Chapter 108: Busy Melody
Arsenal, who were lucky enough to escape at the last minute, were demoralized in the game that followed, and Descartes' goal not only boosted their morale, but most importantly made the Arsenal players feel that God was still on their side, before inexplicably leading, and then inexplicably falling behind, this game was like a rollercoaster ride so exciting, in fact, when Arsenal fell behind in the last eight minutes, all Arsenal people, including Arsene Wenger, were already on the verge of despair.
But Descartes stepped up at a critical moment, since he came to Arsenal, everyone has counted how many times he has dragged Arsenal out of the quagmire at a critical juncture, but everyone has a realization at this moment that Arsenal's most indispensable player is no longer Cesc Fabregas, nor Henry, but the Italian boy in front of him, who has just turned 20 years old.
Everton, who had been knocked out of the clouds of happiness in extra time, did not cause any more trouble for Arsenal, all their players, including the brain Arteta and the fulcrum Fellaini in the front, were already stunned by Descartes' last-second goal, this incredible goal, completely shattered their confidence, 30 minutes of battle, Everton was finally scored three goals in extra time by Arsenal, losing 3:6 The score seems to be a huge disparity, but the process is definitely called a thrilling showdown.
The only moment that deserved to get the extra time pumping for everyone watching the game was when Descartes scored his fourth goal of the game against an Everton player who was almost like the walking dead. Descartes scored with ease, a careless offside call, and then created his "big four" in the FA Cup final.
This is also the first time in the past 128 years that a player has staged a "big four" in the FA Cup final!
In the face of this goal, the Everton fans and the media who had desperately denigrated Descartes in the past period of time were completely silent, and the entire Wembley Stadium was filled with only enthusiastic cheers from fans who loved Descartes and passionate roars from commentators: "Fourth, fourth!" It's amazing, he's already scored four goals and he's become the first player in FA Cup history over the past hundred years to stage such a miracle, Descartes. Descartes. Earthlings can't stop him anymore! Those who have insulted him, mocked him, and slandered him in the past week, where are you, do you see them? Such a player can't be the World Footballer of the Year, so who can? Yes? Tell me. Who is the World Footballer of the Year! ”
"Descartes! Descartes! The cheers of more than 60,000 spectators answered the question for the media. Outside Wembley Stadium. There are more cheers answering this question as well.
Descartes proudly raised his hands and applauded the supporters who had been there in attendance, and Arsene Wenger duly substituted him. Let him be alone in the adoration of the fans.
This is a glorious moment for Descartes, all the ridicule and abuse of the past have been left behind at this moment, Descartes only needs to enjoy his own glory and enjoy the support of the fans like a king!
The post-match press conference was also full of surprises, as the season finale, Wenger finally admitted the news of Fabregas and Nasri's transfer after the game, and also announced the whereabouts of several other players, Croatia's "Fox of the Penalty Area" Eduardo left Arsenal for 7 million pounds, and he will go to Shakhtar Donetsk Club in Ukraine; Mexican teenager Vela has once again been loaned, this time to West Brom Albion side West Brom Albion; England right-back Hoyt, who has barely been given any playing opportunities this season, has also volunteered to leave, and his new club is Arsenal's opponents Everton.
These are the departures that have already been confirmed before the end of the season, but Arsene Wenger is also preparing to clean three or four redundancies and then set the skeleton for a new midfield set-up.
In Arsene Wenger's mind, Arteta, the heart of Everton's squad in this game, will be the best candidate to replace Cesc Fabregas, who has been struggling over who will replace the youngster's class, and now it looks like he has a suitable target.
With Nasri's departure, Arsene Wenger has already prepared Arshavin to replace him, and Arsenal and Zenit's transfer talks for the Russian "Tsar" will officially start after the transfer window opens, in fact, the two sides have been in communication for a long time, and so far, the price difference between the two clubs has been minimal.
Everyone wondered why Arsene Wenger didn't make any supplementary plans for the forward line after giving up his team's two substitute strikers in one go, in fact, Wenger had been planning all along, but his changes were not personnel, but formations.
In Wenger's heart, in the 2009-2010 season, Arsenal will completely abandon the 442 formation that has been insisted on for more than ten years in the past, and get closer to the most popular formation on the European continent at present, yes, that is 433.
Barcelona's performance in the Champions League final greatly stimulated Wenger, especially their suffocating high pressing, which can be said to have shone in that final. Before the game, everyone thought that the battle between the "Triple Crown" and the "Quadruple Crown" would be exciting, and you would live or die, but in reality, Arsenal was beaten to the point that they were powerless and almost lost that game in an extremely humiliating attitude.
Arsene Wenger did not completely wallow in the shadow of defeat, he learned more from this game, 433, which was previously considered a crazy attacking and desperate tactic, but Pep Guardiola and Barcelona proved to the world that as long as they maintain a reasonable formation and put all their energy into defending, it is actually an all-attack and all-defensive tactic to keep the enemy out of the country.
