Putting aside the impact of Muscat for the time being, Yang Cheng found Bellon again and talked to him for a while. From the latter's words, it was revealed that he also felt helpless about this. However, Yang Cheng only asked him to continue staying in Kaiserslautern for one more day, and he would try his best to practice and compete. Bellon nodded in agreement without hesitation.

  Yang Cheng did not make any public clarification on the matter, even when Mascarell deliberately leaked to the media that Bellone had refused a salary increase and was considering a transfer.

  On another matter, however, Yang Cheng was very decisive and efficient.

  The schedule of the European Super Cup is currently still a two-legged home and away system, usually scheduled in February of the following year, just when the Bundesliga resumes in February. Originally, UEFA wanted to arrange the two legs for early January and early March, but Yang Cheng hoped to arrange the matches on February 4th and February 11th, that is, between rounds 21, 22, and 23 of the league.

  For this matter, Yang Cheng specially called Dortmund's Hitzfeld, and the two can be said to have hit it off immediately. The latter immediately agreed to join hands with Yang Cheng to propose an adjustment to the schedule, because the German winter break starts on December 20th, if the match is held on January 8th, wouldn't that mean the team has to postpone their vacation?

  On January 30, the 21st round of the match was held, which would inevitably affect the players' winter break holiday, so Yang Cheng and Hissfield jointly proposed a suggestion to UEFA to adjust the schedule of the European Super Cup.

  After receiving the request from the two head coaches, UEFA immediately conducted an investigation and finally decided to respect their decision, scheduling the match for early February, avoiding the German winter break.

  After securing this favorable adjustment for the team, the players' morale was boosted as they could get almost a month's winter break, which is absolutely a rare recharge for the players.

  However, the team's board of directors made a decision and announced the bonus system for this season after holding a player meeting, which was basically carried out in accordance with Yang Chen's requirements, so it immediately received a response and support from the players. They all expressed their willingness to work harder and help the team achieve better results, and they can also get higher bonuses.

  In this fervent atmosphere of preparation, Kaiserslautern completed their pre-season physical conditioning and began to fully enter the new season's technical and tactical preparations.

  Yang Chen is preparing for his first Bundesliga season, and he is meticulous in every aspect, especially since last season, he has been deeply investigating the data of Bundesliga teams with Paul and Bayer. This season, from preparation to now, Paul and Bayer have been continuously collecting tactical analysis and characteristics of each Bundesliga team, as well as game videos.

  The scientific level in 1997 was not as high as in 2011, so Yang Cheng had many ideas that could not be realized at the time. However, making a highlight reel of the match was still possible, although it did not meet Yang's requirements of having a separate video for each player's opponent.

  The first match video compilation to be determined is the first round of the league, Bayern Munich, which will not only be the opponent of Kaiserslautern in the first round but also likely to be the last opponent in the German Super Cup.

  Yang Cheng is also closely watching Stuttgart, a strong team in the German league, which is currently troubled by transfer issues. Last season, he scored 17 league goals for the team. Brazilian center Elber, who has performed exceptionally well for Stuttgart for two consecutive seasons, is currently in talks with Bayern Munich.

  Stuttgart naturally wanted to keep the Brazilian striker, who has scored 41 goals in 87 games over three seasons, but Elber himself wants to reach the peak of his career at Bayern Munich.

  In order to avoid losses for the team, Stuttgart is also preparing for the worst-case scenario, that is, if Elber transfers to Bayern, they will introduce Nigerian striker Akpoborie from Rostock to replace Elber's departure.

  The team drew 2-2 with Bochum in a difficult match, and the team's tactics were somewhat chaotic, apparently due to the player transfer, which affected the team's pre-season preparation. Although they eventually eliminated Bochum 6-5 on penalties, Yang Cheng saw the team's shortcomings.

  "First of all, the offense, this team was deeply affected by the transfer turmoil in Elber and its state has been clearly weakened, which also greatly weakened Stuttgart's offense. Previously they wanted to buy Pavel Kuka, but now he has joined Nuremberg, Stuttgart is having some trouble connecting on the front line."

  Before heading to Osnabrück, the team held a tactical seminar against Stuttgart in the semifinals. Yang Chen had players watch Stuttgart's game highlights while analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of this team.

  The current Stuttgart head coach is also a young marshal, later the German national team head coach Rolf, the biggest feature of this Stuttgart he coached lies in the front trident, Balakov, Bobic and Elber formed a trident that galloped through the Bundesliga, with Bobic and Elber forming a double forward, Bulgarian star Balakov organizing behind them.

  The three players' technical characteristics are highly complementary, and with Barakovic's excellent organizational ability, Stuttgart scored 78 goals in the Bundesliga last season after grinding and shaping up, and all three of them reached double digits, becoming the most powerful attacking team in the Bundesliga.

  However, Elber is now deeply mired in the transfer quagmire, and has been pressed to the bench by Ljungberg. Bobic alone is struggling at the front, Barakovic is also somewhat isolated on the midfield, so it seems that Stuttgart can be locked down after all.

