Chapter 109: Superstar Treatment!
In the hospital, Arnautovic had already regained consciousness.
After an examination, the doctors determined that he suffered from a brief coma caused by a concussion and needed to be kept under observation for a period of time.
This condition required rest, and until the doctor confirmed his complete recovery, he couldn't engage in strenuous exercise, as it could worsen his condition.
This meant he would miss at least a month of games, but fortunately, the winter break was approaching, and during this month, they only had one German Cup match to play.
For Werder Bremen, this was considered a lucky break amidst misfortune.
However, their opponent in this German Cup match was Bayern Munich.
With their main striker sidelined, Werder Bremen's chances of winning were even slimmer.
"Werder Bremen's luck is really terrible. Not only did they draw the strongest opponent in the Bundesliga, but they also received the bad news of their main striker's injury before the match. This will likely be a significant disadvantage for them."
Before the match, various pundits didn't favor Werder Bremen's chances of winning away from home.
Their strength was already inferior to their opponents, and now their main striker was injured.
What's worse, the German Cup match was scheduled just four days after the league.
And Bayern Munich's match in the 17th round was two days earlier than Werder Bremen's, meaning they had more rest time to adjust their form and recover their energy.
This situation was a complete reversal of when Werder Bremen faced Bayern Munich previously, as now they were facing a crisis of physical fitness.
In the 6th round of the league, Werder Bremen managed to draw with Bayern Munich at home, mainly because Bayern needed to conserve energy for a Champions League match in three days.
That game exhausted Bayern greatly, almost leading to a collapse of their squad, which was playing in three competitions.
After being held to a draw by Werder Bremen away, Bayern had to fly to Belarus with exhausted bodies and suffered a 3-1 loss to the weakest team in the group stage, BATE Borisov, losing their only game in the Champions League this season.
Since then, Bayern has placed even greater emphasis on squad rotation, trying to manage their players' fitness as much as possible and rotating their lineup wisely in every match.
At this point, under the pressure of playing in three competitions, Bayern's players' fitness issues hadn't exploded, but instead, due to the substantial playing time for substitute players, their bench strength was beginning to show.
The saying "Not afraid of Bayern's strength, but afraid of Bayern's substitutes" was becoming a frightening reality.
How to deal with this increasingly strong Bayern became a headache for Werder Bremen's coaching staff.
At the same time, on Bayern's side, their coaching staff was also discussing how to limit Werder Bremen's attacking system.
"Werder Bremen's overall strength isn't strong, but their team relies heavily on two players. If we can shut down De Bruyne and Lin Quan, we can neutralize most of their attacking firepower and even completely disable their attacking ability!"
Assistant coach Grand outlined Werder Bremen's attacking tactics on the tactical board and suggested ways to disrupt or limit their opponents' attacking tactics:
"De Bruyne lacks physical strength and isn't strong in duels. We just need a defensive midfielder with strong sweeping ability and abundant physical fitness to shut him down!"
"We happen to have two and a half players like this - Martinez and Gustavo. When necessary, we can also let Javi Martinez come on to mark him, focusing solely on defending against De Bruyne!"
Another assistant coach, Herman, chimed in:
"I agree with your suggestion to mark De Bruyne, but Werder Bremen's front line also has Lin Quan!"
"Even if we limit De Bruyne, we may not be able to fully restrict their organization and attack. Don't forget, in De Bruyne's absence, Werder Bremen's frontcourt organization work is all handled by Lin Quan alone, and he also has excellent organizational and attacking abilities!"
"Of course, I haven't forgotten this, and this is what I'm going to introduce next!"
Heynckes rubbed his stubble with interest, watching the debate between the two assistant coaches.
Grand glanced at Heynckes and, seeing his encouraging look, breathed a sigh of relief.
He wiped off the contents on the tactical board, redrawn, and marked out Lin Quan's habitual areas of activity in the frontcourt, as well as his most commonly used attacking methods.
"To limit Lin Quan's attack, a single defender is definitely not enough. He moves too quickly and dribbles too well. Big defenders can't keep up with his rhythm and are easily dribbled past."
Everyone nodded in agreement. In the two encounters in the Telekom Cup and the league, their defensive line was tormented by this guy.
Central defender Dante even almost missed the season due to injury, with his knee injury taking more than three months to recover.
And young defender Boateng, also because of Lin Quan's repeated humiliations, suffered a severe blow to his confidence, and his performance this season was not as good as it used to be in the original timeline.
This guy is simply a nightmare for Bayern defenders!
If you were to ask which player Bayern defenders least wanted to encounter in the entire league.
Then they would definitely choose Lin Quan!
