Chapter 1 Inzaghi's Teachings

In the famous football manager game "fm2010," known for its realistic data, Filippo Inzaghi's system and strength values are only a tragic eight, but his off-the-ball movement ability is a full twenty. Although it's just a game, it still shows why Inzaghi, as a thirty-six-year-old veteran, can still score goals on the field.

The understanding of "off-the-ball movement" in the game varies from person to person and is still controversial. But on the real field, a striker's off-the-ball movement often means his positioning choices and running enthusiasm without the ball.

The better a player's off-the-ball movement ability, the easier it is to create or find openings in the game, thus making it easier to get shooting opportunities than others.

Also in this football manager game, Chen Hero's values are very interesting.

His physical attributes column is almost all red. Explosiveness, jumping, stamina, strength, and physique are all excellent, all numbers above seventeen. Agility, balance, and speed are slightly worse, but the lowest is also fourteen.

But in terms of technology, it's appalling. In terms of mental attributes, his off-the-ball movement is only a pitiful eleven. Among strikers of his level, no one has lower off-the-ball movement than him...

Although game data cannot be used as strong evidence, it can show the shortcomings of this Napoli star striker from another perspective.

Chen Hero's ability in off-the-ball movement is indeed lacking, and this does not need to be explained through games. When he was playing for Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia, he had already shown a lack of ability in this area, but Advocaat adopted another method to cover up Chen Hero's shortcomings—note, it is to cover up, not to correct. Therefore, Chen Hero's problem of low off-the-ball movement ability has not been effectively solved. Advocaat is an excellent first-team coach, but... he is obviously not the kind of excellent youth training coach who can help young players correct their problems. He is responsible for tactical formulation, but not for letting a player start from the basics.

The tactics formulated by Advocaat can maximize Chen Hero's advantages and strengths, such as headers and physique. But he doesn't require him to run into position. He only needs to wait in the penalty area for his teammates to pass the ball. If he can score, it's either because the opponent's defender made a mistake and left a huge gap, or it's because Chen Hero's own body forced it out. He scored a lot of goals in Russia in direct duels with opposing defenders, which shows how outstanding Chen Hero's physique is and how abnormal his heading ability is...

Therefore, in the latest version of fm2010, Chen Hero's strength is 20, his jumping is 20, and his physique is also 20. It forms a clear contrast with Inzaghi.

This set can be used in the relatively low-level Russian league. When it comes to the Italian league, Chen Hero is going to suffer. Initially, he fell into a goal drought, his form was low, and his ups and downs were largely related to this—he, who didn't pay attention to off-the-ball movement at all, came to Italy and faced Italian defenders with excellent awareness of defense, outstanding personal defensive abilities, and guidance from the most advanced defensive tactics, he felt a bit like he was trapped in a quagmire.

Only then did he begin to pay attention to his positioning ability and began to practice constantly. It's just that... the effect of the practice is very limited.

After Mazzarri came, he also adopted the style of play that could immediately maximize Chen Hero's technical characteristics, allowing the wing and the center to constantly feed Chen Hero the ball, rather than letting Chen Hero run into space to receive the ball.

When the Italian defenders were not familiar with Chen Hero's abilities, Chen Hero won a Serie A top scorer award.

But in the second season, after everyone began to pay attention to him and study him, his scoring efficiency dropped sharply. Now, after nine rounds of the league, he has scored six goals, and his scoring rate has fallen below one goal per game—in fact, this sentence is quite annoying. Countless forwards averaging half a goal per game are already considered very awesome and remarkable, but Chen Hero has only just fallen below one goal per game, and he already feels immense pressure and unease...

Mainly because he scored too many goals too smoothly before, spoiling his appetite, as if not averaging one goal per game would be letting himself and the fans down.

In reality... even at his current scoring rate, he is already able to enter the realm of a super-first-class striker.

But who told Chen Hero that his goal is not to be super-first-class, but to be the strongest in the world?

Since the goal is set high, he needs to put in more effort and sacrifice more things. Learning from Inzaghi in the dungeon is part of the effort...

