Chapter 101 The Perfect Summer of the Mad Master and Apprentice

“It’s over! This season’s FA Cup champion is Newcastle United! They have successfully made history in English football!

In the past history of English professional football, top teams like Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea…which once dominated the English top league, have not been able to do this.

And today, Newcastle created such a miracle!
They successfully won the England’s top professional league championship, the League Cup and the FA Cup in a single season!

We must take our hats off to the Newcastle team today, they have become the first domestic treble winner in the history of English professional football! ”

“It has been an absolutely fantastic season for Newcastle United fans, they have won all the trophies they could in just one season.

We must also congratulate Sir Alex Ferguson for successfully leading his team to break the monopoly of Liverpool and Manchester City on the Premier League title in recent years.

Including the FA Cup he won with Manchester United last season and the World Cup he won with England, Sir Lee has already won five major championship trophies in just two years since his debut!

This is enough to make him one of the top coaches in football! Yes, no one will continue to add the prefix of “young coach” to Sir Lee’s name now. He is one of the best coaches in the world! “

After the game, the Sky Sports commentator and special guests seemed to be letting themselves go and praising Newcastle and Li Chen.

Of course, Newcastle’s players and Li Chen deserve such praise.

After making history and winning three important professional football championships in England, Newcastle has engraved their name in the history book of English football.

At least for now, they are the only team to achieve this achievement, and they have become the new team representative of English football.

It is foreseeable that Newcastle in the Champions League next season will definitely attract the attention and interest of other top clubs in Europe.

There will certainly be strong teams that want to test Newcastle’s strength.

Compared to Liverpool and Manchester City, who have been playing in the Champions League for many seasons and have reached the finals many times.

Newcastle will face even tougher challenges in European competitions next season.

But at this moment, these troublesome problems have been forgotten by Li Chen and other coaching staff members of Newcastle.

They are celebrating to their heart’s content, savoring the hard-earned moment of winning their third championship of the season.

Li Chen will no longer ask his colleagues and players to keep a low profile.

Previously, he chose not to let the team members celebrate the league championship recklessly because they still had one last important decisive battle to play.

And now, the season is over.

It was the best possible end to the season for every player at Newcastle.

They fought till the end and did nothing that their future selves would regret.

Li Chen also chose to vent the huge pressure in his heart at this moment.

After hugging his colleagues on the coaching staff, he was once again grabbed by the players’ hands and feet and thrown into the air repeatedly.

Recorded by the cameras of reporters on the scene, a united Newcastle team built closely around Li Chen was once again presented to fans around the world.

Compared to singing praises for the hugely successful Newcastle after the end of the season with other colleagues.

At this moment, there are many “ambitious” senior reporters who want to dig out the twists and turns behind Newcastle’s success.

They immediately used their personal connections to inquire, or directly asked their own newspapers to invite Newcastle’s core players and important coaches, hoping to take advantage of the popularity to do a few exclusive interviews.

But unfortunately, all their requests were rejected by their superiors without exception.

This does not mean that the British media have given up the pursuit of traffic, but because other more heavyweight media have placed bets and established cooperation contacts with Newcastle early on.

They took a big gamble, and now that it’s successful, they naturally have to step out first to reap the traffic.

As for them?

Just wait in line. When the big media outlets in front of you have had enough, it will be their turn to sit down and share the food…

The next morning, news about Newcastle’s FA Cup victory once again dominated the front pages of major European sports media.

What is more interesting to the fans are the two important news officially announced by the English Football Association and Newcastle.

At the end of 2022, Amazon’s documentary “Phoenix Nirvana” about England’s World Cup victory will be broadcast simultaneously on major mainstream websites and several major sports channels in Europe.

The documentary about Newcastle’s treble-winning season that Sky Sports filmed at the end of last year is also being edited and produced at an expedited pace.

Newcastle’s official Twitter account stated that the club’s championship documentary will be available on major online platforms and to fans before the start of the new season.

Shortly afterwards, the official Twitter account of the English Football Association released several promotional videos with a duration of less than three minutes.

