Chapter 29: The Shrinking Siena
On September 21, 2008, it was still 9 pm Beijing time. The third round of Serie A Piacenza's home game against Siena is about to begin.
As a small team, Siena is well versed in relegation. After relegation in 2005-06, she has been able to stay in Serie A stably for three consecutive seasons, but the club has invested quite little, which is not easy in Serie A with such fierce competition.
As a club that has clearly positioned its goal as relegation from the beginning of the league, Siena's score strength is definitely the top.
A strong team will maintain one point, a weak team will get three points, and a relegation will directly compete with the competitor? Then do it to death.
There is no doubt that the information revealed by Siena in this game, whether it was the arrangement of troops or the speeches of the players and the head coach before the game, was to regard Piacenza as a strong relegation opponent.
The 451 formation, the starting lineup, a group of powerful defensive players, and the forward who became famous at speed on the bench, almost without thinking about it, Siena's tactical arrangements are known.
First, rely on bus tactics to consume opponents' physical strength, and then when the players on both sides are exhausted, the fast forward players send a fatal blow. This is the commonly used tactics Siena has used in recent years. They are simple but very easy to use.
Because Siena's head coach Alberto Malezani has long polished the team's tactics to the extreme.
It is a big deal to change coaches in small clubs like Siena, so as long as the coach leads the team's results are justified, they will not easily change coaches. And Malay Sani, the coach who has successively led the team to relegate, naturally has no reason to be replaced.
In this way, he naturally gave him enough time to polish his lineup and tactics. The old coach, who is now nearly 60 years old, has a deep understanding of the chain defense that is famous in Italy and has also instilled this concept into the entire team.
In terms of defense, he maintained the concept of defending all players. Although he was a little stubborn, it was very useful for the team to stick to the score. It can be said without hesitation that if necessary, this team can even take on the responsibility of a forward.
Conte and Piacenza have never encountered such an opponent, so when they saw the opponent put the bus out from the first time of the game, Piacenza's entire team was a little confused.
As a result, the first half of this game became the most uncomfortable and ugliest game for Piacenza for a long time.
The opponent was like a big turtle huddled in a turtle shell, and he would never show his head no matter how he was seduced. This made Piacenza's tactic of trying to draw out the opponent's formation in half the game become useless.
Once Piacenza's offensive players go deep into Siena's half, they will inevitably face it with endless entangled defense.
All kinds of disgusting but not fouling small moves, as well as almost seamless defensive fill-ups, made Piacenza's offensive players very uncomfortable. Not to mention that Cassia was not good at his feet, even Liu Feng played very miserably.
When facing the opponent, he often is interrupted by other defensive players when trying some difficult and fancy moves. In the end, Liu Feng found that it is better to simply change direction and surpass others.
However, in this simple change of direction is a situation where defense personnel are dense, what is needed is a continuous sharp turn and sudden stop, which consumes a lot of physical strength. However, in order to help the team open up the situation, Liu Feng had to bite the bullet in the end.
In the first half, Siena's entire team had only one shot, and this shot didn't even hit the goal frame. Piacenza relied on Liu Feng's penetration in the middle and left to complete an effective attack.
But Siena's bus was really disgusting, and Piacenza's shots in the first half were finally limited to only three shots.
Except for one of the shots, which was cut in from Liu Feng on the left, hit Siena's right post because of a small move by the opponent's full-back, the other two shots were confiscated by Siena's goalkeeper Gianlucapegolo in his arms.
"Well, Siena's bus tactics make this game quite dull."
Liu Jianhong was helpless when he watched the players of the two teams walk into the locker room silently. Siena's tactics would indeed make the sidelines look bad: "But A Feng still had a few wonderful performances."
Many fans in front of the TV were already a little sleepy at this time. If Liu Feng hadn't had a few flashes of inspiration and made a few beautiful breakthroughs and passes on the court, it would be very likely that many fans would have fallen asleep directly.
"The coaches on both sides should make some changes in the second half."
Liu Jianhong naturally didn't believe that Siena came for a draw from the beginning. Although their playing style is very unpopular with fans, it has to be said to be quite effective. As long as the Piacenza players are polished in the second half, Malezani will definitely take off the butcher knife in his hand.
"Padalino, be ready to replace Nocerino in the second half."
"Okay coach."
In the locker room of Piacenza, Conte had already made a decision in his mind after the first half of the game. The best way to deal with Siena's hard-defying style is to take the lead. He didn't believe that when he was behind, the opponent would still be huddled in the turtle shell and not come out.
So using Padalino with strong offensive ability to replace Nocerino became Conte's first move: "Razha, you will directly press forward after Padalino comes on the court, and we will play four forwards."
"no problem."
Conte calmly dispatched troops and decided to change the formation directly after the start of the second half if the situation did not change at all.
The transition from 433 to 424 can be said to be the most smooth transition of formations that Conte played at this time. As long as it is used properly, the team's offensive ability will definitely be greatly improved. As long as it quickly leads Siena and then chooses other formations, it will be very casual.
"Come on your mind, the opponent's highly concentrated defense will definitely consume more than you!"
Conte looked at the players who were disheveled by Siena's defense and shouted loudly in the locker room: "What you have to do now is to blow open their doors and completely invalidate their buses."
"roar!"
On the court, the mentality of the players is definitely an important factor that determines the direction of the game.
Siena and Piacenza are now in this competition. If Siena really relies on one bus to lock Piacenza for 70 minutes, once Malesani changes the team, the blow to Piacenza will definitely be devastating.
But likewise, if Piacenza takes the lead in completing the breakup, their process of ending Siena will be ruinous.
Chapter completed!