After a 12-day long holiday, Shanghai Port, as the temporary leader of the Chinese Super League standings, gathered and trained on September 7 to prepare for the 25th round of the Chinese Super League on the 15th.
As Wu Lei and other eight international players are preparing for two international A competitions for the national football team, Abrahan Halik, Wang Yiwei and Liu Zhurun will all return to the team before the league.
Coach Javier, who was previously questioned by the media and fans, got the opportunity to prove himself again. However, the coaching staff could only resume training with a group of rotation players first, and the Harbour team re-embarked on the road to the Chinese Super League title with confusion.
Is 12 days off too long
After losing 3-1 to Henan in the round of the 24th round of the Chinese Super League on 24 August, the league ushered in a valuable 20-day hiatus. The next round of the league is the 25th round of the Chinese Super League on September 15, when Shanghai Port will face Changchun Yatai at home.
Although Harbour have lost 3 and drawn 1 in their previous 4 games, especially the historic home miss to the AFC Champions League group stage main match, Javier still gave the team up to 12 days off, and the coaching team also returned to Spain for vacation. The calmness and calmness of the coaching staff and the club reflect the incomparable confidence in the heart, but it makes the outside world feel somewhat surprised.
In the past 12 days of vacation, except for the national number players who were raised, the rest of the harbor players basically trained at home, and the coaching staff assigned certain physical training tasks to the players. However, it remains to be seen whether the quality of players' home-based training will be reliable.
In a way, Javier may be the most favorite manager in the entire Chinese Super League to give his team a long vacation. The last league break, the 12th round of the Chinese Super League ended on June 9, and the 13th round of the league kicked off on June 28, with a 20-day break in between. In the end, the Harbour team had an 11-day holiday, becoming the club with the longest vacation among the 16 Jun in the Chinese Super League.
In contrast, Shandong Taishan, which was a league rival of Shanghai Port at that time, only had 5 days off; Shanghai Shenhua, rivals in the same city derby, also only had 6 days off. For the rest of the clubs, the holiday time is basically controlled at about 7 days, and none of them have more than 10 days off.
From the analysis of the data analysis of the 11-day long vacation given to the team by the Harbour coaching staff in June, it is mixed: because the long holiday allows the players to fully adjust their psychology and relax their moods, the Harbour team has made great progress in July after resuming the league - whether it is a 2-1 win away to Guoan or a 5-0 sweep of Shenhua by Shanghai derby, the team is full of vitality.
However, with the intensive schedule of the weekly double competition, the harbor team took 11 days off, resulting in insufficient training intensity and insufficient physical reserves during the interval, and the main players, especially the old players, "had empty fuel tanks". Entering August, especially from August 12 to 25, 4 games were played intensively in 14 days, as long as there were only 3 days in between, Shanghai Port lost all of them: first defeated Zhejiang 3-4 at home, then humiliated 2-3 at home to Thai Pathum United, and then lost 1-3 away to Henan.
An insider analyzed that the four winless games of the Harbour team in the August battle exposed too many problems, and the lack of physical fitness of the team members was the key. He said: "The harbour team is such a good card, as long as the players do not have physical problems, the team is not easy to collapse. Looking back, the four winless games under the intensive schedule in August not only exposed the shortcomings of the coaching staff's lack of rotation of the squad, but also proved that the previous break may have been too long, and the team's physical training and physical reserves were insufficient. In particular, some rotation players, because they usually do not have many opportunities to appear, even after debuting, they do not seem to have much physical advantage. ”
If the results of the Harbour team were indeed excellent during the league break in June, it would be reasonable for the coaching staff to take a long vacation to reward the players; During the break in August, the team had lost successively in the Chinese Super League and the AFC Champions League, and the coaching staff was still on holiday for 12 days, which was incomprehensible. Of course, to some extent, this reflects the strength and confidence of the coaching staff and the club. However, some netizens questioned: "Is the coach's vacation more important than the team's training quality and goals?" ”
Reflect on whether the summary is in place
In the current Chinese Super League standings, Shanghai Port is still 9 points ahead of the second-place Shandong Taishan team, and the team's basic set has not changed qualitatively. However, in the face of the sluggish state of the August summer campaign, the coaching staff first needs to carefully summarize, find the problems, and come up with targeted solutions.
