Chapter 119: The League One that cannot be underestimated

For fans of Leiden Oriental, they are full of longing and worrying about the new season.

Before the start of the season, Leiden Oriental bought eight players in the transfer market at one go. However, except for Paul Gerrard, Lenon and Phillips, who are powerful players in the League One, most of the other players are young players of seventeen or eighteen years old and players who only play the main players in the League Two. Those who leave are top scorers like Solskjaer and assists like Pobosky. In addition, the level of the League One is obviously far from comparable to the League Two. Even if Leiden Oriental was extremely glorious in the League Two last season, it cannot be said that it underestimates the League One team.

Just like many teams that call the wind and rain in the League One, defeating their opponents is like cutting melons and vegetables. Once they arrive in the Premier League, they feel difficult to move forward. The Premier League and the League One are two completely different worlds, while the League One and the League Two are also two completely different worlds.

Birmingham, who advanced to the League Two Championship a season ago, only relegated in the League One last season. You should know that Birmingham's advantage in the League Two was no less than Leiden Oriental's advantage in the League Two last season. Their overall strength is also quite good, but they can only achieve such results in the League One. What about Leiden Oriental? Although many head coaches of Premier League teams defeated by Leiden Oriental last season admitted that with Leiden Oriental's main lineup, they can also achieve good results in the Premier League, but everyone knows that strength on paper must be shown on the court, which is truly powerful.

The competition in the League One this season is quite fierce. The three teams relegated last season - Manchester City, Royal Garden Rangers and Bolton, have not suffered much damage. They are also the biggest favorites to advance in the new season. The original veteran teams such as Charlton, Crystal Palace and Xie Lian are also very strong. In order to compete for three tickets to enter the Premier League, the competition in the League One this season will be quite fierce.

All the League One teams are dreaming of entering the Premier League, because after these years, everyone knows how much economic income they can earn in the Premier League!

And Leiden Oriental's schedule is not favorable.

As early as the 1996-97 League One schedule and match schedule came out, fans of Leiden Oriental carefully studied Leiden Oriental's schedule.

In the first round of the league, Leiden Oriental will challenge Reading away. This team that has never entered the top league in history actually almost entered the Premier League a year ago - they won the second place in the League One in the 1994-95 season, but the number of Premier League teams that season has dropped from 22 to 20, so even the runner-up in the League One has to participate in the play-offs. In the end, they lost to Bolton in the play-off final and missed the promotion. After suffering such a blow, Reading did not even make the top six last season. However, they are still one of the strong teams in the League One. When they encountered such a team in the first round, Leiden Oriental was not lucky.

In the second round, Leiden Oriental's opponent is Charlton, which is another typical English League One team. In the fifth and sixth rounds, Leiden Oriental will encounter two Premier League relegation teams, Charlton and Royal Garden Rangers. Four of the first six league rounds are popular for promotion, and there is no worse schedule than this.

Although they all received more than 10 million pounds of funds from Xiao Ming to improve training facilities and expand the stadium, such investment is not as encouraging as buying a few heavyweights in the transfer market. What position can Leiden Oriental rank in the current League One? Leighton Oriental fans are not sure about what position they can rank in the League One.

However, while worried, Leiden East fans were full of confidence in Leiden East for no reason, or to put it more directly, and were full of confidence in Xiao Ming, the boss and chairman.

In the past two seasons of Leiden Oriental, Xiao Ming has completed too many things that surprise them. The players he bought were unknown at first. For example, Barack was even just an amateur player in high school, but he has become the backbone of Leiden Oriental. The eight players he bought this time are quite certain to have their outstanding features!

A player in the C Division C found from Norway can become the top scorer in the League Two. Pobosky, who was bought from the Czech Division B, became the best wing assaulter in the European Cup. What else can Xiao Ming not do?

Through the achievements made on the court in the first two seasons, fans of Leiden Oriental have already gained almost superstitious trust in Xiao Ming, so as long as Leiden Oriental's performance is still good this season, this superstitiousness will continue. But in fact, some of the things that Xiao Ming did before this season, such as improving training facilities, expanding the stadium, selecting the address of a new stadium, etc., are important actions to seek future foundation for Leiden Oriental. However, this kind of thing is always better than buying a few good players and achieving good results on the stadium.

Under this mentality, Leiden Oriental ushered in its first official game of the season, challenging Reading away.

