Stuart Pierce is a 'failed turnaround' player.

As a professional, Pierce made a name for himself and was considered one of the best defenders in England's history.

Towards the end of his career, Pierce joined Manchester City as a member of the team and also started working as an assistant coach, and he had similar thoughts to Wise, wanting to retire as a manager.

Pierce was halfway there.

After two years as an assistant coach at Manchester City, he was trusted by Manchester City as the club's head coach.

It's a step to the sky.

There are very few professional players who can successfully 'turn around' to become a head coach, even if the relationship between the player and the coach is very close, and they have been in contact with the coach throughout their careers, but the work of the coach is different from the player, you need to formulate tactics for the team, you need to arrange the lineup, you need to build the team system, you need to lead the team to play, and so on, just like students and teachers, no matter how good the high school graduation results are, it is difficult to succeed directly as a teacher.

Pierce feels like he's only good at competing, and when he does, he knows what to do, and he uses shouting to remind his teammates what to do.

But what about a manager?

When leading Manchester City to play, Pierce spent most of his time in his position, or standing on the field, watching the team play, he felt at a loss, because he couldn't do anything, it seemed that winning or not depends entirely on the performance of the players on the field, and ...... God's arrangement.

After Pierce was dismissed by Manchester City, he also hoped to find a new job as a manager, but no team above the second division contacted him, and his agent took the initiative to contact several clubs, most of which ended in failure.

Pierce eventually fired his agent because he realized he didn't need an agent anymore.

This experience of failure also gave Pierce a deep understanding of his own situation, he is not a star player, and he is not a first-class manager at all.

When he heard that Millwall had invited him to be an assistant coach, Pierce was a little happy that his job had been settled, but he was also a little disappointed about his situation.

Now if you want to work in a first-class team, you can only work as an assistant coach.

After joining Millwall, Pierce thought about a lot of things, and he felt that he should learn more at Millwall, especially with the manager, and learn how to do the job of a manager.

If it had been before, Pierce would have scoffed at it!

Publicity?

How does a young man in his twenties who doesn't know how to succeed compares to someone like himself who was born as a star and directly serves as the head coach of a Premier League team?

It's different now.

Pierce's mentality has changed a lot, and he finds himself as a head coach, which is far worse than Zhang Yang.

Zhang Yang has a lot to learn.

After Pierce came to the club, he only saw Zhang Yang once, because the preparations for the new season had not yet begun, and he spent most of his time to report to the club, get familiar with the environment in the club, and care about the club's transfer work by the way.

In less than a week, Pierce got to know a number of people, he spoke to Aldous and Frederick, had more contact with Bruno Boehly, and had half a day to help Bert train the young players in the junior team.

Pierce had no experience at all in this area because his starting point was so high.

Pierce felt that he had learned a lot from Bert.

This idea surprised Pierce very much, if it had been placed in the past, a coach like Bert would never have been able to enter his eyes.

Pierce paid the most attention to Zhang Yang, he had only met Zhang Yang once, had a few casual conversations, and then was sent away by 'silence', he knew that Zhang Yang was doing tactical research.

Tactical research?

Do the tactics still need to be carefully studied?

Pierce has also studied tactics, but most of them are to arrange a formation for the team, Manchester City has been playing 442, and the occasional change of formation is also due to the lack of players, otherwise 442 is unstable.

442 is very simple, let the players play normally on the field, there is no need to talk too complicated, each player has a fixed position, such as a striker, such as a wingback, such as a defender, the name of the position has already explained what they are going to do, at most it is to figure out how to cooperate between players.

Zhang Yang's tactical research work lasted for several days, and Pierce was completely confused.

When he received a call from Zhang Yang asking him to go to the coach's office, Pierce immediately became energetic, and he was eager to know what Zhang Yang had done in a few days.

"Could it be that the constant study of tactics is the secret of his success in leading Millwall?"

Pierce thought.

When he arrived at the coach's office, Pierce saw Zhang Yang writing and drawing on a huge tactical board, with dazzling intricate lines and player names in red letters.