Chen Hero himself also realized his own problems. Although he looks particularly arrogant and囂張 in front of people, his mind is very clear. He knows why he can be so arrogant and囂張, because he can score goals. In the football world, as a striker, as long as you can keep scoring goals, you are qualified to be arrogant and囂張, even if you are a bit of an idiot occasionally, it doesn't matter—everyone will only regard your idiocy as a beautiful story of a character player. But if you can't score goals, even your humble choice to pass and assist for the team will be criticized as a lack of confidence...

In order to always be qualified to be arrogant and囂張, Chen Hero has to keep working hard behind the scenes. Just like last Christmas, he locked himself in the house alone and masochistically brushed the dungeon for eleven days, until he was exhausted and slept for a day. In exchange for his four goals against Roma, and in exchange for his Serie A Golden Boot.

Chen Hero is still a young man after all. Loving to play is the nature of young people. Not many people at the age of twenty-one don't have a playful mind. However, Chen Hero can still control his thoughts at critical moments and devote himself to arduous training.

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The apprenticeship system doesn't mean that a window pops up in front of Chen Hero and lets him use his divine sense to choose yes or no...

Instead, the virtual coach Mazzarri comes forward and introduces Inzaghi to Chen Hero, and also introduces Chen Hero to Inzaghi.

It has to be said that from here, you can see the difference between Inzaghi and Mazzarri in terms of artificial intelligence. Mazzarri just acts according to the routine set by the program, which is boring, but Inzaghi's performance is... much more lively and real.

After the introduction, Inzaghi nodded to Chen Hero, "I know you, Hero. You seem to be having some problems in reality."

Chen Hero was a little embarrassed.

"But you've come to the right person." Inzaghi seemed very confident.

Mazzarri was still saying according to the program settings: "Hero hopes you can be his teacher..."

"I have no problem." Inzaghi nodded.

In this way, Chen Hero's first teacher was officially born!

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Learning Inzaghi's positioning, of course, doesn't mean playing football with Inzaghi, brushing the dungeon, and then Chen Hero will suddenly realize one day when he wakes up. That's too玄幻.

Learning shooting, free kicks, etc., can be practiced by yourself, but learning positioning requires the cooperation of the whole team. The advantage of the dungeon is reflected here. Chen Hero can tell the virtual coach Mazzarri his ideas, and then Mazzarri will arrange a training plan according to his wishes, so that the entire team is centered on Chen Hero and serves Chen Hero.

This is something that Chen Hero cannot enjoy in the real training ground. Not to mention him, even if Maradona comes again, he probably won't enjoy such treatment—the whole team doesn't do any other training subjects, just cooperates with Chen Hero to practice off-the-ball movement.

Off-the-ball movement requires simulating offense and defense. Chen Hero has to choose the most suitable running route in different situations.

But before that, he needs to know the meaning and importance of off-the-ball movement.

"I'll show you an example of off-the-ball movement." Inzaghi said to Chen Hero. "Paolo, you cooperate with me. Defend me then." In order to strengthen his persuasiveness, Inzaghi specifically asked Maldini to defend himself, just to tell Chen Hero that even when facing the strongest defensive players, off-the-ball movement is useful and can help you get rid of the defense of players of Maldini's level.

Maldini nodded: "No problem."

Chen Hero nodded vigorously: "Okay, okay!"

The biggest advantage of taking a player as a teacher is that you can see the legendary stars demonstrating themselves. Football teaching is a science of demonstration. If the teacher can't demonstrate, the learner may not be able to understand even if he racks his brains.

So Inzaghi ran to tell Mazzarri this and that, and Mazzarri arranged the team according to his requirements.

After everything was ready, Mazzarri blew his whistle, and Maggio rushed up from the backcourt with the ball. Arshavin was originally waiting in front to respond, but he also attracted the side back Aronica who was defending him to the wing, which was not conducive to Maggio's back insertion. So he moved to the ribs in the middle. After running out of space, Maggio passed the ball to Arshavin. Aronica saw that the ball was at Arshavin's feet and quickly abandoned the wing area and rushed over to defend Arshavin.

At this time, Maggio continued to make off-the-ball movement forward. Arshavin quickly passed the ball to Maggio's front. Maggio accelerated to catch up with the ball. At this time, there were no defensive players around him and in front of him. He could do whatever he wanted.

