The kick-off of the Anglo-Russian clash will be at 8pm local time on June 24 at Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, a city that is both painful and happy for the Three Lions.

The reason why I say happy is that there are so many ways for British fans to get to the stadium and the distance is far more convenient than flying over the English Channel to the other side of the continent. In this way, you can imagine the number of supporters who will go to the venue to support the match, and it is natural that it will be able to bring the Three Lions support to the home game.

But why is there still pain? The answer is simple: the attitude of the Scots towards the English is not very good, and since 1707, when the two neighbours formed a unified British parliament for the sake of their interests, which gave birth to the title of the United Kingdom, Scotland, which has always played the role of the younger brother in bilateral relations, has reached a plateau. Although it still enjoys legislative and other powers, its international status has become increasingly marginalized, and it has been repeatedly regarded as a subordinate of its evil neighbor in the south, which has aroused strong resentment among many people.

After entering the nineties of the last century, the Scots sought independence. The idea began to gain momentum, and when Tony Blair, who was born in the country's capital, Edinburgh, was elected prime minister of the United Kingdom, this trend also developed in the ZZ area.

In 2014, Scotland even held a referendum on whether to formally secede from the United Kingdom of Great Britain, with 55.8% of voters negative, a far cry from previous polls. Later, there was a case of vote counting fraud, and the result was also over.

Although that time alone. The referendum ended in failure, but it is clear that a considerable number of Scots no longer regard themselves as British, and they have a full sense of resistance, not to say that they hate England, which has been oppressing their country under them for centuries. Now that the other party has come to his doorstep to play a life-and-death battle, how can he not teach those arrogant and hateful Brits some lessons.

Three hours before the start of the game, the Hampton Court Park stadium was packed with 52,500 spectators, almost two-thirds of whom were fans from England and about one-sixth of the local population, who were clearly trying to make a mess for the Three Lions. The members of the fighting nation who were warned by the Russian Foreign Ministry and at the same time restricted by British customs only reached a cheering group of about 8,000 people, but judging from their past "merits", the British police are ready to enter a state of combat readiness at any time.

Looking at it this way, the situation off the field is indeed more tense than on the field, Britain and Russia, two countries rich in football hooligans, face each other, and in the case of extremely large numbers, thinking about it makes some people who eat melons feel strange (unusual) (cold) and happy (and) excited.

Returning to the game, unlike the fans in the audience and even outside the stadium, Li Mudi showed an extremely calm state when he was about to face his team to fight to the death. The tactics to be used, the strategies to be implemented in the face of certain special situations, these are all clearly explained to the players in the training and analysis meetings in the past few days.

Well...... This may seem a bit inaccurate, because he does not speak Russian, and the Russian national team members are all from the domestic league, and most of them do not know any other foreign languages, and daily communication can only be carried out through translators or Smirnov, the leader of the team who is fluent in English. The former is better, but the latter always makes Li Mudi feel that he is either exerting pressure or giving everyone chicken blood as soon as he opens his mouth to the players, how can that tone be evaluated by an impassioned and generous person! Just looking at his rhetorical gesture, the content of the translation seems to be completely out of line with what he expressed as a head coach.

Fortunately, from the last tactical drill before the game, Li Mudi still saw that his efforts were not in vain, and he knew that if everything went well, the Russian men's football team should have a chance to let the World Cup champions, especially the opponent's head coach, have a good drink.

Gareth Southgate, the former England defender, worked alongside David Seaman, Tony Adams, Gary Neville and Stuart Pierce to build the Three Lions' most solid backline at Euro 1996 in more than two decades, and helped England, who have always been willing to play soft, reach the last four of that tournament, equalling their best result in history.

But that was almost the highlight of his international career in less than nine and a half years. Gareth Southgate has never been able to secure a consistent place in any World Series or even qualifiers, with the rise of Saul Campbell and later world-class centre-backs such as Rio Ferdinand and John Terry leaving the veteran on the bench at the time of his playing years. Although the record of 57 appearances is not very small, looking at his entire international career, it is really not how successful it is, and at most it can only be given a moderate evaluation.

Southgate, who has never played for a big club in his career, took over the coaching of Middlesbrough as a player and manager from 2006, and officially hung up his boots a year later to become a full-time coach, but his coaching results were mediocre. Known for his traditional British toughness as a player, he also adhered to the style of daring to fight after becoming a head coach, but he did not know that he had gradually lost touch with modern football.

After the 2008/09 season, Myburgh were relegated to the Championship, their worst record in the club's 11-year history. However, the top management still gave the team manager enough trust, only in exchange for deep disappointment. Just three months into the second season, Middlesbrough, who were looking to return to the Premier League, had to make the decision to change their manager, because the team's results were so poor that there was no hope in sight.

After suffering this blow, Southgate finally learned from the pain and decided to take the next time to study the development trend of modern football tactics and recharge his batteries. It took four years until 2013, when he was appointed manager of the Under-21s by the FA, during which time he developed a habit of using young players.

In September 2016, Sam Allardyce became the new captain of the Three Lions as interim head coach after being forced to resign due to a bribery scandal, and after four games in charge, he caused widespread controversy in the UK.

However, Southgate's arrival suddenly made the England national team seem to have opened up the second line of governors, and the results have shown a significant improvement. In the unfavorable environment of the first round of the 2016 European Championship in the knockout round of the unexpectedly lost to Iceland and the upset, the new Three Lions under the leadership of the new coach suddenly regained the feeling of being a world powerhouse, not only played a wave of unbeaten records of 8 wins and 2 draws in the next World Cup qualifiers, but also determined the right to appear early. The final stage of the tournament in Russia made it all the way to the semi-finals, and although they lost twice to Belgium and finished only one place in the end, they have already given fans a glimpse of a bright future.

