allendalepharm Chapter 340 The winning streak is over!
Chapter 340 The winning streak is over!
Chapter 340 The winning streak is over!
On December 12, in the 13th round of the Premier League, Chelsea played against Hull City at home.
This game is only 2 days away from the game against Portuguese sports, which is an out-and-out schedule of two games in three days.
If you change a team, it may be a headache. Even if you are playing a football manager game, you will face a screen of "full health" players and rack your brains.
But for Chelsea, the previous Champions League game was just a "friendly match" and they didn't try their best at all.
In addition, Pan Yi has already planned such a schedule, and the rotation can be completed satisfactorily in terms of personnel arrangements.
Therefore, when playing against Hull City, they can still face it in a relatively full state.
In just 4 minutes of the opening, Lukaku opened the scoring for Chelsea with a shot in the penalty area.
Then in about 25 minutes, Lukaku broke into the penalty area and was brought down to get a penalty kick. Hazard made it overnight and expanded the lead to two goals.
After that, Chelsea still controlled the situation and kept the game in Hull City's half.
Hull City's strength itself is not very strong. Under Chelsea's high pressure, they can only defend hard, and they can't spare a shot to counterattack. This also allows Chelsea to play more easily.
After changing sides to fight again in the second half, Chelsea scored another goal.
This time it was Ivanovic, the defender with a knife. After plugging in from the back row, he hit a world wave in the right corner of the penalty area.
In the end, Chelsea easily defeated Tiger City 3:0 at home and won the 16-game winning streak!
Such a record naturally triggered a discussion in world football after the game.
Because no one knows where Chelsea's end will be!
And a day later, Chelsea also booked a banquet hall in a luxury hotel in the city center and held a dinner party.
This is a celebration banquet, and it happens to be able to watch the draw ceremony of the Champions League round of 16 together.
Except for CEO Ron Gourley who went to the lottery and did not show up, owners like Abramovich and chairman Bruce Barker all came to the hotel to have dinner with the players and coaches.
Pan Yi also invited Valentina to participate, but was rejected.
Although after more than a week of body sculpting training, Valentina's physical and mental state have changed a lot, at least she won't be as decadent as she was at the beginning;
But after all, she still feels a little inferior to her slightly fat body, so she still doesn't want to come to this kind of public place to show her face.
Pan Yi also expressed his understanding of this, and let her go.
Talk about it in a while!
In the hotel, Abramovich also made a brief speech, to the effect that he congratulated the team on their achievements, and also hoped that the team could make persistent efforts to achieve better results in the Premier League and the Champions League.
Subsequently, Abramovich also directly announced that this year's championship bonus, whether it is the Premier League or the Champions League, will be directly increased by 50% on the original basis!
This of course also aroused bursts of cheers from the scene.
Pan Yi also made a speech.
He also expressed optimism about the team's prospects, but still suggested that everyone should pay attention to the schedule during Christmas and winter break.
Although Chelsea no longer have the task of the League Cup, the pressure has been reduced a lot;
But why is the annual Christmas schedule so dreadful?
It is because of the high-intensity Premier League games alone, three to four games are often arranged in a week.
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that Premier League teams will also join the FA Cup at this stage.
In previous Premier League seasons, Arsenal often lost the chain at this stage.
One of the reasons is that they pay great attention to the League Cup, especially the FA Cup. "Insulation cup" is not called for nothing!
And under the premise that the team lineup is not very abundant and the depth of the bench is average, it is undoubtedly very risky to force a four-line battle.
There is a joke that asks "What is the sign of spring?"
Answer: "First, the daylight hours are getting longer; second, the temperature is getting warmer; third, Arsenal has begun to withdraw from the championship of all competitions."
Occasionally it is accidental, but it is often the case, that is, it has its regularity.
Therefore, Pan Yi also asked everyone to be vigilant and not to make the same mistake.
In his speech, Pan Yi also said that the team's most important goal this season is to win the Premier League and the Champions League, and like other cups, everyone can play with peace of mind.
The League Cup has been eliminated, and the FA Cup is no matter where it can go. This game also gives the young players in the team more opportunities to show themselves.
This is also to relieve some of the psychological burden on the players, otherwise all the games are going to win, and there is always a string in the head, which is easy to collapse.
In addition, when the team has won consecutive victories and is almost invincible, the complacency of the players also needs to be controlled.
There are mostly young players in the team. When they achieve such good results, they will also be put in the spotlight. Fans all over the world are talking about them, and they have added a lot of fans.
Even commercial endorsements and activities will increase.
When there are more and more external temptations, players with high professionalism will handle them well and still put more energy into training and competitions.
