Leicester City beat Liverpool 1-0 at home, breaking a small upset.
Leicester City have been heavy in recent competitions, having met Liverpool twice in the League Cup and premier league in seven days, interspersed with a Premier League match against Manchester City.
In such a short period of time, three consecutive meetings with the two giants of today's English football can be described as more bitter than Huang Lian for Leicester City.
However, no matter how hard it is, the days will go on, and in front of Leicester City Coach Rogers is a two-volume thick academic topic "How to Survive in the Cracks?" "How to maximize the interests of the team in the face of adversity?" 》
Rogers painstakingly pondered the countermeasures, and finally, patting his head, remembered a small story he heard from the far east in his early years - "Tianji Horse Racing", although playing football and horse racing are two different things, but this set of strategic ideas that avoid reality is very desirable, Rogers decided to learn and sell now, and use what he learns.
With me above the horse, against the lower horse of Liverpool: the League Cup, Leicester City to play the main force, against Liverpool almost full rotation;
Take me below the top horse, against manchester City above the horse: Premier League away to Manchester City, Leicester City greatly rotated, against Manchester City's full main squad;
Take me as the top horse, against the top horse against Liverpool: The Premier League returns home to play Liverpool, both sides are the main force, but I have the advantage of the home field, may not be able to fight.
Here we will explain a little bit why Rogers' strategy is modeled after "TianJi Horse Racing", but it is not completely consistent with "Tianji Horse Racing".
First of all, Leicester City has no need to arrange the upper, middle and lower lineups, either rotating the lineup or the full main lineup, as long as the main lineup has sufficient rest time.
In addition, football games do not have strict rules and restrictions like horse racing, and they have to be divided into three different levels of competition, rogers only needs to guess what kind of lineup the opponent will send according to the order of the matches with each opponent and the importance the opponent attaches to different events, and decide what kind of lineup he should send.
Compared with Manchester City, which has a thicker squad, Rodgers believes that the same opponent Liverpool in the first two games of this devil's schedule will be a relatively weak breakthrough, after all, Liverpool has a long tradition of sending rotational squads to train in the League Cup, plus, Liverpool's many main players are infected with the new crown, even if the Premier League returns, the state is likely to be not the best.
I have to say that Rogers made a good calculation.
However, the first game of the "Tianji Horse Race", the game that Rogers originally thought was the most certain, Leicester City was unfavorable, 3-1 lead was a good situation, Shengsheng was chased by Liverpool to 3-3, when the penalty shootout, Kelleher's divine pounce, but also let Rogers carefully designed the "superior horse to inferior horse" tactic, completely reduced to a laughingstock.
When Leicester City's "inferior horse" against Manchester City's "superior horse", the ending naturally does not need to be said, although the process has some ups and downs, but once the setting of the "surrender bureau" has been pressed, the final result is difficult to change.
Therefore, the last game against Liverpool, the home defense battle, became the last straw for Rodgers' "Tianji Horse Racing" series of tactical practices, and in this game, Leicester City is the winner as long as it can maintain the draw.
Coincidentally, Liverpool was very face-saving, Salah scored 15 consecutive penalties, only to lose the most undeserved one, and then the header was made up, and the ghost made god smash on the crossbar; Mane had a hard time breaking through the middle of the road, resulting in an anti-aircraft cannon, and Lukeman's same breakthrough, but for Leicester City in exchange for the only goal of the two teams in the game.
Liverpool manager Klopp bluntly said after the game that "this kind of Liverpool is not quite right", but isn't this also what Rogers is sure that Can happen to Liverpool? Although the odds of this happening are not very large, Liverpool have really been "good people".
Thanks to Liverpool, Rogers went from "capitulationist" to "strategy master" in an instant.
However, I personally still feel that Rogers's somewhat ingenious approach is not a behavior worth advocating, especially in the kind of clubs that aspire to be ambitious, Leicester City, which was still aiming for four in the first two seasons, and now whether it can successfully obtain a European place has become a problem, which is enough for Rogers to take a good look at himself.
"Instigating" this kind of thing is contagious.