Perhaps because Ajax reached the Champions League semi-final last season, the corresponding level of a series of warm-up matches this summer has been improved by Ye Qiu. After all, this person still has to look at the higher level and cannot always compare with opponents who are not as strong as theirs. Then he will never make progress, right?

This year's Amsterdam Cup invites all four famous teams in the four major leagues, Barcelona in La Liga, Juventus in Serie A and Manchester United in Premier League. The three teams are all powerful teams, and they are also powerful teams with great strength. The warm-up value is very high. Ye Qiu obviously hopes to test the team's strength by competing with such strong teams.

Not only the opponents of the Amsterdam Cup, but also Ajax, the warm-up matches in the early stages of the training camp, made strict selections. Each opponent was required to have certain strength. Finally, in the two warm-up matches before the tour to China, Ye Qiu selected Monaco in Ligue 1 and Leeds United in the Premier League.

Both teams are strong, and Ajax both plays away and has high training value.

But sometimes the opponent is too strong, which may not be a good thing.

Ajax was beaten by Deschamps in Monaco. The Ligue 1 powerhouse took advantage of its home court to allow attacking players such as Noonda and Jiuli to keep rushing to Ajax's defense. The Ligue 1 team obviously adjusted better in their condition, while Ajax was still adapting to Arteta's existence.

Sometimes it's like this. Getting used to high-speed Mercedes and suddenly letting you slow down is not an easy task. This leads to a little confusion in Ajax's overall rhythm, and the organization and sorting of the midfield are also terrible.

It was the first time that Mascherano appeared on the European stage. He lacked experience and performed very poorly. He was replaced by Ye Qiu with De Jong during the halftime break, but in the end he could not stop Ajax from losing 1:2 away. Deschamps' team is indeed very competitive.

This game also made Ye Qiu notice another player, Patrick Evra, who had played in Ligue 2 for two years in Nice and was brought to Monaco by Deschamps for his outstanding performance. Judging from this game, the speed was very fast and the attack was very strong.

Although he lost in the first warm-up match, Ye Qiu was not disappointed at all.

When interviewing with the media, Ye Qiu even said in a joke, "I can even accept that the team lost to the Cruyff Cup!"

In the Super Cup in the Eredivisie, Ajax, who has double champions, will face his arch rival Eindhoven at Arena Stadium. This is also the first time that Ye Qiu and Hiddink face to face. Many people are even speculating that this will be a preview of the Eredivisie championship. Is it true that the famous World Cup coach Hiddink is better or the young coach Ye Qiu is more popular?

Ye Qiu himself also attaches great importance to this game. Although the Dutch Super Cup is an optional warm-up match, the opponent is Eindhoven, which is different. Moreover, it is at Arena Stadium, and it can't get much to beat the team's morale.

However, there is one person who must be in a worse situation than Ye Qiu, that is Leeds United's new head coach Venables.

This local coach who plays an important role in English football is very happy to be in charge of Leeds United. The fans are happy, the club is satisfied, and England is also celebrating the whole country, but he must endure the dilemma of selling his core player who can't be exaggerated.

The team's financial darkness has always become a haze over the heads of Leeds United players. Although Ferdinand is still in the defense line, and players such as Woodgate, Dubery, Viduca, Robbie Keane, Fowler are still there, it is obvious that the team's morale has plummeted. Even if Venables takes charge, it cannot change the situation of players' disintegration.

At Elland Road Stadium, Venables' first game after taking over Leeds United was beaten 3:0 by Ajax. The defense line led by Ferdinand and Woodgate was humiliated by Ajax. The fans at the scene were also full of righteous indignation, but more could only helpless.

But it is worth noting that two of the team's three goals were scored after Arteta fell off the field in the second half. After Yaya Toure came on the field, they formed a more tacit interaction with Sneijder. Their midfielder seemed more impactful and aggressive, and Hunterlaer and Van der Mede also seized the opportunity and scored goals respectively.

With 1 win and 1 loss, Ajax's warm-up match results can only be considered as average.

Ye Qiu has his own understanding of the team's problems. He thinks this is not a problem with the player's strength, but a problem caused by the degree of tacit understanding in cooperation and the inadequate adaptation to the overall style of the team.

Arteta is a Spanish style with relatively delicate skills. It is almost very different from the style of playing football in Sedo Keita in the past. In the past, Sedo Keita hardly dribbled the ball, but now Arteta dares to dribbled the ball, and its skills are very good and its speed is not bad.

With his body, his flexibility is guaranteed, and his speed cannot be slow. In addition, his delicate technology is very good, and his ability to turn around and get rid of the ball on his back is also very good, which makes him almost completely different from Sedo Keita.

From a technical and tactical perspective, Arteta's joining brought about positive changes to Ajax, but it only takes time to adapt and integrate into the team. Ye Qiu also arranged for Arteta and Sneijder to partner in daily training.

