Chapter Eighty-Four: The Confusion of the Blues
While Descartes was still worried about the imminent matter of moving, Arsenal had already welcomed Chelsea at home.
This FA Cup semi-final has attracted much attention from the world, not only because of the grudges and entanglements between Arsenal and Chelsea in the past few seasons, but also because Chelsea's manager "Big Phil" Scolari is currently at the center of the storm, and this FA Cup semi-final is likely to determine whether he will stay in the position.
It's actually very simple to say, the record is not good, which is the reason why Scolari's position is unstable, but if we dig deeper, we will find that there are actually a lot of interesting problems in it.
The first is Scolari's level of coaching.
At the helm of five-star Brazil, who led Portugal to the semi-finals at the European Championships, it would be a fart to say that Scolari is an embroidered pillow, but to say how good Scolari is, we have to take a hard look at his resume.
Scolari began his coaching experience in 1982 after retiring from football, and before retiring he was a second-rate centre-back, without any record in his career, but his path to coaching has been exceptional, with good results in Brazil, Japan and Saudi Arabia, leading Kuwait to the Gulf Cup in 1990 and Gremio to the Copa Libertadores in 1995. He went on to win the Copa do Brasil and the Copa Libertadores in Palmeiras, ushering in a glorious Palmeiras era.
In the 02 World Cup qualifiers, Leao and Luxenberg couldn't take the Brazilian team. Scolari took over the four-star Brazil at a crucial moment, and he quickly straightened out the team's discipline, made huge changes to the backline, and established the "3R" tactic with Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho at the core of the forward line, bringing the team that stumbled in qualifying to the World Cup championship in Japan and South Korea.
Since then, he has been in charge of the Portuguese national team, with the help of Cristiano Ronaldo, Deco and other stars, leading Portugal all the way to the final of the European Championship.
In 2006, Scolari led Portugal to the semi-finals of the World Cup, which was in the midst of a golden generation. Although unfortunately it was repelled by Zidane's penalty. But Portugal's performance at that World Cup also won praise from the industry.
So on the whole, Scolari's coaching career can be called smooth sailing, and he is simply a model of successful people.
That's why he is in charge of Chelsea. It's a proposal that can't be objected to. Abu is also full of confidence in this. even did not hesitate to pay 5 million euros to the Portuguese Football Federation to redeem him.
It's fair to say that Scolari arrived at Chelsea at the right time.
But we pay attention to the time, place, and people in everything we do, and Scolari takes advantage of the time. This place and anything else are not necessarily on his side.
What kind of team is Chelsea?
This team has been deeply imprinted by the character coach Mourinho, due to the original Abu manager to Mourinho's full support, this team is completely built with the preferences of the magic bird, except for Shevchenko and a few other discordant notes, this team can be said to be completely Mourinho's descendants, in ancient China, they will be called the "Royal Forest".
Jose Mourinho is a very smart man, he has been analysing the Premier League since the day he was sure he would take over Chelsea, and he knows very well what it means to survive in a highly competitive league like the Premier League: toughness, discipline and confrontation! Throughout Mourinho's three seasons at Chelsea, he has brought in only a handful of technical players, and it seems that there are only two, one Arjen Robben and one Joe. Cole, it is said that Little Joe is not yet appointed by Mourinho, but by the boss Abu Force.
What Mourinho really likes is those stupid, big, black, and thick, such as Essien and Drogba, who are as strong as bulls are his favorites, and even the former technical young Mikel has become an African rhinoceros in his hands, and the time to fight for the body is much longer than the time to compare the skills.
The most suitable for this team is the tactics carefully designed for them by Mourinho, with tight defense, and after polishing the opponent's sharpness, he opens the door to victory with sharp counterattacks. This tactic was not popular in the Premier League in the past, which was all about wide open and close rushing and high-speed physical confrontations, and before Mourinho, even a team with a Chinese martial arts style such as the Royal Garden Rangers would go forward, and it was rare for a team to counter-attack through defense and other opportunities, and then hit a lethal blow.
It was because of Mourinho's dark losses that Arsenal and Manchester United both lost ground in the first two seasons of the first phase of the first phase of Muhammad, and were snatched two league titles by the Magic Bird. In the third season, there were more smart people, and everyone knew that when they met Mourinho's team, they had to pay attention to defense and not give them any chance to sneak attack, so Chelsea began to struggle in the league, because many small teams no longer attacked when facing them, but learned to use the skills of the master to control the enemy, using the defensive counterattack stolen from the magic bird to deal with Chelsea, anyway, we are a small club, Chelsea is an upstart, we can be cheeky and not attack, you Chelsea two league championsAre you embarrassed?
Chelsea, who were forced to press out to play, quickly felt the difference, in the past, when they played against others, they were certainly happy, but now it is their turn to attack and people come to attack, but they are starting to feel a little powerless.
The main reason for this lack of strength is that Mourinho places too much emphasis on the role of physicality and ignores the creativity of technical players when it comes to attacking.
To say that Manager Abu doesn't understand the ball at all, he carelessly puts Joe. Cole and Shevchenko and others irresponsibly stuffed Mourinho, I don't agree, Abu shouted "beautiful football" in his mouth, in fact, he also knows in his heart that Chelsea after winning two league titles. Their status is very different, in the past they could be shy in the face of the weak team and use defensive counterattacks to deal with it, but now that they are Premier League champions, are you embarrassed to use defensive counterattacks when playing weak teams?
Manager Abou saw some clues to the problem, but he was not a professional after all, so he could only rush to the doctor, and brought in several players that Mourinho considered "useful", wanting to help Chelsea not only in terms of results but also on the field.
