Chapter 77: The Ultimate Skill Takes Shape

  New book seeking recommendation votes and member clicks ^_^

  Besides, Japanese players generally have excellent skills, and it's much easier to find a forward with high shooting accuracy than one with outstanding physical abilities. Therefore, Osim's idea of requiring his forwards to have top-notch physical abilities is completely impractical. In the game, his highly-regarded No. 11 player, Toshihiro Aoyama, had excellent physical abilities but was completely incompatible with Japan's traditional team control style, causing big problems for the Japanese team's offense. After more than 20 minutes of play, they hadn't even created a single effective scoring opportunity.

  However, the central defender Tanaka's performance was excellent. His strong physique and excellent jumping ability greatly solidified Japan's defense in the penalty area, making China's biggest weapon against Japan, "aerial bombing", almost completely ineffective. As for ground penetration, Japan's defensive capabilities have always been good, and it was even more difficult for China to break through their defenses.

  Also because of this, not long ago in the game against Yokohama Waterfront, the exceptionally outstanding performance of Gao Lin was greatly restricted in this match. Although there were two breakthroughs that caused excitement among the fans on site, they did not pose a fatal threat even once. Arihan also furrowed his brow after seeing Gao Lin's performance, but he didn't substitute him out because he knew that facing Japan's significantly strengthened midfield defense, if China's center forward in this match was still Li Yi, who had inaccurate passing, narrow vision and a single-minded head, the game would only become even more difficult...

  "After being blocked, Ao Lin became more cautious, his dribbling was very stable. Although it's not easy to get rid of Tanaka Tokiaki's defense, it's also difficult for the opponent to destroy the ball at his feet. In this way, the Chinese team can use Ao Lin as a tactical fulcrum to create opportunities for Gao Jun, Jia Yi, Yu Hai, Huo Junchen and even Zhao Junzhe in the back waist position to make a breakthrough and shoot. Hee hee." CCTV studio guest Zhang Lu praised Ao Lin's performance during the explanation.

  "In that case, the key to winning or losing this match still depends on whether these players can seize the opportunity! ", CCTV-5 football program commentator Duan Xuan replied, then realizing that his words were not accurate enough, he hastily added a sentence, "Of course, the Chinese team must also contain Japan's offense, especially the performance of those two core players."

  In this game, the Japanese team did not imitate Iran's approach of limiting Gao Lin's play by assigning a single defender to mark him, as they didn't have that many players with excellent one-on-one defensive skills. However, Japan's overall defensive system was far superior to Iran's, so they still managed to restrict Gao Lin's performance through their usual team defense. To be honest, Gao Lin is actually least afraid of this kind of tactical defense, but Japan's strong ball control reduced China's attacking opportunities, and their quick counter-attacks after losing possession even led to fouls, making it difficult for China to launch a fast break...

  Until the end of the first half, Gao Jun finally got his second shot in this game. Although Nakazawa Yuji was tightly marking him, their speed and agility were too different. Gao Jun simply used his eyes to deceive Nakazawa Yuji slightly, easily shaking off his defense and giving Ah Lin a chance to pass the ball. However, Nakazawa Yuji's slender figure showed its advantage at this time. Although he was deceived, he didn't fall down and quickly followed up. When Gao Jun received the ball, the shooting angle had almost been completely blocked by Nakazawa Yuji and the goalkeeper behind him. But then Gao Jun suddenly turned the ball to his left foot, using his right foot to push off the ground and shake off Nakazawa Yuji, who had already rushed to the other side...

  In the current Dongfang team, if we talk about the ability to dribble past people, there are five people who rank ahead of Gao Jun: Li Bei, Ao Lin, Rong Huang, Yu Hai and Ke Ernie. Even in the reserve team and youth team, there are those who are stronger than Gao Jun. After Gao Jun's shooting technique recovered to more than 90% of its peak, he began to increase the proportion of dribbling training, and with his excellent ball sense cultivated from twenty years of playing football as a foundation, his physical qualities of speed, explosive power and agility make him very suitable for breaking through with the ball. So why is his progress so slow?

  However, those who truly understand Gao Jun know that his dribbling skills have not only progressed rapidly but also surprisingly quickly, and he is probably the best in the team, even surpassing Li Bei. The reason why Gao Jun rarely has breathtakingly beautiful moves like Chui Jianmin, Yu Hai, Ao Lin, and Rong Huang is that he deeply understands that his greatest advantage lies in shooting, so his dribbling style must also maximize this advantage. In most cases, Gao Jun doesn't need to completely get past his opponents; he only needs to create a shooting angle, which is enough for him, given his speed and accuracy in shooting.

  For this purpose, Gao Jun did not specialize in one or two ball-handling methods like most players, but instead trained intensively on both inside and outside footwork with both feet. If he could master all of them, due to his excellent physical flexibility and low center of gravity, few players could keep up with his movement frequency. Therefore, in the game, Gao Jun could easily create shooting opportunities by temporarily changing his ball-handling method, and compared to common fake movements, relying on speed or strength to eat opponents, this method is actually not considered a dribbling move, even if it fails, it's not easy to lose the ball, and can greatly reduce the possibility of being maliciously fouled by opponents in key areas and suffering serious injuries.

  However, with more training projects, it's naturally harder to reach a high level in all of them. Even after spending three years on this, Gao Jun still hasn't mastered the four ball-carrying techniques to perfection. Therefore, until today, he has only tried this unique dribbling technique for the first time in an international competition. The effect was immediate, and this also had a lot to do with Nakazawa Yuji being 10-15 cm taller than Gao Jun.

  To some extent, Gao Jun's unique way of getting rid of the ball is similar to Messi's classic lateral acceleration and dribbling, both of which are suitable for small players to deal with tall defenders. The only difference is that Gao Jun's shooting accuracy is higher, so the angle of pulling out is smaller, and the requirements for his own movement frequency and ball control technology are also lower, but the practicality is not inferior at all.