Henan player Nimanja Ković (left) celebrates a goal during a match on August 25. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Jianan
If the coaching staff adopts an ostrich attitude of ignoring and pretending to be stupid and stunned to the problems exposed by the previous team, and has a fluke mentality that "time can solve all problems", then the whole team cannot form a unified understanding and cannot wind up at the ideological level, then even if the harbour team still has a point lead, but in the face of the next fierce competition, it is very likely to be reversed by competitors at the last moment and reduced to "Chinese Super League Arsenal".
This season, Javier's dilemma in charge of Shanghai Port is actually similar to that of Portuguese Andreas Pereira in the 2018 season. At that time, the team also aimed to win the league championship, but under the intensive schedule of hot summer battles, especially weekly double matches, due to insufficient rotation and imbalance between attack and defense, the team lost one after another, and confidence fell into a trough.
In the face of the crisis, on the one hand, the arrival of the World Cup in Russia ushered in a valuable one-month hiatus for the whole team; On the other hand, Pereira and the coaching staff carried out a very careful and meticulous reflection and summary, and finally concluded that the team's formation position was too high, the soldiers' mentality was impatient, and stars such as Hulk did not trust their opponents and chose to go it alone after encountering difficulties, resulting in sharp counterattacks by opponents, and the team lost its way.
Shanghai SIPG head coach Vitor Pereira at a press conference on March 5, 2019. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ding Xu
The coaching staff led by Pereira came up with targeted solutions after deep reflection and careful summary. The first is to appropriately lower the formation position of the whole team, from the high position of the whole field to suppress the high defense, lower the posture to the low defense; Secondly, the whole team collectively attaches importance to defense, the coaching staff and captain Hulk reached a gentleman's agreement, the captain needs to set an example, and the first time after losing the ball, counter-grab defense; Finally, it is necessary to strengthen the rotation to ensure that the main players maintain their physical fitness and allow more players to join the battle. After deep reflection and solutions, Shanghai Port successfully came out of the trough and won the 2018 Chinese Super League title.
The question is whether the foreign coaching staff of the Shanghai Port team, which has just returned to Shanghai from vacation from Spain, will reflect and summarize, find the crux of the problem, and come up with a targeted solution. In the author's opinion, the defeat of the harbor team in August was nothing more than two major problems: the first is the balance of attack and defense, after the arrival of new foreign aid Joao, the original small counterattack flow tactical system of the harbor team was broken, and there was a loophole in the first ring of the defensive system that did not suppress enough defense in the center position, resulting in the complete disappearance of the overall pressure system in the front court of the harbor team; Secondly, the main team members are not physically fit, especially the rotation is insufficient, and many strong substitutes have Akagi in their hearts but have no chance to appear.
On August 18, 2023, in the 23rd round of the Chinese Super League, Shanghai Port played Meizhou Hakka at home. Photo by Haishal
At present, the Harbour team's back line is aging as a whole, with central defender Zhang Linpeng, right-back Wang Shenchao, left-back Lui Wenjun and defender Cai Huikang, all over 34 years old, who were visibly exhausted in the second half of the ultra-intensive schedule of 4 matches in 14 days on August. At that time, the coaching staff of the harbor team only dared to rotate and was good at rotation, so that more young players with physical strength, blood and fighting spirit appeared, such as Yang Shiyuan and Li Shenglong, which could help maintain the vitality of the team and ensure the ability to move when defending.
In the next September campaign, the harbor team actually no longer has the trouble of intensive schedule, after all, the Chinese FA Cup and the AFC Champions League have been out, and the Chinese Super League is basically a weekly match. However, 8 international players such as Wu Lei and Zhang Linpeng, who are the core of the local players of the Harbour team, will still be plagued by lack of physical fitness.
At present, the eight harbour internationals have to represent the national football team in the two international A competitions on the 9th and 12th, and the return to the harbour team is a period of physical fatigue. At this time, how to scientifically deploy these 8 international players, how to properly use the rotation players, how to stimulate the enthusiasm of the whole team, will once again test Javier's tactical ability and management level.
Column editor-in-chief: Chen Hua Text editor: Chen Hua Title image source: Haishal Image source: Haishal, Xinhua News Agency, Harbour Club official Weibo, etc. Photo editor: Chen Hua Editing email: [email protected]
Source: Author: Wei Bing