The God of Football Starts With Passive Skills-Chapter 79 - 41: Wang Shuo Scores! Another Bold Gamble from Klopp! Tractor vs. Ferrari
This was also a way to develop his own ability to analyze games.
Hainauer was more than just a passer.
He had excellent technique on the ball; he could pass, control, dribble, and shoot, and he also covered a large area of the pitch.
In Mainz’s counter-attacks, Wang Shuo was usually the furthest man forward. If a quick pass behind the defense was possible, they would take it immediately.
If that wasn’t on, they’d control the ball and hold up play.
Wang Shuo and Hainauer were the players who held up the ball for Mainz up front.
Only when they secured possession did players like Foyelner, Helle, Kalhan, and Gunkel have the opportunity to make runs from deep.
So, the understanding between the two of them became exceptionally important.
The timing of their passes, their playing styles, personal preferences, and so on...
They had to know all these aspects inside and out.
Besides, just talking about all this was completely useless.
On the pitch, there isn’t enough time to look and think.
Chemistry was the experience built from mountains of analysis and data, culminating in split-second decisions on the pitch.
...
Magat had always felt that he didn’t leave Bayern because of his coaching ability, but for other reasons.
The Bayern players had never liked him, especially his brutal training regimens.
That was common knowledge.
What few people knew, however, was that the Bayern board had never given him enough support.
Magat didn’t even have any authority over transfers!
He didn’t have enough clout; he couldn’t negotiate face-to-face with Rummenigge and Hennes the way Heynckes could.
The end result was that he had no say whatsoever in who Bayern’s top brass wanted to sign.
Van Bommel, Podolski, Dos Santos, and others were all signed this way.
In the winter before his departure from Bayern, he wanted to sign a midfielder with a commanding presence.
But Hennes didn’t even consider it.
Magat had been stewing ever since he was fired by Bayern.
That’s why he took the job at VfL Wolfsburg.
Before Magat took over, Wolfsburg had narrowly avoided relegation for two seasons straight.
Magat had only one demand: to be both head coach and sporting director.
He wanted total control over all sporting matters, including transfers!
And so, over the past two years, Wolfsburg’s strength grew by leaps and bounds.
Griffith arrived, Dzeko arrived, Ricardo Costa arrived too...
Last season, Wolfsburg finished 5th in the Bundesliga, but in three meetings with Bayern, Magat’s team lost twice and drew once.
The 2-0 away loss to Heynckes’s Bayern in the DFB-Pokal semifinal, in particular, left Magat feeling deeply resentful.
He was determined to further strengthen the team.
This summer, players like Barzagli, Zacardo, and Misimovic joined in succession.
Misimovic, especially, was an absolute bargain at just 4 million euros.
After the preseason friendlies, Magat had a preliminary assessment of his team’s strength.
’The time is ripe!’
’This season, Wolfsburg will make the entire Bundesliga tremble!’
’I’ll make everyone see the real me, Magat!’
The day before Mainz’s 5-0 away victory over Baebesburg, VfL Wolfsburg defeated Würzburg 4-0 on the road.
Dzeko, Griffith, Gentner, and others all got on the scoresheet, and the overall performance was excellent.
This made Magat even more confident.
Magat was sitting in his office discussing the upcoming Bundesliga opener and the team’s starting lineup with two of his assistant coaches when he received the match report on Mainz’s victory over Baebesburg.
The season opener was Bayern versus Hamburg—the Southern King against the Northern King—a matchup packed with hype.
Wolfsburg’s home match against Mainz was scheduled for the following day.
"That Klopp is as aggressive as ever. To think he’d want to use a kid who’s not even seventeen as a starter... just how little does he think of the Bundesliga?" Bernd Hollerbach said with a laugh.
"The way I see it, it’s probably just Mainz trying to hype up another young talent to sell for a high price!"
It was a well-known tactic in the Bundesliga.
"We still can’t be complacent. This young Chinese player, Wang Shuo, performed very well in the 2nd Bundesliga last season."
The other assistant coach, Seppo Eichkorn, had been with Magat for many years.
The two of them had first started working together at Stuttgart back in ’01.
Interestingly, before working with Magat, Eichkorn had been an assistant coach at Duisburg.
