forward to the first appearance of Tottenham Hotspur's main lineup, Ye Qiu did not use the full main lineup in the first game against Villarreal in Amsterdam.

Goalkeeper Cech, defense line Alba, Kompany, Nastasic and Kyle Walker, midfielders are Coutinho, Yaya Toure and Ramsey, front trident is Neymar, Raul and Ribery.

This disappointed some Dutch fans who came to see Messi, because Ye Qiu did not even arrange Messi, Fabregas, David Silva and other players into the game list, that is, they will not play in this game.

Although many substitutes played in the game, Tottenham Hotspur's performance in the game was not bad at all.

At the beginning of the game, Tottenham Hotspur showed a strong desire to attack, especially the two young midfielders of Tottenham Hotspur, 18-year-old Coutinho and 19-year-old Ramsey, with the support of Yaya Toure, showed excellent organization and ball delivery ability, and delivered shells to teammates in the front court again and again.

Especially Coutinho, who started for Tottenham Hotspur for the first time. Although it was a warm-up match, the 18-year-old Brazilian midfielder was ambitious to play more games in the Tottenham Hotspur team in the new season, so he showed his excellent personal ability and strong desire to play.

After adapting after the start of the first half, the Brazilian teenager quickly showed his threat of holding the ball in the midfield. A left-footed straight pass of more than 20 meters, sharply tore through Villarreal's defense, and accurately fell to Raul's feet at the front of the penalty area.

This was Raul's first game after he officially joined Tottenham Hotspur, and he only participated in two team training sessions for Tottenham Hotspur in total, but Raul seemed to need no running-in at all in the game, plug and play.

I saw the former soul of Spain, in the left area of ​​the top of the penalty area, pulling out the opponent's central defender, and leaning against the opponent with his body. When everyone thought he would stop Coutinho's beautiful through ball, he chose not to stop the ball, and directly kicked the ball to his left with his left foot.

This pass passed the defender, and Ribery on the right quickly cut into the penalty area, headed the ball in front of him, and followed up with a low shot with his right foot, but it was slightly off the goal.

Although he failed to score, Ribery ran to Raul's side when he walked back, stretched out his hand to high-five Raul, and was obviously praising Raul for this beautiful pass, which was very comfortable, and more importantly, it was very sudden.

As early as the team training, everyone was surprised to find that Raul was very consistent with Tottenham's tactical style in terms of awareness and technology. His one-touch ability was quite good, and his off-ball running and cooperation awareness, as well as his understanding of the game were all outstanding.

Of course, with age and experience, awareness naturally improves.

Haven't you seen Manchester United's veteran Scholes, who had the same passing and organizational awareness when he was young?

Ye Qiu has mentioned many times within the team that it is important to learn until old age, and the most important thing for professional players is to keep learning and improving. He highly praises Raul's agility when playing football. This is not just an innate outstanding talent, but a constant learning and accumulation, the kind of interlaced running that makes defensive players extremely passive, and the effect of an excellent pass.

Many players are used to being passive in off-ball running, that is, according to the defensive formation, find out the soft spots and weak links, run out of your control range, or go to the weak area of ​​your defense to meet teammates, the purpose is to ensure the team's connection and support, the most direct and effective way is to run to the area far away from the defensive players.

This is the most common way of off-ball running, because it is simple and easy to learn.

There is also an active running, he does not worry about what kind of arrangement your defense is, because he has only one purpose, to find your loopholes and attack your loopholes. In terms of military tactics, it is to attack the area that the enemy has to defend. This forces your defensive players to dismantle and fill the loopholes no matter how well and solid the previous defense line is organized.

Active off-ball running is difficult because it requires a very high level of player's ability to play. But if you have this ability, even if your skills are terrible, you can still become a first-class star with this ability, such as AC Milan's Filippo Inzaghi.

Filippo Inzaghi's technical ability can even be described as poor, but why can he achieve what he has today?

Many people say that Filippo Inzaghi is a fox in the penalty area, and some people say that he is a hunter who lives on the offside line. In fact, in the final analysis, it is to evaluate his awareness of off-ball running.

Huntelaar, a player of Ye Qiu in Ajax, is a very traditional finisher. Ye Qiu has always believed that Huntelaar was born at the wrong time. He also has excellent active off-ball running ability, and his ball stopping and basic skills are quite solid. His shooting skills are also typical of Dutch shooters, but the problem is that modern football can hardly accommodate such a classic shooter.

