Chapter 47: Core Replacement
Evidence that a team is in excellent form at some stage is that the winning streak is maintained, and if a favourable schedule can be encountered, it is not too unusual for some strong team to occasionally run a ten-game winning streak. In reality, Barcelona and Real Madrid will be on an 11-game winning streak and 12-game winning streak respectively in the coming months.
Winning streaks are the best results, but it is very difficult to win consistently, and it is only possible to have an advantage in the right place at the right time, as evidenced by the winning streak in Europe's top five leagues.
Let's start with Ligue 1: Bordeaux completed an eleven consecutive wins in the 08-09 season, although the previous Lyon and the current Grand Paris are dominating the world, but it is so difficult to continue winning streaks in the relatively weak Ligue 1;
The second is the thirteen consecutive wins in the Premier League, which belongs to the great Arsenal, the thirteen consecutive wins in the 01-02 season, and then the reality of Chelsea in the 16-17 season also achieved this feat;
La Liga's winning streak belongs to Barcelona, with sixteen consecutive wins in the 10-11 season, when the Dream Three Dynasty was indeed invincible, and Real Madrid completed fifteen consecutive wins across the season in the 15-16 and 16-17 seasons;
The record of Serie A should be easy to guess, Inter Milan completed seventeen consecutive wins in the 06-07 season, and Serie A during the phone gate period was the only giant to survive a large number of records, which is not surprising;
The strongest is the Bundesliga, is there any suspense for Bayern's name to appear here? The 19 consecutive wins in the 13-14 season shook the past and the present, and won the world's top league.
Winning streaks naturally require a lot of luck, and a unbeaten streak is a better indication of a team's stability, which is much more impressive than a winning streak.
In terms of the league alone, the unbeaten record in the top five leagues is Nantes 32 games in the 94-95 season, Real Sociedad 38 games in the 79-80 season, Arsenal 49 games in the 03-04 period, Bayern Munich 53 games in the 12-13 and 13-14 seasons and AC Milan 58 games in the 91-93 season.
The league is almost always played once a week, and there is plenty of time and space for player rotation and tactical planning, and if you add various cup competitions, it is much more difficult to stay unbeaten all the time.
Juventus are currently unbeaten in all competitions in Europe's top five leagues with 43 games in 2011-12, while Celtic are on a 62-game unbeaten run in 1915-1917. In addition, Barcelona set a record of 39 unbeaten Spanish football games this year, which was improved to 40 by Real Madrid at the end of the year.
Castile's 22-game unbeaten run seems a far cry from those numbers, but it is important to remember that these records were set at a time when the league was dominant and it was difficult for other teams to challenge them effectively. As the third division of Spain, the strength of the teams is at a poor level, and it is difficult for there to be a big difference in strength between them, so it is basically hellish difficulty to maintain a long-term undefeated. Although the league at this level is lacking in technical statistics and there is no very detailed relevant data, at least in the last 15 to 20 years, no team has been able to remain unbeaten for 20 games, so Li Mudi's result is still worthy of praise.
After the match against Ferrol, Castilla did not have the usual day off the next day, as there was still a league game to be played on Sunday, so they rushed back to Madrid at noon and immediately threw themselves into training.
On Sunday morning, Raul called again and told Li that the new Powerball draw had been drawn, and this time it was unfortunate that it was wiped out.
Thursday was the second draw, Li Mudi bought the number to go further, winning a fifth prize of $100, after thinking about it for about half a minute, he made a prudent decision, from the prize money to put the original investment of 39 yuan and as a symbol of the winning 1 yuan to keep, the remaining $60 continued to invest in the lottery. It's a pity that the gambling industry shattered the previous little luck on the third attempt, but fortunately, there is a symbolic bonus of 1 yuan to comfort Xiao Li's lost little heart.
Li Mudi, who was originally going to stop there, instantly lost control of his reason when he learned from his friend that the jackpot pool of the new Powerball had accumulated an appalling nearly 1.5 billion US dollars, and asked Raul to help him buy a hundred lottery tickets when his brain was blank. After leaving the phone, I regretted it in my heart, and felt that I had fallen into the quagmire of gambling, but the temptation of more than one billion was too great, who could resist the temptation of this huge amount of money?
At 19:00 in the evening, Castilla sat at home for the first match of the second half of the league against Gnica. The two sides have played each other in the first round, and the score of 0-4 proves that the difference in strength is still very large, and this time at home, the home team is expected to be a big win for both the coaching staff, the players and the fans.
Castilla's starting line-up for this game: goalkeeper Yáñez, right wing-back Forlan, central defenders Hector and Leon, left-back Abnell, central midfielders Odegaard and Toro, forward Enzo, right winger Alvaro, left winger La Zuo, center Mariano.
The visitors were very afraid of the home team's attacking ability, and in order to increase the number of people at the back, they lined up a 4-2-2-2 defensive formation, with two midfielders, two forwards and two central strikers. In terms of tactics, it is to learn the style of play of Guadalajara, which had a clean sheet against Castilla before, and play more thoroughly, defending with eight people, driving to the front court with a big foot after winning the ball, and the two strikers will try it if they have the chance, and forget it if they don't have a chance.
