Chapter 49: Winning the championship early (Part 1)

Mark went to the car driver training course on the first day. I heard Momo say that if you are lucky, there might be a beautiful coach. After all, there are many beauties in the Netherlands. Mark is also looking forward to this. Although Mark now has a girlfriend, this does not prevent him from seeing other beauties. As long as Mark's body is loyal to Koros, it is enough.

Mark looked at the various crowds of beauties in the driving school. Mark is now looking forward to who his coach will be.

After receiving the car keys, Mark got into the car by himself and waited for his coach. After Mark's coach came, Mark could formally learn driving skills.

"Hello Mr. Mark, I am the instructor of this driving training class. You can call me Tony." An old man with gray hair walked over and said to Mark.

"Oh my God, my dream is shattered." Mark felt that the picture of the beautiful woman he was fantasizing about was dissipating little by little in his mind like a broken mirror.

However, although Coach Tony is a little older, it is undeniable that he is still a professional coach who is very responsible and teaches Mark very well.

From starting the car, to stepping on the clutch, slitting gear, feeding oil, entering and leaving gears, I handed over to Mark one by one, and I also gave some detailed explanations on these.

Mark's driving skills are constantly improving now. Of course, it will take a long process. If Mark wants to pass the exam directly, it will take at least one month. Moreover, because of Mark's current professional characteristics, players do not have much private time, so Mark can only squeeze out some time to study.

I don’t know if it’s because Mark is Ajax’s star or because the Dutch driving school is so reasonable, the driving school actually agreed that Mark can come to study at any time, whether in the morning or afternoon, but it won’t work at night because the driving school coach also needs to rest.

Mark is already very grateful for the help of driving schools, but it also comes at a price. The price is that Mark needs to take a photo with the principals of these driving schools and sign them for memorials. This is not a problem for Mark, who is now a star. Mark easily handles all this, and then takes time to learn driving skills every day. Of course, after returning home, he silently doesn't let Mark go, and he makes up for the theoretical knowledge that needs to be taken for the exam.

On April 25th local time, the third round of the Eredivisie League was the first round. Ajax challenged Nijmegen, ranked 14th in the away game. Nijmegen is now leading Zevole, ranked third from the bottom. With four rounds in the league, such a leading advantage is also very large, but they still failed to get enough relegation points, so Ajax must not take it lightly in this game.

Ajax took his own football bus to Nijmegen, the eastern Netherlands city, which is the location of Nijmegen Football Club. Nijmegen Football Club is also an old club with a century-old history. Nijmegen Football Club's home stadium is located in the Degufort Stadium, with 12,000 seats. What the club itself is most proud of is that the club was born in a difficult environment and the founder of the working class started to come into contact with football on the streets of the city. The club's original name

The word is uniting the Netherlands. The club performed well. In 1903, after the merger with the real Nijmegen, they confirmed their position in the league. The nce in the club's name can be interpreted as the merger of Nijmegen and eendracht (nijmegene endrachtcombinatie). The club has never won the league championship so far, but has won the runner-up in the Dutch Cup four times, respectively in 1973, 1983, 1994 and 2000.

Now Nijmegen's head coach is John Neskens, a former Dutch national team legendary star, and another Wizard after John Cruyff. A spear for the Dutch team in the 1970s. Although he is not particularly strong, his pace of speed and light breakthrough skills are unparalleled, especially breaking through the bottom line on the wing, which is his specialty. From 1974 to 1978, the Netherlands team failed to win the World Cup for two consecutive World Cups, which is a blessing. But at that time, the Ajax Football Club where Neskens is located was in full swing, winning the Champions League three times in a row, and then transferred to Barcelona and Cruyff to fight side by side. It is worth mentioning that in just one minute of the start of the West German World Cup in 1974, Cruyff made a penalty kick, and Neskens scored the fastest goal record in World Cup history.

Neskens is another darling of God. God has given him too much talent. His breakthrough ability, creativity, and scoring ability are all beyond his contemporaries. Although Neskens is known for his "midfield engine", he is also an excellent right back, center back and center forward. Neskens is strong and enterprising. This Ajax football star is also good at playing tennis, baseball and basketball, and he even often plays a goalkeeper.