For a team like Ajax that adopts a high-level oppression defense system, the opponent's defense is dense and compact, and there must be many opportunities to get the ball behind his back, which requires players in the team who have the skills to get the ball behind his back and turn around to get rid of it.

In the past, it was Sneider and Ibrahimovic in front of him. The opponent often easily strangled Sneider to limit Ajax's ability to effectively advance the ball when he was intensively defended, so that when he was under strict defense, Ajax's offensive threat was greatly weakened.

Maybe some people are wondering why they have to take the ball with their backs and turn around to get rid of it?

This is an inevitable choice, because the ball path usually starts from the backcourt, and the entire propulsion is from the defender to the midfield to the forward. In this way, players with high positions, especially midfielders, must retreat and receive the ball with their backs to the opponent. Otherwise, how can they cooperate with their own players in the backcourt?

However, after receiving the ball from behind, the choice of passing angle that can be made is very narrow. Generally, you can only choose to pass the ball against your own half. In this way, the speed of the ball is slow. However, if you have the ability to turn around and get rid of it, and then turn around and get rid of it after receiving the ball, it will directly change from being facing the attack direction to facing the attack direction head-on, which is a direct threat.

If you lack the ability to turn around and get rid of the ball, there is another option, which is the choice that Ajax often used last season, divides the side and breaks through the wing, and successfully brings the ball to a horizontal line closer to the goal than the receiver, and then knocks back. In this way, the receiver can catch the ball head-on and face the attack direction directly.

Of course, this is based on the premise of ground cooperation in the promotion, but if you use a long pass, you can avoid the embarrassment of holding the ball behind the back to the maximum extent. Therefore, you can see that many seemingly powerful teams often play long passes. In fact, it is because they lack the ability to turn around and get rid of the ball behind the back, and have no strong breakthrough on the wing, so they can only choose long passes.

All defenses are based on preventing the opponent from attacking the direction of the offensive.

Barcelona's midfield dual core, Xavi and Iniesta, the reason why these two players can support Barcelona's entire midfield organization and penetration, and the reason why the whole of Europe is terrified that their passing and creativity are only part of it, or even a trivial part. What is really terrifying is their turn and get rid of it.

Both midfielders with strong ability to turn around and get rid of the game, even under the surveillance of the opponent's tight defense, can still create threats anytime and anywhere.

Creativity and passing are all things that happen after turning around and getting rid of it. As long as you face the direction of the attack and raise your head, you can see at a glance what is ahead, what loopholes are there in the opponent's defense line, how your teammates plan to attack, everything is clearly seen. As long as you are a little creative and have a good pass skill, you can meet this requirement.

So many people say that Xavi and Iniesta are so creative and pass, but in fact they are all empty. The most powerful core weapon of these two midfielders is their ability to turn and get rid of things. This is why they are better than other midfielders, and why so many midfielders always perform worse than the two of them in Barcelona.

Now, Ye Qiu poached Arteta and let Arteta and Sneider form a dual-core midfield core. In fact, it is to value the ability of these two players to turn around and get rid of their abilities. He firmly believes that once these two players develop tacit understanding, Ajax's midfield is well-functioning, and the strength of the entire team will be greatly improved.

It is because of this that Ye Qiu focused on the early stage of the season to carve Arteta and Sneider and help Espanyol integrate into the team.

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After playing two warm-up matches, Ajax returned to Amsterdam for two days to rest, the team boarded a plane to China. In China, they will play three warm-up matches in three cities and then return to Amsterdam for a two-week trip.

This is the first time Ye Qiu has returned to his motherland as the head coach of Ajax. What he did not expect was that in Guangzhou, the first stop, he and Ajax were supported and affirmed by countless domestic fans.

The shameful performance of the national football team in the World Cup has disappointed domestic fans, and domestic players generally perform sluggishly in the European arena. Only Ye Qiu has such excellent coaching performance in Ajax and has long been given the title of European coach by many media, which has naturally become the pride and hope of domestic fans.

The team stayed in the hotel and training ground in Guangzhou were watched and welcomed by fans. The enthusiastic domestic fans made the Ajax group of players stunned. Chairman Van Prag had also explained before that in addition to training classes and games, the players should do their best to satisfy the fans' wishes.

Taking advantage of the end of the World Cup wave, Ajax set off a new football wave in China.

In Guangzhou, Ajax played surprising strength in his first warm-up match, defeating his opponent 4:0, and firmly controlling the game from beginning to end. Ye Qiu even casually changed the starting 11 players during the break, because he led 3:0 in the first half, so he naturally had to hone his substitute lineup more.

After winning the first warm-up match, the team went to Shanghai and had another warm-up match in Shanghai. Ajax defeated his opponent 3-0 again and won two consecutive victories in the China Tour warm-up match.

