In the morning, in the northern suburbs of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in Berg Park, Yang Yang began his daily routine of morning exercises.

For more than ten days in a row, he struggled against Porto's left wing-back Nuno Valente and the steely defence of the Portuguese Super League team at the super training ground, but the final result was hardly satisfactory.

Jose Mourinho has built a team with excellent defensive strength, and Porto's players have a very high tactical execution, and they always meticulously implement Mourinho's tactical instructions, making this team's defense can be said to be impregnable, especially when it comes to the knockout rounds of the Champions League.

Sometimes, this is how confidence is played out one after another.

Both teams that reached the Champions League final this season have struggled in the group stage, with Ajax narrowly out to qualify and Porto having suffered a 3-1 defeat at home to Real Madrid, both finishing second in the group.

In the round of 16, both teams faced Premier League teams, Ajax eliminated Arsenal, and Porto were no slouch by killing Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, both of which shocked the entire European football world.

In the quarter-finals, Ajax had even worse luck and met Real Madrid, and Porto met Lyon, with the former completing an epic comeback and the latter advancing without danger.

In the semi-finals, however, it was the opposite, with Ajax beating Monaco without any danger, while Porto narrowly eliminated Deportivo La Coruna away from home to make it to the final.

Goalkeeper Baia, Valente, Carvalho, Jorge Costa and Paolo Ferreira at the back, arguably the most impregnable defence in European football this season and the best in the Champions League.

But it is clearly not enough to rely on a defensive line, Mourinho has a back three in the midfield, Maniche, Costinha and Mendes, these three midfielders in front of the defence, build an impregnable midfield defense line for Porto, which is equivalent to playing a second insurance for Porto's goal.

Porto's midfield core is called Deco, Brazilian, but not a typical Brazilian player, his style of play is not flashy at all, but very practical, and the strength is quite good, there is news that Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Chelsea and many other teams will poach him.

As if in the same vein, Porto's forward line is not strictly sharp, but it is very mobile, and the two forwards are like rangers in the front, constantly sweeping, pressing and pressing the opponent's defense, but also actively returning to the defense, where there are loopholes, where there are holes.

The front, middle and back lines are integrated, and Porto is like a hedgehog curled up, so that people have nowhere to start.

What's worse is that when you can't attack and accidentally leak a flaw, it will suddenly stab you all over the body.

Even Ajax manager Ronald Koeman has to admit that this is a team with no obvious weaknesses.

In the face of such a team, generally speaking, there is only one way, and that is to die.

It's like Ajax smashing Arsenal to the death, only smashing Porto, digging holes in a defensive formation without holes, but at the same time having to watch out for the opponent's counterattack to avoid conceding goals.

Playing a team like Porto, if you concede a goal first, you will already lose most of the game.

……

Yang Yang bumped the ball, ran all the way, and thought all the way.

These are the things that the coaching staff called for a meeting of the players as soon as the team arrived at the hotel in Gelsenkirchen yesterday, and assistant coach Luther Carroll instilled in the players.

In the past ten days, the Ajax players have repeatedly studied Porto, studying the players who are opposite them, and it is no exaggeration to say that Ajax's preparation is unprecedented and meticulous, but it has still not been able to pick out Porto's obvious weakness.

Gelsenkirchen is located in western Germany, close to the Netherlands, but Ajax still flew from Amsterdam to Germany two days in advance, and borrowed the training ground of Schalke 04, which shows the importance of the club.

And Yang Yang simulated Porto's defense in the super training ground, and he always won less and lost more.

Thinking of this, Yang Yang sulked, shouted softly, and after kicking the ball out with a big foot, the whole person sprinted forward at the fastest speed, and then kicked it out after catching up with the ball, and then chased it at full speed.

It wasn't until the whole person was tired and out of breath that Yang Yang stopped.

In the past half month, he has done three things in the super training ground, simulating Porto's defense for sparring, continuing to hone the two star skills of [Ronaldo's assault] and [Beckham's cross], and training [Bergkamp's stopping].

It will take a match to see what happens, but one thing he knows is that this fight for Porto will be the toughest but most important game since his debut.

He had the same idea as everyone in the team, and finally reached the Champions League final, the Eredivisie champion and the Dutch Cup have all been bagged, and he is one Champions League title away from the legend, and no one is willing to give up easily.

Everyone in the team is already determined to fight to the death, just waiting for the game to come.

…………

…………

The Champions League final was played on Schalke in the northern suburbs of Gelsenkirchen, while Ajax's hotel, the Slausberg Hotel, is further north of the stadium, in the Berger Park.