And some young players will just float up, then float more and more, and finally fall very painful.
This is also an important reason for many "injury Zhongyong" type players.
And listening to Pan Yi's instruction, the players also nodded one after another.Of course they understand what the coach expects of them!
After Pan Yi's speech, the UEFA Champions League round of 16 draw ceremony began in Nyon, Switzerland, and the small balls representing each team began to be taken out of the glass tank one by one.
Due to the principle of avoidance in the same group and avoidance in the same country, it is impossible for Chelsea, who qualified first in the group, to encounter Arsenal, Manchester City and Dortmund.
In this way, their opponents can only be produced between Atletico Madrid, Basel, Schalke 04, Paris Saint-Germain and Shakhtar Donetsk.
In fact, for Pan Yi and Chelsea now, it doesn't matter who gets drawn in the round of 16. Anyway, if you want to win the championship and keep winning, you have to beat them all.
But if you have to choose, it is definitely better to choose the relatively weaker Basel or Schalke 04.
It's just that, with such a strong momentum now, wouldn't it be too challenging for Chelsea to play Basel or something like that?
As a result, Chelsea "naturally" drew the second place in the strongest group.
Paris Saint-Germain!
And there is another very eye-catching aspect of this game, that is, Pan Yi's two old players in Milan, Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva, are now the backbone of Paris Saint-Germain.
The result of the draw made Chelsea players whisper to each other.
Although Pan Yi also felt that he was being targeted, he still stood up and encouraged everyone:
"I like the lottery result very much."
"I just like to chew hard bones, so that we can prove our strength, don't we?"
"Our goal is the ultimate championship, and it seems too boring if the opponents eliminated on the way to the championship are all unknown people."
"So let's get ready, let's go and take Paris!"
There were bursts of applause and cheers at the dining table.
Pan Yi went on to say: "It's just that when we really go to Paris, it will be two months later."
"We still have to do the things in front of us first, and play the most recent games first."
"When we have really passed this harsh Christmas schedule, we can use the best mental state and competitive state to face the challenge of Paris Saint-Germain!..."
This is emphasized again.
Next, the draws for other Champions League teams will be completed soon.
Bayern Munich VS Shakhtar Donetsk.
Porto VS Basel.
Real Madrid VS Schalke 04.
Barcelona VS Manchester City.
Juventus VS Dortmund.
Hamburg VS Atletico Madrid.
Arsenal VS Monaco.
Except for Chelsea VS Paris Saint-Germain, the most watched of the remaining matches is of course Barcelona VS Manchester City.
They meet again!
And they met in the last 16 of the Champions League for two consecutive years.
In addition to the grievances between them, the two games of Juventus VS Dortmund and Hamburg VS Atletico Madrid are also quite interesting.
Especially Hamburg VS Atletico Madrid. When Hamburg won the championship last season, they defeated Atletico Madrid in the semi-finals.
And this season, Hamburg will face Atletico Madrid again after the lack of Pan Yi. It is also curious what kind of results they can achieve.
Compared with them, the signing luck of Real Madrid and Bayern seems to be much better, after all, the opponents are not traditional tycoons.
Arsenal also finally stopped playing Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Will they perform better when facing a relatively soft "persimmon" like Monaco? ——
On December 12, Chelsea played an away game against Stoke City.
Stoke City, a football team founded in 1863 in Stoke-on-Trent, England, has always been regarded as the second-oldest football league club in the world after Notts County. Founding members, but in their long history has actually been lackluster in terms of achievement.
Their best record is just winning the English League Cup in the 1971-72 season, and then winning two English third-tier league championships.
But since Stoke City appeared in the Premier League for the first time in the history of the 2008-09 season, they have brought many different things to the Premier League, making people remember the name Stoke City.
At that time, the head coach of their team was Tony Pulis, who was later introduced to Crystal Palace by Pan Yi, and achieved the best record in Crystal Palace history and the best head coach in the Premier League.
He first led Stoke City to a runners-up finish in the 2007-08 Championship and then promoted.
After that, they successfully avoided relegation in the Premier League in the next few seasons, ranking between 11-14. For a small team entering the Premier League for the first time, it is already very successful.
The traditional British bombing tactics tailor-made by Tony Pulis for Stoke City allowed the Premier League teams to experience what is called "Renaissance" and what is called "Looking at the Starry Sky".
At that time, there was a joke saying that the best way to treat cervical spondylosis is to swim or fly a kite, because this can raise the head and relax the cervical spine.
But there is an even better way to go to the front row of the stadium and watch Stoke play.