Pierce didn't bother Zhang Yang, but walked over slowly, and saw a stack of papers on the table, he pulled out one, and saw that the simple cover read--

Tactical plan.

--Josh Morris.

I pulled out another one, and it said--

Tactical plan

--Darren Ward.

Pierce flipped through carefully, each one is a tactical plan, each one is different, with the names of each player written on them, and the thickness of the plan is also different, for example, goalkeeper Graham Stark's plan is only three simple pages, and midfielder Morris's plan is more than thirty pages.

The other players are similar, the plan for the striker and the central defender is relatively smaller, and the plan for the midfielder, especially the midfielder, is relatively more.

But not necessarily.

For example, striker Jamie Vardy's plan has more than 20 pages, while midfielder Livermore has less than 10 pages, Sneijder's plan is nearly 30 pages, and Ljungberg's is much less.

Wait a minute.

The amount of content in the plan is probably related to the position, but some players are in the 'position with a small number of pages', and the number of pages in the plan is also quite large.

"Is it based on the characteristics of the players?" Pierce was a little puzzled, he looked at it silently, while paying attention to Zhang Yang's 'painting' work, he looked at it carefully for a while, and covered his forehead with a headache, thinking that it was better to let Zhang Yang say what to do, and he would definitely not understand it if he went to see it himself.

Finally, the flamboyant work is over.

Zhang Yang looked at the tactical board, drew for more than half an hour, and finally drew the overall tactical framework, he turned to look at Pierce, walked over and sat next to Pierce, picked up mineral water and poured a sip, before smiling and pointing to the tactical board, said, "This is the tactic we have to adapt to, we need to adapt slowly, don't worry, but the assistant coach must figure it out, so that it can be explained to the players." ”

Pierce nodded.

"Are you ready? I'll give you a brief explanation first. Wait until tomorrow morning, let the others come along, and I'll explain it in a unified way, which will take a long time, and I hope you can understand it more clearly than the others, because you will be in charge of tactical training. Zhang Yang gave Pierce a job without question.

This is also the work of Wise before.

Millwall's training is mainly carried out by Frederick and Wise, and Aldous has a part of the youth team and he doesn't spend much time in the first team, only occasionally coming to help out.

Zhang Yang is responsible for the overall situation, or rather...... He's actually a bit lazy, tactical training is just a bit of a big deal, he's already planned it all, so the players know how to play, and it's enough to have an assistant coach to help.

Pierce was happy that what he wanted to touch was the tactical stuff.

In Pierce's view, Millwall can achieve good results, tactics are a very important part, last season a lot of media reported Millwall's tactics, this topic from the beginning of the season, until the end of the season, there is still no exact statement.

Now that he has the opportunity to be directly involved, he will soon know the truth.

————

Zhang Yang explained to Pierce alone for two hours.

Two hours is a long time, but in front of the tactical explanation, it seems that it is only a general introduction.

Zhang Yang felt a little tired, but Pierce still listened patiently, he had always been in good spirits, and occasionally his mouth would grow and he would make a surprised expression.

Pierce was always surprised.

Because Pierce is a 'newcomer' and doesn't know Millwall's past tactical framework, Zhang Yang explained it in detail, starting with last season's 451 dual-core tactics.

Although it was only a general statement, it was enough to surprise Pierce.

The 'dual core' of the 451 formation is really beyond imagination, and the cooperation of the two cores in the middle of the midfield feels like a 'stroke of genius', but Pierce still didn't understand in the end, why playing the dual core like this will minimize the conflict between the two cores on the overall impact, Zhang Yang only has one sentence, "This is a tactic that I rely on the ability of the players, they are all in the space suitable for their own play, and the position conflict will be minimized." ”

This explanation made Pierce nod his head in thought, he felt incomprehensible, perhaps it was his own tactical IQ problem.

Peirce believes that being a head coach also requires IQ, just like those math and physics experts, even if ordinary people study, they can't be experts in math and physics, because their IQ is not enough to pass the grade of math and physics experts, and too complex problems cannot be understood by learning and rote memorization.

The manager understands tactics as well.

