While Gu Mojie was dealing with the incident of the security personnel killing Uncle Hei, the German team rented a conference room from the hotel, and the heated discussion and data model analysis have been uninterrupted. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Muller, Klinsmann, Shi Yun, other big data engineers and analysts sent by the Hatsune Intelligent Research Institute, as well as the core members of the German team led by Klose, all attended the meeting.

Shi Yun is a technical nerd, if you want to say that she loves football, it is relatively weak, and two years ago, she didn't watch football at all. But since the second half of 09, since the Hatsune Intelligent Research Institute separated the topic of "sports big data", she still forced herself to do a lot of efficient football homework in line with the rigor of her science students.

Maybe she still doesn't care how to play football to look good, but she already knows how to play football to be effective.

At this moment, in the face of countless old fritters who have been obscene in the football circle for decades, she is not afraid to talk eloquently at all:

"The complete rise of the Spanish national team was in 2008 - needless to say, everyone knows that. That time, it was Spain who beat your Germany 1-0 in the European Championship final.

It was also that year that, on the one hand, they naturalized the Latin player from Brazil and the main defender Senna; On the other hand, they also began to gradually run in and sort out new tactics. The La Liga giants, led by Barcelona, have also practiced new tactics frequently in the league, and then gradually transplanted the tactics of the Barcelona system to the national team, forming a completely mature new generation of Spanish style.

In my opinion, the strongest year in Spain was 2009. Barcelona had a very impressive run in the Champions League that year, and there were plenty of big wins in the knockout rounds, much better than Spain's large number of 1-0 wins at Euro 08.

Although the Spanish national team did not win the Confederations Cup this year, I think it was only because the league took too much physical energy from the players, everyone did not have time to play for the national team, and the Confederations Cup was not taken seriously enough, which does not explain the quality problem.

This year, on the one hand, because the Spanish team's new tactics have gradually been explored by the opponent to some vague adaptation and confrontation methods; On the other hand, the Spanish team's golden attacking combination from 09, Torres and Villa's double arrow, because Torres has recovered from a major injury in the league, and his form has declined significantly. As a result, the overall offensive ability of the Spanish team has declined seriously, and although they have won many times, they often only have a one-goal advantage in the face of weak teams, and they can't pull away from the score - this is the negative impact of Torres's injury.

So, while still considered to be the favourites to win the tournament this year, Spain are not invincible – at least a little easier to beat than in '08 and '09. ”

Out of politeness, Loew and Klose chose to listen quietly to Shi Yun finish these clichés. The PPT of the presentation also turned seven or eight pages.

It wasn't until Shi Yun stopped drinking water that Loew pointed out a little directly: "Miss Shi, most of us agree with these words, and we have different opinions on a few details, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't affect our cooperation." But what I'm trying to say is: it doesn't seem to have anything to do with big data, does it? We can draw those conclusions with traditional experience and analysis, and it doesn't help the game much. Can you hurry up and get into the dry goods? ”

"Of course, I'll get into the dry goods right away, and those are just foreshadowing." Shi Yun hurriedly put down the cup and continued to flip the ppt back.

"After all, we are not professional in football, but from the side of data and technical support. Therefore, we will focus on one or two tactical points that are closely integrated with big data in the following article.

Since 2008, the Spanish team has made a lot of tactical adjustments, some of which have been used by predecessors, and some of which have been selectively integrated by the Spaniards, but there are also some that have not been used much by predecessors. Let's pick that unique point to dissect.

In the past two years, the Spaniards have unprecedented new tactical characteristics, that is, 'full-court pressing, counter-grabbing on the spot after losing the ball, expanding the depth of defense and attack', and from the current point of view, countries around the world have a little hazy and vague response strategy, but the summary is not comprehensive, and the technical habits and thinking inertia of the players have not yet reached the height of countering the Spaniards. ”

Klinsmann and Loew looked at each other solemnly, and both nodded slightly.

Shi Yun was invisibly encouraged, and the more she spoke, the faster she spoke: "In the field of traditional football, what do we see? It is the focus of contention between the attacking and defensive sides, both within 30 meters of the goal. That is, from the front of the penalty area to the halfway line, equidistant from the half-point position.

