Valencia coach Flores is full of confidence in the first round of the Champions League Group D, in the home match against Mirwall. When the game was approaching, Flores remembered the "good draw" that the opponent's young coach talked about after the lottery ceremony, and felt that he should give Mirwall a certain shock first.

Three days before the game, Valencia finished the league and was about to face the Champions League. Flores said in an interview, "Valencia has a lot of experience in European competitions, while Mirvoor has no experience. This is also a home game, and we are confident of winning the game!"

Flores then did not forget to mention the 'school', "The Champions League is different from the Premier League. Last season, Millwall was the Premier League champion, but the experience of the Premier League is not applicable to the Champions League. This game may make him (Zhang Yang) have more awe and vigilance towards his Champions League opponents."

When Flores said this, he had a faint smile on his face and showed great confidence.

The Spanish media seemed to be infected by Flores. In one report, they portrayed Frelos' confidence and outlined a wonderful scene for Valencia fans--

"Milwall is the Premier League champion, but has nothing to do with La Liga. They are just the rookie team in the Champions League!"

"Their head coach is too young. Valencia is more experienced than him whenever he finds a player and is better than him in leading the team, because they all have a lot of experience in European competitions!"

"Flores' attitude is very positive. He expressed confidence that Valencia will definitely win!"

"Valencia is playing at home, and she is facing a European rookie. The only suspense of the game is how big the advantage Valencia wins..."

“…”

When I saw these reports, Zhang Yang pouted, and he didn't know what to say.

Why is Flores so confident?

Millwall has no experience in European competitions, but he was the league champion last season. In the past five rounds of this season, he has also achieved a record of four wins and one draw. He also defeated Chelsea and won the Community Shield Cup. He is the best team in the Premier League.

Even if Mirwall has no experience in European warfare, even most players do not have experience in European warfare, and even if he himself does not have experience in European warfare... But, so what?

Millwall is the best performing team in the Premier League!

Now in European football, the Premier League is ranked first in Serie A, which is the champion team of the world's largest league and the world's largest league. Is it okay to have strength?

Valencia is not bad, but it is only third in La Liga.

When the Premier League first meets the third in La Liga, even if the latter is experienced, you should be more modest, right?

Zhang Yang thought carefully for a long time, but he didn't expect the reason for Flores' confidence. It might be described as "confident self-confidence".

Zhang Yang did not quarrel with Flores, the game was about to go on. He dared not say that he could definitely win, but the winning rate was definitely higher than that of Valencia. He did not need to argue with Flores before the game.

But Zhang Yang was remembered in his heart.

He remembered every word Flores and the Spanish media deeply, and then focused on studying how to deal with Valencia.

After the end of last season, Valencia made major changes. The root cause was that star Caponi retired and became the club's new manager.

After Caboni came to power, he changed his previous policy of introducing players, but instead carried out a major cleanup of the team. Emar, Mista, Aurerio, Divaio, Coradi, Rufit, Cruyvit and other players left one after another. Spanish media also believed that "Valencia's attacking strength will definitely be greatly reduced."

With many core players leaving the team, Caponi's signings went very hard.

Morientes returns to La Liga after spending a frustrated Premier League season. It is hard to say whether he can regain his form as Real Madrid. Forward Tavano, introduced from Empoli, was first to break the curse of the Bats on the Italians. Previously, Coradi, Divaio, Feorre and others were unable to stay in the club and had to find a way out.

Emal's departure indicates that Valencia needs to find a new offensive core. After Aurerio transferred to Liverpool on the back line, Del Orno became the natural successor in the left-back position.

The winger Simonque, who Valencia was desperate to get, "run away" as he was about to sign, which made Caponi's most failed moment this summer. Fortunately, before the transfer market closed, Valencia successfully signed star winger Joaquin, and his joining was good news for Valencia.

Although the departure of a large group of players has caused Valencia's strength to decline compared to last season, and judging by Zhang Yang, who has memories of his previous life, Valencia's lineup is still extravagant.

Their forward line is David Villa. In the next few seasons, Silva will undoubtedly be Spain's most efficient forward killer, with his scoring ability crushing Barcelona's entire forward line.

On the sidelines, there are newly introduced Joaquin and David Silva who returned on loan.

Both are famous players. In the summer, Millwall failed to chase Joaquin, and the latter chose to join Valencia. David Silva, fans who are paying attention to European football, will be the core midfielder for the construction of luxury Manchester City in the future. Of course, Silva is not very famous yet, and has just returned to Valencia. Whether she can make a debut in the game against Millwall is still a huge suspense.

In addition, Valencia also has famous stars such as Moretti, Edu, and Baraja. The overall strength is undoubtedly very strong. The lineup alone is much more gorgeous than Mirwall. If compared with Mirwall last season, neither of them is comparable.

But that's all.

Many players in Valencia will be very good in the future, but now players like David Silva have not yet grown up. And stars like Joaquin who have played in Real Betis must have strength, but they can only compare with Quaresma. Compared with truly famous veterans, such as Pire, the "toutlaw" is relatively high.

What Mirwall really needs special attention is David Villa, a very efficient forward killer. The title of "Cauliwa" is not something to say. Villa is a natural killer in front of the goal.

Zhang Yang also reminded the players to be careful and defend Villa and not to give him a chance to play.

Next is Valencia's style of playing.

Entering the 21st century, Valencia has become more and more concerned about defense. They are also the few Spanish teams that attach great importance to defense and regard "defensive counterattack" as the team's style. However, Valencia is a traditional Spanish team. Focusing on defense does not mean not paying attention to offense. Their offense is also quite threatening.