Or more directly, become their opponent!
Because after the whole game, you will find yourself looking up at the sky at an angle of more than 45 degrees, watching the football flying around on both sides of the field.
At that time, the average height of this team reached a terrifying 187cm, which was the highest altitude in the Premier League. Many players were over 1 meters, and the center forward Crouch was more than 9 meters...
This is also the origin of Stoke City's nickname "City of the Sky".
Of course, this "Castle in the Sky" has nothing to do with Hayao Miyazaki's famous animated film. What is said is that the ball in Stoke's "City" always flies in the "sky".
In fact, Stoke's official nickname is 'The Potters', due to the local ceramics industry.
But it is precisely because their tactics of holding high and playing high are so famous, so now when people mention Stoke City, they often think of the nickname "City of the Sky" first.
It is quite special in the history of football that a club gets a special title because of a style of play.
Of course, if it is just "high" or "English style of play", it is not very special.
After all, in England, there are quite a few teams that play long balls. Although it is difficult to be as extreme as Stoke City, there are still some.
And Stoke City's truly impressive, even groundbreaking tactic that can be recorded in the annals of football history is the throw-in grenade tactic!
Listen to a song sung by Stoke City fans at the time: "We only scored from the touchline..."
This is about their Irish midfielder Rory John Delap.
The guy had a fantastic hobby of throwing things out of the window from home at the age of two, and trained professionally as a javelin thrower before joining football.
With amazing arm strength and accurate throwing, Delap's football talent is not outstanding. He can only start his career at the low-level Carlisle United in England, and later moved to Derby County, Southampton, Sunderland and other teams.
Stoke City coach Tony Pulis, who was still in the British Championship at the time, had a discerning eye and loaned Delap from Sunderland.
Then, the throw-in grenade tactic that can be said to have shocked the world appeared.
With an average speed of 60 kilometers per hour, the longest throwing distance of 40 meters, and the great power to throw the football directly into the opponent's small penalty area, the Stoke City team relied on this tried and tested trick and finally advanced to the Premier League.
In the Premier League, this tactic is also extremely sharp, especially when dealing with some technical teams, it makes opponents very uncomfortable.
Delap's real fame was in the 2008th round of the Premier League in the 09-11 season, when Stoke City played against Arsenal as a newly promoted team at home.
In the first half of the game, Delap threw a throw-in and directly assisted Fuller to score;
In the second half of the game, Delap repeated his old tricks, vigorously throwing the sideline ball into Arsenal, ferrying Shawcross, and finally being hit by Olofiniana with the chest. In the end, Stoke City won 2: 1 win.
After this campaign, Stoke City only scored 11 goals in the first 13 rounds of the Premier League this season, one of which was scored directly by Delap, and the other 7 goals were thrown by Delap. After scoring!
Delap's grenade throw-in tactics have almost become an unsolvable existence in the Premier League.
This defeat has kept Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger in his heart, thinking that the opponent plays the ball with "hands" instead of "feet", which is not like a real "foot" ball.
Even after many years, Wenger, who became the technical advisor of FIFA, also proposed that the throw-in rules of football should be kicked with feet, which shows how deeply Delap's "hurt" to him...
Of course, Delap's throw-in is not just throwing it away, it still needs a lot of supporting facilities.
Needless to say tactics, Tony Pulis has a throw-in tactic specially designed for Delap, and there is even a proper term for this tactic, called "Drap Raider".
In terms of introducing players, Stoke City also only selects those football players who are around 190cm and strong and strong to compete for the top in the penalty area.
In order to maximize the power of Delap's throw-in ball, the Stoke City team even reduced the width of the football field at the Britannia Stadium to the limit within the scope of the Premier League rules, only 64 meters (normally 68 meters), and increased the distance between the billboard and the edge of the football field (3 to 5 meters).
Also, in Stoke City's home court, on the sidelines, including the ball boys, there are special large towels specially provided for Delap to wipe the football, so as to minimize the damage caused by the slippery ball. friction is reduced.
All this is to make Delap's throw-in throw farther and more accurate!
It's just that, now that Chelsea meets Stoke City again, they don't need to worry about being hit by a grenade.
Because at the end of 2013, this "Popeye" was retired.
And precisely because of his departure, this classic tactic of Stoke City also disappeared.
After all, this tactic relies too much on this special skill, and looking at the world of football, there may really be no second person who can throw fast, far and accurate throw-ins like Delap.
After Delap left, the power of Stoke City's high-altitude bombing tactics also declined. Later, Tony Pulis also left, and there was a story about him joining Crystal Palace later.