Every time the attacker arrives in this area, they are faced with a dense positional defense, and once the offensive and defensive transition is formed after the break, if it is a fast attack of the defensive counterattack, it can often create a good opportunity, and if it is not a fast attack, it will at least immediately advance to the 30-meter section in front of the opponent's goal. In the middle 40 meters, there is almost no counter-robbery and obstruction, and most of the time it is a peaceful passage with the ball. ”

A football field, 105 meters long.

The penalty area line is only 16.5 meters from the bottom line, and if you double the depth of defense, it will be about 30 meters, and if you count both sides, it will be 60 meters.

In other words, there is a distance of 45 meters between the dense defense area of Team A and the dense defense area of Team B, which is almost the inertia formed by the two sides in the history of football development for more than 100 years:

Once the attacker's ball is broken, quickly return to defense, return to your goal 30 meters, and then defend intensively. In the middle 45 meters, let the other party pass peacefully, and don't bother to fight for it.

"But what did we see with Spain? They took advantage of the century-old inertial thinking of football teams around the world to counter-attack the whole game.

Originally, our players' thinking inertia was like this: when the enemy's passing trajectory was 1~2 meters in front of you, our players would rush, run, and try to break the ball. And if the passing trajectory is 3 meters away from the player's position, most players subconsciously feel: even if the ball is chased, it can't be broken, so they simply don't chase it to save their physical strength. After all, a football game has to be played for 90 minutes, and it is impossible to come up and exhaust the physical strength.

The defenders have been thinking this way for a hundred years, and the attackers will also develop inertia fatigue, and gradually when they pass through the midfield, they will be noticeably more careless in passing the ball than in the dense attacking and defensive areas, and they will not mind the ball passing two or three meters in front of the enemy, and the speed of the pass will be slower - because inertia tells them that the enemy will not rush out of such a situation in order to maintain their strength.

Then, the Spanish-style 'unexpectedly breaking the ball with his foot when no one else can break the ball' makes full use of the inertia formed by big data, frequently breaking the ball, and frequently losing the ball in the front court and then counter-grabbing on the spot. The rest of the world will be very uncomfortable in the face of them.

So, in the current World Cup, what we see is that Espanyol are using 60 meters of defensive depth and offensive depth to play 30 meters of depth for other teams. So even if the forward line is weak and can only win by one goal per game, the Spaniard's possession time is still very high and the rhythm is very strong. ”

Shi Yun said here, listing a large number of data models, which analyze several aspects in detail:

For example, in the history of the World Cup throughout the ages, how many passes have been crossed from a distance of about 2 meters in front of the defenders, but because of inertial thinking, the defenders did not break the ball with their feet when they were likely to break it, but chose to conserve their physical strength.

Another example is how many times when the ball passes quickly in the midfield stage, passes 2 meters in front of the defender, and the defender decisively kicks the ball and successfully breaks the ball.

From the final statistical big data model:

At this distance, as long as you kick out, the success rate is as high as a staggering 43%.

However, there was only an 11% chance and the defenders opted for a shot.

Therefore, the success rate of midfield control and counter-robbery is low, and in many cases, it is not that it cannot be done, but that the two sides have agreed that they cannot do it.

After reading the heavy data, even Loew, who had been silent, couldn't help but echo:

"It's true that in the past two years, when we faced the Spaniards, we all had this hazy feeling, but we didn't analyze it as thoroughly as you did from the perspective of psychology and big data."

Shi Yun smiled slightly: "Actually, we are definitely not as professional as you in football, even if we find this data, we may not know how to counteract." Even the topic of this research was originally inspired by Google's 'big data in sports'. ”

Shi Yun said, and retold the story that Gu Mojie told about "Google's sports big data plan to find someone to cooperate to buy the Golden State Warriors and do experiments in the NBA". Finally, one point was emphasized:

"Actually, the vast majority of NBA players, don't they know that they should intercept the defense when the enemy player is standing 2 meters outside the three-point line and jumpers and shoots a three-pointer? No, they know. Their brains clearly know: if the opponent chooses to shoot long, we have to defend.

The problem is, their brains know it, their muscles don't. Those people have developed the habit of playing with 'muscle memory' and 'familiarity'. When the brain communicates the defensive instructions, the muscles simply can't keep up with the excitement.