Since the success of Barcelona in the hands of Rijkaard, more and more teams on the European continent have begun to adopt the 433 formation, and when Guardiola led the Barcelona team to win the "quadruple" and go straight to the "six crowns", this formation has become the hottest topic on the European continent.
Arsene Wenger wants to replicate Barcelona's success, and he's found out. His team has actually faintly had the rudiments of high pressing under the leadership of Descartes, so he is ready to change the formation that the team has adhered to in the past ten years without scruples in the new season, changing the formation to 433.
When the team became 433, in fact, Arsenal had accumulated enough strikers, whether it was Arshavin, Van Persie, Descartes, or Walcott, Bendtner, all of them were enough to take on the responsibility of the "3" in the front, and in the midfield, with Arteta, Denilson, Diaby, Rosicky, Alexander. After the likes of Song and Ramsay, it is actually enough to add one or two more rotation players.
The real problem is at the back. Belgian Vermaelen integrated into the team very quickly, though. The performance is simply worth the money, but Arsenal's only two serious central defenders are him and Galla, who was almost full in the first half of the season and Vermaelen in the second half. Two centre-backs were overused. It is a big reason why Arsenal have lacked stamina in the final few crucial decisive battles.
In light of this. Arsene Wenger is ready to make a high-intensity addition to the centre-back position.
Talks have resumed with French defender José Koscielny, who had been abandoned because the asking price was too high, and Lorient insisted on their €18 million offer for a while, but they have since realised that it is impossible for the two sides to agree on that price. So they gradually relented, and Arsenal's offer also rose from 10 million euros to 12.5 million, and the price of the two sides is very close.
The reason why Wenger is obsessed with Koscielny is that he is mainly interested in his height, although Vermaelen and Gala are easy to use, but one is 1.80 meters and the other is 1.83 meters, and he will always suffer when fighting high-altitude balls, while Koscielny's height of 1.86 meters and 120 cm of bounce can make up for the loopholes of the two of them, which will be an important weapon for Arsenal to deal with the opponent's high-altitude bombing.
Another move was the retrieval of Swiss player Senderos from AC Milan.
Senderos' performance at Arsenal can be described as high and low. With a height of 1.90 meters and a weight of 84 kilograms, he is simply a natural central defender template, in 2003 he transferred to Arsenal from the Swiss team Servette, and his first appearance gave people a bright feeling, and was widely praised by the outside world as Arsenal's defensive "new star" for a while.
However, his performance gradually dimmed until the 2005-2006 season, when a knee injury plummeted his performance and slowly reduced him to a forgotten role at the back, and Wenger did not hesitate to loan him to AC Milan this season when Arsenal had almost no centre-backs available, which also shows his status in the team.
The reason why Wenger is willing to reclaim him is not because he still has expectations for his height, but AC Milan refuses to renew his loan, Senderos went to Italy, only played 15 games for AC Milan, scored a header against Lecce, this is all his performances in Italy, and in the later stages, Ancelotti would rather use the 41-year-old veteran captain Maldini and the 38-year-old Favali to partner in the central defense than give him any chance, which shows Anzhu's disappointment in him.
Arsene Wenger's real move to stir fans at the back was the re-signing of 35-year-old veteran defender Saul. Campbell.
Saul. Campbell's transfer to Arsenal triggered a strong earthquake between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, the life-and-death rivals, and he went from a hero to a "clown" in the eyes of Tottenham fans, and was wildly abused by the diehards of White Hart Lane.
However, Campbell soon proved his tenacity and Arsene Wenger's vision with his performances, and in his first season at Arsenal, he helped the team win the 2001-2002 league championship and develop into Toney. Adams' most trusted companion and at the age of 23 he became the second-youngest captain in England (the youngest captain was Michael. Owen).
Campbell spent five seasons at Arsenal and was a pillar of the team's backline until 2006-2007 when he left Arsenal due to injury and age to move to Pompeo's Portsmouth.
After three seasons at Portsmouth, Campbell moved to Nottinghamshire at one point, but then he received a call from Arsene Wenger, and the professor once again extended an olive branch to the veteran, hoping that he could return to Arsenal to help develop more young defenders.
Given the sweet years that were once had at Arsenal. Campbell almost immediately turned around and threw himself into the arms of Arsenal almost as soon as he arrived at Nottinghamshire, and his transfer did not even make an appearance in front of the Nottinghamshire fans, and he became an Arsenal man again.
Arsene Wenger re-recruits Saul. Campbell, a veteran, is not only for the purpose of reserving defenders and cultivating newcomers, but its deeper significance is that Wenger finally wavered in his veteran policy, and the two Champions League games with Villarreal made Wenger touched by the veteran Pire, and the bigger one comes from Manchester United's two "old demons" Giggs and Scholes's performance this season. Arsenal have lost the league title this season. It can be said that there is an inseparable relationship with these two veterans, but it is precisely because of the lack of such a stable veteran that Arsenal has been up and down throughout the season, and finally lost the championship by a slight disadvantage.