The current head coach of Stoke City is former Manchester City coach Mark Hughes.
He is a person who advocates technical football, but he also knows that the transformation of Stoke City cannot be rushed for a while. After all, the players in the team are still a group of high-ranking people, and they cannot all go to Zhang Fei to embroider overnight.
Therefore, the current Stoke City is a combination of backcourt advancement and long pass tactics.
There are still two tall forwards, Crouch at 201cm and Arnautovic at 192cm, but behind them is Bojan, who is not tall but has exquisite skills.
This genius who came from the La Masia youth training camp and almost swept the scoring records of all Barcelona youth teams, his development trajectory in adulthood was not as expected, but it is true that he came to a team like Stoke City where there are so many rough guys. Technology helps the poor.
And Mark Hughes' transformation of the team is obviously successful.
Their results this season have also been firmly in the middle of the standings, and the two games they defeated Arsenal 3-2 at home and swept Liverpool 6-1 also made everyone realize that the new Stoke City team is doing well. Rise and become the terminator of the giants!
Therefore, their home game against Chelsea also has high expectations.
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When the referee blew the final whistle, the more than 2 Stoke City fans in the Britannia Stadium cheered and celebrated.
But they didn't win.
The reason why they are so excited is because they didn't lose either!
At this point the score on the scoreboard is 0:0.
Stoke City draw with Chelsea!
This can be said to be a very great achievement for a team that takes relegation as its own responsibility.
After all, Chelsea this season is an invincible and powerful team!
And this draw also means that Chelsea's winning streak in the Premier League also stopped at the 16th game.
This made Stoke City's head coach Mark Hughes so excited that he threw his fists at the fans' stands in celebration.
But Pan Yi stood in front of the coach of the visiting team without saying a word.
It is of course impossible to say that he was not depressed.
The team didn't win, how could he be happy as the head coach?
It's just that today is really a bit evil.
First of all, under the cold weather in the northwest of England, Chelsea's players seemed to be less able to play football all of a sudden.
Passing mistakes began to increase, especially under the pressure of Stoke City's midfield composed of five strong men, it was difficult for Chelsea to organize an effective attack.
During the halftime break, Pan Yi immediately made adjustments, letting Kanter replace Chick on the field, and to strengthen the defense and protection of the midfield.
This move also stabilized Chelsea's position and began to play an effective attack.
It's just that Stoke City's goalkeeper Begovic also opened up today, making eight effective saves, and Lukaku also missed many scoring opportunities in a row.
In the end, Chelsea could only draw a goalless draw with their opponents and ended the winning streak.
At the post-match press conference, a reporter asked:
"The day after this game is Christmas Eve. Is the young players on the Chelsea field feeling a little distracted? And is this the reason why Chelsea can't continue to win?"
Pan Yi said that he is willing to take all the responsibilities:
"My players have done what they can do, I know, they have tried their best. The responsibility for not winning today is on me. I am a little unprepared for the Christmas schedule."
In fact, Pan Yi also understands that the unstable state of Chelsea players has a lot to do with the game played the day before Christmas.
Why is the Christmas schedule difficult to beat?
In addition to the abnormal schedule of three games in five days and two games in three days, "Christmas" itself is also a very important factor.
In this holiday that is most valued by Westerners, in most leagues, everyone should also go home on vacation, and then spend time with their families, girlfriends, wives and children.
As a result, in the Premier League, playing games during such a festival, it is inevitable that it is difficult to bring up [-]% spirits.
Therefore, in this kind of game, the comparison is often which player can concentrate more and devote more energy to the game.
Obviously, Stoke City have done a better job in this regard.
But Pan Yi will not blame the players for this.
It's human nature.
In all fairness, if you are asked to work overtime on New Year's Eve, even if you are paid overtime, you will not be as active as you usually are when you go to work...
The reporter added: "In fact, the record of 16 consecutive victories is already very remarkable. You don't need to feel too upset about this draw."
Pan Yi also smiled and said, "Thank you for your comfort. In fact, I'm not that upset."
"In football, there are no winning teams forever, and even unbeaten teams can't stay unbeaten forever."
"So this draw, in my opinion, can't even be regarded as our players have fallen into a trough, but just an accidental necessity reflected in the laws of football."
"And, I even think today's draw is a good thing for us."
"We have already broken the record, and if we keep thinking about how to extend this record, the players will be too nervous on the court. This draw can make us more relaxed to participate in the next game."
"After all, the championship is what matters."
"Then, let us spend my first Christmas in the UK happily. Then, let's consider the following games, including the upcoming winter window transfer period."
"Merry Christmas!"
(End of this chapter)