The head coach he worked under at the time was Wolfgang Frank.
"Frank praised his star pupil to us on more than one occasion. Klopp wasn’t a head coach back then, but Frank said that while Klopp might seem boorish, he was actually a very meticulous thinker."
"Even so, it’s still absurd to give a seventeen-year-old such a crucial role, isn’t it?" Hollerbach still couldn’t wrap his head around it.
Wang Shuo played a few games in the 2nd Bundesliga last season.
VfL Wolfsburg had obtained footage of all his matches.
But those were all in the 2nd Bundesliga.
The defensive intensity in the 2nd Bundesliga is nothing like the Bundesliga.
Therefore, that footage could only be taken as a reference.
For the Bundesliga teams, Wang Shuo was still largely an unknown quantity. All they knew was that his greatest strengths were his stamina and his blistering pace.
Klopp had once publicly praised him, comparing him to Michael Owen.
"Whether he’s a meticulous thinker or a risk-taker doesn’t matter. What matters to us is that we absolutely must win our first home game."
Magat raised a hand to placate his two assistants, stopping them from digging any deeper into the topic.
Barzagli is an Italian international center-back, and Ricardo Costa was a starter for the Porto team that won the Champions League.
’A center-back pairing like that can’t handle a seventeen-year-old kid from China?’
"Griffith, Dzeko, Misimovic, Gentner, Santana... All the starters. Don’t leave anyone out. I want to make a statement right from the first match!"
Both assistants could feel Magat’s soaring ambition.
This season, Wolfsburg was aiming for the league title!
Magat had never even considered Mainz a threat; his eyes were set only on Bayern!
"Didn’t Klopp want Misimovic all summer?"
Magat snorted. "Well then, in this match, we’ll let him see for himself just how good Misimovic is!"
Seeing Magat’s expression, Eichkorn looked like he wanted to say something but held his tongue.
’He knew Magat was harboring a grudge.’
’The fact that Klopp had once been extremely close to getting the Bayern job made Magat deeply uncomfortable.’
’But then again,’ he thought, ’Wolfsburg is playing at home, and the gap in quality between the two teams is huge. Magat’s confidence isn’t unwarranted.’
As a newly promoted team with no money for transfers, Mainz could only pick up the players that Wolfsburg and other Bundesliga clubs had cast aside. Even if they had some quality, it was bound to be limited.
VfL Wolfsburg had already penciled in these three points from their first home match.
The only questions were how they would win, and by how many goals.
...
The day after Mainz’s DFB-Pokal match, Klopp was also laying out his tactics for the upcoming Bundesliga opener.
He was very clear about one thing: compared to VfL Wolfsburg, Mainz was completely outmatched.
"Who do you think is faster on the highway, a tractor or a Ferrari?"
"Forget about offense, let’s just talk about defense."
"Griffith and Dzeko, and now they’ve added Misimovic. Can we stop them?"
Anyone familiar with the Bundesliga knew just how good Misimovic was.
Griffith is a Brazilian center forward, 1.89 meters tall, with incredibly impressive physical strength.
And Dzeko?
1.93 meters, a center forward from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but his technique on the ball is exceptional. He’s been called the "Ibrahimović of the Bundesliga."
These two center forwards have it all: physicality, movement, and technique. Their scoring ability is exceptional, they can pass, shoot, control the ball, dribble, and run. How are we supposed to defend against that?
Last season, you could still argue that Wolfsburg’s midfield was their weak link.
Now they’ve shored it up with Misimovic.
"We can’t stop them!"
Klopp answered his own question directly.
Subotic and Nowitzki are very strong.
Mainz’s defense is formidable.
But against VfL Wolfsburg, we can’t hold out by just defending.
"A tractor trying to race a Ferrari on the highway is doomed to fail."
"So, we’ll drag them onto a rough, muddy trail. I don’t care if it has twelve cylinders or eighty-two, we’ll still make it break down!"
As he spoke, Klopp motioned for all the players to look at him.
He had meticulously crafted an entire tactical plan specifically for this match. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
The first match of the league season, an away game against a team with title-contending strength like VfL Wolfsburg.
If they weren’t careful, it could derail their entire season before it even began!