It has to be said that the pressure put on Ajax by domestic teams is still very bad compared to that of European teams, so in China, Arteta and Sneider performed very well, and the two players also quickly improved their tacit understanding of cooperation through competitions and training.

On the contrary, Mascherano, introduced by Ye Qiu, was not as good as De Jong in the midfield position, which is surprising. Argentina's midfielder must have the strength, but it is still a little unacceptable. Ye Qiu naturally chose to entrust the Dutch with outstanding performance.

Therefore, in both warm-up matches in China, De Jong got the starter and played for a long time, and his performance was outstanding.

After finally coming to Shanghai once, Ye Qiu wanted to take the opportunity to invite Chen Zhong out to meet him, but unexpectedly, Chen Zhong was on a business trip and even Huang Jinsong was not there. When Ye Qiu went to visit Chu Yun, he heard that something happened to the group recently and both of them were very busy.

After only two days in Shanghai, Ajax went to Beijing without stopping and played a warm-up match at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing. He finally defeated the team that was claimed to have not been defeated in the Workers' Stadium 5-0, ending his trip to China.

Three warm-up matches, scoring 12 goals and losing zero goals, this result has generally given domestic media satisfactory answers to Ajax's visit. After all, Ajax played very hard in these three games, and the team also demonstrated the strength that European powerhouses should have.

After Ye Qiu's last warm-up match in Beijing, he took time to accept an interview program from CCTV Sports Channel. In this program, he talked more about his own team and talked about his longing and ideals for the future.

"I am personally quite satisfied with the current strength of this team, but it is not strong enough. I think we still have a lot of room for improvement. We can perform better. We will continue to work hard for this."

"I actually haven't thought too much about my own question, because I have always had a wish, that is, to prove it to everyone in European football, whether it is European or our compatriots in China, I have to prove it to them. I can do it well in the position of professional head coach, and even, I hope to be the best one day!"

"I also give this sentence to all those who like football. We will not be worse than anyone else. Therefore, don't belittle yourself, don't give up hope, and you will never end up self-improvement and will definitely have a day of success!"

After Ye Qiu finished recording the program, he returned to Amsterdam from Beijing the next day. He didn't know when the program will be broadcast or how effective it was. However, after the program was broadcast, Chen Jun called Ye Qiu and heard that the response was very good.

Back in Amsterdam, Ye Qiu specially held a tactical meeting for first-team players, specifically commenting and analyzing the situations that occurred in the past five warm-up matches, as well as the team's shortcomings and shortcomings at this tactical meeting.

In the three warm-up matches of the China tour, because the opponents were relatively weak, Ajax dominated the situation and controlled the scene well, so the players' performance was also better. Arteta, Sneider and De Jong's three-midfield combination also showed their strength initially and established a certain tacit understanding.

The offensive combination of Maicon and Van der Fate on the right and Robben on the left constitutes Ajax's two-wing flying tactics over the past two seasons. This is also the strongest and most threatening routine in Ajax's offensive. It tear opens the opponent's defense line through the attacks of two sides, and then forms a direct threat through the back insertion of the middle.

Compared with the past two seasons, Ajax directly invested less troops on the offensive end. Unlike Sedo Keita who liked to directly attack, Arteta's direct offensive ability is not excellent. He is not strong in scoring ability, and more often organizes and transports shells behind the offensive players.

Because of this, Ye Qiu is preparing to further release the offensive ability of Macon and Lucio, the two players, behind the scene, especially Macon. This player's offense on the wing is very threatening and his crossing ability is also very good. After Van der Fate cuts inward, he can completely press on and be a right winger.

With Arteta and De Jong behind him for defense, Macon and Lucio's turnaround forward can be more resolute and reassuring.

However, when defending, the height of the midfield becomes a problem.

When Gilberto Silva was there, although the Brazilian's heading skills were not very good, he had a strong sense of position and excellent prediction ability. In addition, his height and body shape were placed there, his shocking power was still very strong and he was very sure of controlling the high ball.

There is also Sedo Keita. The most easily overlooked thing in the Mari midfield is his prediction of the landing point of the high ball. Carefully analyze the header in Ajax's back goal. The proportion of headers accounts for a heavy proportion, and the other is long shots. Both of these are his signature weapons, and the header relies on the prediction of the landing point.

But now Arteta and De Jong have congenital shortcomings on the high ball, which also makes Ajax's midfield defense need to be adjusted. Ye Qiu can only choose to fill this defect through Lucio's front pressure, but in this way, some variables will inevitably be added, such as Lucio's goal to grab the landing point, how to defend behind him? How to protect?

If we consider Eindhoven's so-called double tower players, Ye Qiu would have to make some preparations in advance and put some effort into defending the ball, because he can be sure that Hiddink will use this to make a fuss.

In short, it is just a sentence that moves the whole body with one stroke.

The impact of the midfield reorganization, even now, is just the beginning.
Chapter completed!