AFC Cup derby: Taishan win with technical and tactical victory
AFC Cup Quarterfinal First Round: Taishan wins 2-0 over Wuhan, brother derby ends in victory
Shandong Taishan prefecture level city in Shandong
Taishan defeated Wuhan 2-0 in the first leg of the quarter-final of the AFC Cup, which is known as the "Taishan Brothers' Derby". In this match, the Taishan team followed the tactical system of former head coach Li Xiaopeng and successfully defeated the opponent coached by Li Xiaopeng. Hao Wei, who used to be Li Xiaopeng's assistant, also won the "brother derby" by making substitutions in the second half.
Revisiting the high-flying game, the Terriers revert to old tactics
The game is widely expected to be a "Taishan brothers derby". Indeed, the two head coaches Li Xiaopeng and Hao Wei worked together in the Taishan team, and after his retirement Hao Wei successively assisted Li Xiaopeng in the Chinese women's soccer team and Shandong Taishan coaching, and eventually took over Li Xiaopeng's coaching whip twice. In addition, the coaching team of the two teams, Shu Chang, Han Peng, Zhou Haibin, Fan Xuewei, Wang Jun, Li Leilei,
Li Jinyu (1905-1992), Chinese female revolutionary and martyr
and Wang Liang were all former players of Taishan team, many of them are long-term teammates working together, and they have a tacit understanding with each other.
In this season's Super League, Taishan gave up their high-flying style and switched to a ground game, which worked quite well. However, in this game, Taishan returned to the traditional tactic of playing high. This tactical choice by Hao Wei seems to be a tribute to his big brother Li Xiaopeng.
Wuhan's high-flying team, but not as well-staffed as Taishan
Although Wuhan didn't have many offensive chances in the game, their tactics were still high-flying. Local center forward Dong Xuesheng sat in the middle of the field, flanked by Huang Zichang and Liu Yun, but Wuhan's staff was slightly understaffed compared to Taishan. Li Xiaopeng's tactics were also ineffective.
Hao Wei's second-half substitutions activate offensive firepower
In the first half, Taishan created some chances, but they were all saved by Wuhan goalkeeper Wang Zhifeng. On the whole, Taishan did not have many chances. After the half-time break, Hao Wei did not rush to change, but after playing 5 minutes, see the situation on the field did not change, decisive substitution adjustments, with U23 young Duan Liu Yu replaced the first half of the performance of the fair Liu Yang.
Duan Liuyu appeared in the right forward position, the original right forward Tian Xin topped the center, Delgado was pulled from the center position to the left. This substitution, with three positional adjustments, completely activated Taishan's offense. In the 51st and 55th minutes, Taishan team respectively by Tian Xin and Moises broke the opponent's post and crossbar. In the 60th minute, finally came the goal, Delgado left line of the penalty area line cross, Tian Xin goal header to break the deadlock. It all started with a positional adjustment of the two.
Moises turns into high point, replaces Fellaini's role
After the departure of Li Xiaopeng's high center Pelé, Taishan often switched to Fellaini as a center forward when they were in trouble on the offensive end. However, with Fellaini out for this game due to a calf strain, Taishan once again went to a high-flying tactic. The team desperately needs to find a replacement for Fellaini.
At this point, Moises stood out. Originally, it was expected that Moises would partner with Sun Junho at the back, but after the game started, the position changed to Ji Xiang partnering with Sun Junho, with Moises at the front. Throughout the game, Moises not only organized the attack in the front position, sometimes Delgado would pull to the left, Moises to the center, and many times as the central axis for teammates to do the ball or in the fight for the top to win the ball.
At least from this game, Moises transformed into the high point up front, replacing Fellaini's role well, which allowed the latter to feel comfortable discussing the game from the stands alongside fellow injured player Zhang Qi.
