Chapter 282 The Trouble of Experiment

In the extraordinary competition, Zahovic also lost without any suspense. After all, he is not as usual as Tiger's one-on-one pass in the official game. Baraha and Deschamps, one is a strong defensive player, the other is an experienced veteran. What's more, the four passes are not just one person twice, but crosses. Although Baraha and Deschamps are both defensive midfielders, their defensive characteristics are different. Baraha relies more on body and strength, while Deschamps focuses more on skills and experience. So although Zahovic tries his best, he only completes four passes twice.

Tiger shook past these two midfielders four times in a row, winning more beautifully.

After the competition, Valencia's players dispersed. Continuing to watch would only make Zahovic even more embarrassed. Tiger was unreasonable and just smiled at Zahovic, then walked directly into the locker room and left Zahovic alone on the training ground.

At this time, no one knew what Zahovic was thinking, but in the days that followed, Zahovic never complained publicly - proud people often disdain to make their promises. Zahovic is a proud person. Since he agreed to the bet and lost the bet, he would not be entangled in the details anymore.

Before the game began the next day, Zahovic appeared honestly on the bench.

This game is Valencia's third official game of the season and the first Champions League game. Their opponent, Olympiacos from Greece, has a former Barcelona player and former Brazil international Giovanni, but the strength of other players is average - otherwise Zahovic would not have said that his teammates were too poor when he was in Olympiacos and refused to train and play...

Valencia fans welcomed the visiting team with their greatest "passion" at the Mestalia Stadium. Although Mestalia is not the largest stadium in Spain, except for the two top stadiums of Camp Nou and Bernabeu, few stadiums are more oppressive than Mestalia Stadium.

Olympiacos is very accurate in positioning himself. Although they are the champions of the Greek league, in the Champions League, they can only be considered weak teams. Facing the defending champion and on the away game, they wisely chose to reclaim the defense tactics. Giovanni was left alone in the frontcourt. It is obvious that being able to score one point away is a victory for them.

In addition to Valencia, Olympiacos, Helenfin and Lyon will not give up their hope of qualifying in the group. Although they think they may not be able to compete with Valencia for the first place in the group, there are still opportunities in the competition between them. In this case, the number of cheapness they can earn from the defending champion may be able to determine the final result.

Facing such an opponent who is stuck in his half, Valencia does not have many good ways. Although Cooper sent high center forward Karu to the field, Karu and his teammates did not have enough tacit understanding, and the support from the two wings is not particularly enough, so the effect is not very good.

Olympiacos was indeed inspired by Real Madrid's tactics. They did not focus on guarding Tiger, but focused more on cutting off the pass between Tiger and his teammates. This approach once brought some trouble to Tiger. However, Tiger was not idle these days. Seeing the opponent began to pay attention to cutting off the passes for him to the backcourt, he began to take the initiative to retreat on the court to organize, allowing Aimal to attack in the frontcourt, and Mendeta returned to the right forward position. In fact, he took on the role of Farinos in the team last season and handed over his role on the field to Aimal, which was also a new attempt by Tiger. Although he was from the midfielder, he was in a very high position at Preston, and he rarely started organizing in such a backcourt.

The forward movement and retreat of position are not only related to the distance from the goal, but also the widening of the vision and the changes in the distance between teammates. At first, Tiger also seemed a little unable to adapt. However, after the initial adaptation period, Tiger began to show his excellent adaptability.

In a relatively backward place, Tiger has more balls, and his forward-pull ability cannot be ignored by any team - a player who often scores one-stop breakthrough on the court and scores after a goal, what team dares to ignore? So even if you know that Tiger's forward-pull is just to disrupt their defense, Olympiacos players can only focus on Tiger.

Going back and getting the ball, breaking through, and then passing the ball to create opportunities for his teammates. Olympiacos' defense was upside down by Tiger. Tiger, who used to shoot and enter the penalty area, had a lot of direct threats to the goal this time, but his existence gave other Valencia players more opportunities.

From the 20th minute, Valencia's attack made Olympiacos' defense line twitching every time. First, Tiger made a seemingly imposing breakthrough in the middle and suddenly passed the ball to the left. Kili passed the penalty area at the corner of the penalty area. Karu headed the ball out. Then Tiger passed directly to Aimal from near the center circle. Aimal's shot turned around forced the opponent's goalkeeper to make a wonderful save. Then Tiger and Medita made two-for-one consecutive matches and Medita completed the final shot...

The more you play, the clearer the thoughts in Tiger's mind. In the lower back, his vision is much broader. At the same time, he can grasp the gaps on the opponent's defense line more clearly, and what kind of passes to his teammates to tear the opponent's defense line. According to the characteristics of the teammates, the flaws on the opponent's defense line are used to complete the pass, and even what kind of passes can form a threat after several passes. There are more things to consider than being pushed in front.

"Well, this feeling is really good." Tiger thought to himself, and turned around and dodged the defender who rushed to defend, then raised his right foot and passed the ball hard to the right. Aimal inserted at high speed, chased the ball and then made a cross, and was blocked by the opponent's defender and corner kick.

Mendieta ran up to punish the corner kick, while Tiger was cruising at the front of the penalty area - his actions also attracted two Olympiacos players to defend. Tiger's long shot was also excellent, which is a must-have.

Two people were put on defense at the front of the penalty area, so the defensive power in the penalty area was naturally weak. Mendieta would not miss this opportunity. He accurately crossed into the penalty area. Balaha, who stepped forward to assist, headed the ball to the top and pushed the ball into the goal!

