Football’s First Defender

For Yang Feng, his current career has come to perfection.

As an "ordinary person", being able to relive your life and play the professional football you dream of is already something to be thankful for.

In order to stay in the professional football field and taste the taste of professional players for a longer period of time, Yang Feng has been constantly demanding himself strictly since his debut in the Russian Super League era.

Show off the talents you already have, and get tickets to enter the professional football field.

Then it needs Yang Feng's own efforts to continuously develop his talents, and then continue to use hard training to improve his other abilities, so as to achieve the physical and technical conditions that can play professional football games.

You know, when he was in the Russian Super League, Yang Feng was only a "thin and tall" central defender. When facing many "barbaric" Russian defenders, Yang Feng's physique was at a disadvantage.

However, training slowly and strictly demanding himself made Yang Feng's physical fitness grow visible to the naked eye, from a space-type central defender to an all-round defender adapted to the Russian Super League, and helped Zenit become famous in the European arena. Completely entered the eyes of the European first-tier teams.

In Chelsea and Liverpool, Yang Feng's hard training has always been persistent.

Every day, I am training my body and maintaining the sense of the ball. It seems that the layout is tired. Yang Feng can even do both training and relaxation during the holidays. Every year, he is giving the team greater surprise.

And Yang Feng paid so much attention to the opportunities in the professional arena, which also allowed Yang Feng to get a lot of honors that were impossible for others.

Premier League champions, Champions League laurels, and many famous players who can't get their hands on it, Yang Feng no longer knows how much he has won.

Now for Yang Feng, in the position of central defender, what he can do is already the ultimate.

Even last season, Yang Feng used his developed long pass ability to send out more than ten assists, becoming the team's top player in assists.

With a long pass to assist his teammates, Yang Feng continued to enhance his header training in set kicks, in order to better utilize all his offensive abilities to help the team create a greater advantage.

But now, when he learned of Klopp's idea that he wanted to take more responsibility on the offensive end and play a new position, Yang Feng felt that he could accept the arrangement and try it out.

If it works, then Liverpool will have more offensive routines and hole cards. If not, Yang Feng will return to his original position as a central defender, and he will still be a world-class defender. He doesn't have to worry about his position like Firmino... …

"Here, when facing the opponent's pressing, you can't panic. Your position on the field at this time is a defensive midfielder rather than a defender. You must be able to control the ball, and you cannot always put safety clearance first."

"If it doesn't work, you have to pass back to find your teammates, either to Skrtel or goalkeeper Mignolet. You can't just think about making a clearance."

After determining his own tactical ideas, Klopp needs to let Yang Feng understand many differences between midfielders and defenders on the tactical board.

As for defenders, stability is usually the main focus. This year Klopp knows that Yang Feng is doing quite well.

Throughout Yang Feng's career, he has almost never made that kind of major mistake. He always chooses the safest way to resolve all emerging and potential crises. This is Yang Feng's way of defense.

Never play tricks in the defensive area, always use the most simple way to pass the ball safely, or clear the siege, and will never give the opposing player any chance to create a conversion of the ball.

This kind of thinking of keeping everything safe is good, but it is not advisable in Klopp's current assumption of Yang Feng playing the "organizational midfielder" position.

If the tactics take shape, Yang Feng will play a role as Liverpool's playmaker in the midfield, or even the playmaker in the backcourt. It must be done in the game, and Liverpool's large-scale dispatch after the ball is transferred from the frontcourt.

And Yang Feng's own pressure will definitely be stronger than that of the back line.

At this time, Yang Feng was not only thinking about kicking the ball safely, whether it was passing the ball or clearing the siege.

Instead, it should be in the game, understand your responsibilities, and on the premise of ensuring the safety of the ball as much as possible, carry the ball forward to complete the team's offensive scheduling.

Sometimes, even if it is not safe to handle the ball, you should try to complete the pass and seize every possible dangerous attack opportunity that may arise.

In the small group extra training after the normal training session, Klopp and two assistant coaches also stayed and joined Yang Feng's extra training small team.

Their goal is to make Yang Feng familiar with the feeling of being a defensive midfielder by using a small range of players to press.

It's just that during the rehearsal stage on Klopp's tactical board, Yang Feng, who was still able to do a job well and was well-informed, actually went to the training ground, only to find that the actual situation was not as easy as imagined.

The long-term training made Yang Feng sometimes have a completely natural muscular reaction to the incoming ball.

When the ball reached his feet and saw the "opponent" pressing, Yang Feng subconsciously cleared the siege with a big foot under pressure, which would definitely not meet Klopp's expectations.

Fortunately, on several occasions when Yang Feng forcibly controlled his mind and found a teammate who was free in the frontcourt, Yang Feng's long pass performed quite well.

Klopp was on the sidelines, and he was very relieved to see Yang Feng's several good passes.

With one or two people rushing forward quickly, Yang Feng can enter the field calmly and accurately pass the ball to the feet of teammates tens of meters away, or the forward area, so that teammates can play in the "space", at least It proves that Yang Feng's passing ability is okay.

So when Yang Feng's personal strength is no problem, Klopp needs to work hard.

He has to study the opponent and ensure that the team's lineup for the next few games is formulated in advance, under tactical circumstances.

It is also necessary to hurry up and improve how to advance Yang Feng's offensive position to the midfielder position, and how to build the team's new tactical system.

Because this involves the team's offense and defense, and the subtle changes in the positions of multiple players, the entire lineup has already affected the whole body, but now in order to make up for the vacancy left by Yang Feng's premise on the defense line, the offensive line has been changed to fit Yang Feng. The offensive formation played, but it consumed a lot of Klopp's brain cells...

But for Klopp, all the pain is worth it. As long as Yang Feng is perfectly qualified for this new position, then Liverpool may have new strength improvements under the circumstances of the existing personnel.

When Klopp was racking his brains for the new tactics, Yang Feng was also accompanied by a group of his little brothers, and in the extra training after daily training, he frantically cultivated his feeling in the midfielder position.

Yang Feng also wants to see if his changes can bring about greater changes in Liverpool...