Inzaghi, who was acting as a center forward in the penalty area, was always closely marked by central defender Maldini, and seemed to have no chance to get a shooting opportunity. But at the same time that Maggio received the ball, Inzaghi suddenly ran to the wing, heading in the direction of Maggio, making a gesture to respond. Maldini also rushed out, which was taken for granted. In the thirty-meter area, a qualified back should not let the opponent's forward escape his defense and move freely. If he let him respond to Maggio's pass, it would be troublesome to deal with it, so he must follow closely.

Not to mention Maldini, even Chen Hero, who was watching from the sidelines, thought so—since he couldn't get a chance in the middle, then he could go to the wing to respond to his teammates, get the ball, and reorganize the attack.

Who would have thought that at this time, Inzaghi suddenly stopped and turned around! He ran back to the penalty area, and at this time, Maggio crossed! Cannavaro found Inzaghi running past him and wanted to turn around to follow, but it was too late. Restricted by the weakness of slow turning speed, he was easily shaken off by Inzaghi.

Inzaghi, who used a turnaround run to come to the space, had gotten rid of Cannavaro's marking and gained shooting space. Next, it was too simple for a forward of his level... He jumped up while running, heading the ball, and the ball flew into the goal.

The whistle sounded and the training demonstration ended.

Inzaghi walked down and smiled at Chen Hero: "Did you see it clearly?"

Chen Hero nodded.

At the same time, he sighed in his heart—he is indeed a master-level poacher... He created opportunities even when there were no opportunities...

"This is just one form of off-the-ball movement. Off-the-ball movement has no fixed route or pattern. You just need to remember one thing, off-the-ball movement is an important activity for you to get rid of defense and get opportunities. A forward will get opportunities in the game. Some of these opportunities are created by his teammates using their off-the-ball movement, and some are created by your own off-the-ball movement—when your teammates create opportunities for you using off-the-ball movement, you have to use your own off-the-ball movement to find these gaps."

Paolo Maldini nodded beside him: "Before Sacchi coached Milan, the confrontation between players corresponding to two positions was always the key to the victory or defeat of the game. However, after he came to the team, everything became dependent on off-the-ball movement, which is why we Milan won the game. So off-the-ball movement is very critical."

"Actually, you know about off-the-ball movement. I have a goal that can be used as an example." Inzaghi said to Chen Hero. "Remember Cassano's goal against Lyon?"

Chen Hero thought for a while, then nodded.

"At that time, you passed the ball to Sanchez, and then Arshavin suddenly cut in diagonally from the right side of the penalty area, attracting the attention of a Lyon defender, who ran forward with him. At the same time, you yourself ran diagonally from the left side of the penalty area to the right side, pulling another Lyon defender, so that the middle was empty, and a short blank area appeared, unattended. At this time, Cassano quickly inserted and received Sanchez's pass here, and then scored."

Inzaghi pointed to the penalty area and explained the goal to Chen Hero.

"This is off-the-ball movement. But what you did in this goal was to make a wedding dress for your teammates. What you need now is to have the ability to use off-the-ball movement to find gaps yourself. Some people say that off-the-ball movement is a talent, I don't think so. I think it can be achieved through training."

The Inzaghi in the dungeon is different from the Inzaghi in reality. Chen Hero thought that at least the Inzaghi in reality would not talk so eloquently, from theory to examples, and then back from examples to theory.

"To put it bluntly, off-the-ball movement is an experience. You need to know where gaps may appear on the ever-changing court, near the complex penalty area, and whether your teammates' running will create an unguarded gap for you in a certain place. You need to be at the correct time—that is, when your teammates pass the ball, appear there in time. The mastery of time is very important. If you appear too early, you will attract the attention of the defender, and someone will come up and mark you to death..."

Inzaghi didn't know when a magnetic tactical board appeared in his hand. It was shaped like a football field, with many circular magnets of different colors to distinguish them. Inzaghi fiddled with the tactical board while talking.

"If you show up late, you won't receive the ball from your teammates. You understand this, right?"

"Yes, I understand." Chen Hero was respectful, like an elementary school student.