Reading is a professional football team located in Reading, Berkshire, southeast England. It was founded in 1871, a full ten years earlier than Leiden Oriental, but they were even worse than Leiden Oriental. Although Leiden Oriental had not won any substantial championship before Xiao Ming took over, he had been in the top league in England for a year, Reading had not even had such a chance. He even dropped into the fourth-level league during their 100th anniversary celebration. If Madeiski, who made his fortune with used car magazines in 1990, their current situation would probably not be much better than Leiden Oriental two seasons ago.

However, Reading is also a very interesting team. The Swedish double coach combination is famous all over the world in the future, but this pair of double coach combination was only implemented in 1999. As early as five years before the Swedish double coach combination was implemented, that is, in 1994, Reading had already adopted the double coach combination in advance.

This was definitely a pioneering move at that time, especially their two coaches were part-time players, namely England midfielder Michael Martin and Irish striker Gis Quinn. In December 1994, after McGrie, who led the team to the League One in 194-95, Martin and Quinn began to coach the team together, and the two almost created a miracle, which was to lead a team that was still hovering around Christmas to become the League One runner-up. If it weren't for the Premier League system reform that year, the League One runner-up would have played in the play-offs, they would have directly upgraded Reading. Unfortunately, they lost to Bolton in the final.

Now Martin and Quinn are still in Reading's formation. Two old guys are thirty-seven and the other are thirty-six, but they are still often able to play as main players.

"Interesting team." After learning Reading's information, Xiao Ming couldn't help but smile slightly.

In his opinion, the player's head coach is not a very suitable approach. It is difficult for players to observe the situation on the court calmly when they are on the court, especially the frontcourt players. They are always not as thorough as bystanders in the game. Even a striker with a talent like Viali was unable to achieve any results at Chelsea.

However, both head coaches are still players, which is a bit interesting.

"Are these two people on the court and off the court? The ones on the court are responsible for leading the team to fight, while the ones off the court are responsible for commanding? That's really interesting."

Reading's two players, head coaches, are indeed as Xiao Ming thought, one is on the court and the other is off the court, and generally Martin, who plays as a midfielder, commands the entire team on the court, and Quinn, who plays as a forward, controls the situation off the court. Sometimes Quinn and Martin appear side by side, but the number of times is not many.

The reason for doing this is actually not that complicated. The reason is very simple. Reading does not have an excellent midfielder now, while the two forwards Mory and Nogan are both excellent in their abilities, so Quinn is more sitting on the coaching seat.

Many things in the world are so simple.

In the first round of Leiden Oriental's away challenge to Reading, this is how Reading arranged it. Martin served as the captain on the court and Quinn served as the coach off the court. However, their relationship is closer than ordinary captains and head coaches, because there is no problem between them who listens to whom and who commands. The tactics of each game are determined by the two of them through joint discussions. It is precisely because they are old players and leaders in the locker room that Reading is more united than ordinary clubs.

So although Reading's performance last season was not good, the atmosphere in their team has always been very good, and the locker room is quite united, and there is almost no negative news. The entire locker room is like a piece of iron, and even their boss Made Iski is difficult to intervene in the locker room.

If Xiao Ming knew about this situation, he would definitely sigh.

No boss can tolerate this, and it is true. After the results of this season were unsatisfactory again in history, Martin and Quinn left the club after the end of this season. Their departure directly led to the team's fall apart. They were relegated after a season and did not return to the Championship until 2003 - of course this has nothing to do with the current game.

Xiao Ming also attached great importance to the first league game of this season. He sent out the strongest lineup in his mind. Jiwen guarded the goal, Alexander, Stam, Brin and Daniel formed the back defense, Lenon and Barak were in the midfield, Jinklaze and Hackby on both wings, and Jankoler and Phillips, who replaced Solskjaer.

Three of the eight new players have entered the main lineup, which means that Leiden Oriental's tactical style has changed a certain way of playing compared to last season. Facing the strong Reading away in the first game is also a test of the strength of Leiden Oriental's team.

Before the game started, Xiao Ming was full of confidence in his team. Reading obviously had no players familiar to him. It was obvious that these players would not perform well in the future. Even in the away game, Leiden East should be able to beat the opponent.

But the relaxed mentality disappeared without a trace after twenty minutes.

Reading does not have any outstanding players. Their main lineup is nothing more than the middle of the League One. It is logically impossible to compare with Leiden Oriental's main lineup that can gain a foothold in the Premier League. However, their running and fighting on the court are quite fierce, and their movements are often very large. Faced with such actions, the referee often does not blow the whistle, unless it is a very large action, and will not show a yellow card.

