Yang Yang flew to Madrid on Emirates Airlines after lunch in Dubai.

During these five hours at high altitude, he spent half of his time watching Bayern against Arsenal's two-legged matches, which gave him a deeper understanding of Bayern Munich under Ancelotti's coaching.

The rest of the way, he watched Ajax's two-leg match in the Europa League quarterfinals, which made him think.

In the Europa League quarterfinals, Ajax's opponent was Copenhagen from Denmark.

The first leg was away game, with central defender Davidson Sanchez suspended the game due to accumulated yellow cards, and Pete Boss ranked the central defender combination of young players De Rigt and Verhever. The performance was pretty good, but he lost two goals away, and the most important thing was that he conceded the ball at the beginning.

After all, it's still young and lacking experience.

In this game, several young players including De Rigt, Van der Beck and David Neres all participated.

In the end, Klasson assisted Dorber to score a goal. Although he lost one-to-two in the end, he scored an away goal.

After returning to home, Davidson Sanchez returned to partner with De Rigt, but midfielder Klasson was suspended for accumulating yellow cards. In the end, Nerez scored a goal, Dorber scored a penalty for Ajax before the end of the half. In addition, he hit the goal frame once, and finally defeated his opponent 2-0 at home.

The total score was three to two and advanced to the quarterfinals, which also confirmed Van Gaal's previous speculation.

Looking at the two games, plus other games Yang Yang had seen before, he began to think about an important question, that is, how will Ajax continue to move forward in the next step?

Entering the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup has met Yang Yang and Van Gaal's expectations. No matter what the outcome is, it doesn't matter anymore. Unless you can win the championship and get a UEFA Champions League group stage, everything else is not very important.

Whether it is Yang Yang or Van Gaal, what he has considered more is the team's next development.

How to make progress?

Yang Yang has been thinking about this problem on the plane.

...

It was already twenty o'clock in the evening after getting off the plane.

His wife Su Ye took her baby son Yang Guang to the airport to pick her up.

Two weeks later, the family of three met and inevitably said something along the way.

After returning home, Yang Yang went directly to the study, turned on his laptop, and held a video conference with Van Gaal, who was far away in Amsterdam. The topic was naturally the current situation of Ajax.

"I watched these two games on the plane. I think there are still some problems with the offense and there are some shortcomings in the midfield." Yang Yang said his thoughts straight to the point.

The defense line is now stable, but the problems with offense and midfield are still quite large.

Of course, compared with the Debor era, Pitt Bosch's problems in the midfield and frontcourt were solved a lot during his coaching period.

Van Gaal recognized Yang Yang's judgment, "The young players have played a lot in these two games and lack experience. Otherwise, the away game should be a draw and more goals can be scored at home."

"I think it's better to go deeper." Yang Yang said solemnly.

Young players are definitely a factor, and this is the price that needs to be paid to cultivate young players. However, Yang Yang feels that Ajax's problem has been a long history, and can even be said to be deeply rooted and requires deeper changes.

"Let me tell me." Van Gaal said with interest.

Yang Yang picked up the paper and pen, drew Ajax's formation diagram on the desk, and finally circled the position of Dorber, and placed the paper in front of the camera so that Van Gaal could see clearly.

"Dorber has played well this season," Van Gaal commented.

Dorber is only nineteen years old and is a typical Nordic center. He is tall and strong and has good skills. He quickly became popular this season. He scored twice against Roda JC and Zwolle, and scored a hat trick against Nijmegen, which has been valued by the media and fans.

Many people say that he is like Ibrahimovic and Bentner, especially his fellow Danish Bentner.

"What I want to say is that over the past few years, high center forwards have always been very important in Ajax's traditional tactical style of play, from Van Basten to Cruivet to Ibrahimovic, and later Hunteral, there have been Hosen and Sigsosson in recent years, and now Dorbert."

Van Gaal nodded, he was a personal experience, so he was very clear about the importance of high centers in Ajax tactics.

"But, Louis, you should know that European football is completely different today, and Ajax has no such bargaining chips as before, especially when we are in the European arena, we must pay more attention to defense than ever before."

As soon as Yang Yang finished speaking, Van Gaal, opposite the video, was obviously stunned, and then he showed a sudden enlightenment because he knew what Yang Yang said.

Why are high centers crucial in Ajax tactics?

Why did Ajax buy Bentener, Anastascius and Charlesteas from the team after Ibrahimovic left the team? Is this blindly building scorers?

Even so, why are all three high centers?

The reason is very simple. The high center forward is too important to Ajax's 433 tactics.