Chen Hero is indeed relatively arrogant and嚣張, but in front of a real teacher, he is still very low-key. Because he knows that learning is not about how the teacher is, but how the student is. If you don't correct your mentality and be humble, you won't learn anything. Because this is not a martial arts novel that transmits internal energy—senior masters will fly up and head-to-head with you, regardless of whether you want to or not, and forcibly instill all their cultivation into you. If you don't want to learn yourself and don't accept it, no matter how good the teacher is, it's useless.

"Why do I say that it's an experience—because after you have experienced countless such scenes, and you have accumulated enough experience, you will naturally know how to run. It is difficult to do this in reality, but you have this." Inzaghi pointed to his feet. "In this space, you can constantly practice this ability, and the entire team will serve you and provide you with examples to practice. You can gain experience from countless practices."

"Every time, I will demonstrate for you. You need to carefully observe my every run, even some seemingly useless runs... and then remember all of this in your mind. When you encounter similar situations, you must remember it immediately and use it."

"What is experience? Experience is when you repeat something ten thousand times and form a physical instinct, that is experience." Finally, Inzaghi said so. "So, keep practicing, young man!"

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The whistle kept ringing in the training ground.

The person blowing the whistle has changed from the usual assistant coach to Inzaghi. Every whistle means that Chen Hero has made another mistake in training.

"Wrong, wrong, Hero! You shouldn't run like this." Inzaghi blew his whistle to stop the training, and then asked everyone to stand still in their original positions. He walked in and grabbed Chen Hero. "Look, if you continue to run forward here, Ranocchia will definitely keep following you, because his task is to contain you and prevent you from easily getting a chance to shoot in the penalty area. So what's the point of you running like this? Unless you want to create space for your teammates behind you."

"Uh, I want to go to the front point to grab a header..." Chen Hero said.

"But the reality is that you ran into a dead end yourself. Your teammates can't accurately send the ball to the top of your head. You should run like this..." Inzaghi personally took the stage to demonstrate. He blew his whistle to signal the training to continue, replacing Chen Hero, and also running forward. But just when Chen Hero thought he was also going to the front point to grab the ball, he suddenly stopped and twisted his body to flash to the goal.

However, he did not receive a pass from his teammates. Arshavin directly forced a shot—because it was still very difficult to pass the ball directly from him to Inzaghi.

Chen Hero shrugged, feeling that this was no different from his own running, the result was the same—he couldn't get a better shooting opportunity.

But at this time, the ball shot by Arshavin was saved by the goalkeeper and happened to fall in front of Inzaghi who ran to the goal. He directly kicked the ball, and the ball flew into the goal without any suspense and somewhat meaningfully...

Chen Hero opened his mouth in surprise. "What's going on?" He shouted to Inzaghi, "You're so lucky!"

Inzaghi walked out of the goal and said to him: "Yes, it seems that I'm lucky, but if I had been rushing to the front point near the baseline, I wouldn't have had a chance to make a follow-up shot."

Chen Hero was shocked: "Did you know in advance where the ball would appear?!"

Inzaghi shook his head: "No, I just think that running like this will create a gap, and I will be in an unguarded state for a short time. In this way, I may have the opportunity to shoot without interference. Remember, off-the-ball movement doesn't mean that every time it will allow you to accurately appear in a position where you can definitely shoot and score, but if you don't run at all, you will never have a chance to shoot and score. If you run ten kilometers in a game, you may get two chances to score a winning goal, then these ten kilometers of running are worthwhile—as for whether you can seize these two chances to score a winning goal, that belongs to the problem of shooting skills and mental quality, and it's not my business. Modern football is a sport that takes place in running, and the era of standing and playing football is gone. As a forward, you have to keep running. Only by constantly running can you get opportunities and not be marked to death."

"You can not defend and look lazy. But when attacking, you must actively run, look for opportunities, and create opportunities. Italian backs are very good at group operations, using tactics and co-defense to mark a forward to death. If you don't run, you will be defeated by them sooner or later. But once you run, there will always be loopholes in the opponent's defense. At that time, it depends on whether you can grasp it."