Related high-definition videos appeared on major streaming platforms soon after.

After hearing the news, fans around the world almost all chose to check the Internet as soon as possible.

Soon, the trailers released by the English Football Association officially triggered an explosion of enthusiastic comments from fans.

“Lee is so cool! ‘From today until the next month, I have the final say on everything in the England national team. My rules are the rules.’ Houlixie! I guarantee that this is definitely the most domineering declaration of a new head coach in the history of English football!”

“There are problems with the players’ performance. Sir Alex Ferguson really dares to scold them. Look at how Foden and Sancho were criticized. Bellingham and Kane are less worrying.”

“Fortunately, Sir Alex Ferguson took Longstaff and Rashford at the last minute against all odds. Facts have also proved that there are no bad players, only coaches who don’t know how to use them. The FA has done a good thing.”

“The Jazz’s preference for Kane is so blatant that they even said things like ‘fight for Kane in the finals’. If I were Kane, I would definitely want to transfer. Following such a head coach, my career will have a bright future. World Cup MVP and Golden Boot, these are the highest honors that many professional players dream of!”

“It’s a pity for Argentina. If they hadn’t met Li, who is very familiar with the technical characteristics of Messi and Di Maria, they would probably have created a miracle and won the Qatar World Cup.

Look at the targeted defensive tactics that Lee arranged during the halftime break of the final. If I were an Argentine fan, I would definitely feel desperate again. Lee had figured out the Argentine team before the final. It can only be said that England’s victory was not a trick, and every step was full of Lee’s careful calculations…”

Several trailers once again brought fans around the world back to the hot Qatar winter at the end of last year.

The fans who were a little unhappy about England’s victory at the time had a wonderful change in their perception of Li Chen and the England team after watching several rich trailers.

Now it seems that what they thought were some tricks were actually accurate tactical conclusions drawn by Li Chen and Carrick after staying up late to watch multiple game videos. Li Chen’s ability to select players, build a team, and reconstruct offensive and defensive tactics in a short period of time also amazed them.

When the England team decisively changed their style of play and tried to take more initiative in controlling the offensive rights of the game, many media outlets were pessimistic about them.

Similarly, the decision of the Argentine team, which had a bad start, to insist on playing offensive football would be regarded as stubborn by many fans.

But looking back now, the tactical foundations laid by the two teams just reveal the collective wisdom of the two coaching teams.

Argentina bet on the right tactical direction of the World Cup and successfully reaped the penalty bonus, which helped them advance to the final stage.

Unfortunately, they were facing an England team that was stronger and had more tactical cards under the multiple rotation rules.

It can only be said that it is a matter of time and fate. Now it seems that if England under Li Chen plays Argentina in the final ten more times, it is very likely that they will win ten more times!

They are like the French team in 2018. The starting lineup has almost no shortcomings and the bench is extremely solid. The key is that the tactics they use are in line with the direction of that World Cup.

English fans once again praised the golden generation of English players who represented their country in winning important World Cup titles.

However, while praising the players and Li Chen, they also did not forget to thank Nanmen again.

After all, if there hadn’t been the unexpected car accident at Nanmen, Li Chen wouldn’t have been able to take up the position temporarily.

All in all, both the interim coach and the original coach made contributions to the World Cup victory.

It’s just that Li Chen relies on the science of skills and tactics, while Nanmen relies on the metaphysics of self-sacrifice.

As soon as these ridiculous remarks appeared on the Internet, they made fans burst into laughter.

This wave of public opinion almost overshadowed the Europa League final which started the next night.

It was Mourinho, who had his own huge amount of traffic, and Li Chen, who showed up on the day to support his mentor, who brought up the heat for the Europa League final again.

Otherwise, based solely on the appeal of Roma and Sevilla, many Asian fans would probably choose not to watch the live broadcast and just watch the game highlights the next day.

When Li Chen was interviewed by reporters before the game, he did not hesitate to publicly express that he was more optimistic about Roma winning the Europa League.

In the game that day, Mourinho also made the very bold choice to start with an offensive attack.