The hotel is surrounded by three lakes in a zigzag shape, the largest of which is Lake Berg, surrounded by a sports centre and tennis club, and the famous beer garden next door to the hotel, but now the entire hotel is owned by Ajax.

As the hotel is small enough to accommodate the first team and coaching staff, the players' relatives can only live in the city, and the club has made special arrangements for this to ensure that the players can prepare for the game and play without distractions.

When Yang Yang returned to the hotel from the park outside, he happened to bump into Luther Carroll.

As soon as the assistant coach saw Yang Yang, he immediately guessed that he must have gone out for morning exercise again.

"It's good that it's a suburb and there are no Porto fans, otherwise you wouldn't have come back." Luther Carroll joked.

Yang Yang smiled, "If there are really Porto fans, then I won't go out." ”

The assistant coach laughed and immediately asked Yang Yang to hurry back to take a shower and change clothes, "After breakfast, we have a meeting." ”

Yang Yang didn't dare to be careless, and when he returned to the room, he just saw Snead getting up, so he said hello and went in directly to take a shower.

Ajax's management is still very strict, such as the uniform time of meals, anyone who is late will be penalized, and there will be a meeting after breakfast, which shows that the coaching staff must have figured out something last night.

The first meeting after the team's arrival yesterday was mainly to analyze the opponents in combination with the video, which included highlights of all the matches in Porto's Champions League this season, and each clip was carefully selected by the coaching staff to be the most representative of Porto.

And today's meeting is mainly to lay out the game strategy.

There is also a training session in the afternoon, and the coaching staff will arrange the targeted training in the afternoon according to the game strategy laid out in the tactical meeting in the morning, so this will be important in the morning.

So far this season, the cards that can be played by both sides have basically been played, and there are no secrets to each other, the most important thing is to see how the two sides play their cards and how to deal with them.

Ronald Koeman believes that Porto will definitely play a defensive counterattack in this game, which is an opportunity for Ajax, but also a challenge, if they can take the opportunity to grab the goal first, then Porto will have to press out to play, and then Ajax will be able to counter-attack Porto with a defensive counterattack.

For Ajax, this is definitely the most ideal process.

And the worst result is that Ajax can't attack for a long time, there are serious mistakes, and Porto seizes the opportunity to counterattack and score, at this time Porto's defensive counterattack will be more resolute, and Ajax's situation will be more embarrassing.

Of course, there is also a possibility that both sides are conservative, neither takes risks and does not give the opponent a chance, then it depends on the performance of the players on both sides.

As the so-called big game is not good, last year's Champions League final was a confrontation between two Serie A teams, and the result was that both sides played 0-0 for 120 minutes, on the one hand, it can be said that the targeted tactics of both sides are very strong, and the tactical execution of the players is very high, but at the same time, it can be said that both sides are quite conservative, on the premise of not taking risks and not making mistakes.

Jose Mourinho's Porto will certainly do the same, this team has a better defense in the midfield and back than Ajax, but the attacking ability is weaker than Ajax, Mourinho will definitely put himself in a position where he does not make mistakes and do not concede goals, and even drag the game into extra-time and penalty shoot-outs.

Ajax's biggest problem is that the players are too young, and both Ronald Koeman and Louis van Gaal are very worried about the players being too reckless in the game, making mistakes and giving the opponent a chance, which is quite fatal.

Therefore, in the pre-match meeting, the coaching staff repeatedly emphasized the most that the mentality must be stable.

'In a game, any situation can arise and we may score first, but it is not enough to make us happy; We might have conceded first, but we don't have to be discouraged because we haven't been behind, but we've equalised and come back again and again, and we've got the quality. ”

At the end of the meeting, Ronald Koeman still repeatedly reminded the players to keep their mentality calm.

'I've had three Champions League finals in my career, the first one was in PSV Eindhoven when we played Benfica in the Portuguese Super League, and it ended up being 0-0 and then we had a slight advantage in the penalty shoot-out, and that time we relied on an unbreakable defence and a tenacious will.

'The second time we reached the Champions League final was in Barcelona against Sampdoria in Serie A and it was a tough game because it was the peak of the Serie A sisters and you can imagine how solid they defended and we both got great chances in the game but didn't take them and ended up scoring the winning goal in extra-time.

"The last time, which everyone is familiar with, was the final against Fabio Capello's AC Milan, and we lost 0-4, and the main reason for that game was that we were mentally unbalanced, so we lost badly."

Ronald Koeman reminded everyone in the room with his own personal experience.

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