The Young Lion

Benitez borrowed alcohol to relieve his sorrow, and he was not drunk with beer, as if complaining and as if from the heart, he said in a deep voice: "I really envy you."

Aldridge lifted Erlang's legs and said, "What can you envy? My coaching team is also on thin ice, and I am worried every day."

"Tell me about your team building process. After I was fired, I watched a month's game video at home. I wanted to find out why I failed, but I couldn't find an answer to convince myself."

Coaching has the potential to become an excellent head coach. There must be a tenacity in my heart.

Aldridge got up and took a few bottles of beer on the coffee table, stupefied: "The only place I have an advantage over you is that when I took over the team, I had the power to push the team down and rebuild it. At that time, Millwall It is the top six players in the League One, and there are many strong players in the team, but I can only let them go, because they will not listen to me, and the way of thinking of playing is not short-term, so I I cleaned the team and went to buy the players I wanted. No, it should be the best player I can buy."

Benitez raised his hand to interrupt him, confused: "What do you mean? I've watched Millwall's game live, your players are great, why, aren't they what you want?"

Aldrich shook his head and said: "No, it can only be said that I choose the best under limited conditions. Look at the players on my team. Where did they come from before? Larsen dug from the Netherlands. Trezeguet was brought back from Argentina, Schneider came from the German second team, Nedved came from Eastern Europe, Stam came from the Dutch underdogs. In the main lineup, Thuram, Southgate, Mark Leila, Piley, and Larson, these people spent almost 10 million pounds! Two years ago, Fleet Street was laughing at me as a silly upstart, but I want to dig Ajak The main force of Slovakia, to dig up the good players of the Italian team, to dig up the star of the Ligue 1 popularity, not to say that the club sells or sells, how many players will be willing to come to Millwall? That’s it, if it’s not that I can’t follow the contract Young players have signed the auto-cancellation clause for failed upgrades, and they may not come! At first they came here for the gold rush! The salary I gave them was several times or even tens of times their original salary."

Benitez's head turned a little bit, and asked indifferently: "But obviously you made it, how much is Larson worth now? How much is Nedved?"

Aldrich shook his head and smiled bitterly, "You can't count that way. Let me give you a simple example. In 1992, George Weah transferred to Paris Saint-Germain. What's the value? Five million dollars. In 1994, how much did I buy Thuram? ?3 million pounds! And Weah is a forward, Thuram is a defender, and you are replaced. You must feel that my brain is flooded! I was spending more than 1 million pounds on Pires. You think the other club owner will Wouldn’t it be a loss? I also spent more than two million pounds on Makelele. He was a full-back on the team."

Benitez was stunned. In this era, the value of offensive players is significantly higher than that of defensive players. Even in Italy, where defense is famous, defensive players at most narrow the gap with the value of offensive players.

Zidane, who will move to Juventus in the summer of 1996, what is the value of the transfer? 3 million euros, of course, there is no euro at this time, which is calculated based on the exchange rate, but this value is also related to the player's contract period.

Although the current Ligue 1 position in European football is higher than in later generations, it is not the center of European football.

Aldrich’s difficulty in buying players is obvious, with high salaries and high prices digging up a few mainstays, and then others are introducing undiscovered geniuses from the second- and even third-tier European leagues.

Benitez wanted to understand and said, "In this way, it will be easy for you to build a team."

Aldridge snorted, waved at him and got upstairs, Benitez put down the bottle and followed behind him.

On the second floor, there is a room where Aldridge specializes in researching his team. The shelves of the room are filled with video tapes, which are all the team's games and training videos.

He pointed to a row of video tapes on the shelf and said, "When you watch all of Millwall's last season's games in order, and then watch this season's games in order, you know how I build the team. Now."

Benitez was very interested in the videotape. He sat on the single sofa and started playing the videotape. Moreover, he did not take himself as an outsider. He picked up a notebook and a pen from the desk beside him, and watched the videotape. Write and write on the notebook.

In more than 90 minutes of video, when he fast-forwarded or slowed down deliberately, Aldridge accompanied him.

In the middle of the night, Benitez looked back at Aldridge after watching the first ten games of Millwall last season: "Your team's initial tactics were too monotonous?"

Aldridge shrugged and said, "What do you think? You can buy players and then you can make them perfect directly? When these players arrive at the team, it's a piece of sand. You need to water, blend, and step by step to shape what you want. The castle, the sand won’t turn into a sand castle by itself."

Benitez understood at this point what Aldridge meant by walking on thin ice.

The team needs a shaping process at the beginning, and there is also a sequence problem, whether it is from the offense or the defense. There is no absolute difference between the two, but both need patience and skill. Aldridge just chose Start with the defense first, and some coaches can tune the team's offense at the beginning, and then gradually make up for the defense in the process of breaking through, finally reaching the balance of offense and defense. Both are the same way.

Aldridge's team is young, and the heavy blow of defeat is unbearable, so he can only start from the defense.

"I went to bed."

