The capital of Estonia, located in southern Finland, is Tallinn on the Baltic Sea coast.

The city is not only the capital of Estonia, but also the football heart of the country.

Since the country's independence from the Soviet Union and the formation of its own domestic league, Tallinn's team has almost monopolized the title of the Estonian First League, which in previous years was Flora, and in recent years it has become Tallinn Livadia and NK Tallinn.

But for a country with a total population of just over a million, a third of which are in Tallinn, it is conceivable that the level of football in such a country is not too high, and there are not even too many fans who come into the stadium to watch and enjoy football matches, because they are better at individual sports, such as rowing.

As the home of the country's top team Flora, the total capacity of the Alec Stadium is only 12,000, but this game, even if it is a European Championship qualifier, the stadium still looks empty, because all fans know that Estonia have almost no chance of beating their opponents, they suffered five consecutive defeats in the first five rounds of European Championship qualifying, with zero goals scored and ten goals conceded.

Such a result was a big shame in the European Championship qualifiers, so not many Estonian fans came to watch this game, after all, this time they faced Croatia, who finished first in the group.

When Ye Qiu, Peter Devisel, and Roland arrived at Alec Stadium, they found that they could sit in any position, so they naturally chose the best position, which was the most suitable for observing the position of the players they were paying attention to, but what they didn't expect was that they met old acquaintances.

Arsene Wenger, as well as Arsenal's chief scout Steve Lawley.

"Hi, Arsanna" Ye Qiu walked over to say hello with a smile, but he didn't expect that he would meet you again in a foreign country, "I really didn't expect to meet you in this place." ”

When Wenger saw Ye Qiu and the others, he only felt a sudden burst in his heart, this guy is famous for not going to the Three Treasures Hall for everything, is he really the same as himself, eyeing that player? Otherwise, how could he be here?

"What are you doing here?" Wenger stood up and politely shook hands with Ye Qiu, Roland and Devisel, as well as the chubby Steve Lawley, both of whom were obviously a little wary of Ye Qiu and the others' arrival.

Ye Qiu smiled, "You guess" After speaking, he pointed to a farther place, "Let's go sit over there."

Wenger met Ye Qiu, and he really felt a little at a loss, and he couldn't figure out what Ye Qiu wanted at all

The reason why he came to Estonia is to watch the Croatian game live, and he focuses on Croatia's striker, Brazilian Eduardo da Silva, the Brazilian player came to Croatia at the age of fifteen, and became a Croatian citizen in the year, and performed very well, and is currently Croatia's number one striker killer.

Eduardo was named top scorer last season with 34 goals in the Croatian league and was impressed by Arsene Wenger's goal in last season's qualifying match against Arsenal.

Thierry Henry's departure is inevitable for Arsenal now, and Barcelona are clearly more attractive to him, especially as Henry gets older and Arsenal's current financial situation is dire

Previously, the board of directors decided to make short-term real estate investment and build commercial housing on the ground of the original Highbury Stadium, but did not expect that the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States hit, and now Europe has begun to fall into a crisis, so that the commercial housing can not be sold after completion, and the club's finances are even more urgent than when the new stadium was built.

But Arsenal had to have the right players to fill the void left by Thierry Henry, so Arsene Wenger set his sights on the inexpensive Croatian striker Eduardo, and Arsenal's scouting staff also gave the Croatian Brazilian a high rating, which led to Wenger and Steve Lawley's trip to Estonia.

"They don't seem to need this type of striker, do they?" Steve Lawley, who was on the side, watched Ye Qiu and the others walk away and said.

Wenger was reminded by him, it seems to be right, Tottenham Hotspur is currently in addition to Vanney, the speed of the players in the midfield, or to be strictly speaking, the explosiveness is relatively fast, which is also a characteristic of Tottenham Hotspur, and they have substitutes like Van Persie, Cavani and Carroll in the team, and more than Eduardo

"Could it be" Wenger immediately realized that Ye Qiu's target was another person.

