The training ground of the Wollerwiecls Club in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

"Run, run......" Leeds United's strength and conditioning coach Colin McGee whistled incessantly, shouting to the athletes who were running laps.

The players, who had been lapping for several laps, were panting as they ran.

"Captain Smith, were you so tired from training camps before?" Danny Rose, a young player who came over from the youth team for the training camp, asked Alan Smith.

"Last year was okay, but this year it feels a little special." Smith replied to Ross.

"Last year in Scotland was fine, just like I was in other teams, but this time I came to the Netherlands for two days and I felt that it was a bit of a big deal, especially for physical training." Speaking is the team's midfielder, "Wild Boar" Edgar Davis.

Davies has played for Ajax, AC Milan, Juventus, and Barcelona are some strong teams, and his ability to say so shows that the physical training intensity of this training camp is really great.

"But I'm so tired, I don't know if it's right or wrong to come along." Danny Rose finished his last lap, holding his knees and bending over tired.

According to McGee's requirements, the number of laps to be run by each player is different.

Like the younger ones, Rose, Delph, and Blake all finished their laps and stopped to watch their big brothers continue to run laps.

The three goalkeepers on the side and Gary Kelly also finished their laps, because they are goalkeepers and because they are over 30 years old, they also have fewer laps than others.

Of course, Davis is over 30 years old, but McGee, according to the physical needs report he has developed, Davis needs more physical fitness than others, so Davis has even more laps than others.

New goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar took the water from assistant coach Brian Kidd and then turned around to give the extra water to the other two young goalkeepers, with Carson and Schmeichel Jr. both thanking him after taking it.

Just as they were drinking water, the team's goalkeeper coach Peter Schmeichel started walking towards them, and then they had to start their professional training as goalkeepers without stopping.

On the other side, Danny Rose, who licked like a dog, took the water and delivered it to Kelly as soon as possible, while several other young players had to go and get the water themselves.

"Captain Kelly, water."

"Thank you." Kelly took the water from Rose, but his eyes were on Delph and Charlotte Black.

"Captain, what are you looking at?"

"That teammate of yours is in good shape." Kelly took a sip of water and continued, "The one named Blake, although he seems to be gasping for breath, has a very uniform frequency, unlike the one named Delph. ”

"It's true that in our youth team, Charlotte's fitness is one of the best, and he is not only physically good, but also very fast."

"Faster than you?" About Danny Rose, Kelly knows, at the beginning, he was known as the "fastest first man" in the Leeds United youth team, so now Rose can say that, it only shows that Blake is faster than him.

"It's comparable." Of course, Ross can't directly say that he can't compare to others, he can only say it implicitly.

"Hehe, today's young people are really good, fast and able to run, it seems that I can't accept the old anymore."

"Captain, I'm telling you, Charlotte is playing at right-back, it looks like you have a successor."

"What about you, are you going to take someone's class, Ian?"

Everyone on the team knows that Gary Kelly is Ian Hart's uncle.

"But captain, do you know that there is a man on our youth team who can run better than Charlotte, who is simply a devil muscle man, do you know who it is?"

"Have you come to the training camp?"

"No, but you shouldn't be able to guess who it is."

"Who is it?"

Rose looked at head coach George Lee on the sidelines.

At this time, Kelly also understood that it should be one of George Lee's adopted sons, but he had to ask Rose which one he could.

But before he could ask, the other players finished their laps one after another, and then the team's new coach, John Sheridan, came over and talked about the "shadow" training that would follow.

"Shadow" training is a training method by Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi in order to train the team's players to choose, run, and read the game.

In training, the players play a game with neither the ball nor the opponent, the formation is set, the coach tells the players where the imaginary ball is, and then the players react, keeping the formation moving as a whole, and so on.

It's just that Leeds United's current training method is different from the previous "shadow" training method. There is no fixed number of people, there is no fixed number of teammates, the whole team is randomly divided into several groups, some groups will have more people, some will be less, who attacks and who defends is random, and they all have to obey the coach's commands.

And the person who issued this password was the team's technical director, Chris Casper.

Casper participated in this training with several of his colleagues in the information department, some of whom specialized in photography, and some of whom specialized in on-site recording and data analysis with computers.

"du~, now it's Graveson attacking with the ball......" Casper began to issue the password.

George Lee, Kidd, and Sheridan came to a high place to watch the team's "shadow" training together.

Haaland is helping McGee sort out the player's fitness data, and the time spent by the player in each lap will be recorded.

Peter Schmeichel led three goalkeepers to throw the ball in practice.

It can be seen that Van der Sar, who is a few years old with Schmeichel, is very chatty and has been communicating. Scott Carson and Schmeichel Jr. can only listen.

^^^

In the conference room of the hotel where Leeds United are staying, the coaching staff is meeting to study tactics.

