Sports Weekly all-media reporter Wang Qinbo
Not long ago, in the match against Italy, the national junior U15 team achieved an upset victory. However, in the subsequent 0-1 loss to Austria, the national junior U15 team was clearly at a disadvantage. This contrast in itself is a valuable game lesson.
The match was held in a place called Hermagor in Austria, a small town golf course in the Alps. The national juniors have to get up early in the morning and drive for two and a half hours to get to the stadium. In addition, it is raining locally and the temperature is low at the foot of the Alps. This is in great contrast to the sunny conditions of the previous two games. Just like the games against Slovenia and Italy, the opponents still had the right time, place and people, and the objective conditions of this game were more severe – the opponents did not have to travel, and the game environment was naturally more suitable for them. Although these factors will not determine the final outcome of the game, they will magnify the gap.
The head coach of the Austrian Chinese team who told me after the game was named Franz Ponweiser. He said that based on the video analysis of the Chinese team before the game, they indeed chose high-post pressing as the main strategy, and the implementation results were extremely ideal, almost fundamentally disrupting the rhythm of the Chinese team. In an interview with the official website of the Austrian Football Association, he also mentioned that the Chinese team's physical confrontation is quite strong, and in some cases it is even approaching the intensity of adult competitions. However, our players remained calm and were not distracted by the confrontation, but focused on the game itself. This is the key reason why we win. We continued to put pressure on our opponents to create opportunities. If our ability to grasp the situation could be stronger, the game would have lost suspense earlier.
The three group matches have ended. What are the areas of the National Youth U15 that are worthy of summarizing and are urgently needed for improvement? Presented below are three points extracted by the author based on on-site observations.
First, the understanding of the ball in the backcourt
Pay great attention to ball control and prevent blind kicking. There is no mistake in this direction. However, the problem is that among the national junior players, their understanding of "playing the ball from the backcourt" is at an extremely rudimentary level.
In the game, the same scene always appears repeatedly. The defense successfully gets rid of the first wave of pressing by relying on short passes and transfers the ball to the weak side. However, at this moment, the rhythm stops for an instant. The person holding the ball chooses to observe and then reorganize. The offensive advancement is actively "braked". The result of this is that the opponent gets time to complete the overall recovery and then reorganize the second round of pressing.
This just illustrates a key problem. The Chinese young players have not understood the essential intention of playing the ball in the backcourt. Playing the ball in the backcourt is never to avoid the big kick, but to break through the opponent's frontcourt pressure structure.
For the modern football system, the value of the ball in the backcourt only exists at the moment of "penetration". Once the opponent's first blockade is successfully crossed, the game will enter a completely different stage. As for the offensive side, it can directly face the structure and shape of the midfield and backfield that the opponent has not yet deployed, and the space will be instantly enlarged. This is the window for creating opportunities.
Therefore, bringing the ball out of the backcourt is definitely not an act done by the back line alone, but an action carried out simultaneously by the entire team. Players in the midfield and frontcourt must immediately provide contact points at the moment the opponent's formation is stretched, widen the depth, and create routes. If the person in front is in a stationary state and has no idea when running, then no matter how good the conduction in the backcourt is, it is just delaying the time when he will be intercepted.
A clear understanding must be established, that is, the ball situation that achieves the behavior of getting rid of, but does not realize the forward movement, is a failed ball in the context of modern football.
Second, the forward's defensive participation is not a matter of attitude, but a matter of responsibility.
Austria's most successful point in this game was to structurally lock up the space for the Chinese team's midfielder to receive the ball, thus causing the Chinese team to basically lose the ability to play the ball from the center. Every time our team's defense plays a ball, they will encounter high-intensity personal pressure at the front of the penalty area. The opponent's tactical intention is very clear, which is to block the center, guide the ball to the side, and then encircle it. This is a typical and mature high-position pressing model.
The Chinese team repeatedly conceded the ball in its own central area, which directly caused the opponent to build a high-quality offensive posture.
Turning to look at our forwards, especially the center in the first half, they showed significant incoherence in exerting pressure on the opponent's midfielder and central defender. This is not a problem of ability, but a problem of consciousness. There are many scenes where the opponent's midfielder calmly receives the ball in the area he can cover, but he does not make any pressing movements, causing the entire defensive chain to break from the first link. The result is that the opponent can easily complete the organization, and even directly hit the back of the defense with an overhead kick.
This type of problem essentially originates from the domestic competition environment. In that environment with relatively low intensity of confrontation, forwards have been "exempted from pressing responsibility" for a long time. However, in the modern football system, this kind of thinking is simply not feasible.
The forward's participation in defense has never been a simple question of "willingness", but is the key to whether the tactical structure can be established. The primary trigger point for high-position pressing happens to be the forward. If there is no first line of pressure, subsequent midfielders and defenders will inevitably be dragged into a passive situation.
As Dembélé said, if a striker does not participate in the pressing, Enrique will immediately take him off.
It is not impossible for the forward of the national junior team to do it – in the second half of the first half, he had two acts of oppression. The effect was extremely direct and even created corresponding offensive opportunities. The crux of the matter, however, is that such behavior is sporadic and not continuous. He and his teammates at the same position must clearly understand that the pressure on the central defender and midfielder is the minimum standard configuration of the center, and is not an additional situation that can increase points.
Third, the overall linkage ability in defense
In the domestic competition environment, national junior players can often solve problems by relying on their personal abilities. Such an experience will unknowingly weaken the intensity of investment in the off-ball stage.
In this game, it can be clearly observed that when the opponent controls the ball, our team's midfielder and frontcourt in many cases show a "partial reaction" rather than a "whole movement". Often only one or two players will move forward to apply pressure when the ball enters their own area. However, other players lack synchronized movement to block the passing line, which makes it easier for the opponent to transfer or get rid of the ball.
This is also the reason that Zhou Haibin on the sidelines repeatedly pointed out, that is: "Don't compete one by one, you have to cooperate with each other."
The essence of the kind of defense in football played by modern people is not simply "to compete for the ball", but in fact it is to limit the choice space of the opponent. And the defense that truly reaches a high level relies on overall movement to block the passing path in advance, so that the opponent is already in a disadvantageous situation before receiving the ball, thus causing the opponent to be at a disadvantage before receiving the ball.
National junior players, regarding this point, you should carefully watch the video of the Italian team’s No. 2 player Danza playing against us. After he came on as a substitute, he relied on his judgment in advance and took the initiative to cut in from the side and rear, directly cutting off the Chinese team's passing line. This kind of predictive movement is the core ability of modern defense.
The fighting intensity of a single player has never been the factor that determines the upper limit of defense. What determines the upper limit of defense is whether there is synergy as a whole. Defense without coordination only consumes physical energy, but defense with coordination controls the game.
If we talk about the most critical value brought by these three games, it is that it allows the players to intuitively see that the gap in modern football is not a single action, but the depth of understanding of "game logic". In order to avoid repeating the situation of previous generations of Chinese players who became less adept at playing the game as they got older after junior high school, they must carry out an in-depth ideological construction about modern football.