A debate took place within England.

Most of the London media still support Millwall, and some of the small and medium-sized media have a bad relationship with Millwall, but it is undeniable that in the confrontation between British football and the collision of football between England and Italy, they have no other choice but to support Millwall. Otherwise, London fans will not buy it and they will not have any good endings.

The next thing is even more interesting.

Some neutral media shifted the muzzle at AC Milan, saying that Millwall is qualified to represent English football because the team's stars Darren Bent, Morris, Darren Ward, the three core players in the front line, midfielder and back line are all pure English players, so AC Milan is different. Their core Kaka is a Brazilian player, but AC Milan cannot represent Italy.

The Italian media immediately retorted, "The most important player in AC Milan is Pirlo, not Kaka!"

The two sides launched a fierce debate on this issue. The core point is whether AC Milan can represent Italian football and whether Mirwall can represent English football.

After careful analysis of the lineup, some fans concluded that Mirwall and AC Milan represent their respective countries, there is actually no problem, but Manchester United and Chelsea are difficult to represent English football.

Among Manchester United's core players, there are English players, so I can only say Rooney and Ferdinand.

Chelsea have Lampard and Terry.

Both teams can say that there are only two players representing England, while Millwall has three players, Morris, Darren Ward, and Darren Bent. From the perspective of core players, Millwall has a numerical advantage. In addition to core players, Millwall has a little more English players.

Manchester United and Chelsea can all be said to be ‘multi-national forces’, and most of their players come from other countries.

Millwal only has two or three more, but it is still much better than Manchester United and Chelsea.

AC Milan is much better.

Most of the AC Milan team are Italian players, and they can represent Italian football. Apart from the controversy of the core Kaka, there is nothing else to say.

From this perspective, we can also find part of the reason why England's poor performance is.

For giant teams such as Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga, etc., most of them use their own players due to the influence of the Football Association's policies. When the Italian team plays, many players come from AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, and Germany are even more powerful. Most of the lineups belong to Bayern Munich, and the Spanish team is a combination of Barcelona and Real Madrid. The head coach of the national team does not need to formulate tactics. Copying the club's playing style is enough to deal with most games.

England won't do it.

In England, if we divide it by club, we can find many clubs. Even Manchester United, Liverpool and other teams that contribute the most players can only have three or four players. Most players cannot find club teammates in the team. They all come from one team alone. In this way, training and preparation for the team is difficult. What can be played depends entirely on the fighting spirit, on-the-spot state and other factors. There is no need to say much about the proficiency of cooperation.

Thinking about it from this perspective, there is actually another reason.

There is no concept of "British football" in the world football, because the UK is divided into four teams, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, players from Wales, Scotland and other regions can freely play in the English League. Their genius is often carefully trained by the English League clubs, which also leads to many of the stars trained by the English League going to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

There are too many situations like this!

In Millwall, there are Braniff and Graham who are Northern Ireland players, while Alan Hutton is Scottish players. There are more other teams. The Wales national team and Scottish national team are not soft persimmons. They compete head-on with England. It is really hard to say who loses and who wins.

Imagine—

Combining England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland teams together to form a ‘British men’s football team’ will definitely be a very terrible team!

The outside media are working hard to raise the competition to the extent of a contest between the 'England and Italy' countries.

Zhang Yang didn't comment on this.

He has no feelings for England, just because Millwall is an English club.

What the outside world says is actually not important. Facing the Champions League semi-final contest, Zhang Yang does not need to motivate the players at all. Everyone will work hard to play. As long as they can eliminate AC Milan, they will be able to enter the Champions League final. At that time, the opponent will be Manchester United or Chelsea. They will remain unbeaten against the two teams in the league. Thinking about meeting Manchester United and Chelsea, every player is very confident.

With this confidence, the players treated the game against AC Milan as the Champions League final.

If you win, you will be infinitely close to the championship trophy.

There is nothing to say about failure. All Millwall clubs can prepare for vacation in advance.

The two-round match between Mirwall and AC Milan was played in the first round at Neal Stadium. The schedule was a bit unfavorable to Mirwall. In the first round, you must have an advantage. Otherwise, if you go to San Siro Stadium and want to play in a good state and defeat AC Milan head-on, it will be too difficult.

AC Milan also wants to play an advantage in the first round.

The reason why AC Milan is eager to play an advantage is not because they have no confidence in the home court in the second round, but because they involve the issue of league competition.

In fact, Mirwall did not put it in AC Milan's eyes.

AC Milan has enough proud capital. They are the best team in the Champions League in recent years and are also the top giants in Europe. Millwall is just a team that suddenly rises. Both the league and the Champions League are very good, but AC Milan believes that Millwall has not experienced enough challenges.

For example, the Champions League.

Mirwall's biggest record is that he eliminated Real Madrid. But anyone knows that Real Madrid's performance has declined very well in recent years. They have been in the Champions League for a row of 16 consecutive times. Veterans in the team have left one by one. It takes time for new players to adapt. Real Adri's lineup is gorgeous, but it is like a newly formed team. It is very difficult to get a good result in the Champions League.

Mirwall eliminates Real Madrid, and it is no big deal.

Although Mirwall does not take it to AC Milan's eyes, China has a saying that goes, "Sharely despise the opponent, and tactical attention." AC Milan still attaches great importance to preparation. Head coach Ancelotti organized the coaching team to study Mirwall, study the most suitable playing strategies, and personally urged the players to prepare for preparation.

AC Milan's goal is to play enough advantages in the first round, so that when they return to San Siro, they can easily eliminate Mirvoor without any accidents.

This is also a way to reduce pressure for the league.

