Chapter 56 Classical Attacking Midfielder (Ch 56)

The commentator is certain that Sao Paulo will play offensive football because the name of their head coach is: Trey Santana.
Yes, it is Santana who led the Brazilian national team to participate in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups and was hailed as the Samba Master.
He advocates artistic football and offensive football, and his philosophy is deeply loved by fans.
But after two World Cups that were both well received but not popular, he left the national team and went to coach Sao Paulo.
Then, Santana turned this team into a gorgeous and invincible team.
Over the past few years, he has won all the awards from Brazil, to the Copa Libertadores, to the Toyota Cup.
Perhaps, this can be considered as a kind of compensation for his two failures in the World Cup.
It can be said that Santana is one of the rare coaches in football history who is not pursuing results, but exploring the essence of football, and aims to play artistic football and please fans.
He led São Paulo to such great results by relying on gorgeous offense rather than utilitarian football.
Let’s talk about the Brazilian Serie A this season. After six games, Sao Paulo has scored 17 goals, ranking first in the Brazilian Serie A!
Cruzeiro is the exact opposite.
Although they only scored 10 goals, they also ranked first in the Brazilian League with 0 goals conceded.
Therefore, this game was early on regarded as a contest between the sharpest spear and the strongest shield!
And when the referee blew the whistle, the focus battle of the Brazilian League officially kicked off!
The visiting team São Paulo took the first kick-off.
And as expected, they immediately rushed forward to attack, hoping to crush their opponents in one wave!
But Cruzeiro was clearly well prepared and stood firm in their defensive position from the start.
Seeing that there was no chance of getting started by walking on the ground, Leonardo simply sent a long pass forward.
Louis Muller judged where the football would land and immediately accelerated into Cruzeiro’s half.
Louis Muller has the same name as Gerd Muller, the famous “bomber” of Germany in the 1970s, but the two forwards have different characteristics.
Gerd Muller is world-famous for his header and shooting skills, but Brazilian Luis Muller is more comprehensive in terms of skills.
He can dribble through the opponent’s defense and score goals, or he can cooperate with his teammates as a wingman and play as a second striker.
This is why he can firmly occupy a main position in the Brazilian national team and cooperate with another striker Romario to produce a lot of output.
Louis Muller also has strong speed and the ability to run forward into space.
This time, he found the area where Cruzeiro’s backcourt defense was relatively empty and rushed in directly!
But he immediately found that it was not easy to get the ball.
Because Luo Yi had already taken a defensive position before Muller!
Positioning is a very important factor on the court, and it may determine who wins or loses a ball fight.
Muller was suddenly pushed behind by Luo Yi, but he didn’t want to give up, so he stretched out his thigh to reach the ball.
Since Luo Yi had already protected the ball, Muller’s kick could not touch the ball at all and hit Luo Yi’s calf.
Luo Yi fell to the ground.
The whistle sounded, the referee called a foul on Muller and Cruzeiro got a free kick in the backcourt.
As a result, São Paulo’s opening attack plan completely failed.
“This Asian boy has a really good defensive awareness.” On the sidelines, Sao Paulo’s head coach Santana nodded and shook his head.
Nodding was an expression of appreciation for the defensive ability demonstrated by Luo Yi this time.
As today’s opponent, Santana has of course carefully studied every starting player of Cruzeiro, and Luo Yi, as the latest hot star, is naturally the focus of analysis.
Judging from the first minute of the game, Luo Yi was able to use his movement to induce the experienced Brazilian international Muller to commit a foul, thus completing a successful defense. This shows that the recent media praise for Luo Yi is not groundless.
It is true that the young are to be feared!
Shaking his head, the old coach immediately realized that how to break through Luo Yi’s defense today might really become a difficult problem for Sao Paulo.
On the court.
Luo Yi slowly took a free kick from the backcourt, and then everyone kept the ball firmly under their feet and was not in a hurry to attack.
An old trick of Alberto’s!
But Sao Paulo is still different from other teams.
Under Santana’s coaching, this team also has a certain degree of pressing in the frontcourt.
Their two forwards Muller and Bentinho, as well as Leonardo and Palinha on both sides, will actively press the opponent’s feet to force the ball to make mistakes.
But this kind of pressing has little effect against Cruzeiro.
This is because of the presence of two players.
One is Luo Yi. His large-scale running in the midfield has invisibly increased the passing points for his teammates, which has reduced the success rate of São Paulo’s pressing.
After all, if your opponent’s passing points are everywhere, how can you keep a close eye on him?
The other one is Cerezo.
Although he seemed to be slow and his passing and running seemed a bit careless, each of his movements was very reasonable, making it difficult for São Paulo players to predict and steal the ball.
His calm organization and dispatch in Cruzeiro’s midfield also made the operation of the entire team smoother.
“This is the legendary classic attacking midfielder.” Luo Yi also praised secretly.
The so-called classic attacking midfielder is actually the common playing style of players who are capable of playing in this position when the role of attacking midfielder appears.
They are often known for their elegant style of play, superb ball control skills and surgical passing ability, and of course they are usually the core of the team’s offense.
In this era, there have been many talented classic attacking midfielders, such as Hagi, Laudrup, Valderrama, Rui Costa, Valeron and so on.
But as time goes by, the pace of modern football has accelerated, emphasizing defensive coverage and balanced abilities, leading to the gradual disappearance of the classic attacking midfielder.
Instead, there is a modern attacking midfielder like Kaka who is more comprehensive and has stronger attacking ability.
Later, Riquelme was called “the last classic attacking midfielder”. After that, it was rare to see a similar style of play on the court.
Therefore, when Luo Yi saw that the veteran Cerezo could play the essence of a classic attacking midfielder after moving forward, he naturally couldn’t help but admire him.
It feels like the artifacts in the museum have come alive…
Cerezo’s performance today also made Sao Paulo head coach Santana feel emotional.
Cerezo was once his favorite general!
As an all-around midfielder, Cerezo played more of a defensive midfielder role in the 1982 Brazilian team, protecting the team’s core player Zico.
But what Santana did not expect was that today, Cerezo, who is already 38 years old, with the assistance of Luo Yi by his side, can still directly transform into the team’s brain and play such an excellent performance!
“The key point is still Luo Yi. Without him, Cerezo would never play so well. I have to think about how to limit his performance…”