Maybe it's because Ajax reached the semi-finals of the Champions League last season, and the corresponding level of a series of warm-up matches this summer has been improved by Ye Qiu, after all, this person still has to look high, and he can't always compare with opponents who are not as strong as himself, and he will never be able to improve, right?

This year's Amsterdam Cup invites all famous teams in the four major leagues, Barcelona in La Liga, Juventus in Serie A and Manchester United in the Premier League.

Not only the opponent of the Amsterdam Cup, but also the warm-up opponent at the beginning of the training camp, Ajax has been carefully selected, and each opponent is required to have a certain strength, and finally in the two warm-up games before the China trip, Ye Qiu selected Monaco in Ligue 1 and Leeds United in the Premier League.

Both teams are not without strength, and Ajax are playing away from home, so the value of the workout is high.

But sometimes the opponent is too strong, and it is not necessarily a good thing.

Ajax was beaten in the gutter by Deschamps' team in Monaco, and the Ligue 1 powerhouse used their home advantage to let attacking players such as Roundup and Gyuli constantly impact Ajax's defense, and the Ligue 1 team is obviously adjusting better in form, while Ajax is still adapting to Arteta's existence.

Sometimes that's how it is, getting used to running at high speeds and suddenly letting you slow down is not an easy thing to do, which leads to a bit of confusion in the overall rhythm of Ajax and a terrible organisation and grooming in the midfield.

Mascherano appeared on the European stage for the first time, lack of experience, very sluggish performance, was replaced by Ye Qiu with De Jong at halftime, but in the end it was still unable to prevent Ajax from losing 1:2 away, Deschamps' team is indeed very competitive.

This game also made Ye Qiu pay attention to another player, Patrick? Patrice Evra, who previously played in Ligue 2 in Nice for two years, was brought to Monaco by Didier Deschamps for his outstanding performances, and judging by this match, he was very fast and had a strong attack.

Although he lost the first warm-up game, Ye Qiu was not disappointed at all.

When interviewed by the media, Ye Qiu even said in a joking tone, "I can even accept that the team loses to the Cruyff Cup!" ”

In the Eredivisie Super Cup, Ajax, who has a double championship, will welcome their rival Eindhoven at the Arena Stadium, which is also the first direct face-to-face competition between Ye Qiu and Hiddink, and many people are even speculating that this will be a preview of the Eredivisie champion, to see whether the World Cup coach Hiddink is better, or the young coach Ye Qiu is more in the limelight.

Ye Qiu himself also attaches great importance to this game, although the Dutch Super Cup is a dispensable warm-up game, but the opponent is Eindhoven, which is different, and it is at the Arena Stadium, and it is a little bit of a morale blow to the team if it can't be won.

However, there is one person who must be in a worse situation than Ye Qiu, and that is Leeds United's new manager Venables.

The homegrown coach who is a major player in English football is happy to be at the helm of Leeds United, the fans are happy, the club is satisfied, and England is celebrated, but he has to endure the dilemma of selling his key players without being able to open the pot.

The financial cloud has always been a shadow over Leeds' players, although Rio Ferdinand is still in the backline, Woodgate, Duberry, Viduka, Robbie? Keane, Fowler and other players are still there, but it is clear that the team's morale has plummeted, and even with Venables in charge, it will not change the discouragement of the players.

At Elland Road Stadium, Vinables played a 3:0 game by Ajax in charge of Leeds United in the first game, and the backline led by Ferdinand and Woodgate was humiliated by Ajax, and the fans at the scene were also indignant, but more could only be helpless.

But it is worth noting that two of the team's three goals came after Arteta went off in the second half. Toure came on to form a more tacit interaction with Sneijder, with their midfield appearing more impactful and aggressive, while Huntelaar and Donny van der Meyde both seized their chances and scored.

With 1 win and 1 loss, Ajax's warm-up results can only be regarded as mediocre.

Ye Qiu has his own set of understanding of the team's problems, and he feels that this is not a problem of the strength of the players, but a problem caused by the tacit understanding of the cooperation and the inadaptability of the team's overall style change.

Arteta belongs to the Spanish style of the more delicate technique, unlike Seydoux in the past? Keita's open-and-close style of play is almost a big difference. Keita barely dribbles the ball, but now Arteta dares to dribble, and his passing skills are very good, and his speed is not bad.

With his body, flexibility is guaranteed, and the speed can't be slow, coupled with the delicate skills, Arteta's passing skills are still very good, and his ability to take the ball with his back and turn around to get rid of it is also very good, which makes him and Seydoux? Keita is almost completely different.

From a technical and tactical level, the changes brought by Arteta's joining to Ajax are all positive, but it takes time to adapt and integrate into the team, and Ye Qiu also arranged Arteta and Sneijder to partner in his usual training.