In terms of concrete analysis, in fact, the England manager still has a hand, in the past ten years, the Three Lions have always used a back four formation, no matter how many managers have changed, but this tradition has been broken in the hands of Southgate.

Although England still played more of the 4-2-3-1 position in most of the Euro qualifiers in 2016 and 17, the back three system has begun to be experimented with in some warm-up games, but the results were not ideal.

Who knew that after entering 2018, Southgate directly overrode the crowd and determined the 3-5-2 main formation, which is extremely attacking. At the same time, with what seemed to be a very bold decision at the time: to move right-back Kyle Wokrah to the middle of Manchester City FC and become one of the back three, this new tactic was activated in one fell swoop, allowing the vitality of many young players in the team to be maximized.

In the pre-World Cup friendlies and warm-up matches, England used a back three to win back-to-back games against the Netherlands, Nigeria and Costa Rica, and if they hadn't conceded a goal in the final moments of the game, the game against Italy should have been a qualitative improvement. They also relied on their outstanding performance at this stage to become one of the favorites in the eyes of the outside world, and their status as a football power finally began to slowly recover.

However, the subsequent World Cup championship (tied for the second best result in history) and 12 goals in a single competition (team history record) does not actually prove that this team is really qualified to beat Brazil, Spain and other strong teams, because while having many advantages, the three lions have also exposed many shortcomings, and it is obviously far from perfect.

The first is the manager's stubbornness, or rigidity, since the establishment of a back three, Southgate does not seem to be able to make any other changes, 3-1-4-2 against a team that is not as good as himself (or just thinks it is), 3-5-2 against strong opponents, and having all three central midfielders more involved in defence, but otherwise there is no trick to change.

This tactic seems to enhance the team's control in central midfield, similar to the style of play used by Li Mudi in the latter stages of Torino's tenure, but it is still very different, the biggest difference being the lack of attacking means.

The England side have no clear playmaker and a huge lack of ability in this area, resulting in a lack of movement to break into the opposition penalty area against a weaker team, relying on long-range shots, headers and set-pieces to find the back of the net.

And when they are suppressed by the opponent and turn to counterattack, although the speed and connection of the players are not much worse than other strong teams, the tactical strategies that can be adopted are extremely lacking, and it is just one or two tricks to play back and forth. Either the long pass in the midfield and the back are looking for the wing-backs on both sides, or they want to use the personal abilities of Sterling, Ali and others in the chaotic battle to make it very easy for the opponent to make targeted defensive deployments.

To sum up, this team is too immature, neither the coach nor the players have matured in the real sense. Even though it has been two years since the 2018 World Cup, there are almost no major changes from the World Cup in Russia, except for the increase in age and the improvement or decline in the skills of some people, which makes Li Mudi very confident that he can use the methods of the Belgians to deal with this opponent.

Compared to two years ago, the Three Lions are still in the starting line-up as they were at the same time, with the exception of veteran Ashley Young, who was replaced by Danny Rose due to his age. This is also the biggest advantage that this group of players have, that is, consistency and tacit understanding.

Of course, even if this England team has all the shortcomings mentioned above, the strength should not be underestimated. Although they do not have the world's top players in most positions, a group of Premier League giants can form a very impressive synergy when they get together.

Coupled with the 27-year-old Harry Kane in the prime of his career, the Tottenham star has maintained a high scoring rate in the Premier League and European competitions in recent years, and even if the national team's attacking routine is very simple, as long as he is there, scoring goals will not be a problem.

Therefore, before the game, Li Mudi focused on arranging the fullbacks on both sides and Roman Zobnen, who played as a defensive midfielder, to always pay attention to the running position of the opponent's top center forward, and always mark the latter to the highest standard, hoping to limit this all-round top scorer with the help of Lady Luck through crowd tactics.

It was a great strategy in the opening stages, as England were able to attack from positions that they were not very good at, thanks to the Russians' active retreat. With the defenders heavily concentrated in the middle, Southgate had to shift his focus to either side, and Raheem Sterling, who was unable to play his speed advantage in the crowd, began to pull frequently on the ribs, and then he and his two wing-backs, Terpier and Danny Rose, delivered four crosses in succession, but none of them could help Kane get a chance to cause chaos.

Low crosses were difficult to intercept mid-range from defenders, and defending high balls was the best skill of the tall Russian defenders, so the tactic was quickly declared null and void and abandoned by the Three Lions.

The frontal ground penetration style of play should be a sharp weapon against teams with deviations in flexibility, but even if the Premier League is the league with the highest overall strength and the most diverse tactical style, no matter how English players learn and cultivate, they cannot reach the delicacy of players from Latin countries. Gascoigne and Joe Cole are outliers after all, even if the likes of Alli, Lingard and Jordan Henderson are already well-known stars around the world, and they are still far from the top level in terms of passing skills and awareness.

Coupled with Li Mudi's focus, this road is not smooth for the Three Lions.

Fortunately, they did a good job of shooting from distance today, forcing Akinfeev to make flying saves twice in the first 20 minutes, as well as creating three corners, but unfortunately they couldn't get it.

So from the perspective of the field, England did take the initiative on the field, but the effect was not great, and the balance of victory did not tilt in the slightest.

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