For the first round of the Champions League Group D, the home game against Millwall, Valencia coach Flores was full of confidence, when the game time was approaching, Flores remembered the draw ceremony, the opponent's young coach talked about the 'good sign', and felt that Millwall should be given a certain shock first.

Three days before the game, Valencia finished the league and will face the Champions League next, Flores said in an interview, "Valencia have a lot of experience in Europe, while Millwall have no experience, this is also a home game, we are confident to win the game!" ”

Later, Flores did not forget to mention the 'juniors', "The Champions League is different from the Premier League, last season, Millwall was the champion of the Premier League, but the experience of the Premier League does not apply to the Champions League. This game may allow him to have more awe and vigilance towards his Champions League opponents. ”

When Flores said this, she had a faint smile on her face, showing great confidence.

The Spanish media seemed to be infected by Flores, and in one report after another, they portrayed Frelos's self-confidence and sketched a wonderful scene for Valencia fans.

"Millwall are Premier League champions, but they have nothing to do with La Liga, they are just rookies in the Champions League!"

'Their manager is too young, Valencia can find any player who is more experienced than him and leads the team better than him, because they have a lot of European experience!'

"Flores has a very positive attitude and he is confident that Valencia will win!"

"Valencia is playing at home, against a European rookie, and the suspense of the game is only to see how much Valencia won the game......

“……”

When he saw these reports, Zhang Yang pouted, and he didn't know what to say.

Why is Flores so confident?

Millwall have no European experience, but they were league champions last season, and have won four and drawn one of their last five games this season, beating Chelsea to win the Community Shield, and are the best team in the Premier League.

Even if Millwall has no European experience, even most of the players have no European experience, even if he has no European experience himself...... But so what?

Millwall are the best performing team in the Premier League!

Now in European football, the Premier League is ranked first in Serie A, which is the world's largest league and the champion team of the world's largest league.

Valencia is also good, but only third in La Liga.

When the Premier League meets the third in La Liga, even if the latter is experienced, he should be humble, right?

Zhang Yang thought carefully for a long time, and he didn't think of the reason for Flores's self-confidence, which may be described as 'mysterious confidence'.

Zhang Yang didn't have a verbal fight with Flores, the game was about to go, he didn't dare to say that he could definitely win, but the winning rate was definitely higher than Valencia's, and he didn't need to worry about Flores before the game.

But Zhang Yang kept it in his heart.

He memorized everything that Flores and the Spanish media said, and then he focused on how to deal with Valencia.

After the end of last season, Valencia had a big change, the root of which was the retirement of star Caponi and the new manager of the club.

After Caponi came to power, he changed the previous policy of bringing in a large number of players, but carried out a major purge of the team, Emar, Mista, Aurelio, Di Vaio, Corradi, Rufit, Kluivert and other players have left, and the Spanish media also believe that "Valencia's attacking strength will definitely be greatly reduced." ”

With the departure of many key players, the lack of reinforcements for Caponi has not been going well.

Morientes returned to La Liga after a disappointing Premier League season, and it is difficult to say whether he will return to his form with Real Madrid, while Tavano, a striker brought in from Empoli, was first to break the curse of the Bat Legion's on the Italians, after Corradi, Di Vaio, Fiore and others failed to stay at the club and had to find a way out.

Emar's departure heralds Valencia's need to find a new attacking core. At the back, Del Orno became the natural successor at left-back following Aurelio's move to Liverpool.

Valencia's desperate acquisition of winger Simão "slipped" on the verge of signing made Caponi's most unsuccessful moment of the summer, but fortunately, before the transfer market closed, Valencia managed to sign star winger Joaquin, and his arrival is good news for Valencia.

Although the departure of a large group of players has made Valencia's strength decline compared to last season, so that from the perspective of Zhang Yang who has memories of his previous life, Valencia's squad is still too extravagant.

They have David Villa in the attack, and Silva will undoubtedly be Spain's most effective striker in the coming seasons, with his ability to score goals to crush Barcelona's entire forward line.

On the flanks are the newly introduced Joaquin, as well as David Silva, who has returned from loan.

Both are well-known players, Millwall failed to chase Joaquín in the summer, the latter chose to join Valencia, and David Silva, fans who follow European football will be no stranger, he will be the core midfielder of the future luxury Manchester City construction, of course, the current Silva is not very famous, and he has just returned to Valencia, whether he can play in the game against Millwall, is still a huge suspense.

In addition, Valencia also has famous stars such as Moretti, Edu, and Baraja in the team, and the overall strength is undoubtedly very strong.