'In the four warm-up games, I'm going to try to play Van Persie as a right winger and Kevin Davies as the team's starting striker against Ajax and AZ Alkmaar.

Leeds United will have four official warm-up matches in the Netherlands, starting with a freshly departed Cruyff Jr's Wollewickers, followed by a warm-up match against Ajax in Amsterdam.

You'll then drive 18 kilometres northeast of Amsterdam to Lake Marken for a warm-up race against Volendam.

Finally, it's time to go north and challenge AZ Alkmaar.

Leeds had planned to go south to play warm-up matches after two friendlies in Amsterdam, as Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven were two Eredivisie powerhouses in the south.

However, due to Feyenoord's grinding attitude in Kuyt's transfer, George Lee decisively abandoned the trip.

"That's why you bought Davis?" Kidd saw it.

'At the same time, I'll pick two games in the final stages and try to get Smith on the left winger.

George Lee put the magnet with the number 17 tag on the left side of the tactical board.

'So we can choose three of Davies, De Jong, Graveson, Parker at home, and even I can play all four.'

'We can do the same way we did at the end of last season, one in the middle, two in the middle, and we can play like Rio Ferdinand, Mills, Kelly, Mathieson.

"What do you think?" George Lee was ready to let a few assistants give their opinions.

Caspar was the first to raise his hand, and then when everyone asked him to speak, he began to speak.

"I think it's a very good idea, although it's already strong, but I think this squad is a little bit stronger."

"Tell me which aspect is more powerful." Kidd saw that Casper could speak so seriously and wanted to hear his point of view.

"Fouls, quarrels, fights, and no match for this squad in the entire Premier League."

Several members of the coaching staff began to cover their faces.

George Lee continued to cast the magnet on the tactical board into a 433 line-up and then began to push the number 21 forward at left wing-back.

"What do you think of the name of the fullback?"

"What is a fullback?" This is a question from other members of the coaching staff.

Among them was Caspar, who went to Argentina with us, wondering if I had learned something new from Bielsa.

In fact, this statement of the side back is known to George Li from later generations, but he is thinking about whether he can use it in advance.

"I'll give you an analogy, if the opponent's right wing is not very strong, can I bring forward the full-back position and let him be more involved in the attack."

"Will you be beaten up?" This is what the newcomer Sheridan asked.

'I don't have to go down too much, he can be more in the ribs in front of the box, so that when we have a counter-attack, the player has a shorter range of returns.

'The same can be done with the player on the right. Lee put the No. 21 back in place and pushed the No. 18 magnet on the right forward, pushing it into what he called the "wide back" position.

'So we can free up a midfielder to be more involved in the attack, right?'

"This full-back who appears on the flanks can also attack, and our Mills, Hart, and Baines are all long-range shots."

The coaching staff began to think about the feasibility of this new position.

Obviously, the emergence of this new position will lead to a series of new tactics, which need to be discussed and studied many times during this training period.

But just as they were thinking, George Lee spoke again.

"I just thought about it again, what I said at the beginning, the problem of Davis's retreat, how deep can he retreat, I'm talking about retreat when attacking, not defense......"

Several people found that their brains were not enough, such as Sheridan, who had already taken out his laptop and started scribbling, while Casper, who had always liked to use high-tech, opened a certain software on his laptop.

^^^

"Knock knock~" There was a knock on the door of the hotel room where Smith and Van Persie were staying.

"You go ......" Smith, who was already tired and about to fall asleep on the bed, kicked Van Persie on the side.

"Uh~" Van Persie was already in a daze, apparently asleep.

Smith had to open the door himself.

As soon as the door opened, I saw Ryan Bynes and Scott Parker, Anton Ferdinand.

"Why?" Smith probably knew what was going on.

"Thomas, they're already out to the casino, shouldn't we go too, I called Anton and Scott." Baines winked at Smith.

"Robin and I are not going, you can go."

"What! Friends, this is Amsterdam! Ah, Amsterdam! Baines raised his voice.

Parker and Ferdinand also looked at each other, and it was obvious that they felt that the vice-captain was different from what Bynes had just said.

In Baines's description, vice-captain Smith and striker Robin van Persie are Baines' guides on a certain road, and they are warm and hospitable, always taking the team's newcomers and young players to nightclubs and bars.

"No, it's boring, you can go." Smith turned down Bynes again.

"Okay~" What Bynes didn't know was that Smith and Van Persie had already played Amsterdam this offseason, and there was nothing new to attract them.

"Wait a minute." Smith stopped the group as they were leaving, and turned back to the room.

Then there was a sound from inside.

"Robin, wake up...... Where is the membership card...... That's the ...... We went to the house for a week...... Give it to Leiden and use it for them......"