Almighty Coach

Chapter 336: The Final of the AFC Championship League

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

In the home page of a news site, the news that Dingtian Club had entered the final game of the AFC Championship League was placed in a quite conspicuous position. Fen Luo looked at the webpage with knitted brows.

"Why didn’t Chairman Xiao take any action?" Fen Luo murmured to himself.

Several days ago, Fen Luo publicized the news that Yunan Xiao had gotten a boyfriend. He hoped that Dingtian Xiao would get this news. Fen Luo was certain that Dingtian Xiao would definitely interfere in the love affair of Yunan Xiao and Dai Li, for Dingtian Xiao was not satisfied with many talented second-generation riches, let alone an ordinary coach like Dai Li.

However, several days had passed, but Dingtian Xiao did nothing. It seemed nothing had happened, which surprised Fen Luo a lot. Just at this moment, Fen Luo’s mobile phone vibrated, and he got a voice message in his WeChat.

It’s Lefeng Gu. Isn’t he in Singapore now? Why does he contact me? Fen Luo hesitated a bit, and then clicked on the voice message.

"I’ve heard Yunan Xiao has gotten a boyfriend. Is this news true?"

Fen Luo picked up his mobile phone and sent a voice message back: "It’s real. Why? Still can’t forget Yunan Xiao, right? She has refused you, definitely, for the last time, and her father also doesn’t have a good impression of you."

"Stop saying that. Is this news accurate? Could it be a rumor?" another voice message was received.

"It is reliable news, and I have seen it personally. That guy was doing exercises together with Yunan Xiao, and even drove her home. Yunan Xiao has admitted that he is her boyfriend," Fen Luo spoke with some frustration.

"Got it. I will return to China several days from now, and I will come to visit you then," said another voice message.

"Hey, Lefeng Gu, don’t do anything stupid," Fen Luo said immediately.

"I know what I will do," Lefeng Gu replied.

Fen Luo put down his mobile phone, his expression unnatural.

As a second generation rich, this Lefeng Gu is a famous black sheep. His family is also a shareholder of Dingtian Club. It seems this guy will make a mess again this time. Think of it in this way, I am a little bit sympathetic to that coach...

...

The two final games of the AFC Championship League would be held in mid-November and late November respectively. To facilitate Dingtian’s preparation of the final games of the AFC Championship League, the Chinese Football Association had postponed the final game of the CFA Cup until December.

Before that, the date of the CFA Cup games used to contradict with the games of the AFC Championship League. At that time, the football association didn’t expect the domestic clubs would enter the final eight or final four of the AFC Championship League, so the football association didn’t take the games of the AFC Championship League into the consideration of the scheduling of the CFA Cup. As a result, the football association was criticized by the fans fiercely, some of whom even blamed the football association for the failures of domestic clubs in the games of AFC Championship League.

Now, the domestic clubs were much more powerful than before, especially for clubs like Dingtian, which could strive for winning as the champion of the AFC Championship League. Therefore, the pressure of public opinion, and the reality of it all, had forced the football association to further elaborate their work. It was quite normal that the schedule of the CFA Cup made concessions for the games of the AFC Championship League.

As a matter of fact, the domestic league was just an appetizer for Dingtian Club. In this season, Dingtian was indeed invincible in the domestic league. The value of hundreds of millions Yuan, invested by Dingtian Club to recruit the team of Harman, as well as the first-class players like Neol and Martintes, was fully displayed.

When Dingtian invested a lot of money to recruit the team of Harman, a lot of people were mocking Dingtian Club for spending money to no avail. Now, however, several rich clubs in the domestic league planned to make heavy investments, just like Dingtian Club. Some clubs even started the negotiations and hoped to introduce star players and famous coaches in order to enhance the strength of the clubs.

However, all these investments would take effect in the next season. In this season, Dingtian Club was still invincible among the rest of the clubs. The opponent of Dingtian Club in the final games of the AFC Championship League was the Al-Ain Club of UAE. Al-Ain Club was one of the best clubs in UAE, and could even be considered as one of the best clubs in west Asia. The club had a history dating back nearly 50 years, which was still no match for those century-old European clubs. Although, it could still be considered as a time-honored club in Asia.

