Chapter 493： Let the bullets fly for a while

Chapter 493 Let the bullets fly for a while

Unfortunately, Croatia failed Chen Ran's ardent expectations.

After all, they failed to create a miracle. After losing 0:1 to France, they were eliminated early and went home.

In another eighth-final match related to Argentina, the host Russia, like in the previous life, upset and eliminated Spain, one of the favorites to win the championship.

In this way, Argentina will have to face host Russia in the quarter-finals.

At any time, the game against the host is not easy to play, let alone in Russia.

Russian fans have always been known for their tough fighting power.

Their most classic battle was at the European Cup in France two years ago, when 200 Russian fans abruptly defeated 2,000 notorious English football hooligans.

However, due to the well-known hostile relationship between Argentina and England, this time the Russian fans did not attack the Argentine fans.

On the streets of Sochi, where the game was held, Russian fans and Argentine fans got together and scolded England in the international common language. The strange scene was spread all over the world through the TV broadcast.

"Damn it! I didn't expect the role of English to make Russian fans and Argentine fans who don't understand the language scold England together. It's so funny!"

"Hahahaha, the guy who came up with this way of communication is a genius."

"I don't know if the English people will be **** off when they see this scene?"

"2,000 people can't beat 200 people, so you deserve it."

"The English should not be interested in paying attention to this now. They managed to break into the quarter-finals of the World Cup this time, and their next opponent is Sweden, which is of average strength. According to the peeing nature of the English, they are probably fantasizing about winning Hercules now." cup."

"I'm going! The brothers upstairs really know the English people too well. I'm in London now, and those British guys are exactly what you said."

"Hehe, let me say that the England team performed well this time, and I have to thank Chen Ran."

"That's right. If Southgate hadn't learned from Chen Ran for so many years, would he have led England to such a level?"

"Hahahaha, Chen Ran is now coaching Argentina, but his former assistant Southgate is coaching England. If these two rivals meet, plus the relationship between Chen Ran and Southgate, this game , must be interesting."

"Upstairs, the situation you mentioned is really possible. As long as Argentina eliminates Russia and England defeats Sweden, according to the schedule, the two teams will meet in the semifinals."

"Tsk tsk, I'm looking forward to it after you say that."

Two years ago, after Chen Ran led Belgium to win the European Cup, his whereabouts caused quite a stir.

At that time, the FA disregarded the huge opposition from fans and the media, and insisted on hiring Allardyce, who did not have any outstanding results, as the head coach of the England national team.

As a result, just two months after Allardyce took office, the British "Daily Telegraph" broke the scandal that he used his position to solicit bribes.

Therefore, Allardyce was forced to resign after only 67 days as the head coach of the England national team.

But this guy is not a good stubble.

According to the "Daily Mirror" report, Allardyce asked the FA for an additional hush money of up to 1 million pounds before resigning.

In order to prevent Allardyce from going out and talking nonsense and causing more scandals, the FA finally agreed to his conditions.

This incident immediately angered England fans again.

Fans once again blocked the door of the FA to protest and demanded that the top FA executives step down.

In order to appease the fans as soon as possible, the FA didn't care about face this time, and secretly sent someone to contact Chen Ran, hoping to poach Chen Ran to take over as the head coach of the England national team.

Moreover, the FA also spent a lot of money this time, directly offering Chen Ran the highest annual salary for a football coach in the world.

However, they were rejected by Chen Ran at that time.

The reason is very simple, because he has already signed a contract with the Argentine Football Association and has no habit of breaking the contract.

Chen Ran is not that stupid.

He is very clear that the FA now just wants to use him to appease the anger of the fans, and doesn't really want to invite himself.

Besides, if he really wants to change jobs like this, he will completely offend the Argentines.

Seeing that Chen Ran was rejected by the FA, the FA had no choice but to settle for the next best thing. They thought of Chen Ran's assistant coach for many years, Southgate, who was also from England.

Actually, after Chen Ran, the FA first contacted Guardiola.

But Guardiola is also a smart person. After discussing with his brother Pere Guardiola, he agreed that it is better not to go into this muddy water.

After all, as the head coach of the top team Crystal Palace, Guardiola has one of the best annual salaries, and every year he gets big and small championship trophies, and Chen Ran trusts him very much.

Such a good job, I don’t know how many pairs of eyes are staring at it. Once lost, it is very difficult to get it back.

Chen Ran refused, Guardiola refused, Simeone is Argentine, after all the calculations, the FA only has Southgate as an option.

Of course, since Southgate does not have much coaching experience, the FA kept an eye out and appointed Southgate as the acting head coach first, which can be regarded as a probationary period.

If Southgate performs well, then it is logical to transfer him to a regular position, and no one can find anything wrong.

If Southgate's performance does not meet expectations, a few months have passed by then, and the anger of the fans is probably almost gone. When the time comes to change again, I believe it will not cause too much movement.

I have to say that the FA's small calculations are very precise.

When they contacted Chen Ran and Guardiola, they never mentioned the word "agent".

Now he came to Southgate and suddenly appeared here. This is clear that he is bullying Southgate without achieving good results.

Fortunately, Southgate is a former England international after all, and being able to serve as the head coach of the England national team is a dream for him.

As for whether it is an "agent", he doesn't care much.

Chen Ran heard this from Southgate calling Chen Ran for advice.

Unexpectedly, after a lifetime, Southgate went around and returned to his original track.

Chen Ran can only sigh: The inertia of the wheel of history is really strong!

However, although he knew that after Southgate took office, the performance of the England team would be greatly improved, but Chen Ran did not have any idea to prevent Southgate from taking over the England national team.

If even the England team coached by Southgate is afraid, then hasn't he been in vain for so many years?