For a team like Ajax that adopts a high pressing defensive system, the opponent's defense is dense and compact, and there must be many opportunities to get the ball with his back, which requires a player in the team who has a solid back to take the ball and turn away from the technique.

In the past, it was Sneijder and Ibrahimovic in front, and the opponent often easily stifled Sneijder to limit Ajax's ability to effectively advance the ball when defending intensively, so that when heavily defended, Ajax's attacking threat was greatly weakened.

Some people may be surprised, why do you have to turn around with your back to get rid of the ball?

This is an inevitable choice, because the ball is usually launched from the backfield, and the entire advance is from the defender to the midfielder to the forward, so that the players in the front position, especially the midfielders, must retreat to the player with their back to the opponent to receive the ball, otherwise, how to cooperate with the players in their backcourt?

But usually after taking the ball with his back, the choice of passing angle that can be made is very narrow, and he can generally only choose to pass the ball to his own half, so that the speed of ball advancement is slow, but if there is the ability to take the ball with his back and turn to get rid of it, after receiving the ball, he will turn around and get rid of it, and he will directly change from facing the offensive direction from his back to the offensive direction, and he will be directly facing the offensive direction, which is directly a threat.

If you lack the ability to take the ball with your back and turn away, there is another option, which is the option that Ajax often used last season, to split the side, break through the wings, and successfully bring the ball to the level closer to the goal than the receiver, and then knock it back, so that the receiver can receive the ball head-on, facing directly in the direction of attack.

Of course, this is based on the premise of ground cooperation and advancement, but if you use a long pass, you can avoid the embarrassment of holding the ball with your back to the greatest extent, so you can see that many teams that seem to be strong often play long passes, in fact, it is because they lack the ability to take the ball with their backs and turn around to get rid of it, and there is no strong side breakthrough, so they can only choose long passes.

All defences are built on the basis of preventing the opposition from facing the direction of attack.

Barcelona's midfield duo, Xavi and Iniesta, the reason why these two players were able to prop up Barcelona's entire midfield organization and penetration, and the reason why they were able to terrify the whole of Europe, was that in fact their passing and creativity were only a part, even a trivial part, and the real horror was their turnaround.

Both midfielders possess the ability to turn around and get rid of them, and even when they are under the watchful eye of the opposition's close defence, they are still able to create a threat wherever they want.

Creativity and passing, that's all things after turning around, as long as you face the direction of attack, raise your head, you can see at a glance what is in front of you, what are the holes in the opponent's defense, how your teammates plan to attack, everything is very clear, as long as you are a professional player with a little creativity and passing skills, you can meet this requirement.

So there are a lot of people who say how creative Xavi and Iniesta are, how they pass the ball, but in fact those are all false, and the most powerful core weapon of these two midfielders is their ability to turn and get rid of them, which is why they are better than other midfielders, and why so many midfielders have always performed worse than the two of them at Barcelona.

Now, Ye Qiu poached Arteta and let Arteta and Sneijder form a midfield duo, in fact, it is to value the ability of these two players to turn around, he is convinced that once these two players cultivate a tacit understanding, Ajax's midfield is running well, and the strength of the whole team is bound to improve by leaps and bounds.

It is because of this importance that Ye Qiu focused on carving Arteta and Sneijder at the beginning of the season to help the Spaniards integrate into the team.

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After two warm-up games and a two-day break in Amsterdam, the squad boarded a plane to China, where they will play three warm-up games in three cities before returning to Amsterdam for a two-week trip.

This is the first time that Ye Qiu has returned to his home country as the head coach of Ajax, and what he didn't expect was that in the first stop in Guangzhou, he and Ajax were supported and affirmed by countless domestic fans.

The humiliating performance of the national football team in the World Cup has disappointed domestic fans very much, and domestic players are generally sluggish in the European arena, only Ye Qiu's coaching performance in Ajax is so good, and he has already been crowned with the title of European coach by many media, which has naturally become the pride and hope of domestic fans.

The team's hotel in Guangzhou, the training ground, were watched and welcomed by the fans, the enthusiastic domestic fans made the Ajax group of players a little dumbfounded, and President Van Praag also explained before, in addition to training sessions and games, the players should do their best to meet the wishes of the fans.

At the end of the World Cup wave, Ajax has set off a new wave of football in China.

In Guangzhou, Ajax played a surprising strength in the first warm-up game, defeated the opponent 4:0, and firmly controlled the game from beginning to end, Ye Qiu even changed the starting 11 at halftime, because he led 3:0 in the first half, he naturally had to hone more substitute lineups.

After the victory in the first warm-up match, the team went to Shanghai, where another warm-up match was played, and Ajax beat the opponent again 3-0, winning two consecutive warm-up matches in China.