  Just imagine, if the three-pronged spear was missing one prong, the impact and blow to Stuttgart would be imaginable!

  "The defensive line of Stuttgart has also changed a lot, these are our opportunities, but Barakova is a well-known organizer in Europe and we absolutely cannot be careless, especially his left-footed arc free kick, in the area in front of the penalty zone we must try to minimize fouls, use midfield direct pressure to push the opponent out of the danger zone!"

  The confrontation of football is a game of offense and defense, where you come and go, you retreat and I advance. If Kaiserslautern presses up, Stuttgart can only choose to retreat unless it can withstand the pressure, thus lengthening the distance between the striker and the opponent's goal.

  Yang Chen has absolute confidence in his midfield, the midfield composed of Barrack, Nedved, Belron and Gattuso, after a season of grinding, looking at Europe, can suppress the midfield of Kaiserslautern, really few teams can do it, even top teams like Barca can't.

  "We mainly play on the two wings, and in the middle we have Lude, Michael and Pavel to support, you should know what to do!" Yang Cheng said with a smile.

  Van Nistelrooy's shooting, "Barak" and Nedved's insertions from the back row, all of which have become Yang Chen's sharp tools for offense, and are also a powerful weapon for Kaiserslautern to continuously defeat strong enemies!

  "Guys, this season is our new season to return to the Bundesliga, I hope you understand that our goal is not just to avoid relegation. We are the champions of the European Winners' Cup last season, and the European powers that fell under our feet include Barcelona, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Dortmund. We have enough strength and confidence, we can achieve even more brilliant results!"

  "As always, although many people say that the DFB-Pokal is just a pre-season warm-up cup, in my dictionary, every single match is crucial. I hope you can understand that this time leaving Kaiserslautern for Osnabrück has only one destination: to return from Leverkusen as champions!"

  Leverkusen is the venue for the League Cup final, while the two semi-finals are held in Osnabrück and Augsburg. The winners meet at Leverkusen's home ground on July 26 to contest the championship.

  July 22nd afternoon Osnabrück

  Although it was only the semi-finals of the league cup, the Osnatal Stadium was still packed, with a crowd of 20,000 people on the stands, including Kaiserslautern fans, Stuttgart fans, and some neutral fans who came to see the team that had the most impressive performance in Europe last season.

  In this game, Yang Chen arranged Reina to start first, the back line was Lucio, Kyle and Kosch respectively, the midfield remained unchanged, Nedved, Bellon, Gattuso and Barak, the left wing position due to Denilson's participation in the America's Cup just returned, Salihamidzic took over as the team's starting left winger.

  On the right wing position, Yang Cheng let Daisler sit on the substitute bench and used the more experienced Schneider as the right winger. The center forward was Van Nistelrooy, a Dutch striker who Yang Cheng had high hopes for this season.

  From the start of the game, Kaiserslautern took the initiative to press forward, especially on both sides of the road, but neither Salihovi? nor Schneider were still in the running-in period with the team, and they still couldn't coordinate with the players in the game.

  Yang Chen could have used Dener, the Brazilian had a great performance in the America's Cup, helping Brazil win the championship, but also missed the pre-season warm-up because of this, so Yang Chen arranged for him to rest and take a look at Salihamidzic.

  "Salihovi? is very fast and has excellent individual breakthrough ability, but in Hamburg he was used to being the core, this point must be corrected!" Yang Cheng reminded on the sidelines.

  Those who are used to being the core will always have a kind of inertial thinking, feeling that others should revolve around themselves in competition. This is not to say that players are showing off, but rather a kind of inertial thinking brought about by being used to being the leader. However, in Yang Cheng's team, this mentality and thought are not allowed.

  Watching Salih Hamidi? break through on the left several times was successful, but the subsequent passing was somewhat disappointing. There was a time when Van Nistelrooy had already run to the position, but he chose to be barbaric.

  On the contrary, Schneider on the right flank is not as sharp as Salihovi? in terms of breakthroughs and speed, but his coordination with midfielders and forwards is more sophisticated. This is probably related to his experience at Jena, while Salihovi? was in Hamburg in the Bundesliga.

  "Let Salih Hamidic rest for a while after Denilson's condition recovers!" Yang Cheng shook his head and sighed.

  Paul Bayr smiled wryly, knowing that Yang Cheng was going to use the method of simmering a hawk to force Salih Hamidovic to change, but this was also an unworkable plan.

  After a season of tempering and growth, plus the super coaching assistant system of Yang Cheng's catalysis, the players' strength of Kaiserslautern have made rapid progress. Especially in midfield, the strength of Barak, Bellon, Nedved and others has broken through 150, among which Bellon even reached 172, and Gattuso's strength also reached 157.

