Chapter 3 The Training Method

The third day of training still had a game element.

This time, before the attacking practice, when Head Coach Yebala stood in front of the team, Zhou Yi, Götze, and Mark consciously stepped out of the ranks before he even said a word.

They knew they couldn't escape it.

Seeing them like this, everyone laughed again.

Schneider laughed especially loudly. The others might have been laughing good-naturedly, but Schneider was mocking them.

He was happy to see Zhou Yi and Mark unlucky and frustrated.

Weren't you two very impressive in the Ruhr derby? Why do you look so dejected now?

Serves you right for showing off! Serves you right for stealing my goal!

You deserve it!

After stepping forward, Zhou Yi said to Yebala, "Coach, we need to discuss our strategy."

Yebala shrugged. "Suit yourselves. Just tell me when you've worked it out."

The spectators gradually dispersed, and Zhou Yi pulled Mark and Götze to the center circle.

"What brilliant idea do you have this time?" Götze had no more hope. He was just waiting to carry someone on his back.

"No matter how we divide the tasks, there will always be at least two defenders following each of us, right?" Zhou Yi asked Götze.

Götze nodded. "Of course. Constantly and everywhere."

"So, if we want to successfully advance to the goal and shoot, we must shake off the two people beside us."

"Everything you've said so far is nonsense, Zhou Yi," Götze said bluntly.

Zhou Yi didn't argue with him, but continued his analysis: "How do we shake them off? I think the only way is to find a solution in rhythm."

"Rhythm?" Götze asked strangely.

"Yes, the football is under our control, and the initiative is in our hands. We can play however we want, whether it's passing or long shots. They have no idea what we're going to do before we do it. If they defend us in a certain way, we change our rhythm and strategy. The rhythm of passing, the rhythm of running, the rhythm of forward insertion... all kinds of rhythms. By disrupting these rhythms, we can confuse them and they won't know how to defend. That's how we get our chance!"

Mark listened in stunned silence, while Götze frowned and said, "But that puts a lot of pressure on us. It requires us to react quickly to every ball..."

"That's right, quick passing, quick receiving, quick running," Zhou Yi said. "Only if all three of us do these three things can we break through their defense."

"But that's very difficult..." Götze was already simulating the scene of the three of them working together in his mind.

"Of course, it's difficult, but it's the only way. If you don't want to continue running back and forth with dozens of kilograms on your back, you have to do it," Zhou Yi said decisively.

"Okay..." Götze agreed.

Mark naturally had no objections. He would do whatever Zhou Yi said anyway.

"Remember, quick passing, quick receiving, quick running!" Zhou Yi clapped his hands and said.

Then he signaled to Head Coach Yebala that they were ready.

With a whistle, the training... no, the game began again.

But this time, it was even more disastrous than the previous two days.

Once they engaged in close combat with the other side, the passes were all mistakes, the receiving was also a mistake, and the running was even more full of mistakes—either the pass was too long, or it was off course, or it was controlled too far, or it wasn't controlled at all, or they ran too early, or they ran too late...

"Offense, lose one point!"

"Offense, lose two points!"

"Offense, lose three points!"

"Offense, lose four points!"

This game ended even faster than the previous two days…

Watching the three of them carrying their respective targets and moving awkwardly, the teammates on the field burst into happy laughter.

"Have they all given up?!" Schneider laughed so hard he was bending over backward, exaggerating. "It's simply a suicidal strategy!"

However, Yebala on the sidelines narrowed his eyes slightly, staring at the three teenagers.

In the three games over the three days, the three of them adopted three different strategies, from long shots to passing to get closer, and then to today. He could clearly see that they had used their brains, especially today. It looked like they wanted to commit suicide, and each game ended as soon as it started, but Yebala had a different opinion.

Three failures in three days was certainly embarrassing, but these three kids might be slowly approaching the kind of players he wanted them to be…

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Whether it was the youth team or the first team, the daily training arrangements were not the same, and they didn't have two training sessions every day. There were always a few days when they only had one session.

The U19 youth team had one training session three days a week and two training sessions two days a week.

Today was one of those days with one training session. After the morning training, they had nothing to do in the afternoon.

After the training, the players walked towards the locker room, chatting about where to relax in the afternoon.

Some wanted to go home to sleep and play video games.

Some were going on dates, and others were going shopping.

As usual, Zhou Yi and Mark would add half an hour of strength and endurance training for themselves.

But Zhou Yi stopped Götze.

"Are you busy this afternoon, Mario?"

"I don't have any plans," Götze said.

"Good. Special training, then."

Mark was surprised to hear that Zhou Yi wanted to do special training again.

Götze was also puzzled. "Special training for what?"

"Special training on how not to lose the game," Zhou Yi said. "The idea of quick passing, quick receiving, and quick running is right. Today's failure only shows that our abilities in this area are not good enough. So I want to improve through special training between the three of us."