Not far away, Ye Qiu and the three of them found a place to sit down, it was the first time for him to watch a game in such an empty stand, it felt a little awkward, especially considering that there was a Wenger who was paying attention to him from time to time not far from him, Ye Qiu felt that this game looked quite unpleasant.

"Arsene Wenger has a crush on him, too?" Roland Shepas asked, glancing at Arsene Wenger and Steve Lawley.

Ye Qiu shook his head, "I received news that he seems to have taken a fancy to Croatia's number one striker Eduardo da Silva. ”

After hearing this, Roland was somewhat relieved.

As the fans entered the stadium one after another, the game finally started.

This is obviously not a game that can be enjoyed by ⊥ people, on the contrary, this game is a bit difficult to swallow, so Ye Qiu is a little drowsy when he sees it, and Roland also smiles bitterly at Ye Qiu from time to time.

The field is terrible, the Estonian players have rough skills and poor coordination, so they concentrate on defending and disrupting the opponent's attack, while Croatia adopts a typical technical style of coordination, but obviously does not adapt to the poor field away from home, plus Estonia concentrates on defense, so they can't score easily.

But what surprised Ye Qiu was that Peter Devisel was watching very attentively, but he was obviously not just watching the game, he was carrying a small notebook with him, and while watching the game, he was holding a pen in his hand and writing something on the small book.

The numbers are the player's number, followed by some details that stand out to him.

The game ended with Eduardo's goal, and Croatia also beat Estonia away with this goal, and after the game, almost all the players on both sides looked to the rostrum, because as early as before the game started, the on-site commentator mentioned the arrival of Ye Qiu and Arsene Wenger, which made this group of players work harder in the game.

And now that the game is over, they all seem to want to see the answer from the two Premier League managers.

Arsene Wenger had clearly been in contact with Eduardo, so when the latter saw Wenger, he was obviously nodding his head in greeting.

"How's the 14th?" Ye Qiu asked Peter Devisel on the side with a smile.

The Dutchman took off his glasses from the bridge of his nose, rubbed his eyes and eyebrows a little tiredly, put them back on, and looked through his notes, "For the time being, I can't give an answer, it's just one game, but I don't think he should play as a striker." ”

The two players in the middle of Croatia's midfield in this game are No. 14 Luka Modric and No. 10 Nico Kovac, the latter is a Croatian star who is currently a rising star but is still unknown on the continent.

Ye Qiu listened silently and didn't speak, because he knew that Devisel had obviously not finished speaking.

The old Dutchman was flipping through his notes, and before he knew it, he had memorized more than a dozen pages in a 90-minute game.

"He's got a weird style of play, how do you say that? I always feel that his ability to break and push forward with the ball is stronger than his ability to control and protect the ball, such a player should be on the wing, but the problem is that he doesn't have much advantage in speed, and if he is placed on the wing, he should also be played. ”

"However, I can clearly feel that the current midfield attack of the whole Croatia actually comes from his organization and connection, especially the midfield and the front, his connection is very obvious, but this player's mastery of passing timing is still lacking." Peter Devisel, who was clearly aware of the problem, added another sentence.

If there is one of the simplest words to describe the difference between a top superstar, a first-class star and an ordinary professional player, it must be the ability to seize opportunities, that is, when the opponent has a loophole, whether you can catch it, or can you catch it a few times, and the more times you catch it, the stronger your strength will be.

Luka Modric had a couple of passes in the game, but he missed the perfect moment to pass the ball.

And these can be seen by anyone who watches the game carefully.

"Of course, this is relative to the top team, if it is in the middle of the Premier League, or a team like PSV Eindhoven, he definitely deserves to be the core of the main team, because he has a very good big picture, but he lacks the insight to seize opportunities and gaps, which is why I say that he should not play in the midfield, he should be further back."