  Don't look at the strength of these players from Kaiserslautern, especially Gattuso. In fact, this player's data distribution is quite reasonable and will not lose to those top stars with a strength of 180 or more. Take the most important attribute of a midfielder defender as an example, Gattuso's endurance is 20 full value, position sense is only 15, but teamwork and work attitude are 18 and 20 respectively, determination and decision-making are 20 and 17 respectively, plus defensive techniques such as man-marking and tackling are 17 and 19 respectively. From this point of view, Gattuso is a very qualified midfielder defender.

  Next, Yang Cheng needs to improve his values in other aspects as much as possible, such as offense and defensive prediction, which can further advance Gattuso's career and make his contribution to the team greater than it is now.

  As for Balak and Nedved, the two players have comprehensive characteristics, both offense and defense are excellent, but they also have a common point, that is, teamwork and work attitude are very high, all above 1. Bellon's work input and team cooperation also reached 15 and 17 respectively, which is already very high.

  In this case, Kaiserslautern's midfield firmly suppressed Stuttgart's midfield. Although Barakovic was excellent, he couldn't hold on alone. Facing Kaiserslautern's strong midfield, he found it impossible to get through from the start of the game.

  Wanted to retreat, but Kaiserslautern immediately pressed up, lost Elber, and Bobic was alone in the front, it was difficult to have any effect, even if Kaiserslautern's defense line was further compressed Stuttgart's midfield, but Stuttgart still did not change this situation.

  In the 31st minute, after half an hour of probing and confrontation, Kaiserslautern finally found an opportunity. Bellon passed the ball to the right, Schneider received the ball with his back to the goal, used his skilled footwork to protect the ball, and seeing that he couldn't get past his opponent on the wing, suddenly stopped and changed direction, making a horizontal pass with a straight through ball.

  Barak originally wanted to come over and respond, immediately inserted into the back row, touched the ball and then knocked it sideways with one foot.

  The ball was knocked into a good position from Stuttgart's central defender, and Van Nistelrooy, from the edge of the penalty area, stole in ahead of the defenders to meet the cross with a side-footed volley.

  The ball swayed and swirled, rubbing against the right post and rolling into the goal, 1:0!

  Van Nistelrooy was ecstatic after scoring, this shot was given very comfortably by Ballack, he inserted it later and directly didn't need to spend any effort, directly shooting would do, the angle control was also very good, the goalkeeper couldn't reach!

  Barak ran to Vanni first, and the two hugged each other tightly, welcoming the celebrating teammates who came from behind. When Schneider rushed over, they also hugged him tightly together, proving that this goal was also indispensable for Wu Dong Qian Kun's latest chapter.

  Breaking the deadlock on the field, Yang Cheng has a firmer grasp of this game!

  In the 5th minute, Lucio intercepted a pass to Bobic on the left side of the backcourt and took advantage of Stuttgart's transition defense not being in place yet. He suddenly made a forward run with the ball and launched a counterattack from his position as left center-back.

  Beron, Vanni and Zuo Lu's Salihajimati are also actively pushing forward.

  Salih Hamzic was originally the fastest and he was on the left, but when he ran with Van Nistelrooy, Lucio saw that the pass couldn't be made and immediately passed the ball to Bellone, who scored with a straight shot.

  Vanni was originally going to coordinate with Salih Hamidic on the left, but they almost collided, so he started moving horizontally to the right outside the penalty area. Bellon's pass happened to be transmitted to the right side, and Vanni took the ball at the top of the arc on the right side of the penalty area, adjusted it a bit, and directly shot with his big foot. The goalkeeper reacted, but the speed was too fast, and he could only watch as the ball rolled under his feet into the net.

  After scoring two goals in a row, Kaiserslautern was on cloud nine. Before the end of the first half, they launched another wave of attacks, causing Stuttgart's defense to be in a state of panic.

  "Lev must be regretting now, if Elber were here, the situation would be completely different!" Yang Cheng was very satisfied with the team's performance and had a bright smile.

  Elber scored two doubles in the Bundesliga last season, with double-digit goals and assists, in excellent form. In contrast, Bobic scored a lot of goals but had very few assists, only one, as a relatively solo center forward.

  Another very important feature is that Elber is very good at back-to-goal, the most watched scene in the Bundesliga last season was Barakos directly passing to Elber, who leaned against the defender to take the ball, and then waited for his teammates to press up before passing or splitting the sides, which is why Barakos can also score so many goals.

  Now that Elber is gone, Stuttgart's frontcourt lacks a player who can hold the ball, and their offense has become a one-trick pony. Defensively, it's relatively simple, and with Kaiserslautern pressing forward, Stuttgart has lost its counterattacking fangs without Elber's speed.

  Although it was only 2:0, Yang Cheng had already won the game. L?w will regret his stubborn decision to exclude Elber from the big list, but after this game, he will see more clearly the role of Elber in Stuttgart's current tactical system.

  Sometimes, buying a player is not just about replacing a feature that matches the characteristics of the team. After all, each player has his own technical characteristics and habits. There are no two players in this world with the same technical characteristics, just like there are no two identical leaves in this world!

  So many times, replacing a player is equivalent to rebuilding!