Chapter 37: The third round is coming

After interviewing Li Qingshan, Defu went back and wrote an interview report. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info, however, the newspaper editor-in-chief refused to report the report. Defoe could only regretfully put the manuscript he had spent a few years writing in the drawer and thanked him again according to the routine.

Later, Li Qingshan also paid special attention to the "Manchester Evening News", if he saw his own report on it, he planned to buy it and collect it, how to say that this is also the first time that his name appeared in the media. As a result, I followed several issues in a row, and I didn't see any articles about myself. There have been a lot of reports about FC United, but the content is basically the same. The only one whose name appears throughout the story is Carl. Coach Marginson, as for the players' interviews, usually start with "according to a player from FC United......

There is still more than a month to go before the third round of the FA Cup, and England has reached the rainy season in December, but there is no so-called "winter break" for English teams, and even during December, England's professional league will enter the "Christmas Express", when the Premier League and Championship teams have fully begun the journey of the Cup. Unlike other countries, England has two main cup competitions – the FA Cup and the League Cup.

Of course, for FC United, they can't participate in the League Cup, which is only open to league teams. So relatively speaking, their schedules will not be as tight as those of the professional leagues, with only three league games to play in December, plus one at the start of January, and four league games before the third round of the FA Cup.

However, since the opponent in the third round was Liverpool, Coach Marginson has focused all his training on the training mode against Liverpool. Coach Marginson doesn't care about the league, anyway, they are now 18 points away from second place, and this gap has basically locked in a promotion spot.

Despite this, FC United also stands out in the seventh division, and despite the loss to Nick, top scorer Li Qingshan has few people to stop in a game of this level. The league match on December 1 was away to Blyse Sparta, and FC United won 3-1, with Li Qingshan scoring two goals and performing well. The following on December 8, they won 4-1 away at Huensford Town and 2-0 against Grantham Town on December 15. After this game, the team had a fifteen-day off-season, and the players went home for Christmas. And Li Qingshan also experienced a handful of Western Christmas culture with a group of Chinese villagers in a foreign country. On January 3 after New Year's Day, the team played Nantwich Town away, and the game was a little bumpy, perhaps because the players were still on holiday, or maybe they were thinking about the upcoming FA Cup third round, and the team was 2-0 down at the end of the first half. Just when fans thought the team would suffer a second win in the league, Li Qingshan scored three headers in the second half to help his team win, while also scoring his sixth hat-trick of the season in the league. If the seventh division has a player of the season selection, even if Li Qingshan is no longer playing from now on, he should be able to be elected by virtue of his crazy performance in the first half of the season.

During those games, FC United's focus has been on the FA Cup clash against Liverpool.

Liverpool are a more typical English team with a direct and fast style of play. However, this season's new head coach Brendan Rodgers is known for his passing and ground attack. During his time at Swansea, he transformed the style of a quintessential English team into a continental football style, with a distinctly Barcelona tinge. This has also transformed Swansea from a lift into a team that can survive steadily in the Premier League. It was in the light of Brendan Rodgers' success at Swansea that the Liverpool hierarchy decided to hand over the managerial position to the young coach who was less than 40 years old.

In recent years, with the increasing commercialization of the Premier League, the economic strength of the Premier League team is the highest in Europe, and more and more continental European players have come to the Premier League under the attraction of sufficient funds, which has also brought more tactical richness to the Premier League. With the success of Arsenal's transformation, more and more English teams are looking to learn the virtues of continental football.

Liverpool's results have been inconsistent in this competition, but as the league progresses, the team has become more and more Rodgers-tinged.

Marginson edited footage of Liverpool's games this season and showed them to his players. Analyse the performance of each Liverpool player and tell them how to deal with the situation. At the end of each day's training, he always finds an hour to attend this tactical lesson.

Li Qingshan's task in this game is of course to score goals, although not many people can think that FC United have the ability to break Liverpool's goal, but in this team, Marginson can only trust Li Qingshan's attacking ability.

Due to Nick's departure, Marginson decided to play a single center in this game, putting Li Qingshan alone in front to contain the opposing guard. Add a defensive player in midfield. This is also the usual practice of a weak team playing a strong team, shrinking the half court and waiting for a counterattack.

"Today is the last training session before the competition." Marginson stood on the pitch and explained the training to the players. "After more than a month of defence, I think everyone is tired of it. Today we trained set-piece tactics. A weak team plays a strong team, and set-pieces are a very important weapon. Hopefully we can take advantage of the few set-pieces in the game. Let's warm up first. ”

With a big wave of Maternson's hand, the team began to warm up under the leadership of assistant coach Roy.

After the warm-up session, Marginson began to practice attacking free kicks and corners in front.

This training is a practice in which the attacking players face the goalkeeper directly without a defender. After that, the defenders will be joined for confrontation training.

In addition to Dean Stott, who was responsible for the set-piece kick, the personnel in charge of attacking in this training only arranged Li Qingshan, central defender Jones, and midfielder David Butch to participate. If the set-piece attack is not successful, the opponent will counterattack, and it is easy to be scored by the opponent if there are not enough defenders at the back, especially if the opponent is a team of Liverpool's level, you should be more cautious.

Li Qingshan was of course the main attacker, and although there were only three people involved in the attack, it was difficult for the other FC United defenders to prevent Li Qingshan's header attack.

This situation did not make Marginson breathe a sigh of relief. Even though he doesn't have any expression on his face, as a manager, he has to look confident at all times. But his heart has always been clouded. He has no confidence in whether Li Qingshan can compete against Liverpool defenders.

Despite this, FC United have been preparing for this game for more than a month.

The last rays of sunlight in the sky were swallowed up by distant mountain peaks. The stadium lights come on. Marginson stood on the edge of the pitch, listening to the sound of the players on the pitch calling each other and the whistles of cars coming and going outside the pitch. Pick up the whistle in your hand. It was their final training session before the third round of the FA Cup.

Tomorrow afternoon, they will be on this pitch to face a giant opponent.

This battle between warriors and dragons.

In the end, one of the dragon's small claws disembowels the warrior.

Or the small warrior overthrowing the majestic dragon.

Tomorrow, we will know.