It has to be said that the pressure exerted on Ajax by domestic teams is still very bad compared to European teams, so in China, Arteta and Sneijder have performed very well, and the two players have also quickly improved their tacit understanding with each other through games and training.

On the contrary, it was Mascherano introduced by Ye Qiu that did not perform as well as De Jong in the back position, which has to be said to be a very surprising place, the strength of the Argentine back is definitely there, but it is still a little not adaptable, and Ye Qiu naturally chose to entrust the Dutch with the responsibility of De Jong's outstanding performance.

As a result, in the two warm-up games in China, De Jong got the start, played for a long time, and performed brilliantly.

Finally came to Shanghai once, Ye Qiu wanted to take the opportunity to ask Chen Zhong to come out to meet him, but he didn't expect Chen Zhong to go on a business trip, even Huang Jinsong was not there, when Ye Qiu went to visit Chu Yun, he heard that something had happened to the group recently, and both of them were very busy.

After only two days in Shanghai, Ajax went to Beijing non-stop and played a warm-up match at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing, where they defeated the team that claimed to have not been defeated at the Workers' Stadium 5-0 to end their trip to China.

Three warm-up games, scored 12 goals, and conceded zero goals, such a result made the domestic media generally give a satisfactory answer to Ajax's visit, after all, Ajax played very hard in these three games, and the team also reflected the strength that a European powerhouse should have.

After Ye Qiu's last warm-up game in Beijing, he took time out to accept an interview program on CCTV Sports Channel, in which he talked more about his own team and talked about his vision and ideals for the future.

"Personally, I'm happy with the quality of the team at the moment, but it's not strong enough, I think we still have a lot of room for improvement, we can perform better, and we will continue to work hard for that."

"As for myself, I didn't think too much about it, because I have always had a desire to prove to all people in European football, whether they are Europeans or our compatriots at home, that I can do it in the position of professional manager, do well, and even, I hope to be the best one day!"

"I also give this sentence to all those who like football, we will not be worse than anyone else, so, never be presumptuous, never give up hope, self-improvement, there will be a successful day!"

After Ye Qiu finished recording the show, he returned to Amsterdam from Beijing the next day, he didn't know when the show would be broadcast and what the effect would be, but after the show was broadcast, Chen Jun called Ye Qiu, and I heard that the response was very good.

Back in Amsterdam, Ye Qiu specially held a tactical meeting of first-team players, specifically on the situation of the past five warm-up games, as well as the team's shortcomings and shortcomings, all of which were commented and analyzed one by one at this tactical meeting.

In the three warm-up games of the China trip, because the opponent was relatively weak, Ajax dominated the situation of the game very well and controlled the field, so the performance of the players was also better, and the three midfield combinations of Arteta, Sneijder and De Jong also initially showed their strength and established a certain tacit understanding.

The attacking combination of McCone on the right and Van der Vaart on the left form Ajax's two-winged tactics for the past two seasons, which is also the strongest and most dangerous routine in Ajax's attack, tearing apart the opponent's defense through two wide attacks, and then forming a direct threat through the back of the middle.

Compared to the past two seasons, Ajax has invested less troops directly in attack. Unlike Keita, who likes to plug in directly, Arteta is not very good at attacking directly, he is not very good at scoring, and he is more about organising and delivering shells behind attacking players.

Because of this, Ye Qiu is ready to further release the attacking ability of the two players, McCone and Lucio, especially McConn, who is very dangerous in attacking on the wing, and his crossing ability is also very good.

With Arteta and Frenkie de Jong behind to help defend the defence, McCone and Lucio's alternating forward can be more decisive and reassuring.

Defensively, though, the height of the midfield becomes an issue.

Gilberto? When Silva was there, although the Brazilian's heading skills were not very good, he had a strong sense of position, excellent anticipation, and his height and size were there, so he was still very intimidating and controlled the ball.

And a Seydoux? Keita, the most overlooked thing in the Mali midfielder is his prediction of the landing point of the high ball, carefully analyzing his goal in Ajax's back insertion, the proportion of the header is very heavy, and the other is a long-range shot, both of which are already his signature weapons, and the header relies on the prediction of the landing point.

But now Arteta and De Jong have congenital deficiencies in the high ball, which also makes the defense of the Ajax midfield must be adjusted, Ye Qiu can only choose to fill the defect in this area by pressing forward by Lucio, but in this way, it is bound to add some variables, for example, Lucio to grab the landing point, how to help defend behind him? How do I protect it?

If you take into account the two so-called twin tower players in Eindhoven, then Ye Qiu has to make some preparations in advance and work a little defending the high ball, because he can be sure that Hiddink will definitely use this to make a fuss.

All in all, it is a sentence that affects the whole body.

The impact of the midfield reorganization, even now, is only the beginning.