Millwall's pre-season training kicked off, Aldridge was on the team's training ground almost every day, personally supervising the training of the players in various sports, instilling tactical ideas in the players during the break and relaxation, and even he would discuss with each player individually their position on the field, the development of technical characteristics, and he did not need a translator in the communication, he has learned all the main languages used in Europe in the past eight years, although he is not proficient, but he is more than enough to communicate with the players.

The young players here are all talented, and Aldridge's guidance has only allowed them to avoid detours, such as Patrick Vieira, who at 18 still feels like he is playing as a traditional centre-forward, and Claude Makelele has also taken the initiative to move into the role of full-back.

Aldridge was patient and used the results of the training process to verify the correctness of his remodeling, but perhaps it was just his sincerity with the players that he diligently spent with the players every day, and in a short period of time, Aldridge and the players built a good relationship, which is a good foundation.

In each day's training sessions, Aldridge would join a 15-minute match.

15 minutes without a winner or a penalty shootout.

This made many players feel "dissatisfied".

At the end of each day's matchup, the players would always ask Aldridge to play: play for another half hour? 20 minutes? 10 minutes is fine!

Who can play 15 minutes?

Even if an ordinary person plays football, is it called playing football for 15 minutes?

Such a short match is to keep the players hungry for the game, if the usual training is exhausted, then the excitement of the official game will be greatly reduced, football training also needs to be suppressed and then raised, in the training to suppress the players' desire to play, and then let them completely release on the green field, to explode!

So when the players asked for an extended match, Aldridge always smiled and shook his head, and then picked up the football from all over the training ground with the other coaches and put it away.

With two or two weeks to go until the start of the English First Division, the club has arranged three friendlies to warm up against Birmingham, Oxford United and Pitt Castle United.

These three teams were all relegated to the second division last season, and Aldridge is looking for such a weak team to train, naturally to build confidence for the boys.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, the stands at Lion's Den were packed, probably because the stadium was so small, with a capacity of less than 20,000 people, and the crowd was naturally Millwall fans.

On this field, Aldridge welcomed the first opponent of the friendly match, the Birmingham team.

Aldridge walked out of the aisle early with his fellow coaching staff and sat down on the home team's dugout.

In a warm-up game, the tactical arrangement was issued yesterday, and the list of appearances was also decided, which can be regarded as the stable main candidate in Aldridge's mind this season.

Goalkeeper: Kaseli Keller.

Defenders: Thuram, Stam, Southgate, Lucas Neal.

Midfielders: Schneider, Makelele, Nedved, Pire.

Forwards: Larsson, Trezeguet.

What is more surprising is that the 17-year-old Trezeguet is in the starting line-up instead of the 21-year-old Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

There are six strikers in the squad, with the youngest being Trezeguet, the oldest being Larsson, followed by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Kevin Phillips.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was recognised by his coaches and players on his first day of training, even joking that the free-signing striker was Millwall's next Shearer.

But Aldridge can only make a painful choice for this happy trouble, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's technical characteristics overlap with Larsson, in England, Aldridge needs a striker who can stand firm in the penalty area, originally Aldridge pinned his hopes on the king of the small penalty area, but the feeling that Vanney showed in training made Odridge slightly disappointed, many players need a "clear" time, just Lucatoni and Van Nistelrooy seem to have not opened their minds yet.

At only 17 years old, Trezeguet's impact in training was impressive, probably due to his early entry into the professional league in Argentina.

Aldridge sat in the dugout and chatted casually with Jensen, who had met and trained some of the stars at Ajax, and said that Millwall is full of hope now, although he regretted that there is still a long way to go before the talent of Ajax's stars, such as Overmars, Seedorf, Kluivert and many others who are now shining in the Ajax first team.

Aldrich heard Jenson's words, thought about it carefully, and couldn't refute it.

The stars under his command, from a technical point of view, really can't compete with a large number of shining stars of Ajax's generation, and the seamless combination of skills and speed of Overmars's winger performance is simply gorgeous.

Aldridge shook his head and smiled bitterly, probably because of the football atmosphere and characteristics of the English league, he really deliberately avoided that kind of gorgeous and skillful players in recruitment, and he was afraid of which master star the England field ruined in his heart.