Al-Ain Club used to win as champion of the AFC Championship League and over 10 champions of the domestic league of UAE, as well as several champions of the UAE Cup. As for the lineup of the club, Al-Ain was quite similar to Dingtian, in that it was recruiting a lot of players of the national team and investing a lot of money to recruit Brazilian players for key positions, like the midfielders and forecourt players.

In fact, in the final game stage of the AFC Championship League, the strength gap between the clubs was not obvious. All clubs were at the same level. Sometimes, a little bit of good luck might decide the final result of the games.

The game schedule of Dingtian Club was still the same – they would have an away game first, and then have their home game. Since Dingtian had won as champion of the domestic league in advance, they had over 20 days to prepare for the first round of the final game for the AFC Championship League.

...

During the tactics discussion meeting, Dai Li sat in the corner and kept silent, as if he was totally marginalized. In fact, Dai Li couldn’t get a single word in the discussion, for each member of Harman’s team, even the Team Doctor Maraloni, was better than Dai Li in the understanding of soccer tactics.

After all, Harman was among the top-level soccer coaches in the world. He also used to coach the top-notch clubs in Europe. Therefore, the tactical ability of this team was flawless.

After the discussion meeting, when everyone was leaving the meeting room, one after the other, Dai Li was stopped by Claude.

"Well, could you understand the tactics we have discussed just now?" Claude asked.

"Frankly speaking, not very well, especially for the tactics of the left wing," Dai Li said.

Claude took out the tactics board and started to draw on it slightly, "Actually, this tactic is not very complicated. You see here, when we are on the offensive, our left back fielder will push forward. Meanwhile, one of the two center backs will fall back, while the other center back will go left. In this system, the left back fielder will act as a midfielder in the offensive. The defensive midfielder will also move forward. We put Martintes in the position of the defensive midfielder. When he moves forward, the opponent will fear his offensive ability, so they will arrange more people to stop Martintes. Once their defensive line moves to Martintes, one of our offensive players in the upfield will be freed to create the opportunity of a goal."

He continued: "There are two key points in this tactic. The first one is the left back fielder. He should keep moving forward and backward, to change his position, so that the defensive players of the opponent can be distracted. The center back, who moves left, should have some organization ability and be active enough. He should pass the ball rapidly and accurately to create opportunities for his teammates."

Dai Li nodded to show he had understood the tactic, while Claude continued his explanation, "In fact, our players are still not good enough to meet the requirements of Coach Harman completely. Therefore, we keep changing our formations, from 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-3-2-1 to 3-5-2, we have tried them all. In one game, we tried to use 2 or 3 different tactics. Most of the time, we want to have more complicated tactic cooperation. However, the personal competence of our players is hampering the smooth implementation of our tactics."

...

In the next 10 days, Claude gave explanations of Harman’s tactic system to Dai Li regularly. Although Claude was just a physical trainer, he had been following Harman for 10 years, so he knew Harman’s tactic system very well. The best way to learn was to learn from the best. From the aspect of tactic theories, Claude was absolutely better than the head coaches of those small European clubs, and several levels higher than the coaches of domestic clubs. Of course, he was not as good as the professional soccer coaches in sideline coaching. After all, he was just a physical trainer.

Dai Li kept absorbing new knowledge crazily. Along with the increment of the soccer theoretical knowledge, his soccer physical training was also more and more efficient. In mid-November, the first final game of the AFC Championship League was held in the Khalifa International Stadium of UAE, which was also the home court of Al-Ain Club.

Also in November, the winter of UAE had come. As a country with a tropical desert climate, UAE’s winter was mild, and the temperature was between 10℃- 20℃. Also, the winter here was quite dry, even posing occasional sand storms during the season.

Therefore, it was not difficult for players of Dingtian Club to adapt to the climate in UAE. In addition, the dry weather here could even enhance the players’ performances in the game. If the game was held in summer, most players would be influenced by the high temperature in UAE, which would be over 40℃.