This is Baraja's first goal for Valencia. Among the several signings this season, he, Aimal and Karu both scored. It just so happened that the three of them were the players who spent the most money on Valencia's transfer funds this season, which is enough to make Valencia's transfer managers feel proud.

Tiger smiled and hugged Mendeta and Baraja. Although this ball was not his assist or scored, the corner kick that created this goal was initiated by his pass. At the same time, he also restrained the opponent's defensive power at the front of the penalty area - which well shows Tiger's current role in Valencia - even if he does not directly participate in the offense, he can play a huge role!

The iron barrel formation was opened, and the next game was easy to play. Valencia's players began to attack more easily and patiently. Olympiacos, who had only one forward in the frontcourt, was not enough to put any pressure on Valencia's defense line, which also made them feel more pressure.

Before the end of the first half, Tiger passed the ball to Aimal and then flew forward himself. His forward shot once again attracted the attention of the opponent's defender. However, Aimal did not pass the ball to Tiger, but instead directly passed the ball to Odeta on the right while the opponent's defender's attention was on Tiger. Odeta made a cross, but did not pass it to the most eye-catching Karu in the penalty area, but directly passed it to the back.

Tiger, who was inserted in the back row, rushed into the penalty area while Olympiacos's defenders were paying attention to Mendeta and Karu in the penalty area. After sighing that Mendeta's cross landing point was just right, Tiger jumped up against the ball and pushed the ball out with the help of the impulse!

The ball flew into the goal quickly. Olympiacos' goalkeeper had just turned around and could only look at the football jumping around in the goal...

"Two assists, captain!" Tiger laughed and pointed at Mendeta and ran over. Mendeta opened his arms and hugged him in his arms, laughing loudly.

He took the advantage of two goals in the first half, and Cooper did not want to score goals on this opponent - after all, it was enough to qualify in the group stage, because what he faced was not a knockout match but another group stage, so not long after the second half, Cooper replaced Zahovic and replaced Mendeta, who had assisted twice, so he had a good rest.

When Mendeta was off the field, he did not hand the captain's armband to the second captain Canisales, but directly handed it to Tiger. Tiger was stunned for a moment, then took the captain's armband and carefully wrapped it around his arm.

After Zahovic came on the court, he appeared in the midfield position of the attack, while Aimal reached the right, and Tiger continued to be in the back - it was obvious that Cooper also wanted to experiment with this style of play, which was also planned for the future, at least this was the best way to deal with the way of cutting off the pass to Tiger's defense.

Tiger nodded thoughtfully, and was sure, because he was not familiar with this environment enough - but Tiger believed that he could solve this problem quickly because he had the best training ground in the world.

Experience needs to be accumulated for formal competitions, and there is absolutely no one in the world who can accumulate experience faster than Tiger.

Three days later, Valencia ushered in the second round of the Champions League group stage, challenging the Dutch Eredivisie team Helenfin away.

In this game, Tiger continued to retreat to organize the offense, Aimal replaced Zahovic's position, and the forward replaced Sanchez, the substitute of last season. Since the beginning of this season, Valencia's front-court offensive combination has not been the same for two consecutive games, but the defense line has remained intact - after Caboni became a substitute, he continued to become the main force, while Ayala began to officially become the leader on the defense line.

Testing the best combination of the frontcourt with a solid back line, that's what Cooper planned early in the season.

In this game, Tiger's sorting and control of the midfield were better than the previous game. Although Valencia only relied on the cooperation of two wing forwards away to score a goal and defeated his opponent with a goal - Mendeta assisted and Kili scored - However, Helenfin was completely suppressed by Valencia throughout the game. Canisales did not even make a save in the whole game and did nothing in front of the goal. It can be seen how much control Valencia had on the court!

In another game, Lyon lost 0-1 to Olympiacos away. Valencia, who won both games, occupied the first place in the group alone. Judging from these two games alone, there seems to be no team in this group that can stop Valencia's advance.

After returning to the league, Valencia won the league again. They defeated Numancia three-zero away games, but the process was not as disparate as the score. In the first 75 minutes, Valencia's attackers seemed to be in shape and kept wasting opportunities. Although Tiger controlled the midfield, the forwards could not convert the opportunities he created into goals. After wasting many opportunities, Cooper finally couldn't help but make adjustments. He replaced Alberta with Alberta to replace Angulo, who had wasted two opportunities in this game, and pushed Tiger into the frontcourt. This substitution achieved immediate results. Just one minute after pushing to the frontcourt, Tiger received a pass from Mendeta at the front of the penalty area, and then scored a clean and neat shot for Valencia's first record!

Amid the cheers of more than a thousand Valencia fans who came from afar, Cooper breathed a sigh of relief, and then he shook his head - at the critical moment, it was only possible to rely on Tiger to solve the problem. When will Valencia's weak striker be relieved?

Tiger, who was in front, was distracted. Six minutes later, Aimal's shot was saved by the opponent's goalkeeper. Tiger keenly found the first landing point and shot twice in front of the goal six meters!

Cooper slapped, but there was a wry smile on his face. The better Tiger performed, the more he was a little confused. In the midfield, his ability to score goals was strong in the front. Now he hoped that there would be two Tigers, one for the midfield dispatching organization and the other for the frontcourt charge. In this way, he would be invincible in the world...

Of course, Cooper himself also knows that this idea is not realistic. If you weigh the pros and cons, it seems that Tiger is the most suitable to be responsible for scoring goals in the frontcourt. After all, there is no fixed goal point in the frontcourt, and Tiger's organizational tasks seem to be shared by many people, Mendeta, Zahovic...
Chapter completed!