Chapter 150: Tenerife
The biggest winner of the UEFA Cup semi-finals this time was Ligue 1, with Bordeaux and Monaco reaching the semi-finals at the same time, and the most pleasing thing for the French was that the two teams did not meet each other in the semi-finals. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 InfoMonaco's semi-final opponents were Serie A giants Inter Milan, while Bordeaux were even more lucky, as they were beaten by Tenerife, a mid-table side in La Liga who had stumbled all the way to this place.
When Fan Shang was researching this team, he only searched for a familiar name in his mind, German striker Neuville, others, to be honest, Fan Shang had never heard of it at least in his last life, although there were various international players in it, it can only be said that Fan Shang was unheard of.
In this semi-final match, Bordeaux is still the first away and then the host, as if all Bordeaux in this year's League Cup are the first away and then the host. However, this road trip was a headache for Vincent, this is not a European game at all, Tenerife's home stadium is in a place called the Canary Islands of Spain, and Vincent flipped through the map and finally found this place on the edge of Morocco in Africa. Vincent now seems to understand why they have been able to go all the way to this point, especially in the last round, when they lost to Denmark's Brondby away, but won at home. Denmark's entire country is not as big as a province of the Celestial Empire, so it is definitely tiring for them to go to Africa to compete, and Tenerife relies on this routine, losing less away from home along the way and getting back at home. This time, the away and then home schedule is actually extremely beneficial for Bordeaux.
Of course, this game is in April, and there are still three league games to be played in between, and these three league games are crucial to whether Bordeaux can win the championship in advance.
The opponents of these three games are Nancy, Nantes and Montpellier, all old rivals, especially Montpellier, who have met in successive cup competitions before, but won all of them, and Fan Shang does not want to have accidents in the next game.
The results of those three games were somewhat disappointing for Vincent, with Nancy coming out on top, but drawing against both Nantes and Montpellier, with Bordeaux picking up five points from the three rounds. Although Monaco lost the game in the 29th round, it won three consecutive victories and narrowed the gap with Bordeaux to 16 points, so Bordeaux failed to complete Fanchan's goal with 6 rounds left, which disappointed Vincent, and of course the players also had to pay the price. From now on, they don't have to think about resting for the whole month of April, and they will have half an hour of tactical study time every day to compensate for the damage they have brought to Fan Shang's mind.
The match against Montpellier was on April 5 and the away match against Tenerife was played on April 8, so Bordeaux departed directly from Montpellier early in the morning of the second day of the game to the Canary Islands, including a flight in Barcelona, which departed in the morning and landed at the airport in Tenerife until dark.
Tenerife was founded in 1912, only then it was called SportingClubTenerife. For a long time after its official establishment, it has been mixed in the regional leagues. It was only in 1953 that it was promoted to the second division. It wasn't until 1961 that they made it to La Liga, the top flight, for the first time, but were unfortunately relegated the following season. Tenerife has been in the lower leagues for a long time, and the real rise of the team began in the 90s, thanks to the former Barcelona veteran Javier as the club's president and the Argentine team building line and policy. Especially at the beginning of the 90s, the head coach of the team was the legendary Argentine star Baldano, and he had players such as Redondo, Pizzi, Alvaranse, etc., and the best result was fifth place in La Liga. Last season, under the leadership of German coach Heynckes, they achieved a 5th place in the league, although the league results this season are not as outstanding as last season, but the League Cup to reach the semi-finals is also a huge breakthrough.
This team still can't let Vincent underestimate, that night in Rodriguez? In the match played at the Lopez Stadium, Vincent sent all his main players in the hope of defending it on the road.
Rodriguez? The Stadio López has a capacity of 24,000 people, but the city of Tenerife has a population of only about 200,000, which means that if every game is full, at least one out of every ten people will attend the game. It was this seemingly impossible thing that the Tenerife fans did, with more than 20,000 people per game, which is a remarkable achievement. Of course, there is still a gap between this and Huo Village in the future.
The fans of Bordeaux who traveled with the army this time definitely couldn't get past the triple digits, and could only huddle in a small area prepared for them in advance.
Tenerife's main tactics revolve around a high school striker, who last year moved to Barcelona in the summer after scoring 31 goals in a season and topping the La Liga scorers' charts. But Heynckes immediately found a replacement, a high school striker from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cordero, and at the same time he also found a German fellow, that is, the aforementioned Neuville, and the current Tenerife forward is one high and one fast (how does it feel a bit of a celestial meaning), but the role of the two of them is no longer as effective as last year's Pizzi.
But for Bordeaux, a high striker is very troublesome, Bordeaux's two central defenders Gamara 180, Song 183, Chilavert is only 188, so today Codéro created a huge threat for Bordeaux.
Several times Tenerife's side ball was grabbed by Cordero, fortunately, the center's header ability was not as good as expected, several headers were either flying or right, but his several ferries created a lot of opportunities for his teammates, especially Neuville, who is now only 24 years old and has slowly shown his ability, elusive in the penalty area, if it weren't for Chilavert's more focused concentration, Bordeaux might have been pierced in the first half.
At half-time, Vincent finally made a change, adding a central defender, removing a striker and replacing Wiltord with Distin. Distin's height of 190 plus his weight of 90 kilograms knocked Codero, who was the same height but weighed 10 kilograms lighter than him, to the point that he couldn't find the north at all. Without the attacking bridgehead of the high school striker, Heynckes's tactics would have no starting point, so although Bordeaux was still concentrating on defense in the second half, Tenerife created very little threat to them.
Seeing that the high striker was no longer effective, Heynckes replaced Cordero with a 175-skilled striker, Juan Elere, and began to play short balls on the ground in the hope of breaking down Bordeaux's defence.
Fan Shang also moves quickly, don't you want to attack, I just don't let you get your wish, you must not lose the ball, this is Fan Shang's only purpose at this time.
So Fan Shang followed Heynckes' adjustment and replaced the veteran Coussy with Pire. At this time, the lineup became a 541, with three midfielders, plus a free-for-all Nedved, leaving only one Shevchenko in front. Fan Shang's psychology is now dispensable, if Heynckes' next substitution is to strengthen the attack, then Fan Shang will definitely replace Shevchenko.
As Fan Shang expected, it didn't take long for Heynckes to replace a striker again, remove a full-back, and Tenerife started playing 343. In this case, Fan Shang also replaced Shevchenko and replaced the veteran Lucas according to the established plan, and at this time Bordeaux's formation became 550. Four of the five midfielders are midfielders, with Nedved being more capable of running than the midfielders.
After seeing Fan Shang's substitution, Heynckes frowned and looked at Bordeaux's coach's seat, he really didn't expect that there would be such a shameless head coach, and there would be a striker in front of him to interfere with the bus, this Bordeaux is really, he doesn't care about the face project at all, and everyone is defending in his own half.