Raul is also a very good player in active off-ball running, not even inferior to Inzaghi, but what is more valuable is that he has top-notch skills and awareness. As a traditional number nine and a half player, Raul has adapted well to the changes in modern tactics. He can cover the offensive area in the most difficult way for the opponent to defend, because he has the insight of a top midfielder into the space of the field, so he can make very exquisite passes when he gets the ball in the frontcourt.

Just like Raul retreated to receive Coutinho's pass just now. Frankly speaking, Coutinho's pass was very beautiful, but Raul received it even more beautifully, because he not only received it, but also passed a wonderful pass that the defensive players did not expect at all, and even Ribery himself could not think of, so that Ribery himself was a little unexpected.

But if you look carefully, you will find that Raul does not look at Ribery's running position at all.

You will think it's ridiculous, right? How can you find Ribery's running route without looking? And his speed? How to pass the ball with such a precise landing point? And it is the most difficult to control the lob pass?

This must be mentioned a misunderstanding that many fans have, that is, the eyes!

Remember, when Ye Qiu heard Van Basten training Ibrahimovic and Huntelaar, Van Basten once said that if you want to become a top shooter, you must have a basic condition, that is, to grasp the position of the defensive players and goalkeepers at the moment of shooting, and to predict them during the period when you complete the shooting action.

But you must know that this is just a foundation. Only with this ability can you be qualified to become a top shooter.

But Van Basten said again that on this basis, all top shooters must have some other qualities, such as shooting skills and footwork selection. Tottenham Hotspur's main center Falcao last season is one of the best active players.

But in Van Basten's view, the most deadly shooter is to have excellent footwork after having basic qualities, but at the same time, he must know how to deceive goalkeepers and defensive players.

To put it simply, you should use your body, eyes, posture, and movements as much as possible at the moment of completing the shot. You can even tell the goalkeeper that you will shoot to your left, and then deceive the goalkeeper and the defensive players, but in fact you shoot to the right, then you will succeed!

This is actually not a secret. Now many teams are constantly telling them when training scorers that when shooting, they should not look at the direction they want to shoot, but look in the opposite direction. This has become a routine.

But whether it can be done well, or whether it can be successful, is the standard for measuring a player's strength.

Just like Raul just now, he didn't look at Ribery at all, but the problem was that every move of Villarreal's defensive players and Ribery's every move were like a video, playing in Raul's mind. He didn't need to look at it, he could clearly grasp everything around him, and then pass the ball.

This is the true embodiment of Raul's strength and value!

Messi sat in the stands of the Arena Stadium. He watched Raul's every move on the court very clearly. This was a task Ye Qiu had assigned to him before. It was not only him, but also other players, even those on the bench.

Ye Qiu had talked to Messi before. He felt that with Messi's technical skills, it was a pity to put him on the wing. He should come to the middle.

As a professional player, Raul's weaknesses and shortcomings are speed and physical confrontation. Messi's skills are also top-notch, his physical confrontation ability is also quite good, and his starting speed and explosive power are also outstanding, but what he lacks is Raul's ability to move between the defense line and the midfield line with ease and control the overall situation.

In his previous life in Barcelona, ​​Messi played in the middle of the front court, but in fact, his weaknesses in insight into space and finding loopholes in the defense line were also obvious. It was just that he relied on the huge system effect and role of Barcelona, ​​and used the surrounding teammates to run around Messi to cover up this problem to the greatest extent. That's why there was a saying later that strangling Messi was equivalent to curbing Barcelona's attack.

The reason for this is that the combination of Messi and other Barcelona players is a 10+1 combination, rather than a fusion of mutual cooperation of eleven players. Now Ye Qiu hopes that Messi can have more contact, learn more from Raul, and absorb more valuable experience from Raul, so as to strengthen his own strength.

Not only Messi, but also Ribery, Neymar, Cavani, Fabregas, David Silva and others are like this. Ye Qiu feels that if everyone in the team has the awareness and ability of Raul, Tottenham Hotspur will be invincible.

Of course, this is pure YY and it is impossible to achieve, but Ye Qiu feels that we should work hard in this direction.

If Messi didn't believe Ye Qiu's words before, after all, Raul didn't have any convincing performance in the past few years, but through the previous internal training and today's game, Messi believed it!

