Chapter 75: Full Firepower
New book rushes into the charts, continue to ask for recommendation votes, member clicks and collections ^_^
However, historically, Aolong has been constantly switching between the center and wing positions due to team needs, but he is not a true all-around player who can handle multiple positions. After playing as a center for a while, he won't be able to play as a winger, and by the time he gets used to the winger position, he forgets how to play as a center. As a result, his growth has been delayed due to this back-and-forth positional change.
In addition, during his time with Shanghai Shenhua, personal conflicts with Zhu Jiong led to him being frozen out for a long period of time. Furthermore, the teasing from fans calling him "Airplane" also put immense psychological pressure on him, all of which greatly restricted his growth and ultimately prevented him from reaching even an Asian top-tier level.
But in this time and space, due to Gao Jun's crossing, Ao Lin's football career has already been very different, and his growth potential is naturally much greater than in history. If it weren't for the age change at the beginning that led to Ao Lin being banned for a year (although only in youth competitions, but the impact was not small), he would have missed the valuable training of the Toulon Cup, and his current fame might not be inferior to the "Left Yu Right Xiao" combination that entered the national team early. However, after today's Asian Championship, Ao Lin will inevitably become famous...
But leading by only one goal is not safe at all, especially since the current AFC Champions League group stage requires winning first place to advance, so every game must be fought hard. After Yokohama strengthened their defense against Ah Lin, Eastern quickly returned to their regular playstyle, and the responsibility of attacking fell on Ribeiro's shoulders, which made him even more active, in fact, since joining the team, he has always been Eastern's first attacker, Ribeiro had already waited for so long as a supporting actor in this game...
Although he is much shorter than Gao Lin, Ribery's strong physique and explosive power enable him to confront the tall defenders head-on. His incredible speed of running 100 meters in under 11 seconds and his dribbling skills that surpass Asian level make it possible for him to play with Japan's defenders at will. Okada Takeshi was stunned by Ribery's performance on the field, "A newly promoted team in the Chinese Super League, how can they have such a powerful foreign aid?"
Actually, even Gao Jun, who brought Li Bei to the team at the beginning, did not expect Li Bei's current strength. With his rare business acumen, he can naturally see that Li Bei's progress is not only due to the correction of some bad habits, but also his personal ability and tactical awareness have made significant progress compared to when he first joined the Eastern team. These can only be attributed to the strengthening of training and the exercise of competition. However, considering Li Bei's strength, the training level of the Eastern team and the competition level of China League One and FA Cup are actually quite low, but still able to help him quickly improve his strength, which undoubtedly proves again that he is a true genius...
"Perhaps, apart from the absolute upper limit that one can grow to, being able to improve their skills in competitions that are far below their level is also an important standard for measuring talent?" Such a thought suddenly emerged in Gao Jun's mind, and upon careful consideration, it seemed to make some sense. Take those so-called "genius players" who meet domestic standards, for example. Either they already had the ability to enter the adult team when they were still in the youth team, like Sun Jihai, or they directly jumped from China League One or even League Two to the national Olympic team or the national team, like Zheng Zhi. In contrast, Gao Jun had played a year in the low-level Singapore league and still easily won the Golden Boot in the Chinese A-League with very few starts after returning home. What is genius? This is genius!
As for foreign examples, there are even more. Without mentioning the slightly distant Balotelli and Klose, the two young foreign players in the Eastern team are the best examples. Ribery trained in France's third and fourth-tier leagues to develop a level of confrontation and technical ability close to that of Ligue 1, but due to some personal flaws that no one helped correct, he was unable to exert his true strength. As for Korneev, it is even more exaggerated. He practiced in the French seventh-tier league and developed enough strength to play as a main force in at least a mid-table team in Ligue 2, which means he crossed five levels. Although the gap between each level in lower-level leagues is not as large as that of the top few levels, this number is still frightening...
So Gao Jun had the leisure to be distracted in such an intense game, naturally because at this time the situation on the field was very good, and the deterrent force of the two strong strikers was enough to prevent the Yokohama Waterfront team from launching a large-scale attack. What's more, there were also Gao Jun, Yu Hai, and Korner who occasionally inserted into the attack, and when they all started, the Yokohama Waterfront team was still suppressed in the backcourt and beaten hard, even if they occasionally managed to intercept the ball successfully, they would almost always lose possession again in the Eastern team's desperate frontcourt counter-attack...
Although this reduced the attacking space for Dongfang, relying on Ribery's long shot, Aguero's header and Gao Lin's supplementary shot, Dongfang still defeated Yokohama F. Marinos 4-0, who were considered the strongest team in the group before the match, and won a beautiful opening victory for their 2005 Asian Champions League journey.
The statistics after the game are even more impressive, with Eastern's dominance evident in the 28-6 shot ratio, 12-2 on-target shots and 57-43 possession rate. The gap is so large that it seems like two teams of different levels are playing. However, Gao Jun remains rational and doesn't think his team is really that much stronger than Yokohama F. Marinos. He believes the reason for this result is that Eastern's front line, consisting of Gao Jun, Ao Lin, Yu Hai, Ribery and Korner, all have better skills and ball control abilities than their Yokohama counterparts. They work well together, forming a strong attacking unit. Additionally, Yokohama was slightly complacent at the beginning, and Eastern's playing style is very different from most Chinese Super League teams, which caught Yokohama off guard and they never recovered...
After all, the level of the AFC Champions League is not high enough, so it can be like Evergrande in the future, with a few super players in the frontcourt and forming a tacit understanding, which is enough to rely on local advantages to sweep across Asia. However, if the opponent carefully studies the characteristics of the Oriental team's personnel and tactics, and adopts a pragmatic defensive counterattack tactic, it is not necessarily impossible to defeat the Oriental team. However, for the Oriental team that has just been promoted to the Super League this year, being able to make it difficult for strong teams in Asian club competitions to win in counter-attacks is enough to show that their strength has far exceeded the standard of a newly-promoted horse in the Super League...