Götze hesitated.

Zhou Yi said, "Do you still want to carry the 1.96-meter-tall Sobiech and run back and forth every day?"

Hearing this, Götze quickly said, "Okay, I'm in."

Zhou Yi looked at Mark again.

"I have no objections," Mark said, always listening to Zhou Yi.

"Okay, Mark and I still have to do extra training later. We'll meet at Mark's house in the afternoon. There are several football fields near his house, so we'll go there to practice. Do you know where Mark's house is?"

Götze shook his head.

"Mark, tell him."

So Mark told Götze his address, Götze wrote it down, and the three of them agreed to meet at Mark's house at 1:30 p.m.

Why so early? Because there would be no one on the field at noon. From 4:30 p.m. onwards, these fields would be full of people playing football, and it would be impossible for the three of them to have special training...

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After completing the extra strength and physical training at the training base, Zhou Yi and Mark went home, quickly ate lunch, and after a short nap, Götze knocked on Mark's door.

The three of them carried their equipment bags, held footballs, and walked towards the football field near Mark's house.

Sure enough, there was no one at noon. They could use the field as they pleased.

In Germany, free and open football fields like this are everywhere. If you fly over a German city in a plane and look down through the window, you will see many such football fields.

This is one of the reasons why German football is so strong.

Free football fields everywhere, and they are well-maintained, not abandoned wastelands where grass grows wild.

With such hardware facilities, coupled with the software of football culture that permeates every corner of society.

The strength of German football is only to be expected.

Zhou Yi and the others randomly selected a football field, put down their bags, changed their shoes, and began to warm up.

Although it was special training without a coach, warming up before training was essential. This was a habit that professional players and aspiring professional players had to develop, otherwise, if they got injured during training, no one would sympathize with them.

While warming up, Zhou Yi explained his ideas to the two of them.

During the lunch break, he had simulated it in the world of fifA oL3 and confirmed that his thinking was correct.

Now the problem was to keep practicing on this correct path.

"The three of us can't be too far apart. We have to be close enough so that the passes can be fast enough, so fast that the opponent can't react."

"But that will also make it difficult for us to react," Götze objected.

"That's why we need special training, Mario. We can't react because we don't have enough chemistry. Many times, we need to see each other passing the ball before we can react. But in that case, it's too late to run when you see me pass the ball. You have to run in advance to where you think I'm going to pass the ball," Zhou Yi said.

"Passing the ball is the same. You can't pass the ball after you see the run. You have to pass the ball in advance, so that the timing is right."

Götze thought for a moment and felt that what Zhou Yi said made sense.

He also agreed that in this extreme situation, relying on visual observation to decide how to act was no longer useful. Sometimes you have to rely on your body's instincts, and to do that, you have to improve the level of understanding between the three of them.

After warming up, the three began to train.

In fact, the special training was very simple. They didn't even need any props or a coach to guide them, because the specific training methods were used in daily training.

It was just the three of them passing the ball back and forth and moving forward. Whether passing or running, they couldn't be fixed in one pattern. They had to move forward in a crisscross pattern. Interweaving and switching positions could increase confusion, but it could also better allow players to practice passing and receiving in complex situations, and at the same time, turn switching positions and interweaving into an instinct. In this way, in the game, they could disrupt the opponent's defense by interweaving and switching positions, thereby creating opportunities.

This kind of training was available in the team's daily training.

So they didn't have no foundation at all when they practiced.

It was just that they took this training content out separately and carried out intensive training. And the speed was faster than when training in the team.

Increasing the speed a little bit doubled the difficulty of the training.

At the beginning, the training was always interrupted by mistakes, and it didn't go well.

Every time it was interrupted, the three of them would get together to study why the problem occurred, was it a problem with the pass, or a problem with the run and response, or a problem with controlling the ball?

They would come to a conclusion and continue training.

In this way, every ten sets of training was a cycle. After the cycle was over, they would rest for five minutes, and then continue with ten more sets of this passing and running training, and then rest for five minutes.

They would continue to train like this for an hour before the three of them would leave.

And when they left, they were already exhausted. The intensity of the training was not as easy as everyone thought, just like playing around.

But even so, compared to running back and forth with heavy teammates on their backs in training, this special training could already be said to be easy!

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ps, it was the day before yesterday, right, we got another Alliance Master.

But I'm really sorry, because of my wrist injury, I can only write one chapter a day now, but I have to update two chapters, and the number of saved chapters has been sharply reduced from ten to six. I really can't do any more bonus chapters for the Alliance Master.

But it doesn't matter, I've written it down. After I recover to ten saved chapters, I will make up for the bonus chapters that I owe to the Alliance Master.

Please understand.

I would also like to especially thank our new Alliance Master [Hu Shuo Ba Dao De]!