Only those who play football, especially those who play professional football, can understand how precious it is for Raul to make such actions!

In Ye Qiu's opinion, the biggest role of veterans is that they are old and experienced. Moreover, the veterans that Ye Qiu introduced are Beckham and Raul, who are very good in professionalism and self-discipline. They can set the best example for the young players in the team and bring valuable experience to the young players.

For example, players including Alves, Marcelo, Kyle Walker and others are working hard to practice cross balls, including Ribery, Messi, David Silva and others are working hard to practice free kicks. This is actually influenced by Beckham. The Englishman practices alone after training every day, and this trend of extra training even affects the youth team.

Because in Theobald, Ye Qiu draws a few young players from the youth team to the first team for joint training every once in a while. As a result, they bring this trend of the first team to the youth team, which forms a very unique training atmosphere in Theobald.

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Tottenham Hotspur played Villarreal, Raul failed to score in the end, but he connected Tottenham Hotspur's offense very well in the frontcourt. He appeared in the frontcourt and was able to create space for his teammates and pass the ball well.

In the end, Tottenham Hotspur defeated Villarreal 2:1 with goals from Neymar and Ramsey.

Among them, Neymar's goal came from Ribery's diagonal pass, and Ramsey's goal came from Coutinho's straight pass.

In this game, the performances of the two newly joined Brazilian teenagers of Tottenham Hotspur were eye-catching. Neymar was very active in the frontcourt, and Coutinho's pass in the midfield was also very threatening, but these two Brazilian teenagers also have shortcomings, such as physical fitness needs to be improved, especially upper limb strength, which seems a bit thin, which is enough to play in Brazil, but in European professional leagues, especially the fast-paced Premier League, it seems very thin.

After Tottenham Hotspur defeated Villarreal, Ajax also used the home advantage to beat Roma 1:0, and Lucas Moura, a Brazilian teenager on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, assisted Suarez to score the winning goal in this game, which also made the Brazilian teenager famous.

In the second round of the game on the second day, Tottenham Hotspur faced Ajax.

In this game, Tottenham Hotspur's starting lineup was just appropriately adjusted based on the first game.

All the international players who returned from the South Africa World Cup are still in the process of intense physical reserve and adjustment, so Ye Qiu does not plan to arrange them to play now, so including Messi and others, they still failed to enter the big list.

Ajax's frontcourt attack combination, Hulk, Suarez and Lucas Moura, kept attacking Tottenham's defense at the beginning of the game, and soon broke through Tottenham's goal with Hulk's header, which was another assist from Lucas Moura.

Seeing Alba being knocked to the ground by Lucas Moura, Ye Qiu and Mauro Tassotti and other coaches felt a little funny. It's not that Alba is incompetent, but that Lucas Moura's style of play is weird.

"I always feel that the Brazilians' style of play and their rhythm are weird!" Ye Qiu found it difficult to understand. Perhaps this weirdness is not just reflected in the casualness, because he always felt that the Brazilians' play was either suddenly faster than you or suddenly slower than you, which always made you a little bit unable to keep up, a very awkward feeling.

It's not just Lucas Moura, but also Coutinho, Neymar, Marcelo and Alves. In addition, players like Robinho, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and others are also like this. Even Rivaldo and Kaka, who are known for their most European style of play, have such a unique weirdness.

They may have some problems cooperating with European players, but they are very skillful and smooth when cooperating with European or South American players. Just like Lucas Moura's cross just now, it was obviously a beat late. Suarez rushed over, and he didn't pass it out, but Hulk seemed to be waiting to receive his pass.

Perhaps this is the result of players born from the same culture!

In the end, Tottenham Hotspur lost to Ajax 0:1 and received the first defeat of this summer.

Ye Qiu felt that there was nothing to say about the team's regretful loss to Ajax. Ajax's strength was not bad, especially the attacking combination in the frontcourt. In the second half, if Ye Qiu had not replaced Alba with Nastasic and restricted the active Lucas Moura, Tottenham would have lost more balls.

There was no other way. Lucas Moura was now holding back his energy to prove his strength to Tottenham in order to enter Tottenham's first team next summer, so the Amsterdam Invitational Tournament became his best stage.

After Tottenham returned to London, they soon ushered in the Community Shield match, and their opponent was Chelsea.