After Ye Qiu listened, he couldn't help nodding, and Roland was also laughing on the side.

The first scout in the world is the first scout in the world, and he can see a rough idea of a ball, but many details are obviously not seen clearly, but the observation of a player has also been done eight or nine times without leaving ten.

Tottenham Hotspur has been paying attention to Modric since last year, and Ye Qiu even thought at one point that if he couldn't bring in Beckham or Sneijder, he would consider Modric, but then Tottenham Hotspur introduced Beckham, so Modric was not introduced.

But after half a year of last season, Ye Qiu also realized the problem of the team's midfield configuration, that is, when the team encountered the opponent suppressing the middle of the midfield, when Beckham and Fabregas's ball was threatened, how did the team respond?

In the report given by Tottenham Hotspur scouts, they rated Modric's small skills well, but also considered him to be a more embarrassing type of player, or rather, his technical characteristics are more special.

Of course, every professional player has their own peculiarities, and no two players are exactly the same.

Modric's skills are very good, but relatively speaking, it is definitely not top-notch, especially in the face of dense defense, his technical weakness is more obvious, plus the ability to pass behind is not strong, and the back insertion attack is relatively weak, if according to this situation, should he retreat?

But the problem comes, once he is allowed to retreat, his long pass is not accurate enough, and he has a certain defensive ability, but his defense is also relatively average, of course, this is relative to the defensive midfielder, then his position is dragged down, and the only role is to connect and advance with the ball.

Therefore, the embarrassment of Modric is that he is very well-rounded and has his own strengths and weaknesses, but the problem is that he is not top in any aspect, and even his dribbling and breakthrough are obviously inferior to many midfielders.

This determines that Modric will either play as a core player in the middle and lower teams, or as a role player in a big team.

Now Modric is old, and his style of play and technical characteristics are basically maturing, and many things may still improve, but it is difficult to break through in many aspects, so in general, this is the case.

"A player like him can still play in the Premier League," Ye Qiu judged.

The defence of the Premier League teams is generally loose and lacks integration, the most integrated teams are Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur is now more integrated, but not very strong.

But whether it is Chelsea or Manchester United, they still defend more on the ball, so they make more tackles, but now football is more and more inclined to another way of defense, that is, cutting the passing route.

For example, in Ye Qiu's previous life, the most typical and best defensive method of this team is not defense, but cutting the opponent's passing route, and the pressing of the frontcourt players is just to exert pressure to force the opponent to play the ball as soon as possible, and then complete the cutting of the passing route through teammates, and then complete the defense.

Therefore, teams that are good at cutting passing routes tend to make more interceptions.

A tackle is a destruction, and after a destruction, the movement of the ball is interrupted and needs to be reorganized, while an interception is to complete the defense without destroying the operation of the ball and play a counterattack in the shortest possible time.

Liverpool pays a lot of attention to interception, Xavi Alonso is a very good interception-type organization back, but there is only one Xavi Alonso, and Tottenham Hotspur will gradually turn to interception-type defense, and even Ye Qiu and Mauro Tassotti have been committed to building a line-cutting defensive system for the team that combines Italian defense and all-attack and all-defense concepts over the years.

The Op company does not provide data on interceptions, but Tottenham Hotspur does have them, and the team has the most interceptions per game of any Premier League team.

"The No. 5 is not bad, he is tall, his skills are good, and his defense is good," Peter Devisel said with a smile.

The number five is Wedran Jolluka, a player who is also the current main centre-back of the Croatian national team, who performed well in the Croatian league last season and is the heart of Dinamo Zagreb's defence

At present, the central axis of Dinamo Zagreb is Eduardo in front, Modric in midfield, and Joel Luka in the backline.

"Oh" Roland said after hearing this, "Manchester City's scout"

Ye Qiu and De Visserl looked at Roland's eyes, and really saw that there were people looking at them not far away, Ye Qiu didn't recognize it, but Roland obviously knew it, it was Manchester City's chief scout Gripp, and this scout was Eriksen's right-hand man when he coached the England national team.

