And just when the news of Ronaldo's landing in Serie A was flying all over the sky and the players of the Torino team ended their vacation ahead of schedule to prepare for the new season, the Russian World Cup was still going on as planned.

After the end of the eight games of 16-8, except for Spain's penalty loss to the host Russia, the rest of the results were the pre-match favored side to advance, but from the situation on the field and the final result, people can easily find that the tactical style of world football has finally changed a lot.

Since Barcelona established the Yume II dynasty in 2005-06 with their characteristic Tiki-taka style of passing, and Aragonés brought it to the national team, this style of keeping the ball for long periods of time with precise passing and non-stop running, and indirectly creating space, combined with full-court pressing tactics to try to win the ball, has become one of the most popular and successful concepts in the years that followed.

In the six years from 2006 to 2012, the Barcelona and Spanish national teams (or the players who are based on top passing masters such as Xavi and Iniesta) who have mastered this tactic to the highest level (or the group of players who are in their prime) have won a total of four La Liga, three Champions Leagues, two European Championships and one World Cup.

However, there has never been an invincible existence in this world, and the famous things that were once considered invincible such as the ancient Roman legions, the Mongol iron cavalry and the Macedonian defense line have all become a mark in the long river of history.

In the six seasons that have been suppressed by this near-limit pass-and-control style of play, led by Real Madrid, who have gone through the four world-famous coaches of Mourinho, Ancelotti, Benitez and Zidane, the rest of Europe's top giants have been studying how to fight against this set of playing styles that only Barcelona players can fully grasp in theory, and through their continuous efforts, another tactic based on the use of rapid attacks has finally ushered in the opportunity to "seek the usurpation of the throne".

When Xavi announced his retirement from the national team after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and went to the Middle East a year later due to the inability to resist the invasion of the old man, the Tiki-taka tactic that impressed all fans at that time finally ushered in its glorious decline. Barcelona and the Matadors have fallen into a slump, and since then, although the former has been able to maintain its dominance in the league, its performance in the Champions League has been a big disappointment, and the limelight has been completely overshadowed by rivals Real Madrid; As for the latter, although they were able to maintain a good performance in the World Series qualifiers, the two consecutive first-round exits in the knockout rounds seemed to indicate that they had once again lost the grace of the top team.

Looking at the situation in this World Cup in Russia, several players with ultra-high possession rates ended their journey early, and their best result was only to stop in the round of 16. Spain, who averaged 75% possession per game, "played" themselves with their own passes in the game against the host; The defending champions, Germany, who had a bold overhaul and changed their all-round tactical style system to a more possession-oriented team, averaged 72 per cent possession in their three group games, only to end up with a humiliating bottom finish.

In addition, teams such as Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, who are good at ball control, also look beautiful but do not have good results in substance.

On the other hand, the top four seeds Brazil, France and Belgium, who are considered the favourites to win the tournament after reaching the quarter-finals, have unquestionable technical ability, and it is not difficult for these teams to control the ball when the opponent is far inferior to their own.

In fact, the Samba Army have averaged the highest possession rate of 58 per cent in the four games they have played, but they are also the worst teams on the pitch. The Red Devils had just 55 per cent possession and the Gallic Roosters were only averaging 52 per cent per game, but the former came back from two goals down to beat Japan, which was more possession-oriented, and the latter beat the powerful Argentines with only 40% of the possession. From this, it can be concluded that the rise of rapid offensive tactics seems to be unstoppable.

Especially in the next quarterfinals, Russia once again resolutely sacrificed a defensive counterattack strategy, with 35% possession of the ball again forced the Croatians into a penalty shootout, although in the end it still failed to stage two consecutive counterattacks, but also fully showed the world that in the case of the opponent's overall strength is stronger than their own, in the face of the opponent's super passing ability, it is possible to take a fast and concise offensive way to resist and even win.