When Ajax won the European Cup in 1971, Neskens was the right back in the team. When Ajax won the Champions League again in 1972, Neskens played the central defender. In 1973, Ajax won the Champions League three times, Neskens was the midfield organizer. In the Dutch national team, Neskens' position has remained unchanged, and he is the soul of the midfield. In the 1974 and 1978 World Cups, Neskens cleverly arranged and interpreted the Dutch team's full attack and defense style to make the Dutch team reach the World Cup final twice.

But even Neskens is also a tragic figure. In the final final between the World Cup and Argentina in 1978, Neskens's shot was only five centimeters away from Argentina, and the goalkeeper was the goal post. Otherwise Neskens would beat Argentina's Kempes' best scorer in 1978. Perhaps the Netherlands may also win the only World Cup championship in their history, but football has no possibility.

However, unlike Neskens's outstanding player era, his performance as a head coach was not very ideal. Neskens coached for Nijmegen for five years and led the team to the UEFA Cup in the 2002 to 203 season. But he was unable to build the team better on that basis. Although he had acquired several players, the team's performance has always been around in relegation, and now he is on the relegation line. Therefore, it is reported that after the end of this season, Nijmegen's boss will let Neskens get out of bed. The Ajax team he faces is also a good opportunity for Neskens to prove his strength.

"Our purpose today is to win the game and win the league championship in advance. Don't treat this game as an ordinary league. I ask you to treat this game as a European champion and be beaten in the final. Nijmegen is like Barcelona and Milan. Do you understand? After joining this game, I approve the main players not to participate in the next game." Koeman gave his final lecture in the team's locker room. He did not want the players to force this game to fail because of too relaxed mood. Now the sooner Ajax establishes the title, the better, so that the players can relax better. Koeman is also using holidays to stimulate the players' nerves, which is not easy for the iron-blooded head coach Koeman to do this.

However, Koeman also has his own plans. If he joins the team and can win the championship in advance, it is also a good choice to train the reserve team and even the youth team's lineup. This will not only make the players happy, but the board of directors should not say anything. If these second-team players can perform a few wonderful performances, the board of directors can make a lot of money. For example, Mark is a treasure discovered by the youth team now. Although it is often unrealistic to find players like Mark, who can say this kind of thing accurately.

Before this game, the Dutch Football Association had already transported the silver plate of the Eredivisie League championship to Nijmegen. Once Ajax wins this game, an on-site award ceremony will be held at Nijmegen's home court.

Nijmegen's formation in this game is the defensive lineup of 451. Neskens obviously wants to avoid Ajax winning the league championship at his home court, because Ajax is now leading Eindhoven eleven points. If Nijmegen tied Ajax and Eindhoven won, Ajax would lead Eindhoven to nine points ahead of second place. In theory, nine points ahead with three rounds in the league, theoretically, it would not ensure the league championship.

Nijmegen's starting lineup in this game is the captain goalkeeper Daniel Jentenel, right defender Abibinro on the back line, left defender Revacobosai, center back Heye and Vesghof, forwards: left winger Viswald, right winger Schulman, Spear and Smier serve as double back midfielder Pajas. The forwards are Demunger.

Neskens's team building philosophy is to balance off offense and defense. He needs players to be able to attack and defend. The players of the whole team are players who can both attack and defend. If you want to choose a starting player who cannot defend, it is probably only the striker Demunger has the worst defense ability. This is also the lineup formed by Neskens inheriting the Dutch concept of a full attack and defense lineup and then transforming it himself. This formation looks like 451, but as long as two wingers press forward, it immediately becomes a 4333 formation with super attack power.

Ajax basically maintained the starting lineup in the last game. Koeman has not made too many adjustments to the players in his hands. There is only one change, that is, the forward Songkle came out, and the midfielder Galasek came on as a substitute, and the formation is still the formation of 4333. Koeman is still unchanged and adapted to changes. After all, the current Ajax players have been playing 4333 for a long time. If they rashly make changes in the formation, Koeman doesn't know where to cry once the players adapt.

In this game, head coach Koeman mentioned Mark's position again and directly mentioned the forward line. This is because Koeman has made a very serious analysis. Through the observation of Mark in the last game, the coach found that Mark's flexibility makes his reaction speed very advantageous. Although Mark's height reaches 1.85 meters, his sprint speed and flexibility are better than substitute forward Songke.

