Young Football Player

Not long after Li Chenglong joined the team, the official game came soon.

On August 20th, the first round of the German Cup, that is, the top 64, Schalke 04 went to an away game to challenge the German third team Saarbrücken.

The first round of the German Cup is held before the start of the Bundesliga every year, and the first round has a special system. 18 Bundesliga teams and 14 Bundesliga non-promoted polo teams form the senior group, 4 Bundesliga newly promoted teams and 28 lower teams. Level teams make up the lower divisions.

In the first round, the high-level group played against the low-level group, and the low-level team had home court advantage.

The reason for this is that the German Football Association believes that this can help those low-level teams increase their income.

For example, if a low-level team draws a competitive Bundesliga team, the tickets will definitely sell very well.

Of course, this special competition system is limited to the first round.

After the first round, lots will be drawn for each subsequent round, and the home and away games will also be random.

Facing a Bundesliga team this time, and it was also a Bundesliga relegation team, Schalke 04 coach Hub Stevens did not let Li Chenglong enter the squad. After all, he has only joined the team for a few days. And in the summer, I played in the Olympics.

Jackie Lee watched the game while learning German at home. In the end, Schalke 04 easily won the game 5:0 away without any accidents.

Although most Germans can understand English, and even speak a little bit, in Germany, German is the mainstream, and Lee Chenglong also needs to do as the Romans do, and learn German as soon as possible.

Li Chenglong himself is very good at English, German and English are both Germanic languages, and there are still some intercommunications, so as long as you learn more, talk more and watch TV, you should be able to learn it quickly.

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After the German Cup, Li Chenglong began to train with the team again.

During the time he came to Schalke 04, Li Chenglong also basically figured out the tactical formation of the team's head coach Huber Stevens.

Hub Stevens is a Dutchman. He played as a central defender when he was a player. He was considered a well-known defender in the Netherlands at that time.

Later, after becoming a coach, by leading Roda JC, a small Eredivisie team, to the Dutch Cup final, Stevens was valued by Schalke 04's meritorious chairman Aschauer at the time and let him take charge of Schalke 04 handsome.

In the 96/97 season, in the first season of Stevens coaching Schalke 04, he successfully led the team to the Europa League final, and finally drew 1:1 with the Serie A giants Inter Milan in the final. Successfully defeated the opponent with a penalty shootout and won the most gold-rich championship in the history of the Schalke 04 team.

Relying on this championship, Stevens has stabilized his position in Schalke 04. He has been coaching Schalke 04 for 6 full years, during which time he was still young, and won the German Cup for two consecutive years.

Stevens's two consecutive German Cup wins are actually quite tricky.

In 2001, Schalke 04 really almost won the German domestic double crown, but unfortunately there was only one German Cup champion in the end, leaving only the famous "four-minute champion" in the Bundesliga.

In the last round of the Bundesliga at that time, if Schalke 04 won and Bayern lost, Schalke 04 would be able to overwhelm the opponent and win the championship.

Although Schalke 04 had some twists and turns at home, they still won the opponent Unterhaching 5:3 without any risk.

But on the side of Bayern, the king of the south, they faced their old opponent from decades ago, the king of the north, Burger.

Hamburg really wanted to snipe Bayern, and it really almost did it.

The score was 0-0 for most of the game, but in the 90th minute, Hamburg forward Barbarec beat Bayern's Swedish defender Anderson and scored with a header from a random cross from Hamburg.

At that moment, not only Hamburg was boiling at home, but Gelsenkirchen, hundreds of miles away, was also boiling.

The goal in the 90th minute is simply a lore goal. Schalke 04's first Bundesliga championship is coming.

The referee at the time gave a 4-minute "extremely long" stoppage time, and then the problem really lay in this stoppage time.

In the last minute of stoppage time, Bayern desperately pressed forward and the Hamburg players chose to pass the ball back to the goalkeeper to waste time.

Then Hamburg goalkeeper Sobel inexplicably used his hand to catch the pass from his teammate's feet. This is undoubtedly a violation of hand receiving. The referee gave Bayern an indirect free kick in the penalty area.

So Swedish defender Anderson, who made a big mistake a few minutes ago, volleyed and scored to help Bayern equalize the score.

The championship that Schalke 04 had almost won was snatched back by Bayern.

Throughout the process, Schalke 04 only occupied the top spot for four minutes, so it is the "four-minute champion".

In four minutes, Schalke 04 experienced a magical journey from hell to heaven, and from heaven to hell.

In the German Cup in 2002, needless to say, everyone knows that the pharmaceutical company Leverkusen, which has been triumphant throughout the season, is in sight of the Triple Crown, but lost three championships in a row within 10 days, becoming He became the famous Sanya king in football.

At that time, Leverkusen was defeated by Schalke 04 in the German Cup final.

It is worth mentioning that last season, ten years after Bayer Leverkusen's Sanya king, Bayern successfully replicated the miracle of the pharmaceutical factory. They became the second Sanya king in European football, and they were the same as Le Verkusen had the exact same formula - Champions League runner-up, Bundesliga runner-up, DFB-Pokal runner-up.

After 2002, Stevens left Schalke 04 and successively coached Bundesliga teams such as Hertha Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg.

There is no doubt that Stevens is a standard veteran of the Bundesliga. He has been in German football for a long time. Whether it is a relegation team or a European team, he will always come.

Not long after the start of the Bundesliga last season, Schalke 04 head coach Ralph Rangnick resigned due to physical reasons, so Stevens, who happened to be at home, entered the palace for the second time and started his second coaching trip to Schalke 04 .

His coaching performance last season was pretty good. He successfully helped Schalke 04 get the third place in the Bundesliga, an ideal result.

According to Li Chenglong's understanding in the past few days, he also knows Stevens' main tactics.

In fact, at the beginning of his coaching career, Stevens was a standard defensive coach, focusing on defensive counterattacks. Schalke 04's Europa League champion was won by defensive counterattacks.

However, after being in the Bundesliga for a long time, Stevens also has some flexibility and no longer blindly defends and counterattacks.

Many teams in Germany like to play games openly and close. Playing defensive counterattacks for a long time can easily arouse the disgust of players.

Therefore, the current Stevens is not conservative when facing ordinary teams, but he still places great emphasis on defensive counterattacks when encountering real strong teams.

The current Schalke 04 lineup is mainly based on the 4231 formation, but occasionally Stevens will make some changes, such as changing formations.

Li Chenglong's current position in the team, he is the first candidate for the right forward position.

If Li Chenglong wants, he can also switch to the left midfielder position.

At present, Schalke 04 does not have any strong candidates in the left and right midfield positions.

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