Chapter 375 Pirlo Is Retiring, the French Have Found a Treasure!

On April 15, in the Juventus Arena, the Champions League quarter-final match between Juventus and Manchester City is about to take place.

During the entrance session before the game, some old acquaintances from Juventus took the initiative to say hello to Lin Quan.

‘Young General’ Buffon said: “Lin, let’s have a meal together after the game and treat the winner, how about it?”

Lin Quan shrugged: "If you want me to treat you to dinner, just say so. Why are you doing all these twists and turns!"

"Haha, that's not necessarily true. This is the Juventus Arena. You can't beat us!"

Buffon originally wanted to make a domineering statement and block Lin Quan, but after thinking about it, he decided not to do it.

Because he was a little conceited about sealing Linquan completely and felt unsure.

After Buffon, Pirlo also came up and talked with Lin Quan for a while.

This should be his last season in the five major leagues. Pirlo, who is about to turn 36, will most likely leave Europe after finishing this season.

Therefore, these two duels are likely to be the last battles between him and Lin Quan.

"If old guys like us go out to hunt for gold, where do you think it's more appropriate to go?"

Recently, several East Asian clubs have extended an olive branch to Pirlo, inviting him to join with high salaries.

These include the Chinese Super League and the Japanese J-League. Pirlo felt that Lin Quan was a Chinese player and might know more about the situation in East Asia, so he consulted him.

"If you want to go overseas to hunt for gold, New York City in Major League Baseball is good!"

Knowing that Pirlo would leave the five major leagues this summer, Lin Quan sincerely made a suggestion to him, that is, don't go to East Asia!

The level of the Chinese Super League is low and there is still a wage arrears problem. There are too many fake matches in the Japanese J-League. It is easy to ruin your reputation by playing there.

Compared with these hidden dangers, Major League Baseball is much better.

"New York City, the one Villa went to?"

Pirlo asked thoughtfully. Last summer, the news that World Cup champion forward Villa left Europe and joined New York City also caused a sensation in European football.

"Yes, this is it!"

"Are they reliable?"

When you go out to dig for gold, what you fear most is to encounter malicious salary arrears like Drogba. When the time comes, but you can't get the money, isn't that a huge loss?

"Don't worry about this, they are very reliable!"

New York City, like Manchester City, is a club under the City Group, and the two teams have a close cooperative relationship.

If you join New York City, you will have the opportunity to play on loan at Manchester City in the future, just like Frank Lampard in the Manchester City team.

He also went from the five major leagues to the North American major leagues to find gold, but he only joined New York City in name. After some operations, he came directly to Manchester City.

In this way, Lampard and his family do not need to leave the UK to live overseas, they can receive the high wages provided by New York City and continue to play in the five major leagues.

For Manchester City, they only have to bear a small part of the salary to rent very practical players from New York City, which greatly reduces the club's financial expenses.

The larger the football territory of the City Group, the more operations like this will happen.

At that time, as long as the Abu Dhabi consortium is willing, it can completely make Manchester City's financial report very beautiful.

Although Europe has the Financial Fair Play Act, the clubs below also have ways to deal with it.

Pirlo nodded, ready to talk to Lin Quan in detail after the game.

As soon as he left, Juventus forward Morata ran over mischievously, put his arm around Lin Quan's shoulders and said:

"Hey, boss, don't blame me for not reminding you. Our team vice-president said that we will freeze you in this game and we will not let you score any goals!"

Team vice?

Is Morata talking about Chiellini?

Lin Quan glanced in Chiellini's direction and found that the other party was indeed staring at him with hostile eyes.

Chiellini is the world's top defender and is very strong in defense.

Lin Quan would not underestimate him, so he nodded to Morata.

In addition to Chiellini, there is another person who is hostile to Lin Quan, and that is Carlos Tevez, who wears Juventus No. 10 jersey.

Tevez was transferred from Manchester City to the Old Lady, and this transfer is inseparable from Lin Quan.