Millwall has never encountered such an opponent who has both defense and both skills.

In the Premier League, there are many teams that focus on defense, and Chelsea is the best among them, but Chelsea's offense is "British" style. If you want to talk about technical style, it is difficult to compare with traditional Spanish teams.

So this is also an opportunity.

Zhang Yang joked with Wilkinson, "Milwall's group stage is a field of experience."

That wasn't just a joke, he really thought so.

The opponents in the group stage include Valencia, Roma and Donetsk miners. There are three styles of three teams. Mirvoor needs to adapt one by one. After that, in the knockout round, when they meet opponents of different styles, they will know how to play.

Now facing the game against Valencia, Zhang Yang insisted on letting the team play the "dual core" tactic without hesitation.

The ‘dual core’ tactic is considered to focus on offense, and is also considered to be full of technology and strengthens overall cooperation, but the flaw is that the defense is relatively weak.

Zhang Yang doesn't care.

Zhang Yang hopes to see what kind of performance it will be in the European arena, especially the collision with Valencia, which will be of great value for evaluation.

This will be valuable experience.

Valencia is a good touchstone.

Of course, the ‘dual core’ tactic is just an overall style of play, and the detailed planning needs to be done. Long before the match against Charlton, the coaching staff had already started discussing the game against Valencia.

Several coaches analyzed Valencia's game video together, studied what to pay attention to during the game, and discussed the specific details of the game. In the targeted discussion, Zhang Yang only grasped the general direction, and everyone had to discuss the specific details together.

Finally, the coaching team came up with a set of tactics specifically targeting Valencia. The play style was summarized in a few words: tough, direct and targeted defense.

Toughly speaking, style.

No matter what tactics are played, Millwall is a team that started in the low-level league. England's low-level league teams often have one characteristic: they are very focused on physical confrontation.

None of the old players in the Central Plains team are afraid of physical confrontation. Even Simpson, who is slightly in poor health, is only in the team, and in the whole of Europe, he is still a strong rank.

This is caused by the English football style. No matter how good the thin players are, they cannot play in English football.

Toughness is the overall style of English football and an important means for English teams to go abroad.

Millwall also needs to play to its advantage.

Directly, it means cooperation, without fancy continuous passes, and fighting with Spanish teams to control the ball is completely meaningless, because players work on average, it is difficult to catch up with their opponents, and their playing style is more direct, which helps reduce the turnover rate and increase the chance of effective offense.

Targeted defense, nothing to say.

For example, let David Livermore focus on taking care of David Villa. Both of them are named David, and they may be able to get closer to each other to deepen the intimacy between Millwall and Valencia and both European clubs.

———

Mirwall was busy formulating tactics, the team was busy preparing for training, and Zhang Yang did not respond to the war of words initiated by Flores, but the Spanish media seemed to regard Zhang Yang's silence as a sign of weakness. As the game approached, they shouted more happily.

Under the advocacy of the Spanish media, Valencia has been able to kill Mirvoor with a big score.

Valencia fans are very optimistic.

If you do a street interview, Valencia fans can give you a hundred reasons to win: Coach Millwall has no experience, players have no experience, it is just a small club, the lineup is not as good as Valencia, there are different coaching abilities, player abilities, Valencia is more confident in playing at home...and so on, so on, and so on.

The same goes for the entire Valencia team.

At the pre-match press conference, Flores once again showed confidence. He said that there would be no suspense in the game and Valencia could easily defeat Mirwall at the Mestalia Stadium.

Zhang Yang shrugged indifferently, and the corner of his lips curled up showed sarcasm, "I only know now that Valencia's choice of head coach depends on his oral ability."

"Yes, what he said was very contagious, and even I almost believed it. But what if Valencia lost? Will he resign?"

This sentence made Flores very angry. He said that he must teach Millwall a good lesson in the game.

The game begins next.

———

In fact, Flores has no problem with his thinking. In terms of technology and cooperation, Millwall is difficult to match Valencia, but one problem is that he overestimated his team and underestimated Millwall's level. In addition, he also ignored the fact that Millwall is an English team.

Millwall played the "dual core" tactics, and the focus was on adding three-way cooperation, which required technical and flexibility. However, they also took into account the style of the English team - a style of daring to fight, daring to grab, and tough.

As soon as the game started, Valencia was in trouble and they found that they were completely at a disadvantage in the confrontation.

The player who feels the most obvious on the court is forward David Villa.

In Spanish football, Villa is already quite famous. He is considered one of Spain's best forwards, but as the best forward, there is no way to deal with unreasonable defense.

Villa has good skills, very fast speed and high flexibility. Livermore's single-on-one defense ability is definitely not a joke. Under Livermore's strict defense, it is difficult for Villa to catch the ball, because Livermore is always stuck in the position. If he wants to catch the ball smoothly, he must first compete with Livermore for his health.

Of course the result is not very good.

Livermore's strength is already world-class. I dare not say that he is the strongest football player in the world, but it is not stressful to abuse a small body like Villa.

It was difficult to catch the pass alone, and Villa wanted to rush forward. He tried to swim past Livermore several times and ended in failure.

Villa also has experience.

He found that the tall man in front of him was defending unreasonably. The opponent didn't even look at his feet, and he just saw the person he was right. He just didn't let him rush over and ignored wherever football went.

Everything has returned to the starting point: unless he can fight against Livermore a few times to use his excellent footwork skills and take advantage of a little bit of advantage, there is nothing to talk about.

For a long time, Villa became a transparent person.
To be continued...