It is this routine football philosophy that Li Muddy has been exposed to in Real Madrid in his life, and applied it to the two teams he coached, and the results achieved can be said to be obvious to all, which is why he hopes to overturn the Juventus dynasty before leaving Italy. And the reason why he agreed to be a guest commentator on CCTV was just because he originally planned to go to the scene to watch a few key matchups to see if he could learn something from them. Even later, because the training camp was opened early, every game was watched on TV, and overall there was a certain gain.

From the analysis of the specific configuration, the French team is naturally the strongest overall strength in the quarterfinals, but their frontcourt combination does not have much reference value. Although Giroud regained the starting centre-forward position with his strong bridgehead ability after entering the knockout rounds, in the long run, the team's future strike combination will still be Griezmann, Mbappe and Dembele, a player with both speed and skill, which is really rare and cannot be easily put together by a non-top giants like Torino.

Brazil and Belgium also used a three-striker pairing, but in the latter's quarter-final against Japan, they used a 3-4-2-1 post-3-4-1-2 position, and the two-striker combination of Romelu Lukaku and Mertens had a similar feel to the Red Bulls' Italian international striker. So the European Red Devils, who finally lived up to their reputation in the World Series, immediately became the focus of the Torino manager's research, and it just so happened that the opposing coach was also a Spaniard.

The luxury of the squad is not even worse than that of a club giant like Real Sajen, and only the Brazilian team in its heyday has ever appeared before, even if it lags behind France and Spain in the overall value of 23 players, but only looking at the starting eleven, the Belgian team is not afraid of any other opponent. However, this team full of talent has never played all its strength in the previous World Series, but has exposed several scandals of infighting, and has become another paper powerhouse that has never been able to stand on top of the world because of unity problems after the Dutch team.

And since former Swansea, Wigan Athletic and Everton boss Roberto Martinez took over the reins of the Belgian national team at Euro 2016 with little name as a player and without a particularly impressive coaching resume since retirement, the Red Devils have truly transformed into a top-three superpower team in the world. Although the new coach lost 0-2 to his native Spain in his first warm-up game, Martinez never gave up on his plan to implant his philosophy of pursuing a concise and fast attack into the team.

After two years of running-in, Belgium finally found its most lethal move before the start of the World Cup in Russia, that is, multiple points in the counterattack and quickly inserted at the same time, just like the scatter formation in rugby, everyone can become the final endpoint, and it may be just a transition point. The combination of passing and cutting in the middle of a fast movement makes it extremely difficult for opponents to defend, and this style of play has been a headache for all teams in Europe for the past two years, and now it has become a problem for the whole world of football.

Just to play the essence of this tactic, the individual ability of the players will be extremely demanding, how many teams can have the luxury of having Hazard and De Bruyne two of the world's top midfielders as playmakers, wide attacks and good players such as Carrasco, Mertens, Januzaj, and super finishes in front of goal? With the current Torino team, it is naturally slightly inferior in terms of lineup.

However, after bringing in three well-rounded midfielders of Andre Gomez, Nicolò Barella and Bruno Fernandes (the oldest of whom has not yet celebrated his 25th birthday), it is clear that Li Doudi has the initial capital to replicate Roberto Martinez's attacking tactics.

And with the strengthening of the backline, Torino's defensive prospects can also be ranked at the top of the European end, which is very similar to the situation of Belgium.

As a result, after the physical preparation phase of the training camp came to an end, the coaching staff of the Red Bulls began to add training programs that were close to the tactical ideas of the Belgian national team on the basis of the team's playing style last season, in order to train everyone, especially the midfielders, to adapt to the high-speed movement of the ball and how to play a role in each other's running positions.

Li Mudi believes that after the "Tiki-taka dynasty" that dominated the world football completely ended in the World Cup in Russia, in the coming period, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Liverpool and the Belgian national team's offensive method of pursuing the concept of "the world's martial arts are only fast and unbreakable" is very likely to become a new generation of trendsetters. Coincidentally, now he is also a believer in this kind of tactical thinking, if he doesn't take advantage of this shareholder wind and ride his horse and whip once, how long will he wait?