Aldridge turned away after saying hello. Benitez just nodded and continued to watch the video. For these coaches who studied tactics, once they began to study the game video, they entered a crazy like a demon. State, often unable to feel the passage of time, only to stop when the mentally exhausted brain is blank, Benitez is now in a state of mental excitement, he wants to study the secret of Millwall’s success, so even when the time comes Late at night, he did not intend to go to rest.

Aldrich only greeted him when he was on vacation and he still had a job. If he didn't greet him well, he would sleep.

The next day, when Aldridge went out, Benitez was sleeping on the sofa in that studio. Aldrich ignored him and went back to the team to host the training.

Because the club also issued tickets to the fans who caused the incident, the relationship between Millwall and the fans has become very tense in the past few days.

The fans split into two factions, one was a demonstration led by extreme fans, and the other was a group of fans led by Brady's Roar, who held up banners outside the training ground.

On one side, "Aldrich, you failed us!"

On the other side, it reads "Always support Mad Lion!"

It seems that the two do not match, and there is no meaning of confrontation, but Aldridge is the club owner after all, and the declaration of the roar is cheering Aldridge.

The atmosphere outside the training ground distracted the players. After all, the noise outside the court was annoying.

But a few days later, the extreme fans who made trouble in East London were taken away by the police for investigation. Before the arrival of the weekend league, the voice of the opponents became weaker and weaker, because the leaders among them all entered the police station.

The Lion’s Cave Stadium was full, and Millwall’s stadium was originally small. With the sudden increase in the team’s reputation, the stands were full, and neutral fans couldn’t buy tickets if they wanted to see the ball.

In the penultimate round of the league, Millwall played against Aston Villa at home.

This is the third match between the two teams this season.

Once in the league and once in the League Cup final, Millwall's record was one tie and one win.

Aldridge sat in the box to watch the ball with his father, and Benitez also appeared beside him to watch the game.

When Aldridge heard the commentary on Aston Villa's appearance list and formation on the box TV, he suddenly felt speechless.

His heart was hazy, and he originally planned to send a substitute to play this game, but yesterday the locker room collectively asked for the main force to play. The players naturally wanted to impact the league championship. Against their collective will, they can only choose to compromise.

Aston Villa is now ranked fifth in the Premier League. Although from the traditional rankings, they only hope to enter the European stadium next season if they break into the top four, but the FA Cup semi-finals list is released, except for Manchester United and Millwall. In addition, the other semi-finals are Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Unless Nottingham Forest can finally win the cup, otherwise the top four teams will receive a ticket to the European Winners’ Cup, and the league will receive a fifth Tickets for the League Cup.

There is little hope of entering the top four, because the first group is Newcastle United, Manchester United, Millwall and Liverpool are left behind by the top three, but Liverpool can pull the team behind by a gap of six points, so, The competition for fifth place in the league is fierce.

In addition to Aston Villa, which is temporarily fifth, there are Arsenal, Everton, Blackburn, Tottenham, Nottingham Forest. The smallest gap between them is the tie, the largest four points, the league has In the five rounds, everyone hopes to get the fifth place.

Because of this cruel situation that requires every point, Brian Little followed the 532 defensive formation in the League Cup finals, and today was a more thorough visit to the Lion's Cave Stadium with a 541 formation.

The attitude is obvious: I just want a point!

The game turned into a half-court offensive and defensive drill. Millwall faced Aston Villa's copper walls and iron walls with nothing to do, especially when the opponent strengthened a midfielder.

Benitez looked at Millwall's attack and couldn't get in, turned around and said to Aldridge: "The opponent's formation should be 5131. If more detailed, it is 14131."

Aldridge nodded, and Aston Villa was really determined to have a draw.

In addition to Simika's dragging the central defender, midfielder Taylor played a similar role as a dragging central defender behind the three midfielders, except that he swept back and forth in the midfield, which was originally defensive in the three midfielders. On the basis, Aston Villa's defensive system has really become a solid fortress with double insurance inside and outside.

Millwall's offense was only smooth on the periphery, but when he came to the danger zone, he was drowned in the dense defense of Nakamura.

"How to break?"

"I can only rely on luck. Millwall's tactical system this season is difficult to face intensive defense, the wing is strong, the middle is a little weak, and next season I will make the wing as strong as the middle."

Aldridge is a little helpless, this is a problem of tactical system, just like Arsenal playing 532 if faced with intensive defense, then most will be a dull 0:0.

Millwall's current 442 has a strong side, but the middle road only depends on Nedved. Some strongmen are difficult. Under the situation of being marked by the opponent at all times, he does not have much room to play.

In the end the game was fixed at a score of 0:0.

In the whole game, Aston Villa scored a zero-footed shot, Millwall shot only 17 goals with only five feet.

Aston Villa and Millwall each scored one point.

I originally thought Millwall had won the championship, but the news from the other side was incredible.

Newcastle United drew Leeds United and Manchester United lost to Southampton away.

Millwall still maintained a three-point gap with Newcastle United, but evenly scored with Manchester United, relying on the advantage of more goal difference than the opponent to climb to the second place in the standings.