At this time, Wenger was in his heart. He no longer sees veterans as a liability. And began to gradually recognize the role of veterans in the team. The recall of Campbell is a reconciliation signal from veterans who have left and are in a hurry, such as Thierry Henry, who was not very happy in Barcelona. For example, Rosicky, who is about to enter the ranks of veterans, this is the message that Wenger handed to them.
After four empty-handed seasons, Arsene Wenger has finally made a change in his philosophy of the club, the most important step is to bring in more experienced players to maintain the stability of the club, instead of obsessing with developing young players and feeding the blood of giants such as Manchester City and Barcelona.
It has to be said that after encountering the continuous perseverance and hard work of major European clubs, Wenger finally realized that Arsenal should not be a preschool parenting class, but a European giants who are qualified to participate in the competition.
Perhaps Wenger didn't know at this time that when he made the decision to introduce famous players, Arsenal fans rushed to tell each other, crying endlessly, thankfully the howls have been heard for three years, 70 million, and finally useful!
Of course, as far as the press conference of this game is concerned, the entry and exit of these personnel is still only in Wenger's mind, and that will be the direction of the joint efforts of the marketing department and all the marketing staff after the end of the season, Wenger is currently discussing the first championship trophy in four seasons, and has summarized the season.
'I'm very happy that this FA Cup trophy proves that Arsenal are not completely out of content, although we have suffered a little bit of setbacks in the other two battles, but I firmly believe that Arsenal will be better and stronger next season, our goal will always be to get more trophies and to make our fans happy, that is the temperament of Arsenal as a club and we will continue to follow our path and nothing will change.'
"Descartes? Of course, his performance was phenomenal! As far as I know, in the past 100 years of football history, no one has ever achieved what he is today (40+ goals, 20+ assists), and I don't understand why there are still critics from the outside world, do they think that such a player who made history is still not good enough? Messi? Of course, he is also a good player, but I think the best player in world football this year is undoubtedly Descartes, although Messi has won more titles, but his reuse of the team is not as indispensable as Descartes, this season he has almost single-handedly carried Arsenal on his shoulders, in my more than 20 years of coaching career, such a player is unprecedented, I have to vote for him! ”
"Life off the field? I'm sorry, you know who I am, I never say anything about the players' off-pitch lives, they're employees of the club and I'm an employee of the club, that's all. ”
In the face of a variety of questions from reporters, Wenger chose the focus of the answer, but also did not forget to express his support for Descartes, before it was reported that because of Descartes's "swearing" at the press conference, FIFA has internally deprived him of the qualification to run for the World Footballer of the Year, Messi thus completed the transcendence from the backward position in one fell swoop, and is almost determined to become the best footballer in the world this year.
And last year's Ballon d'Or and the World Footballer of the Year were both expected to be Cristiano Ronaldo, after transferring to Real Madrid at a record price, although the performance was also excellent, but there was still a gap between him and his outbreak at Manchester United last year, so he could only regrettably rank behind Messi and became a strong contender for the runner-up......
2009 is almost destined to be a highlight year for Barcelona, they won all the championships that the club can win, and they also stood at the top of the single award again, compared with the radiant Barcelona, whether it is Descartes who is doing his best, or Arsenal who is gradually recovering, they are destined to only be a supporting role.
But Barcelona was not satisfied, and their new helmsman, Pep Guardiola, who had achieved an unrivalled record in his rookie season, expressed his latest wish to the club: to bring in Arsenal's Descartes, at all costs!
So when Arsene Wenger returned to London, a fresh offer appeared on his desk.
€40 million + any Barcelona player except Messi Xavi in exchange for the ownership of Descartes.
It's a very good offer, and in fact, if Wenger were to opt for a player such as Andres Iniesta or Puyol, the offer could well exceed €70 million, which would surpass Kaka's €64 million and become the third most expensive in the world after Cristiano Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane.
It can be said that Barcelo and Pep Guardiola have shown an imperative mentality for Descartes.
But in the face of such a staggering offer, Wenger's performance was not secretly happy, but furious, he made a fuss in the office, pulled the collar of the head of the marketing department and roared in his ear: "Tell Laporta that bastard that Descartes is not for sale at Arsenal, even if he pays 100 million, he will not sell it!" ”
The head of the marketing department said weakly: "Sir, now the chairman of Barcelona is no longer Laporta, their new chairman is Rosell......"
"Then tell that bastard to Rosell, and let him shove all his dollars back into his asshole, and from now on, Arsenal won't even sell them a single flea!"
"Sir...... Uh, forget it, it's fine. "The head of the marketing department has fled, he has never seen Wenger so angry, and it would be a foolish thing to provoke him at this time.
And Wenger's anger is not all from Barcelona's digging of the wall, he is more concerned about the fact that Descartes has disappeared since the FA Cup final, yes, Descartes is missing! (To be continued......)