This season, affected by the "phone gate" incident, AC Milan was suppressed by Inter Milan and Roma in the standings. They had to take into account the league and compete for the Champions League, and the pressure on the team became very high.

If they can play enough advantages in the first round, they will be able to breathe a sigh of relief and devote themselves to the league without continuing to distract themselves.

As the game approaches, the smoke of the war has spread.

AC Milan flew to London a day early. After that, the club manager, also a famous Italian footballer, Galliani, accepted an interview with reporters and expressed his confidence in winning. "We came with the belief of winning. In two rounds, the first round is also very important. We need to play enough advantages to ensure a stable victory in the second round."

This statement is arrogant enough.

Mirwall and AC Milan did not fight in the first round, so they publicly claimed that they would play enough advantages, which was almost the same as defeating Mirwall in one round.

What is that concept?

Before Mirwall and Eindhoven played, Zhang Yang had the same idea. Mirwall won five goals away, which was naturally enough to ensure the team qualifying.

AAC Milan vs. Mirwall, to play enough advantage to advance, at least three goals will be needed.

This number just crossed the line.

When the gap was more than three goals, AC Milan returned to San Siro Stadium, and just defense was enough to defeat Mirvoor.

Neither ball can do!

With Mirwall's offensive strength, the advantage of two goals cannot guarantee victory.

Mirwall is confident in this, and AC Milan must be very clear about this.

When Zhang Yang learned what Galliani said, he was still lying down at home to rest, resting with energy and preparing to deal with tomorrow's game. This is the benefit of the home court. AC Milan trained a lot and had to come to London a day in advance. He could only go to the hotel to rest. The home team could rest normally and adjust their state and prepare to participate.

Zhang Yang did not reply immediately.

It was the next day that Millwall was warming up in the morning that the reporters found Zhang Yang.

Zhang Yang walked out of the stadium and faced a group of reporters, saying without any thought, "Have you ever played games? It's an online game, like the RPG upgrade game similar to World of Warcraft, which is very interesting, especially leading a group to play bosses, which is very intense."

A group of reporters looked at each other, wondering what Zhang Yang was going to say. Could it be that he wanted to find a partner to play together?

Of course not.

Zhang Yang smiled and said, "I know that kind of game is very interesting. A group of people go to fight bosses. Usually, before starting a group to fight bosses, the boss always talks a lot of nonsense, which is still very ironic, such as 'I can kill you all with just one slap', 'You are destined to sink to endless hell', 'Become a dead soul', of course, that's not practical, because in the end there is only one result for the boss, that is, falling down! Falling again and again! I really feel pitiful for these bosses..."

Zhang Yang shrugged and continued, "In short, only the weak side will constantly emphasize that they are powerful, and villains are often prone to dying because they talk too much."

The British media around him suddenly burst into laughter.

The Italian media all had a dark face, and they also felt a little interesting: Galliani, who is a big player in Italian football, was ridiculed as a game boss and a big villain. Thinking about his bald image, it was really funny.

Neil Stadium.

In the Champions League semi-finals, Mirwall's home match against AC Milan has officially begun.

Mirwall is full of fighting spirit at home, and AC Milan is not bad at all, but the game between the two sides is not fierce. Football is passed around most of the time. Mirwall is not in a hurry to attack, and AC Milan is not in a hurry either.

The game lasted fifteen minutes, and the pace was still a bit slow, and the offensive strength of both sides was not very strong.

This is the temptation stage.

Millwall is a newly emerging team in the Premier League. It is the first time to participate in the Champions League. In the past hundreds of years, Millwall has only had one European event experience and was eliminated in the qualifiers. Naturally, he would not encounter the traditional giant AC Milan.

This is the first time that the two sides have fought in history.

Mirwall's knowledge of AC Milan is limited to game video research and media reports.

The same goes for the other way around.

AC Milan is completely unfamiliar with Mirwall.

In this game, Millwall used the newly familiar 4231 formation, but the core of the game was not the forward Braniff, but Jody Morris, who appeared as a midfielder.

With Morris as the core, the two midfielders have a clear division of labor.

Livermore's main job is defense, while Morris has to take into account both defense and offense, and is responsible for maintaining the rhythm and offensive transformation of the entire team. He is also Millwall's on-field captain.

Taking advantage of the opening test time, Millwall is also familiar with the new formation.

Millwall's tactical core things have not changed, but the new formation still needs to adapt to time. The opening pace is relatively slow. Players should adapt to running more and wait until the pace gets faster, so they will not mess around.

More than ten minutes are enough.

Millwall cannot be said to be completely familiar with the new formation, but there will be no mistakes when using the new formation.

Compared with the "double core" double-forward play, Morris and Livermore are in parallel, and Braniff in front form a midfield triangle position, which strengthens the defensive thickness near the center line and increases the control strength accordingly.

In addition, if there is only a single forward, the support for the forward is definitely not as good as the "double core". In order not to get out of touch with the midfield, the two players on the forward, Darren Bent and Vardy will also run relatively far behind.

This also increases midfield control.

The 4231 formation also makes it easier for forward players to get the ball, rather than having a shot whenever they get the ball. Darren Bent and Vardy have more room to play.

These are all advantages.

No formation can be without flaws. Compared with the "dual core" style of play, the flexibility of midfield coordination is much lower. Due to the reduced level of midfield support, the threat of the front line has also been reduced a little.

In summary, the new formation sacrifices a certain amount of offensive ability, supplement the thickness of the midfield and increase the midfield's control over football.

Although the formation is just that Morris has changed from a forward to a midfielder, the formation is a whole. When one player's position changes, other players will also be affected. From the perspective of position, the new formation will definitely be old and focus more on defense.

This is also to deal with AC Milan's possible quick counterattack.
Chapter completed!