But that's about it.

Many players in Valencia's squad will be quite good in the future, but now players such as David Silva have not really grown up, and stars like Joaquin, who have played at Real Betis, must have strength, but they can only be compared with Quaresmabi, compared to the veterans who are really famous, such as Pire, the 'touted' component is relatively high.

Millwall's real need to pay special attention to is the very efficient striker David Villa, the name of 'Hulu Baby' is not to say, Villa is a natural goalkeeper.

Zhang Yang also told the players that they must guard against Villa strictly and don't give him a chance to play.

Then there's Valencia's style of play.

In the 21st century, Valencia has become more and more focused on defense, they are also one of the few teams in Spain that attach great importance to defense, and also regard 'defensive counterattack' as the team's style, but Valencia is a traditional Spanish team, focusing on defense does not mean not focusing on attack, and their offense is also quite threatening.

Millwall had never faced an opponent of this skill and defence.

In the Premier League, there are many teams that focus on defense, and Chelsea are the best of them, but Chelsea's attack is 'British', and it is difficult to compare with traditional Spanish teams in terms of technical style or anything.

So this is also an opportunity.

Zhang Yang and Wilkinson joked, "Millwall's group stage is a game to gain experience." ”

It wasn't just a joke, he did.

The group stage opponents include Valencia, Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk, three teams with three styles, and Millwall will need to adapt to each of them, and then in the knockout rounds, you will know how to play when you meet opponents with different styles.

Now facing the match against Valencia, Zhang Yang did not hesitate to insist on letting the team play a 'dual-core' tactic.

The 'dual-core' tactic is considered to be more offensive and technical, strengthening the overall coordination, but the flaw is that the defense is relatively weak.

Zhang Yang didn't care.

Zhang Yang hopes to see what kind of performance the 'dual-core' tactics will perform in the European arena, especially the collision with Valencia, which will be very valuable.

It will be a valuable experience.

Valencia, a good litmus test.

Of course, the 'dual-core' tactic is just the overall style of play, and the details still need to be planned, and the coaching staff has already started to discuss the game against Valencia before the match against Charlton.

Several coaches analyzed the game video of Valencia together, studied what to pay attention to in the game together, and discussed the specific details of the game.

In the end, the coaching staff came up with a set of tactics specifically for Valencia, and the style of play can be summed up in a few words: tough, direct and targeted defence.

Tough is talking about style.

No matter what tactics are played, Millwall is a team that started in the lower league, and the lower league teams in England tend to have one characteristic: a strong focus on physical confrontation.

None of the old players in the team will be afraid of physical confrontation, even the Simpson, who is slightly less physical, is only in the team, and in the whole of Europe, it also belongs to the ranks of the strong.

This is due to the style of English football, and it is impossible for a thin player to play in English football, no matter how good his skills are.

Toughness is the overall style of English football, and it is also an important means for English teams to deal with the outside world.

Millwall also need to play to their strengths.

Direct, which refers to coordination, does not need fancy continuous passes, and it is completely meaningless to fight for possession with the Spanish team, because the players have an average foot effort, it is difficult to catch up with the opponent, and the style of play is more direct, which helps to reduce the error rate and increase the probability of effective attack.

Targeted defense, there's not much to say.

For example, having David Livermore focus on David Villa, both of whom are named David, may be able to get closer to each other and deepen the intimacy between Millwall and Valencia, both European clubs.

————

Millwall were busy formulating tactics, the team was busy preparing for the game, and Zhang Yang did not respond to the war of words provoked by Flores, but the Spanish media seemed to take Zhang Yang's silence as a sign of weakness, and as the game approached, they shouted more cheerfully.

Under the encouragement of the Spanish media, Valencia has been able to beat Millwall by a big score.

Valencia fans are very optimistic.

If you do a street interview, Valencia fans can name a hundred reasons to win: Millwall coach is inexperienced, players are inexperienced, it's just a small club, the squad is not as good as Valencia, there is a difference in coaching ability, there is a difference in player ability, playing at home, Valencia is more confident...... And so on, and so on.

The same goes for the whole Valencia team.

In his pre-match press conference, Flores showed renewed confidence when he said there would be no suspense and that Valencia could easily beat Millwall at the Mestalla.

Zhang Yang shrugged his shoulders absently, and the corners of his mouth showed sarcasm, "I know now that Valencia chooses the head coach based on his tongue ability." ”

"yes, what he said was so contagious that I almost believed it. But what if Valencia loses? Will he take the blame and resign? ”

This sentence made Flores very angry, and he said that he must teach Millwall a good lesson in the game.