Jinklaze was tackled twice by the opponent less than ten minutes into the game, and Huckby was similar. Although he was not injured, it also brought great fear to their psychology. When the breakthrough on the wing could not break the situation, Jankoler in the middle lost his place because a center like him needed a large number of crosses to be effective on the team.

Under Reading's fierce press, Leiden East's midfield offense was curbed by the opponent. On the other hand, Reading frequently threatened Leiden East's goal through counterattacks after intercepting the ball. They shot from a long shot and crossed. They bypassed the front defense at the front of Leiden East's penalty area, either directly shot from a long shot or breaking from the side, especially on the right guarded by Alexander. Originally, the cooperation between Alexander and the central defender was not a tacit understanding, and he himself was a full-back who was stronger than defense. When the opponent focused on the attack, he could no longer withstand it.

The four main players that Xiao Ming values ​​most are Stam, Barack, Jinklaze and Jankole, who are the most important, seem a little uncomfortable under the fierce pressing of the opponent and cannot show their abilities. On the contrary, the two new players who perform best on the court are Lenon and Phillips.

Lenon's running in the midfield effectively curbed the opponent's attack. After discovering that Alexander could not withstand the opponent's attack, he began to move to the right to help defend and stabilize the defense.

Phillips began to run continuously in the frontcourt, receiving the pass from his teammates and then passing the ball to Jankoler, so that he could use his body to protect the ball. Under his running, Leiden East's frontcourt offense began to become organized. Although he did not create any decent opportunities, he was not as passive as before.

"It seems to be a matter of adaptability." Xiao Ming sighed in his heart. Among the ten players on the court, except goalkeeper Jiwen, eight of them have never played in the League One. The normal performance is exactly two players who have played in the League One - both Lenon and Phillips, have at least two or three years of experience in the League One, so they can be at ease on the court. Other players may be better than them in potential, especially Barack and Stam, but before they can adapt to the League One, their role on the court is obviously not as good as those of Phillips and Lenon.

What made Xiao Ming smile bitterly was that the 23 first-team members of the entire Leiden Oriental had experience in the League One, except for the substitute goalkeeper Paul Gerrard, there were only these two people...

In the English-Chief and English-Brief, the players of Leiden Oriental have encountered very fierce opponents, but after all, the pace of English-Chief and English-Brief are much slower. Many fierce moves of Leiden Oriental can easily avoid them with their strength that is one level higher than their opponents, and are not greatly affected. However, when facing players such as Reading who are fierce in playing styles and whose reactions and personal abilities are not much worse than those of Leiden Oriental, the players of Leiden Oriental immediately began to show discomfort.

Although they defeated five Premier League teams in the League Cup last season, Premier League teams will not do too much in pressing and other aspects when facing low-level teams. First of all, the value of Premier League players is far higher than that of English League One players. There is no need to fight against their opponents. To put it bluntly, one leg of one of them may be worth the total value of the opponent's entire team. In this case, who will fight against their opponents? However, Leiden Oriental is a monster team whose overall strength is not worse than that of Premier League teams. This is why the strange situation of performing well when facing Premier League teams but not adapting to the English League One team's playing style.

This is not a tactical flaw, but a gap in the overall quality of players. Faced with this intensity of game, the players of Leiden East have less than half of their training. At this time, even if Xiao Ming is a head coach, it is difficult to make any arrangements immediately.

In this case, only by allowing players to slowly adapt to the pace of the League One game can this problem be solved. Premier League One and League One are the leagues closest to the Premier League. Compared with League One, although English League Two and English are also part of the professional league, the gap between them and Premier League One is really too big.

The English League One is like the reserve team of the Premier League. If some outstanding players are in good condition, they will not be at a disadvantage against top Premier League players. The performance of newly promoted English League One in the Premier League is often not good because the overall level of the team is not as good as that of Premier League players. In addition to a few players who are indeed very outstanding, it is difficult to enter the Premier League.

Although Reading has a good foundation now, it is only at the middle level of the League One after all. Such a team is so difficult. It seems that the League One this season is not that easy to play.

But what am I afraid of? Xiao Ming proudly thought that most of his players are players who have proved their strength in the top league in the future. Not to mention superstar players like Barack and Stam, even Brin, Holland and others are players of the Premier League in the future. As long as they adapt to the rhythm of the game, are they still afraid that they cannot display their abilities?

Now if you want to laugh, try to laugh as much as possible. After a while, I will definitely make up for all the price I have paid now!
Chapter completed!