Dybala, who gave his all despite his injury, gave Roma fans a huge surprise in the 29th minute of the first half.

He received the ball from Abraham in the right side area outside the penalty area and then cut inside to shoot to help Roma break the deadlock!

After that, the Roma team became more and more courageous, repeatedly threatening Sevilla’s defense through quick ball possession.

However, Abraham’s header in the first half of the game missed the best chance to expand the score.

In the second half, Roma wanted to replicate the success of the first half, so they attacked more aggressively.

But they were seized by the experienced Sevilla. The “King of the Europa League” frequently bombarded the ball from the flanks, causing Roma, who were short of defense, to make mistakes.

Mancini accidentally kicked the ball into his own goal in a hasty ending, and Sevilla took advantage of Roma’s own goal to equalize the score!
At the critical moment, Mourinho did not arrange tactics as carefully as most reporters on the sidelines had guessed, wanting to drag the game into overtime.

The old man waved his hand and replaced Zalewski, Salavi, Belotti and Wijnaldum early in the 60th minute of the second half.

Pellegrini and Dybala, who was exhausted, were both substituted.

Roma also changed to 352 and directly used a double center forward formation.

After Wijnaldum came on the pitch, he seemed to be playing as an attacking midfielder, but in fact he was doing the work of a defensive midfielder.

His hard work and running quickly disrupted the organizational rhythm of Sevilla’s midfield and backcourt.

As soon as the two new wingers, Zalewski and Shalawi, came on the court, they took over the ball for the counterattack.

At the beginning, facing Sevilla’s aggressive double-team defense, the two players made many dribbling errors.

But Mourinho’s tenacity finally allowed the two players to let go and give full play to their relatively abundant physical strength and the advantage of their explosive speed after coming on later.

Sevilla’s 37-year-old right-wing veteran Jesus Navas has finally had to admit his age.

Under the frequent targeted attacks of Wijnaldum and Zalewski, the defensive zone where he was guarding was the first to be torn apart.

And when the pass from the wing was successfully delivered into the air above Sevilla’s penalty area, Roma’s two battering rams came in handy!

Abraham’s heading ability is not actually the best in football, but his amazing height and good impact still make him a thorn in the eyes of Sevilla’s defenders.

As for Toure Belotti, who had not scored a goal for a long time, he was ignored by some Sevilla defenders.

Belotti, who has lost his sense of smell in front of the goal, seems to have become a “blue-collar” center on the football field.

Unable to score goals, the only tactical role left is a little fulcrum.

But it was this rough center forward who had lost his talent, who finally used Abraham’s impact cover to push the ball into the hands of Sevilla central defender Gudelj!

Anthony Taylor, the referee of this game, was standing outside the penalty area and saw this scene clearly!
He didn’t dare to turn a blind eye and quickly pointed to the penalty spot in Sevilla’s penalty area!
The Roma bench was boiling with excitement!
They got a penalty kick opportunity in the 79th minute of the game, which was enough to kill the suspense!

Abraham stood on the penalty spot with the ball in his arms, and the player who was highly expected by Mourinho also used a clean shot to send the ball into the lower right corner of the Sevilla goal!
Seeing the penalty kick being scored, Mourinho no longer hesitated. While replacing two new players, Beauvais and Llorente, he signaled to his players on the field to defend the score!
Amid the passionate singing of the Roma fans at the scene, the Roma players on the field also used their resolute defensive posture to stifle Sevilla’s final counterattack!

When Anthony Taylor blew the whistle to end the game, the live camera turned to Mourinho who was crying with joy on the sidelines.

Two years, two European championship trophies, and the crucial Champions League qualification for the Roma club!
Mourinho led Roma to almost the impossible feat of winning two consecutive European titles with a limited budget!

The scene of Mourinho covering his face and crying also made countless fans sigh and sigh.

Fortunately, the madman’s Roma reaped the sweet fruits of the season and he vindicated himself.

This hot summer is also destined to belong to the “mad master and apprentice”.

(End of this chapter)