Ye Qiu thought of Wenger, and then thought of Manchester City, and even he felt that there were no scouts from other clubs in the stands of this game, obviously, as the information became more and more developed, the exposure of players became higher and higher, and even many times, players only performed well tonight and became famous tomorrow, which made those players who were buried fewer and fewer.

Of course, if you can't rise to the top in this situation, it's not that you're buried.

With the end of the Premier League and the Champions League, the leagues of all countries have entered a period of adjustment, and correspondingly, the transfer market is full of flames, and the recruitment and sale of various clubs are in full swing.

Tottenham Hotspur announced two transfers in June, both of which were midfielders, and both were for sale, the first of which was that Edgar Davies reached a non-renewal agreement with the club, and Dutch Wild Boar announced that he would leave Tottenham Hotspur and return to Ajax, where he expressed his hope to end his career.

Tottenham Hotspur posted on their official website, thanking Edgar Davies for his contribution to Tottenham Hotspur over the past two years, hoping that he can continue to achieve excellent results at Ajax, and said that everyone at Tottenham Hotspur will remember him and what he has done for this team.

The second transfer is midfielder Huddlestone, the former Tottenham Hotspur favored player has never been able to get a good chance to play last season, which makes the player himself a little dissatisfied, but considering that the team currently has Beckham, Yaya Toure, Mascherano, Fabregas and other powerful stars, plus Ye Qiu is obviously more optimistic about Lucas, so Huddlestone decided to transfer.

Tottenham Hotspur didn't bother with his transfer either, sending him to this season's promoted Black Cats Sunderland, managed by former Manchester United hero Roy Keane, for €1.5 million.

Interestingly, this season, two of Ferguson's former disciples have led the team to promotion, one is Sunderland's Roy Keane, and the other is Birmingham's Steve Bruce, both of whom are former Premier League stars and Manchester United's achievements.

After selling two players, Tottenham Hotspur also announced the recall of Brazilian left-back Marcelo from Ajax, which is also the team's first signing, but as for other reinforcements, there has been no movement for the time being, and the much-criticized central defender recruitment last season has not been followed, which makes Tottenham Hotspur fans a little anxious.

As last season's league champions, United made a big move from the start by announcing the arrival of England international midfielder Owen Hargreaves from Bayern Munich, a player seen as an important sign of Ferguson's strengthening of the midfield defence.

At the same time, Ferguson also announced the arrival of winger Nani from Sporting Lisbon, the Portuguese rookie is seen as Cristiano Ronaldo II, and Ronaldinho II Anderson, who has been brought in from Porto this season, both youngsters have high hopes that Ferguson will take on Manchester United's front line in the near future.

The three transfers are all blockbuster reinforcements, and the three players are worth more than 20 million euros, which makes the transfer market just beginning, but Manchester United has already burned more than 60 million euros in one go, which can't help but make everyone feel that Ferguson is burning money and burning addiction this season.

Manchester United's recruitment operations were already being made before the end of the season, so they were announced shortly after the end of the season, but relatively speaking, other teams can't move so fast, and unlike the big spending in the past few years, Chelsea have been constantly rumbling this season that Roman Abramovich may stop investing in the team.

The news has also left Chelsea fans worried about the team's competitiveness next season.

The quality of this team is clear to all, so even if they don't make any signings, they will still be the best contenders for the Premier League title next season.

That is, when the transfers of other teams are in full swing and there are endless scandals in the market, Tottenham Hotspur has also become the focus of the transfer market, but it is mainly the players in the team who have been poached, and for the club's transfer reinforcements, there seems to be little movement, which also makes many fans of White Hart Lane Stadium feel worried.

After all, no one wants the team's results to slip in the new season.

It was in this atmosphere that Tottenham Hotspur welcomed the Brazilian guests.