The quarter-finals also helped some members of the club's coaching staff, who were a little skeptical, to continue on this path of success. Against the favourites Samba, the Red Devils eliminated five-star Brazil and advanced to the semi-finals with a huge disadvantage of 43 to 57 possession and 3 shots to 9 of 27 despite a huge disadvantage of 43 to 57 possession time ratios, and a 3-of-27 shot on goal score.

Although Belgium lost 1-0 to the favourites France in the semi-finals, in the eyes of most industry insiders, this is not because they are not as good as their opponents. The reason for the loss, in addition to the active recovery strategy used by Deschamps to limit Belgium's best high-speed attack, Roberto Martinez actually replaced Fellaini, who played as a guest center forward, when the team's cross tactics once threatened the opponent's goal several times, which caused the French team's defensive pressure to plummet, and finally withstood the opponent's onslaught and preserved the victory.

In addition, the form of the rest of the Belgian stars except for Hazard was average in this game, which was also one of the reasons for the disadvantage of their own attack. And they got 64% of the data in terms of possession, which is a relatively normal result in this World Cup, which follows the general rule that the side with the advantage of possession will lose.

However, this defeat could not hide the highlight performance and historical status of the strongest European Red Devils in history in the past two years, although they did not win their country's first major championship, but the excellent youth training system, the large number of measures to absorb the best African descendants with outstanding physical fitness, and the active delivery of domestic excellent seedlings to France and the Netherlands to the processing of stars, and then introduced by many Premier League giants, these measures have created the country's current brilliant football momentum and bright future development prospects.

If the Celestial Empire can calm down and learn one or two of them, I believe that our football level will also be improved to a certain extent, but it is a pity......

In the next three or four decisive matches, the Belgians did not disappoint the fans who supported them, facing the three meows who returned to the semi-finals after 28 years and were extremely optimistic about the future development trend of many people, it can be said that they won 2-0 bloodlessly, killing this fierce opponent in this tournament for the second time, and refreshing the best record in the history of the World Cup. The Reds, who were better at passing and possession, managed just 42 per cent of possession and had fewer shots on goal than their opponents, but they were able to convince them of victory with their efficient counter-attacks.

Interestingly, due to the fact that the team has many international players who play in the Premier League, the Belgian national team has been nicknamed the "second team of the Premier League" by many people. As a result, it was this second team that stopped the pace of the deity to create the second best result in history, which made British football somewhat embarrassed.

The final held on the second day still continued the law that the level of possession determines the winner, even if the Croatian midfielders led by Magic Flute and Rakitic controlled nearly two-thirds of the ball on the field, they failed to take advantage of the speed impact of Mbappe and other new French attackers. While there seemed to be some controversy over the first two goals from the Gallic Roosters, overall Didier Deschamps' side were the stronger side, and in the eyes of most people, the result was normal.

Eight years ago, Spain created a dynasty of Tiki-taka with near-extreme pass-and-control tactics; Four years ago, the German tank used a set of four different but extremely comprehensive technical and team tactics, and successfully reached the top without being widely favored by the outside world; In Russia in 2018, the concept of football is based on the theory expressed in Lao Tzu's famous phrase "the road is simple", so that the speed flow of the simplest violence stands in front of people's eyes.

Although the future development trend is likely to be a process of transformation from simple to complex, at least in the next one or two seasons, the tactical thinking of reducing possession, seizing the backcourt space created by the opponent's forward press, and smashing the Yellow Dragon with speed and multi-point response will become the mainstream of world football, and it is also very suitable for a team like Torino that is always in the position of challenger.

After returning to the club, he hopes to clarify his thoughts as soon as possible and apply it to the team to provide more help for the outbreak of the new season.