Bilic was the first to arrive at the stadium early Saturday morning, and at around 9 o'clock, he and his assistants were already enjoying breakfast, which has become a habit for the team since they returned to Beijing. The day's training started at 11:00 a.m. Bilic, who arrived early, greeted the Chinese coaching team, arranged the training content and waited for the players to arrive one after another.
Despite being on hiatus, the volume of training has increased rather than decreased. Almost all of Bilic's sessions were 100 minutes or more, with heavy, confrontational workouts, mostly led by assistant coaches, with Bilic speaking only at key moments. During training, he always wears a hat. After coming to China, wearing a hat became his habit, not only for shade.
After four rounds of matches, the national team has two wins and two losses, with six points. This is not a good result, especially with the unexpected two consecutive losses to start the league season. For Bilic, who has just taken over, his first season has suffered a setback.
After two consecutive defeats, there was a steady stream of skepticism towards Bilic and he faced pointed questions during the conference, but the Croatian has long been used to such situations and these setbacks didn't seem to cause any ripples with him. The full support from within the club was also a big reason why he kept his cool. Fortunately, the following two games Guoan team have won, the team gradually back on track, Bilic is also considered to have successfully passed the most difficult level.
It's hard to define the new season's Guoan team based on these four games alone. The team's lineup has changed dramatically, with Augusto and Fernando's return date undecided, the international players in poor shape, and consecutive injuries to players such as Bieira, Yu Yang, and Wang Gang. For Bilic, it is also difficult to evaluate, whether from the soccer philosophy or technical and tactical and personnel point of view, Bilic coaching under the Guoan team still seems to carry the shadow of the past. If there is a change, apart from the newcomers, the intensity of confrontation seems to have improved.
As for Bilic himself, he seems to be different from people's imagination. Before his arrival, the images that came to people's mind were passionate, rock coach and Beijing soccer seem to be a perfect match, and Guoan should rekindle the lost "soul". However, when the game started, it was not what was expected. Bilic is very calm, with the players, he is like a big brother; command of the game is not exaggerated, locker room motivation is not boiling blood, even when facing the camera, accepting interviews, his body language is not much. He is like an old bass player who has already closed the mountain, and has long scrubbed the beloved strings and put them back in the box, only the shiny studs in his left ear proved that he was once a hot blooded player.
Now, enough with the music and the rock and roll, Bilic said, "Let's have a good talk about soccer."
Soccer Reporter:
Hello! Do you come this early every morning? Bilic: I don't know how early you mean. For me it's a habit, because it's normal for me to be at work two hours before training, and it's been a habit since my first day as a coach. In this case, arrive a little earlier, you can prepare for the day's training, and then with my Croatian coaching team, as well as the entire Chinese coaching team can say hello in advance, meet, and then wait for the arrival of the players.
Soccer Reporter:
This reminds me of a saying in my country that the bird gets the worm in the morning. Yes, we have a similar saying there, and it is a worldwide consensus, isn't it, that whoever is hardworking and willing to give more will certainly succeed, relatively speaking, without too much difficulty.
Soccer Reporter:
Let's talk about soccer, after four rounds of matches, what is the overall impression about the Chinese Super League? This year's league is another special season, we all know that due to the epidemic, the league is in a closed state, but also divided into several segments, but in general, our league arrangements, arrangements, and related work are very detailed, in place, and well organized. The league is divided into two major groups, each group is intertwined with strong and slightly weaker teams, no matter whether it is a strong team or a weak team, we can see that our technical and tactical requirements are very high, and the kicking game is very structured.
Other than that, due to the restrictions on world travel caused by the epidemic, no team in the entire Chinese Super League is unaffected, more or less, coupled with the problems of individual clubs themselves, creating a few teams that perhaps form teams to participate in the league at the last minute, so perhaps they are also more affected. However, in such a difficult situation, the final game shown on the field, the tactical content of each team is still very high, no game is particularly easy, even the so-called title contenders, against the weak team, to get points is not very easy.
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