To solve this problem, the biggest key is to overcome 'inertial thinking' and 'muscle memory', so that players can always keep their brains able to command their muscles for 120 minutes, and not be swayed by the inertial thinking that 'this ball should not be broken'.

In the golf world, why has Tiger Woods been able to dominate the field for so many years? In addition to technique, our big data has observed that he has a very good habit: when he feels that he is disturbed before hitting the ball, or there are slight changes in wind direction and speed, or other objective environments, which may affect the result of hitting the ball, he can do it when he is halfway through the swing, and he can force it back.

And there are few top golfers in the world who can do this, except for Woods. Their smooth movements in the last two seconds are the result of decades of practice. The purpose of the brain is to work only before it enters that program. Once you're in the last two seconds of your swing, your brain can't command your muscles. Only Woods, who has always insisted on not allowing himself to enter 'muscle memory', insisting that the brain always direct his body.

This is also the case for many pianists and violinists who have achieved their success by hard work and hoarding personalities. It's just that most of the time we don't need a pianist to improvise too much, so that kind of person is not easy to pick out and whip the corpse. ”

Loew's brows did not spread out at all because of Shi Yun's explanation, but his expression became more and more solemn.

In the end, it was the team's number one striker Klose who couldn't stand it anymore, and persuaded in the middle: "Miss Shi, do you only expect to 'overcome muscle memory' to target Spain's tactics?" That kind of thing can't be done overnight. We immediately developed targeted tactics, but we were afraid that it would be easier to do. ”

"No, you can't."

These three words came out of Shi Yun and Loew's mouths almost at the same time.

Both of them looked at each other in surprise, and then Loew made a gesture of please for Shi Yun to say.

"It seems that Coach Loew has seen it – you can't choose to 'switch to another muscle memory' as a countermeasure against the Spaniards. Because you still have five games to face, you don't know when you're going to meet Spain. If your muscle memory becomes 'fit for Spain' mode, you're likely to run into trouble against other opponents in front of you. In the long run, what you have to do is to 'break the muscle memory', not 'rebuild the muscle memory of another model'. ”

"That's what I just thought." Loew nodded, agreeing.

"That's a bit of a problem." Klose shrugged helplessly, his expression even more depressed.

"I think this can be done in a few steps." At this time, Klinsmann, who had not spoken on the sidelines, spoke, and everyone's attention was drawn to it.

Everyone, including Loew, respected Klinsmann's opinion.

"Don't worry, I'm just a consultant now. Everyone thinks it makes sense, just refer to it. Klinsmann didn't take it big either, first modestly said two sentences, and then cut to the chase.

"First of all, against Espanyol, it is mainly the midfielders who need to be trained in a targeted manner. So the other dozen or so people in the team didn't need to adjust much. Secondly, considering the problem of 'two sets of muscle memory', we can gather the substitute midfielders with stronger on-the-spot pressing ability and better physical strength first, and make targeted adjustments, so that they have 20 days to slowly become familiar with the tactics of playing Spain. For other players, there will be no major adjustments for the time being.

Finally, I think the main challenge of the new tactics is not a matter of habit, but rather a matter of increasing the physical exertion of the players as they increase the depth of defense and counter-attack. At this time, it is impossible to do physical training and it will make the players tired. But we can do it in the game before we meet Spain and keep the main players alive – if we can easily win the previous game. If that doesn't make sense, don't think about it.

As for 'how to make players break muscle memory', you can think about it slowly after the World Cup. I believe that the players of our German team are all highly intelligent, and they are not 'people who can't do anything else if they don't play', otherwise I wouldn't have chosen you guys in '07 or '08. I hope that Germany will be a team that 'plays with their brains' in the future.

With the penetration of big data, the tactical changes and escalation trends of both sides will become faster and faster. The world will become more and more transparent, and the cycle for advanced tactics to be imitated will become shorter and shorter. We can no longer count on 'practice makes perfect', we can count on the fastest to accept the fastest! This is what I learned from my two months at Hatsune Club, and it is also the summary of my previous year in the United States. Hopefully, it can help everyone. (To be continued.) )