However, in terms of the intensity of the physical collision alone, if you want to land on the Serie A field, the physical cost is not lower than that of England, the Italian concrete defense and the fierce collision are like steel shocks, but England is slightly backward in terms of technology and tactics and looks rough, and the most basic physical confrontation on the football field is fierce, all the same.

As they chatted, Aldridge suddenly stood up from the coach's box, and he suddenly noticed the strange atmosphere in the stands.

In his memory, the stands of the Lion's Den Stadium were noisy and full of people, and if you listened carefully, there would be a large number of foul language and choreographed songs to hit the opponent, and there was never a moment of peace.

But today, he found the stadium stands too calm.

He stood on the sidelines and looked around the stadium and found that the fans were sitting quietly in the stands, except for some fans holding up commemorative scarves for the new season, with Aldridge's name on them, to express their support for the new manager and owner, most of the fans still enjoy football, but in the past, fans were easily infected by the surrounding environment, and in recent years, English football has fought football hooligans, at least in the Premier League and the First Division, Millwall as the focus of the crackdown, The most active is only the extreme fan base like the Bushwackers.

It was probably Aldridge who stood up and appeared on the sidelines, and the stands first erupted in sparse applause, and then for a long time.

In the stands to the southeast of the stadium, Millwall's team song sounded: Nobody likes us, Lao Tzu doesn't care! （Noonelikeuswedon’tcare）

Aldridge sat back after looking around the stands, and he knew that most of the fans still supported him, but many of them had a wait-and-see attitude, after all, Aldridge directly destroyed their stable team lineup in recent years.

Soon, the players walked out of the players' tunnel, it was just an ordinary friendly match, there was not even a TV broadcast, and the club's master of ceremonies took the microphone next to the players' tunnel to broadcast the list of players one after another.

Whenever a player's name is heard throughout the pitch, cheers and applause erupt from the stands.

They don't care how old these players are or where they used to be, as long as they know that they are wearing Millwall's jerseys and fighting hard for victory, that's enough, support, support to death!

Aldridge walked over and shook hands with the manager of Birmingham City politely, and did not talk much, and even Aldridge secretly said in his heart: It is best not to see him again in the future!

Birmingham are playing League Two next season, and unless it's a cup tie, Aldridge certainly doesn't want to see another manager.

The game soon began, and Aldridge sat in the dugout and watched the game quietly, as if he had settled down, and remained unmoved for a long time.

The other coaches also watched the game, but their expressions were anxious.

Millwall's line-up is only in their early twenties on average, and the players opposite Birmingham are seasoned veterans.

After the Birmingham attack ended, Millwall's counterattack was not good, and there were frequent mistakes, and even Schneider and Pire, who were delicate in their skills, made low-level mistakes in passing and receiving the ball.

Very passive on the scene, Jenson leaned into Aldrich's ear and asked, "Do you want to give them a wake-up call, they are too nervous." ”

Aldridge didn't blink, and said lightly: "They haven't entered the rhythm of the game yet, you see, it's only been fifteen minutes, Schneider gasped for breath, and when he came up nervously and sprinted desperately, he was about to let his brain run out of oxygen, nothing to do, let them find their own feelings first, it's just a friendly game, but our back line is very stable, which surprised me, it is a good phenomenon not to lose the ball." ”

The combination of Stamga Sosgate, air defense has Stam, although the occasional grab is a little frizzy, but there is Thuram, who was born as a central defender and changed to fullback, and Southgate, who has excellent defensive awareness, to help him fill the position, the danger in the back line is just a false alarm, plus the middle of the Makelle Legane Deved supplement defense is first-class, Aldridge has no reason to worry.

The warm-up game is to let them regain the feeling of the game and get used to the rhythm of the game, and in the integration of the team's offensive and defensive coordination, Aldridge's first priority is naturally defense, as long as there are no tactical flaws in the defense, he does not need to go to the sidelines to put pressure on the players, otherwise it may make the stable Southgate, Thuram, Nedved and other players mistakenly think that the head coach is dissatisfied with them.