"To limit Lin Quan's attack, we need to use targeted tactics to restrict him, just like limiting superstars like Messi and Ronaldo!"
Grand picked up the remote control, turned on the TV, and pulled out a match between Real Madrid and Barcelona in La Liga.
"Pay attention, this is the method Mourinho's team used to limit Messi: Restricting Messi's space!"
Everyone became serious. As a player whose style is most similar to Lin Quan's, the method used to deal with Messi could naturally be used to deal with Lin Quan.
And Mourinho is a master in this regard, so it's not embarrassing to learn from him.
"Lin Quan is accustomed to operating on the right flank, but in the frontcourt, his range of activity is not fixed, which makes it easy for the defender marking him to lose position, leading to defensive gaps."
"And to solve this problem, we need to build a dam between the midfield and the defensive line to lock down his range of activity.
The specific method is to have our left-back mark Lin Quan closely, following him wherever he goes.
As for the issue of the left-back losing defensive position while marking, we can have our left midfielder drop back temporarily to cover the left-back's position.
Our goal is simple, we must not let Lin Quan easily penetrate into the dangerous area between our defensive midfielder and defensive line.
This area is only defended by one line. Once he breaks through, our goal will be under great threat!"
Herman frowned, "According to your method, aren't our defensive players still in one-on-one situations?"
Grand smiled and circled the position of the left-back:
"This is our left-back, this is our central defender, this is our left-back, and here is the left midfielder who falls back to cover. If Lin Quan is operating on the wing, then only the left-back is defending against him.
But as soon as he leaves his position and dribbles into the center, he will immediately be surrounded by our four players.
As long as our defensive midfielder can control the area around him, we can build an impenetrable prison for Lin Quan when he comes to penetrate, trapping him here!"
Heynckes' eyes lit up. Grand, this old guy, really knows his stuff!
"In this case, the most important players in our defense are the defensive midfielder and the winger."
Heynckes was already thinking about which players would be suitable for this tactic.
Javi Martinez would definitely play, he's the strongest defensive midfielder at Bayern.
But having just Martinez wouldn't be enough; they also needed to limit the opposition's De Bruyne.
This meant they needed another defensive midfielder with excellent defensive abilities, which could only be Gustavo.
But with these two on, the organizing ability of the midfield would greatly decrease.
Should Kroos, the organizer of the backfield, also be brought on and change the formation to 4-3-2-1?
...
Bayern's bench was too deep, causing Heynckes to struggle with whether or not to play a certain player.
Werder Bremen didn't have this problem at all; they were instead worried about the lack of a suitable main striker.
"Should we let Felkrug play, or should we move Hunt's position forward?"
Felkrug, like Arnautovic, is a center-forward, but his ability is slightly weaker than Arnautovic's, and he poses less of a threat in the penalty area.
While Hunt is fast, he lacks height, and putting him up front would be too easy for Bayern's defenders.
If he were to play, Werder Bremen would probably lose their pivot in the frontcourt.
It's really a headache!
There aren't many usable options at hand; they can only make do with what they have!
In the end, Schaaf chose Felkrug, who came through the youth academy.
He's good at playing as a pivot in the frontcourt and providing passes to his teammates, so even if there's less threat in the penalty area, we have Lin Quan and De Bruyne as our two main scoring threats. We shouldn't have to worry about our scoring ability.
...
Time quickly came to December 18th, the match day of the third round of the German Cup.
This was the last match before the Bundesliga winter break, and many teams that had already been eliminated had begun their holidays after the league ended.
Because of the approaching winter break, many top clubs who wanted to scout players from the Bundesliga sent out many scouts to watch the matches in person.
Among them, the most watched was the showdown between Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich.
Because of his outstanding performance since joining Werder Bremen on loan this season, De Bruyne had attracted the attention of Chelsea Football Club.
In addition to George Evans, who had been tracking and observing him, Chelsea's veteran scout Peter Deweese also came to the Allianz Arena.
"Since Kevin returned from injury, his performance in recent matches has been excellent."
"He is now leading the Bundesliga in assists, and he has scored eight goals in half a season. Over the course of a whole season, getting more than 20 assists and more than 10 goals should be a certainty!"
George reported to the club's senior colleagues with excitement. The club sent such a senior colleague over; they should already be planning to recall De Bruyne, right?
As a scout who had witnessed De Bruyne's growth and improvement, he felt a sense of pride!
However, after he finished his report, Deweese's reaction was very indifferent, as if he didn't care about De Bruyne's data at all.
On the contrary, when he saw the number 10 player in the green jersey step onto the field, his eyes lit up, and he pointed to the player's back and asked: "Is that the Bundesliga's Messi?"
(End of this chapter)