If Lin Quan hadn't joined Manchester City, Manchester City probably wouldn't have expelled the Argentinian so decisively and completely broken up with him.

Therefore, in Tevez's view, it was Lin Quan who stole his main position, which made him full of hatred for Lin Quan.

Therefore, after the game started, Tevez was particularly active, tirelessly rushing towards the Manchester City player holding the ball again and again.

It can be seen that he wants to prove his strength in the game and let the Manchester City club executives see how wrong their original decision was!

However, all his efforts were in vain until Juventus' overall formation did not press forward.

It would be too fanciful for one person to want to steal the football from Manchester City.

The Manchester City players saw Tevez's fierce grab, so they passed the ball all the way back and handed the ball to the defender's feet.

The defender spreads his position widely, attracting the opponent to come and press, and then passes to the corresponding teammate.

As a result, Tevez's aggressive pressing quickly turned into a dog-walking game on Manchester City's side.

Originally, the Juventus fans applauded and encouraged Tevez's positive attitude, but after seeing the opponent treating him like a dog, they could no longer laugh.

"What is Tevez doing? His teammates are not keeping up, so he is here alone to grab it. This makes no sense at all!"

"Why don't Morata and the others come up and grab it? Don't let Tevez do useless work here alone!"

The opinions of the fans of the Old Lady are divided. Some people think that like Tevez, they should all press forward and press Manchester City high.

Some people are afraid of Manchester City's counterattack ability and think that they should not take such risks and Tevez should stop his meaningless behavior.

Morata symbolically followed Tevez to grab the ball a few times. After seeing that he couldn't grab the ball, he ignored Tevez.

If this idiot wants to rob it, he can just do it himself. I don’t want to be treated like a fool!

Morata himself is a Spanish international, and of course he knows how difficult it is to grab the ball from melon-style passing football, so he doesn't want to waste his energy doing such a meaningless thing.

After the start, the pace of the game was not fast, and both sides did not invest much troops in offense.

Manchester City tried several attacks but failed to pose a threat to Juventus' goal.

Juventus's several counterattacks had similar effects. Under Manchester City's active counterattack, it was difficult for even the midfield to pass.

Juventus head coach Allegri was very calm and did not ask the players to speed up the tempo from the beginning to compete with Manchester City.

He knows that the opponent is very strong and conceding a goal at home is fatal for Juventus.

Therefore, he planned to control the rhythm of the game, test Manchester City's weaknesses bit by bit, and after finding the opponent's weaknesses, he would use a thunderous strike to complete the fatal blow.

Allegri's tactical ability is absolutely top-notch, which is also the tradition of Italian coaches.

He has just taken over as coach this season and has not yet had time to complete a complete transformation of Juventus.

Taking the current tactics used by Juventus as an example, Allegri is good at 4312, while Juventus played 352 during the Conte period.

At the beginning of taking office, Allegri did not make drastic reforms to the team's tactical play in a hurry for quick success, but asked Juventus to stick to the 352 play style.

The advantage of this is that Juventus' overall record will always remain stable, without ups and downs affecting the club and fans' trust in themselves.

Of course, it is not possible to continue the previous tactics, because the 352 trick is okay in the league, but it has proven to be difficult to achieve results in the Champions League.

Therefore, in the middle of the season, especially in the final rounds of the Champions League group stage, Allegri began to try to change the formation to his familiar 4312.

Just like in this game, he chose to put Vidal's midfielder forward, taking advantage of the good physical fitness and strong running ability of Vidal, Pogba, Marchisio and other players.

The interception and sweep of the midfield and frontcourt are enhanced, and the defensive scope covers both wings to solve the problems of wing defense during the 352 tactical period.

In addition, Pirlo is protected by people on the front, back and left, and his weaknesses of old age, weak physical resistance and reduced running ability can also be best protected.

Although Pirlo is 36 years old, his skills are really getting better as he gets older. Juventus still needs him to use his broad vision and overall view in the backcourt, as well as his precise footwork to send fatal passes.