But who is Jose Mourinho? He is a typical "triumphalist", and in order to win, he can criticize others for "stopping the bus in front of the door". But he put three backs in his backfield in a grand manner. For the sake of victory, he can't even have a face to lose, so how can he care about other people's opinions?
Others thought that with Chelsea's current status, they could have played a little more openly. A little more passionate. But Mourinho understands. These guys are all people who are afraid of the world, and they want to kill Chelsea, with the current Chelsea squad. Be a little more open? That's simply going to kill yourself!
So he withstood the pressure of Abu's boss and still used his style to control Chelsea, and although the team's record is not as dazzling as in the past, it is at least stable.
Truth be told, there are peaks and lows in any team, and with Muhammad Chelsea having spent two seasons in the Premier League and having studied him thoroughly with the rest of their rivals, it makes sense to be able to achieve that result...... But Manager Abu didn't see it that way. He invested hundreds of millions for Chelsea, and the goal was certainly not to win two league titles or an FA Cup, what he needed was Mourinho and the Blues to make a name for him in Europe, and then we learned that manager Abou was facing unprecedented political pressure at home at the time, and he had to make his reputation louder, so as to influence the Russian authorities not to take action against him.
It's a pity that Mourinho didn't bring the Champions Cup and the corresponding fame he hoped for, so he finally killed Ma Jian with tears and replaced him with other generals to try his luck.
Louis van Gaal and Scolari both came to power under such circumstances, and they had the full support of the owners behind the scenes, but there was one thing they didn't understand, and that was how they could play the "beautiful football" that the owners demanded with the Chelsea squad.
And it has to be a "beautiful football" that can win the championship?
Barcelona have Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Messi, Tiki-Taka tradition, do these Chelsea have them?
Obviously, Chelsea don't. They only have Drogba, Frank Lampard, Essien, John Terry, Alex and a bunch of muscles, and it's not difficult for these people to work in a formed system, but to let them break away and create opportunities to perform difficult moves such as "Zidane maneuvers", ahem, the weather is so nice today......
Jose Mourinho saw the problem at the time, so he asked Manager Abou for Descartes, but unfortunately Chelsea could not pry Arsenal's corner, and Arsene Wenger almost met their city neighbours; Later, Van Gaal also saw the problem, he tried to buy Ronaldinho, but unfortunately Ronaldo was gradually corroded by the prosperous lights of Catalonia, and the eight-pack abs on his stomach turned into a fat belly.
When he arrived at Scolari, Big Phil really didn't know who to want, because he found that the Chelsea in his hand was already an "older youth" team, and there were too many personnel and positions to change - but at this time, Manager Abu asked the team to tighten the money for some domestic reasons - in the end, Scolari could only choose to eat with vegetables, muscle sticks on muscle sticks, and it was okay to use these people for a year, and when the landlord's family had surplus food after the New Year, we went to buy some side dishes and changed the stick noodles to eat.
It's a pity that he underestimated the ambition and ambition of Manager Abu, he invited Scolari to come, in order to be beautiful and win, although the record was good some time ago, but the team played and he thought about two different things, this matter must be the following head coach Yang Fengyin, no real ability so plan to bluff this manager? So manager Abu began to skip the level of direct command of Chelsea, who is going to play today, what formation to play tomorrow, these things he has to come to a kick, as a result, the Chelsea dressing room is in an uproar, at a loss, at this time, should listen to the big boss, or should listen to the manager?
Scolari is short-handed, and he has to listen to others when he receives a salary, so what manager Abu asked him to do, he had to do it, and the final result was that when the team began to pursue "beautiful" on the field, they slowly fell behind in the league standings, and the league played 32 rounds, and they finally completed the "overtake", they surpassed Arsenal's position and retreated to the third seat in the league.
Do you want a scene or a result?
It's a question that is in front of Chelsea's players.
Of course, at this time, Manager Abu will definitely not admit that the team's decline in performance has something to do with him, as the owner of the team, he can never be wrong, even if there is a mistake, it is the people below who understand the wrong meaning, his requirement is to play beautifully and win, and no matter how difficult this requirement is, if they fail to do it, it must be a problem below, if they can't solve it themselves, then their own boss must help them solve it - how to solve it?
This is easy to do, the players and coaches waiting outside to come to Chelsea grab a handful, anyway, Lao Tzu has money, what can't be bought?
So during this time, the news about Scolari's unstable position began to circulate, some words may not be released by Chelsea Club itself, their purpose is very simple, to force Scolari to come up with a way to deal with it, if he can't do it, then the rumors will become the truth, then who who is Rijkaard is not at home? Didn't Roberto Mancini lead Inter Milan to two Serie A titles? It's hard to find a three-legged toad in this world, how difficult can a two-legged coach be?
So in a key battle like Arsenal, whether Scolari wants it or not, he has been pushed to the front of Huashan, and he would rather die than win!
There is pressure not only on Scolari, Chelsea's group of meritorious heroes also feel the huge sense of oppression brought by the top, Abu and Mourinho were not a good reunion when they broke up, their descendants of Mourinho in Chelsea can also say trembling, although they have not been purged after several new coaches such as Grant and Van Gaal, but no one knows how long the patience of the big boss can last, the old capital of the league champion will eventually be eaten up, in case they are old and decrepit one day, If they fail to get the honor expected by the boss, then no one can guarantee that Manager Abu will not raise the butcher's knife to them.
This season's league title seems to be hanging in the balance, but even if you win the FA Cup, which you have disdained in the past, it will be an honour, right? With a champion, it's good to stand up in front of the boss.
In this game, everyone is a grasshopper on the same line, Scolari wants to win, the Chelsea players want to win, it depends on whether the Arsenal players want to win or not. (To be continued......)