Chapter 14: Warm-up match

Millwall’s pre-season training kicked off. Aldridge was on the team’s training ground almost every day, personally supervising the training of the players’ various projects, and instilling tactical ideas into the players during the rest and relaxation, even he would Discussing each player's position on the field and the development of technical characteristics separately, and he does not need to translate directly in the exchange. In the past eight years, he has learned the major languages ​​used in Europe except for football training courses. , Although not proficient, but more than enough to communicate with the players.
The young players here have extraordinary talents. Aldrich’s instructions can only make them less detours, such as Vieira. At the age of 18, he also feels that he is a material for playing traditional centers. Makelele also actively entered. In the role of the full-back, etc.
Aldrich was patient and used the results of the training process to verify the correctness of his player transformation, but maybe it was only his sincere diligence with the players every day that moved the players sincerely. In a short time, Aldrich Qi and the players have established a good relationship, which is a good foundation.
In daily training, Aldridge will join a match that lasts only 15 minutes.
15 minutes without a win or a penalty shootout.
This makes many players "dissatisfied".
At the end of each day's matchup, the players would always ask Aldridge intently: to play for another half an hour? 20 minutes? 10 minutes is also good!
Who can get hooked in 15 minutes?
Even if it is an ordinary person playing football, has it been called in 15 minutes?
This short game is to keep the players hungry for the game. If the training is exhausted and exhausted, then the excitement in the official game will be greatly reduced. Football training also needs to be suppressed first and then suppressed in the training. The player's desire to play, and then let them be completely released on the green field, burst out!
Therefore, the players asked for an extension of the confrontation. Aldridge always smiled and shook his head. Then he and other coaches picked up the football from all over the training ground and put it away. Although the club training field has dedicated workers, Aldridge As long as you have time, this kind of idle work will be taken care of, which makes the atmosphere inside the club harmonious.
There are two or two weeks away from the opening of the English Premier League. During these two weeks, the club arranged three friendly matches to warm up against Birmingham, Oxford United and Pittsburgh United.
These three teams were all dropped into the second division last season. Aldridge is looking for such a weak team to train his troops. Naturally, it is to build confidence for the boys.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, the stands at the Lion’s Cave Stadium were full, probably because the stadium was too small and had less than 20,000 people. The audience was naturally Millwall fans.
On this field, Aldridge ushered in the first opponent of the friendly, Birmingham.
Aldrich walked out of the tunnel with his coaching staff early and came to the coach seat of the home team to sit down.
In a warm-up match, the tactical layout has been issued yesterday, and the appearance list has also been fixed, which can be regarded as the main candidate for Aldridge's mind this season.
Goalkeeper: Catherine Keller.
Guards: Thuram, Stam, Southgate, Lucas Neal.
Midfielders: Schneider, Makelele, Nedved, Piret.
Forwards: Larson, Trezeguet.
This list of appearances is more surprising when 17-year-old Trezeguet appeared on the starting list, not 21-year-old Solskjaer.
There are six forwards in the team, the youngest is Trezeguet, the largest is Larson, and then Solskjaer and Kevin Phillips.
Solskjaer was recognized by the coaches and players on the first day of the team's training. He even laughed that the free signing forward was the next Hiller picked up by Millwall.
But Aldridge can only make a choice for this kind of happy troubles. Solskjaer’s technical characteristics and Larson overlap somewhat. In the field of England, Aldridge needs a person who can stand in the penalty area. The striker in the heels, originally Aldridge pinned his hopes on the king of the small penalty area, but Fanny's feeling in training was somewhat disappointing to Aldridge. Many players need a "knowledge" time. It seems that Luca Tony and Van Nistelrooy are not conscious now.
Trezeguet, who was only 17 years old but physically strong and courageous, showed great impact in training. It is probably related to his early entry into the professional league in Argentina.
Aldridge sat on the coach seat and chatted casually with Jenson. Jenson met in Ajax and trained some stars. He said that Millwall is full of expectations, although he regretted that he was away from Ajax. The talents of the stars are still far away, such as Ovimas, Seedorf, Cruywitt and so on, who are now shining on the first team of Ajax.
Aldrich heard Jenson’s words and thought about it carefully.