When the tactics are advanced to a certain point, it is very necessary for the mind to understand, and ordinary people cannot understand it, and only if the tactical IQ is enough, can it be understood.

Thinking about it like this, Pierce was a little pessimistic, "Is it really a matter of talent that I can't be a good coach?" ”

Zhang Yang didn't know Pierce's complex thinking, in fact, most of his explanations were correct, but the 451 dual-core tactics, why the two cores did not conflict, he didn't understand all of them, if the ability of 'speech and spirit measurement' also opened up the wisdom and sprouted the light of wisdom, maybe he could directly ask the 'speech and spirit measurement', otherwise Zhang Yang would not be able to understand it all.

That's it anyway, as for why?

Is it important?

Next, Zhang Yang began to talk about the new tactical play, in a week, the research of the new tactics is still relatively large, the lineup added a Sneijder, Zhang Yang also relied on the original 'double core' play, evolved the tactical formation of two ideas.

One is the 'dual-core' 352 formation, or 3232, three defenders, two backs, three forwards, two forwards, the key point of the formation is that the two core work is the division of labor, one core is the back waist, focusing on defense and offensive and defensive conversion, and the other core is in the front, mainly responsible for leading the team's offensive.

The 352 formation is very offensive.

Among the two midfielders, one is the core, which ensures that the backcourt defense is organized, in addition, the two midfielders can also step forward to participate in the defense, and the back three is a little thin in defense, but the two full-backs can still insert the attack.

The key point of the 352 formation is that the role of the wing is blurred, because there are only three players in each line horizontally, the wide players can also go to the middle, and the middle players can also go to the wing, just like Chelsea's 433 formation, the role of the wing is minimized, and the position of the players is very dense forward and sparse laterally.

This will make the direct attack of the forward pass more fluid and faster, and at the same time, the central defense will become much tighter, but the overall defense will definitely be weakened, even if there are two backs, it cannot make up for the lack of central defenders.

Another evolution, which Zhang Yang believes is perfect, is the non-nuclear tactics of 433.

Chelsea's 433 is a back three.

Manchester United's 433, the midfield three have a clear division of labor, there are players who organize the attack, there are also pure defensive players, on both sides of the front three, the position is a little blurred, can be a full-back, can also be a pure striker.

The 433 formulated by Zhang Yang focuses on the lack of a core, and the three midfielders are all players with strong offensive organization ability, and the calm cooperation of the three will make the attack play more fluent.

In the middle of the three forwards, there is the center forward in front, the two wingers are very free, the range of movement can be very large, the back is the midfielder, and the forward is the striker.

This style of play mainly revolves around the midfield trio, all three of them must be core players with a strong view of the overall situation, strong offensive organization and offensive ability, and no bad defense.

There is a saying in Chinese Taoism, "Tao gives birth to one, life to two, two to three, and three to all things", there are three cores and no core, the meaning is actually the same, because there are too many 'three', and other players will not consider who is the center when they come to the field, and the style of play has become very free, so the three cores are almost equivalent to no core.

Zhang Yang believes that the non-core 433 style of play is perfect, the reason is that the current strongest lineup is discharged, and the highest ability evaluation of the 'Speech and Spirit Measurement' has reached the 'Nine Stars and Four Points', and the current ability evaluation of the 'Speech and Spirit Measurement' has reached the level of nine stars and two points, and the difference between the two evaluations is only two points, which is almost equivalent to no gap.

The seedless 433 style of play is the most suitable for the team, and it is the style of play that allows the team to play to its strongest strength.

Nothing can be perfect.

The 433 style of play without a core sounds very good, but it takes a long time to adapt, and it is almost impossible to rely on pre-season preparation alone, and the team has to adapt slowly.

Pierce listened to Zhang Yang's explanation, and kept nodding his head, he was completely stunned by Zhang Yang's 'whimsical' tactical thinking.

Seedless?

Three organizational cores?

Can this also be done?

This kind of tactic is very powerful just by listening to it, if it can really be played, England, no, Europe, which team is the opponent of Millwall?!!

"I really have a huge gap with Zhang Yang in terms of tactical ability!"

Pierce thought with a sigh.