Although it seems that Juventus has not taken advantage of the situation now, Allegri is not worried.

Before Juventus can exert their strength, when they really launch an attack, Manchester City will feel their terror!

On the other hand, Guardiola is not in a hurry.

Manchester City can win the best in this game. If they can't win, they can accept a draw.

No matter how bad it is, as long as he can get an away goal, he can accept even a small defeat to his opponent.

It should be Juventus who should be anxious, after all, this is their home court.

If they miss the opportunity to defeat Manchester City at home, it will not be that easy to defeat Manchester City when they get to the away game!

As a result, neither side made much adjustments to their respective team's tactics in the first half, and the game remained evenly matched.

Judging from the scene, Manchester City is the dominant side.

In the first half, Manchester City completed a total of 358 passes, and Juventus only completed 220 passes, only two-thirds of Manchester City's.

In terms of ball possession rate, Manchester City's ball possession rate reached 58%, while Juventus was only in the early 40s, which was almost two-thirds.

However, in terms of the number of shots, the data gap between the two teams is huge.

Manchester City completed a total of 7 shots in the first half, 3 of which were on target.

Juventus only completed 2 shots and 0 shots on target.

Obviously, Juventus' offensive threat did not come out.

The main reason for this phenomenon is that Manchester City is far ahead in the number of steals!

Manchester City completed a total of 11 steals in the first half, while Juventus only had 6.

Among these 11 steals, Kanter contributed 7 alone, more than the entire opponent team.

"Who is this opponent's No. 13? Isn't he so capable?!"

"If it weren't for those key steals he made against Pogba, once Pogba passed the ball, our offense would have been successful!"

"It's not just Pogba, this guy has a huge range of activities. Even Pirlo, who was heavily protected, was intercepted twice by him!"

"Who is this person? Have you never heard of his name before?"

Juventus fans have a deep memory of the guy wearing the No. 13 jersey in the Manchester City team. If it weren't for his successful interceptions and steals in the first half, Juventus would not have had so few shots.

But they were very surprised because they knew very little about this man and had no idea who he was.

"This guy is a player that Manchester City introduced from a relegation team in Ligue 1 during the winter break. He had an appearance record in the last Manchester derby. According to media reports in the UK, this guy is very good at In terms of stealing, he can be called the king of steals!”

Some people who often follow Premier League games quickly gave accurate information about Kante, but this information aroused suspicion among other Juventus fans.

"Is a player from a French Ligue 1 relegation team really that good?"

"If he is really so good, then why is he not selected for the French national team?"

…

In a corner where no one noticed, Deschamps, the head coach of the French national team, also came to the Juventus Arena and watched the game with concentration.

Obviously, Deschamps is here to inspect the players' condition and prepare for the 2016 European Cup.

Next year's European Cup will be held in France. As the host, the French team does not need to play in the qualifiers and can directly enter the main draw.

This saves them a lot of time and allows them to prepare for the competition without the pressure of performance.

Therefore, Deschamps has been selecting talented young players recently and training them through friendly matches to see if there is any malleable talent among these young players.

After losing two consecutive World Cups, the French team needs to tear down and rebuild.

And talented young players will be the first choice for the French team in the future.

Currently, among France's younger generation of players, Pogba and Griezmann are the best.

Pogba has excellent physical fitness, delicate footwork, and is both offensive and defensive. He can be used as the core of the team's midfield.

Griezmann has outstanding offensive ability, and he will definitely be the core of the French team's frontcourt offense in the future.

As the two absolute main players that Deschamps values ​​most, Deschamps is very concerned about Pogba's status.

Not long ago, in the Champions League quarter-finals, Pogba was accidentally injured and missed the second round.

This made Deschamps very worried, so he came to check his condition personally to see if his injury was serious.

However, after watching the first half of the game, Deschamps did not pay much attention to Pogba, but was attracted by another French player.

After watching Kanter's performance in the first half, Deschamps was shaking with excitement.

We in France actually have such a defensive genius?

I found a treasure!