His team of stars, from a technical point of view, really can not be compared with the large number of shining stars in Ajax's contemporary era. Ovimas' technical and speed combined with a seamless wing performance, it is simply gorgeous.
Aldridge shook his head and smiled bitterly, probably the football atmosphere and characteristics of the English League. He really avoided the kind of gorgeous skill-based players in his signing. What about master stars.
However, in terms of the intensity of the physical collision, if you want to land in the Serie A, the body cost is not lower than that of England. The Italian concrete defense and intense collision are almost like steel impact, but England is slightly behind in technology and tactics. Rough, the most basic physical confrontation on the football field is fierce, all the same.
Talking and chatting, Aldridge suddenly stood up from the coach's seat, he suddenly found the strange atmosphere in the stands.
In his memory, the stands of the Lion’s Cave Stadium are loud and full of human voices. Listen carefully. There will be a large number of profanity-song-song songs against the opponent. There has never been a moment of tranquility.
But today, he found the stadium stands too calm.
He stood on the sidelines and looked around the stadium for a lap, and found that the fans sat quietly in the stands. In addition to some fans holding up the new season's commemorative scarf, which has the name of Aldrich on it, he expressed his support for the new head coach and boss. Fans still enjoy football, but in the past, fans were easily infected by the surrounding environment. In recent years, English football has been fighting football hooligans, at least in the Super League and the First League have received very good results, Millwall as a blow Focus on the team, the most active is only the extreme fan group like Bushwackers.
Probably Aldridge stood up and appeared on the sidelines. The sparse applause rang from the stands, and then lasted for a long time.
In the stands in the southeast of the stadium, Millwall’s team song sounded: No one likes us, I don’t care (Noonelikeus, wedon\'tcare)!
Aldridge looked around the stands and sat back. He knew that most of the fans still supported him, but many of them were on the sidelines. After all, Aldridge directly destroyed their stable team lineup in recent years. .
Soon, the players came out of the player channel. This was just an ordinary friendly game, not even a TV broadcast. The club's ceremonial held a microphone next to the player channel to broadcast the list of players.
Whenever a player's name spread across the court, cheers and applause rang from the stands.
They don't care how old these players are and where they used to be. As long as they know they are wearing Millwall jerseys, they are desperate to win. This is enough. Support, support to death!
Aldridge walked in courtesy and shook hands with Birmingham's head coach, not much to talk about, even Aldridge was still secretly saying: It is best not to see him again in the future!
Birmingham will play the second division next season. Unless it's a cup, Aldridge certainly doesn't want to see the other coach again.
The game started very quickly, Aldridge sat on the coach seat and watched the game quietly.
The other coaches also watched the game but showed anxious expressions.
The average age of Millwall's lineup is only in his early twenties, and the players opposite Birmingham are the old guys who have been on the battlefield. As soon as they come up, Birmingham has the advantage on the field, and the waves of simple long pass The hoisting created enormous pressure on the Millwall line of defense.
After Birmingham's offense, Millwall's counterattack was not good, and turnovers were frequent. Even the technically delicate Schneider and Piret had low-level pass errors.
The scene was very passive, and Jansen leaned into Aldridge's ear and asked: "Whether to wake them up, they are too nervous."
Aldridge didn’t blink, he said lightly: "They haven't entered the rhythm of the game. You see, in only fifteen minutes, Schneider gasped for breath. As soon as he got nervous and desperately sprinted, he almost made his brain lack. Oxygen, it’s okay, let them find the feeling first, but it’s just a friendly game, but our back line is very stable. This surprised me. It’s a good thing to not miss the ball.

The combination of Stamgasosgate, Stam in the air defense, although occasionally a bit rushing to grab, but there is a midfielder who changed to play full-back Thuram and the defensive sense of Southgate to help him make up the position The dangers on the back line are just false alarms. With the addition of Makelele Ganedved in the middle, they are all top-notch and Aldridge has no reason to worry.
The warm-up game is to let them restore the feeling of the game and get used to the rhythm of the game. In integrating the team's offensive and defensive coordination, Audridge's first priority is naturally defense. As long as the defense does not have tactical defects, he does not need to go to the sidelines to give players Pressure, otherwise may cause stable performance of Southgate, Thuram, Nedved and other players mistakenly think that the main coach is dissatisfied with them.