Then the game began.

————

In fact, Flores's thinking is fine, when it comes to technique and coordination, Millwall is difficult to match Valencia, but there is a problem that he overestimates his team and underestimates Millwall's level, and in addition, he ignores the fact that Millwall is an English team.

Millwall played a 'two-core' tactic, with a focus on adding three-way play, technical and flexible, but they also took into account the English style of the team – daring, daring, tough.

As soon as the game started, Valencia were in trouble and they found themselves completely underdog in the confrontation.

The player who felt it the most on the pitch was striker David Villa.

In Spanish football, Villa is already quite famous, he is considered one of the best strikers in Spain, but when he is the best striker, there is no way to deal with unreasonable defense.

Villa's technique is good, the speed is very fast, and the flexibility is also high, but Livermore's one-on-one defensive ability is definitely not a joke, under Livermore's strict defense, Villa wants to catch the ball is very difficult, because Livermore is always stuck in position, he wants to catch the ball smoothly, first of all, he must fight with Livermore.

The results weren't great, of course.

Livermore's strength is already world-class, and he can't say that he is the strongest footballer in the world, but there is no pressure at all to abuse a small body like Villa.

It was difficult just to get a pass, and it was even harder for Villa to rush up, and he tried to shake Livermore several times but failed.

Villa has experience too.

He found that the tall man in front of him was simply unreasonable on the defense, and the opponent didn't even look at his feet, he completely looked at his people, as long as he didn't let him rush over, he didn't care where the football went.

It's back to square one: unless he can put up with Livermore a few times and take advantage of his excellent footwork, nothing will be possible.

For a long time, Villa was reduced to a transparent person.

As the game progresses slowly, both teams are playing in shape, and the battle for midfield begins, for technical confrontation, it is very important to fight for control of the midfield, with midfield control, it is equivalent to fighting for more space, you can use the cooperation to suppress the opponent, have more possession, and get more offensive opportunities.

Valencia's strong position is not in the middle of the midfield, the combination of Edu and Marchena is also good, but it is just good, Millwall's 'double core' is Morris and Smitchell, the two are not worse than the former in terms of technology and experience, plus the position and coordination advantages brought by the 'double core', when the time slowly passed, Valencia soon found that they were at a disadvantage in the battle for midfield.

The core of the forward line has become transparent, the midfield competition is weaker than the opponent, and the situation in Valencia has gradually become passive.

Twenty minutes into the game, Millwall's possession time began to be equal to Valencia's, and due to the directness of the combination, the number of attacks was more than half that of Valencia.

At this point in the game, Valencia head coach Flores finally realized that Millwall was not as easy to play against as he imagined.

Valencia relied on playing at home, and the advantage they had in the opening game was being worn down little by little, and the situation was even more favorable to Millwall.

"Won't it?"

"Shouldn't it?"

Flores frowned, unwilling to trust his own judgment and decided to take a closer look.

Then Valencia's situation seemed to have changed a little better, they played three waves of attack in a row, and the formation even advanced to the Millwall half, after playing the advantage, they seemed to get a little carried away, and still did not retreat after being tackled, but used the way of counter-attacking on the spot to continue to maintain offensive suppression.

At this time, Morris, who took the ball in the midfield, sent a direct pass!

Valencia pressed too far forward, their back line was almost to the halfway line, and it also allowed Morris's pass to penetrate all Valencia defences.

The ball was passed to Darren Bent!

Darren Bent's individual strength is his speed, and he has made the most of his strengths and rushed out of the Valencia backline like an arrow from a string.

"Bent! Bent! Look at this ball......"

Amid the commentator's exclamations, Darren Bent ran at high speed and received a pass, leaving the Valencia backline behind, all behind.

Then it's easy!

Single Knife!

In the face of the attacking Canizares, Darren Bent completed the end of the counterattack with a powerful shot.

The soccer ball rushes into the goal instantaneously.

“Gooooooooooooooal！！”

"Darren Bent ——!"

'Millwall, who were playing away, took the lead and Darren Bent scored the first goal!'

"The score became 0-1!"

"Darren Bent went to Europe and was just as efficient! The first goal was direct and decisive! Goalkeeper Canizares has nothing to do! ”

After the British commentator excitedly shouted a set of goal rhetoric, he couldn't help but add sarcastically, "Maybe Valencia fans will be surprised by the goal, because Valencia coach Flores is very sure of his performance, Valencia can easily win the victory." ”

"Now Valencia is behind, so let's see how Valencia can easily take Millwall......