Needless to say, the benefits of high centers are the best evidence for Mourinho's use of Drogba during his coaching at Chelsea.

But the reason why Drogba is the world's top is because of his uniqueness.

High center forwards have always had one problem, that is, they lack running ability and have a narrow coverage.

The reason why Van Gaal made a feud with Ibrahimovic that made the Swedish center still hold a grudge to this day was because he wanted to make Ibrahimovic expand his scope of activities.

Ajax has always advocated offensive football, high-level defense, and suppressing his opponents, so there is a high center forward in the frontcourt, which becomes crucial to Ajax. It can even be said that Ajax's entire tactical focus is on the frontcourt center.

But Ajax's overall strength is now in the European arena, let alone those giant teams, even the mid-range teams in the four major leagues, Ajax may not have a chance of winning. In this case, it is very risky to continue to take offensive football and push the defense forward.

The best result is to allow the team to balance off offense and defense as much as possible, to move forward and press forward, to press forward and then fall back, to adopt a compact position to shrink defense, and then hit the opponent through a quick counterattack after intercepting the ball.

The problem arose at this time. Ajax's high center can't play in shrinking defense, just as it is impossible to ask Ibrahimovic to run and cover like Drogba.

So, even though Pete Boss chose to speed up the midfield this season, in fact, Ajax's offense still seems bulky and still can't be light, so the problem lies here.

So can we continue to dig deep into the high center forward tactics and adhere to the Ajax tradition?

It is obvious that this is no longer in line with the current development trend of European football. As for when it will rebound in the future, no one knows.

...

After hearing Yang Yang's words, Van Gaal couldn't help laughing.

"I really feel that I'm old and my brain is becoming slower now. This technical director is not as good as you."

Yang Yang waved his hand modestly, and he felt that it was mainly because he has played in the teams and leagues that have been the leading teams and tactical development trends in European football in recent years. Whether it is Barcelona or Real Madrid, they are the leaders of this wave, so he naturally knows this trend better than others.

"If you want to follow your opinion, then we will withdraw the team's tactical focus from the frontcourt center position to the midfield. I believe this can further stimulate the vitality of the frontcourt, but in this way, Dorber's situation will be embarrassing."

Ajax's high-pressure and pressure rely heavily on the high center forward, but if it is to shrink the defense, the players in the frontcourt need to run more, and the team needs to pass and receive quickly, especially when counterattacking faster, but Dorber cannot meet this requirement. Even in the current Ajax team, no player can meet such requirements.

It can be said that this transformation cannot be achieved overnight for Ajax, especially now that the transfer period has ended and Ajax is in a critical stage of the season, so only Yang Yang and Van Gaal are the only things to be discussed by the technical team, and it will definitely not be spread to the public.

Nowadays, Ajax's most important task is to reversal Feyenoord in the Eredivisie. In the quarterfinals of the Europa League, Schalke Zero 4, facing the Bundesliga Schalke, the two fronts are the top priority now.

What's more, what Yang Yang provided was just a way of thinking, and it was still very rough. As for how to improve it next, this is the work of Van Gaal and the technical team.

But one thing is certain, it is much easier to solve the problem after finding the stubborn disease.

…………

…………

After the two-week national team match day, Real Madrid ushered in the 29th round of La Liga, playing against Alaves at home.

With the goals of Suarez, Isco and Nacho, Real Madrid beat their opponents three to zero at home. Yang Yang came on as a substitute in the second half, contributing an assist, but did not do his best.

...

In the middle of the week, in the 30th round of La Liga, Real Madrid challenged Leganes away.

Morata showed off his might in this game and staged a hat-trick. De Bruyne made a pass and shot. In the end, Real Madrid defeated his opponent four-two away and scored another three-pointer.

This time, Yang Yang still sat on the bench and filled the audience.

...

On the weekend, in the 31st round of La Liga, Real Madrid ushered in the Madrid derby.

Affected by the mid-week Champions League quarter-finals knockout stage, both teams obviously did not take this game seriously, because the outcome has nothing to do with the overall situation of La Liga, and Real Madrid's winning of the championship is basically a foregone conclusion.

So, in the end, the Madrid two heroes shook hands one-to-one at the Bernabeu Stadium.

Yang Yang played for 60 minutes and scored a goal. Atletico Madrid equalized the score in the final stage of the second half.

On the contrary, Barcelona, ​​when they defeated their opponents in the first two games, lost to Malaga 0-2 away in this round and lost again.

It is obvious that the top three are all keeping their strength for next week's Champions League quarterfinals.

Especially Real Madrid faces Bayern Munich led by Ancelotti.
Chapter completed!