So, under the influence of various factors, Southgate became the acting head coach of the England national team.

Then, he passed the probationary period and has been doing it until now, as the head coach of the England national team, leading the team to participate in the World Cup in Russia.

Contrary to many people's expectations, England, which was eliminated at the bottom of the group in the World Cup in Brazil, went all the way to the quarterfinals this time.

And, with their mediocre quarter-final opponents Sweden, England will most likely move on.

Although Chen Ran is also paying attention to the performance of the England team, his attention is now on the next opponent, Russia.

This Russian team and the Danish team have a common feature, that is, there are many tall players in the team.

On the defense line, Ignashevich is 187cm tall, Gudipov is 192cm tall, Mario Fernandez is 187cm tall, and the main center Juba is astonishingly tall at 196cm.

However, after withstood the test of the last game against Denmark, Chen Ran is now more confident in his defensive strategy for Argentina.

Especially the use of goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez is what Chen Ran is most proud of.

Actually, Emiliano Martinez was not known for his offensive ability before.

After Chen Ran took over the Argentine national team two years ago, he discovered a common problem among Argentine players, that is, they are generally not tall.

For offensive players, this is not fatal.

However, it would be too bad if the central defenders were not tall enough.

As early as when Chen Ran was coaching Crystal Palace, he often used high-altitude bombing tactics to bully his opponents. Later, in the Belgian period, it intensified and brought high-altitude bombing tactics to the extreme.

But after arriving in Argentina, Chen Ran found that among the players under his command, it was not easy to find a player over 1.8 meters tall.

Using the way of the other, return it to the other body!

Chen Ran, who grew up watching Jin Yong's martial arts novels, can easily think of the methods that others use to deal with him.

After thinking about it, he focused on the only tall group under him, the three goalkeepers.

So, two years ago, Chen Ran began to deliberately ask the three goalkeepers to take the initiative to intercept the high-altitude ball passed into the penalty area by the attacker during training.

At the beginning, these guys didn't adapt to Chen Ran's request and made frequent mistakes.

However, Chen Ran did not intend to change his mind at all. Instead, they intensified, not only requiring them to train like this in the national team, but also insisting on doing so when they return to the club.

Now, after two years of polishing, Emiliano Martinez's performance has fully proved that Chen Ran's carefully prepared defensive strategy has been very successful.

The winner will not change easily.

Since the starting lineup of the last game can beat the Danish team with a large number of high-ranking players, Chen Ran is logical and ready to continue to use it against Russia.

Forward Aguero, Forward Messi

Central midfielder DePaul, Central midfielder Paredes, Central midfielder McAllister

Left back Acuna, center back Otamendi, center back Romero, center back Mascherano, right back Molina

Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez

On the Russian side, the head coach Cherchesov hasn't slept well these days.

He has watched the video of the match between Argentina and Denmark over and over again.

Cherchesov knew very well that compared with Argentina, the situation of the Russian and Danish teams was similar.

If they fight for technology and offensive ability, they are definitely not Argentina's opponents.

The only thing that can occupy an absolute advantage is only one height, and the accompanying header ability.

However, when the Danish team had already exerted their height and header ability to the extreme, not only did they fail to achieve results, but Argentina took the opportunity to counterattack and sneak attack, and they were out of the game.

This made Cherchesov seem to see the end of the Russian team.

Because, he also designed the tactics against Argentina in this way before.

Now, the Danish team has proved that this road is not going to work, and Cherchesov immediately walked into a dead end.

Even the only advantage does not work, so how can you win against Argentina?

Looking at the calm and smiling Chen Ran in the game video, Cherchesov smiled wryly and shook his head.

It is indeed a top coach who has won the championship trophy. It is really unconvincing to be able to build an Argentina with obvious shortcomings without any flaws.

In desperation, Cherchesov had to use a stupid method.

Drag the game to a penalty kick as much as possible, and then expect goalkeeper Akinfeev to play bravely.

Forward Golovin, Forward Djuba

Central midfielder Kuzyayev, Central midfielder Zobnin, Central midfielder Samidov

Left back Zhirkov, center back Kudyashov, center back Ignashevich, center back Gudipf, right back Mario Fernandez

Goalkeeper Akinfeev

July 8, Sochi.

Because it was the game of the host team Russia, the Fisht Olympic Stadium, which can accommodate 48,000 people, was full of seats.

However, when the referee Baskunian blew the whistle to start the game, everyone was quickly dumbfounded.

"Damn, the Argentine and Russian teams formed a 532 defensive counterattack formation at the same time? Am I not mistaken?"

"It should be true, the TV commentary is also discussing this matter."

"Well, if neither side takes the initiative to attack, is there any counterattack?"

"Yes. It is understandable that Russia's strength is not as good as Argentina's. But Argentina actually does this, isn't it a bit too exaggerated?"

"Hehe, is this the first time the upstairs team is watching the current Argentine game? Since Chen Ran took office, Argentina has switched to defensive and counterattack tactics."

"What do we do now? Is everyone just wasting time? Then kick a penalty?"

"That's definitely not the case. Maybe Russia wants to take a penalty kick, but Argentina is stronger than Russia. I'm sure, Chen Ran is absolutely unwilling!"

Actually, it's completely opposite to what the fans guessed. Chen Ran didn't resist kicking a penalty.

After all, Argentina's current main goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez, is famous for his ability to save penalty kicks.

Of course, it would be best if the battle could end within 90 minutes.

The next games will be tough battles, and it would be good to save a little more energy.

However, facing the current situation on the field, Chen Ran did not immediately adjust.

Let the bullets fly for a while before talking.

Not in a hurry.

(end of this chapter)