"As a center forward, you may be one-on-one with the opponent's back at any time and be closely marked by the opponent. At this time, you need to keep running to get rid of the opponent. In addition to allowing you to get shooting opportunities, off-the-ball movement has another very important function, which is to make you not so easy to be marked to death... You have to be flexible and cunning in your mind. When you decide to run to the back point to grab a point, don't go to the back point at the beginning. You have to run to the middle or somewhere else first, so that the opponent thinks you are going there, and then switch positions at the right time and key moment, run to the place you were optimistic about at the beginning, receive a pass from your teammates, and score." Inzaghi continued to explain to Chen Hero on the tactical board while arranging the pieces.

"Positioning is deceptive. You like to play pranks and have many ideas in your mind. Why didn't you think of using it on positioning?"

Chen Hero patted his forehead—he had never thought of doing this before.

"Don't let opponents see through you at a glance. Those backs with excellent prediction and rich experience can easily see the positioning and tricks of some low-level forwards. Are you a low-level forward? You have to let the opponent be deceived by your positioning, completely unaware of where you will go and where you will appear at what time. In this way, your chances of getting rid of the defense will increase, and you will have many opportunities to easily break the goal, instead of always having to rely on super-excellent form to play some world-class waves that can be met but not sought..."

Hearing Inzaghi talking eloquently to himself, Chen Hero felt that the three million experience points were really... too worthwhile!

With such an awesome teacher—he himself has rich theoretical knowledge, and secondly, he himself has super strong abilities in this area, who can demonstrate for you anytime and anywhere, and tell you his experience in conjunction with his own demonstration, to help you improve—if he still can't improve, then it can only show that he, Chen Hero, is not qualified to pursue higher goals and achievements at all!

"What is needed to become a master of off-the-ball movement? First of all, you need the physical strength to run without dying—if you run five kilometers and have no physical strength, then you can only take Romario's route, but there will only ever be one Romario in the world. So you must first have sufficient physical strength to support you to keep running until you run out of space. Second, you must have tactical awareness and a strong will, and you must still insist on running a few more steps when you are tired. Tactical awareness is cultivated the day after tomorrow. Playing on Italian teams helps to improve your tactical awareness. In fact, your tactical awareness in the past season or so has been much better than when you were in Russia, isn't it?"

Chen Hero nodded, that's right, he could feel this progress himself.

"A strong will is innate. When the game reaches the final moment of overtime, you feel that you are exhausted. If you can grit your teeth and insist on running a few more steps, you may be able to run out of a chance to score a winning goal, and you will become a true key player."

"The third requirement is talent, but I have already told you that it can be made up for with acquired training. The fourth point is teamwork and coach arrangements. In this regard... Mazzarri is an excellent head coach. As an Italian coach, you don't have to worry about tactical arrangements. When you show excellent off-the-ball movement ability, he will naturally adjust his tactics."

"You have all four of these, so there's nothing to worry about. Just keep practicing like this! Our goal is... to achieve results in one season!"

Chen Hero's mouth was wide open: "It takes a season?"

Inzaghi smiled嘿嘿: "Is it too long? Do you know how happy many players would be if they could get such results after practicing for a season in reality? In fact, it is almost impossible, unless you are gifted. So don't complain that it's too long, don't think about anything, just bury your head and practice!"

Chen Hero had no choice. It seemed that he would have to fight against off-the-ball movement for this season...

I only hope that after a season of practice, I can be reborn!

What kind of impact will a giant bear who has learned the cunning positioning of a灵狐 bring to the world of football?

Just thinking about such a day in the future made Chen Hero excited.

"Okay, let's start training!" he shouted, looking full of fighting spirit.

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ps, Cultivation is something that must be written, and it inevitably involves some relatively boring professional things.

But these things must be written to help everyone understand what Chen Hero is practicing. Wouldn't it be better if you could learn something while reading a book?

So in order not to make everyone feel like I'm just padding the word count, this is a super chapter with more than seven thousand words! One chapter is more than the amount of two past chapters.

And there is another update today, at least three thousand words, so it's actually about the same as the amount of three updates a day.

But this is not an outbreak, because the outbreak is tomorrow. That is a real outbreak. Five updates a day, so that everyone can watch enough at once!

If you feel refreshed at that time, please be sure not to forget to vote!