After several weeks of preparation, the two teams were fully prepared, so the game was quite exciting at the very beginning. In its home court, Al-Ain wanted to score goals as early as possible, so their offensives were quite fierce. However, Dingtian didn’t solidify their defense, before launching a counter attack as usual. They also started their offensives.

The two teams fought over ball possession hotly. After a while, everyone had figured out the tactical intention of Dingtian. Dingtian’s goal was to score as many away goals as possible.

The games between clubs were different from the games between the national teams. There was only one final game of the World Cup. If the score was tied in 90 minutes, the additional overtime periods were played. If the score was still tied after the overtime periods, the penalty shootout would be held. However, the final games of the AFC Championship League would be held for two rounds. After the home game and the away game, the total score would be calculated to decide the ultimate winner.

If the score was tied, the team with more away goals would be the final winner. In fact, the strength gap between the teams in the final four stage of the AFC Championship League was small, and the strength gap between the two teams in the final games would be much smaller. None of the teams could guarantee to win over its opponent, and also to consider, the games would be held in the home court and the away court respectively.

No one would be surprised if the final score of the two teams in the final games of the AFC Championship League was tied. Some people even thought it would be quite normal. Once the total score was tied, the away goals were critical in deciding the final winner.

For example, if Dingtian was defeated by Al-Ain with a score of 2-3 in its away game, and then Dingtian defeated Al-Ain with a score of 2-1 in its home game, the total score would be 4-4. However, Dingtian got 2 away goals, while Al-Ain only got 1 away goal, so Dingtian would be the final winner, because they had 1 more away goal. In this game system, the more goals lost in the home court, the more unfavorable situation a team would be in.

...

The players were struggling in the court, while the coaches were in a battle of wits and courage. In the 21st minute, Dingtian broke the deadlock first. The foreign player Neol grasped a defensive gap of the opponent and managed to rush into the opponent’s penalty area. For the defense line of Al-Ain, this was a severe mistake.

In order to remedy this mistake, the center back of Al-Ain shoved Neol directly to the ground. Neol won a penalty for Dingtian. Then, he scored the penalty, thus living up to everyone’s expectations. Now Dingtian had gained the advantage of 1-0 in its away game.

Behind in the score, Al-Ain started their crazy counterattack, and managed to score a goal through a free kick at the 44th minute in the first half of the game.

The score was fixed at 1-1 at the end of the first half. In the second half, both of the teams made adjustments in their tactics.

As a world-class tactic master, Harman used to change the formation 3 times in a game, and used 3 different tactics in one game. Therefore, Dingtian’s adjustment in formation and tactics was implemented thoroughly. At the same time, Al-Ain was quite unadaptable to the changes caused by Dingtian’s adjustments.

For a moment, the defense line of Al-Ain was in chaos. The players’ running of the ball was messy, which caused some defensive gaps. Dingtian scored the second goal by decisively grasping a defensive gap. The score was changed to 2-1.

Behind in the scoring again, Al-Ain performed a substitution. However, their substitution didn’t take effect immediately. Al-Ain failed to tie up the score till the 75th minute of the game.

At this moment, the players of Dingtian had almost run out of stamina.

The intensity of the final game of the AFC Championship League was much higher than that of the domestic league. Furthermore, Dingtian was also on the offensive in the first half, which consumed more stamina of the players. With abundant stamina, the substitutes of Al-Ain kept bombarding the defense line of Dingtian, while the players of Dingtian were exhausted. Finally, Al-Ain managed to score a goal and tie up the score.

However, what Al-Ain hoped for was a victory in their home court. They couldn’t accept the result of a tie, let alone the fact that they lost 2 scores in their home court.

Harman was satisfied with the score, so he sent defensive players to hold the line for the last 15 minutes, with all efforts. The referee was quite gracious to Al-Ain in their home court by giving them a 5 minutes injury time after 90 minutes. However, Al-Ain couldn’t break Dingtian’s defense line. Finally, the 2 teams shook hands at a score of 2-2.

With 2 away goals, Dingtian returned to their home court.