Such a "shameless" style of play made Castile like a mouse catching a turtle for a while, and he didn't know where to start. Although they firmly controlled the ball in midfield, they did not create too many good chances, the opposition invested too much in defence, and the home team players looked up everywhere and could not see any gaps.
In Group B2 of La Liga, Castile are the undisputed hegemons, and the results are the best proof of this, but it does not mean that this team has no weaknesses and has won all battles. At present, the biggest problem of the team is the lack of offensive ability, Mariano is an outstanding center forward, shooting, heading and body are very strong, although the recent improvement in speed is obvious, but due to the limitation of the formation, a person often has to face the encirclement of the opponent's two defenders, and his personal skills are still not enough to give him the upper hand; Enzo and Odegaard are both core players with excellent technical ability, but they are too thin physically, and they can't play their strength when they meet the opponent's physical confrontation. Now in the face of the opponent's swing bus tactics, Li Mudi also has two responses: crosses and long-range shots. However, Mariano has only one strong header in the team, and it is difficult to make a difference under the attack of several opponents; As for long-range shooting, the strongest player in the team is Mariano, and it depends on whether the ball kicked by others can hit the target! Without Mbappe, who has the perfect combination of speed, technique and physicality, it is indeed difficult to fight.
Castilla's life didn't seem good today, many consecutive attacks were ridiculously off, and most of the shots that could hit the goal were blocked by the opposing defenders with their bodies, although there were seven shots in the first fifteen minutes, but they did not cause any problems to the visiting goalkeeper at all.
Gnicka was determined to defend to the end, and seeing that Castilla had formed a number of attacks in a short period of time, he was even more frustrated to pull the two forwards back to the middle circle to participate in the pressing......
But maybe God can't see such a "shameless" behavior, in the 21st minute, the away team still couldn't hold on to the draw, Odegaard left corner kick, Hector in front of the opponent shook his head and put the ball into the top corner of the goal, 1-0, Castilla still used a header to rewrite the score.
After taking the lead, the home team's morale was high, and then they immediately attacked the opponent's defense more frantically, hoping to score another goal and completely kill the suspense. Unfortunately, luck seemed to have been out of the way after that goal, as Alvaro and Mariano hit the post, with the latter netting a goal that was ruled offside and the win was sealed.
Until the 33rd minute, the home side's onslaught failed to score a second goal, but it was Abner who collided with an opposition player during a wide break, resulting in a sprained ankle that made it impossible to hold on and had to be replaced by Tejero. After the game, the team doctor diagnosed that he would be suspended for at least a month, which was really unlucky.
In the last ten minutes of the first half, Castilla slowed down the all-out siege and tried to attract the opponent to the formation more in the middle and back, but it failed to have any effect, and then went into the half-time break.
Gnica also showed no desire to equalise in the second half, but after replacing a striker with a defender, they improved their possession of the ball, and instead of blindly breaking the home team's attack in the first half, they tried to keep the ball at their feet for longer and reduce the number of attacks by the home team. Unwilling to devote more troops to attack, Gnica did not put little pressure on Castile's defence, but the home team's attack really could not be as unbridled as before.
In the end, the score of 1-0 was maintained until the end of the game, and although Li Mudi led the team to continue the winning streak in the league, he played very aggrieved and failed to win as expected.
In terms of statistics, the home team spent 60% of the time on the ball, passed more than 620 times, and shot 10-of-26 in the goal-scoring link, while allowing the opponent to complete only one attack in 90 minutes, which can be described as an overwhelming advantage, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with the final score.
However, the result of this game also made Castilla complete 11 consecutive league wins, creating the best result in La Liga B in the last decade.
Later in the day, Real Madrid won comfortably 5-0 at home to Deportivo La Coruna thanks to Bale's hat-trick and Karim Benzema's brace. In this game, Ronaldo turned into a wave of shots, only three of his ten shots on target, and one goal was not scored, while the shooting efficiency of the two goalscorers was three out of four. In this game, Mbappe got another chance to play, coming on as a substitute for Bale in the 74th minute, and he was very active.
On 13 January, there was the Copa del Rey affair, and Zinedine Zidane sent Odegaard and Mariano to the first team. Originally, Enzo was also going to report to his father, but he couldn't withstand the "stalking" of his younger brother Rayo Vallecano, so the club still agreed to Enzo's loan request, and Zizo II joined the training of the vice-president of La Liga that afternoon. Now Rayo Vallecano is facing a very serious relegation situation and urgently needs fresh blood to join. Li Mudi is still very satisfied that Enzo can get a stable rotation position in the La Liga team, but after the departure of the core of the team, Castilla also needs to add new players. The next day, Real Madrid's official website announced that it had brought in young striker José Luis 'Kuki' Salazar from the Malaga reserve team for a transfer fee of four million plus various future clauses, and sent it directly to the reserves.
Castilla changed the heart of their front court in the second half of the season.