After transferring to Ajax, Songk was suppressed by Ibrahimovic on the bench. He finally waited until Ibrahimovic was unable to play because of three games suspended. So when he was about to do a big game, he only started for 45 minutes and returned to the bench.

Songke's competitive position is entirely due to his inherent physical conditional disadvantages. This is because and his height advantage over Mark's header is incomparable to Songke. Songke is now really a tragic figure. His former best scorer has attracted the attention of many European teams back then. However, because of language and environment, he chose to join the Ajax team, which is not the top five leagues. Unexpectedly, he was destined to be a substitute for thousands of years from the beginning of joining the team.

After the start of the game, Ajax was inspired by head coach Koeman, so he had a strong impact on Nijmegen's defense line. Mark's wide-ranging run at the striker as always involves the energy of Nijmegen's defenders. Nijmegen's current defenders can be said to be highly nervous, for fear that Mark would be missed accidentally, or that he was intercepted by Mark and successfully counterattacked.

Neskens also frowned when he saw the team's performance on the court. He had previously guessed Ajax's starting lineup, but he did not expect that Koeman, who was very conservative in tactical arrangements on the front line, would suddenly change the forward players and send Mark directly to the forward position. Although Neskens also saw Mark's outstanding performance in the forward position through the video of the game above, he would rather believe that Mark's outstanding performance in the forward position at that time was entirely because Ajax was already leading the score at that time. It was also something that many coaches would think of instigate the opponent's defense in the front court.

It was his good partner Cruyff who let Romario go up to steal the opponent's offense as soon as he concedes the ball.

The two central defenders in Nijmegen are now tactical arrangements made by Neskens. Heye and Visghof are not the kind of central defenders with a certain speed. Both players are under 1.8 meters tall. This is what Neskens is preparing to defend Ajax's forward Sonke. Unexpectedly, Sonke did not play. Now Neskens missed the first tactical move, but he still has a chance to see how Koman's surprises are effective on the front line.

Although these two players are shorter, they are experienced and have good skills. Neskensken wants to let the two central defenders tangle Mark and prevent Ajax's players from fighting for the second place. After all, in Neskens' impression, Mark is not the kind of player who uses his body to make a living.

But he miscalculated a little. He miscalculated Mark's personal ability. Mark was indeed not physically superior, but Mark was very good at making reasonable use of his physical advantages. Mark often got rid of the opponent's pressing against him first, or just leaned on the multi-party players. If Nijmegen's players made any small moves, Mark would fall to the ground. If the opponent did not foul, Mark would directly shoot from a long shot. Mark's long shot was also very powerful. If goalkeeper Janet Nair had not performed well, Nijmegen might have been behind the score in the tenth minute of the game.

"Oh, Mark's long shot, the goalkeeper saved the ball from the baseline with a world-class save." Commentator Wang Bing felt sorry for Mark's long shot being saved by the opponent's goalkeeper.

"Oh..." The fans also expressed regret. Since Ajax may win the league championship in this game, nearly 10,000 Ajax fans came to the away game. Compared with 5,000 Nijmegen fans, there are absolute advantages in terms of numbers and momentum.

"Swan... Come on," Ajax fans shouted in unison to cheer for Mark. Now Nijmegen's home court has almost become the Amsterdam Arena.

Nijmegen now has no choice but to play. Although Nijmegen's defense is not very strong, their offense is even worse than defense. Because Babel and Pinal's attack on the wing are extremely sharp, Nijmegen's wing attack has been completely curbed, and Ax in the middle is also under the focus of De Jong's defense. Forward De Munger is defined as a supportive center by coach Neskens. Aescu's close press against him makes him have no chance to make a goal at all. Now it can be said that Nijmegen is completely in a passive state.

In the 30th minute, Ajax's offense finally received a reward. De Jong's midfielder cut off Ax's pass and passed it to Babel on the left. After Babel broke through, he handed the ball to Van der Fate who was in the middle. Van der Fate passed a long pass to Mark in front.

Mark jumped into the air and headed the ball, and the football fell directly to Galasek's feet. At this time, the defensive midfielder Smier had already come up to press Galasek. If it were under his feet, Smier could indeed compete with Galasek, but Galasek had no intention of competing with him.

Galasek passed the ball to Pinal who was inserted on the right. Pinal directly made a cross from the side. At this time, Mark had already thrown away a defensive player. Only Visghof and him ran to the penalty area at the same time.
Chapter completed!