Greatest of All Legends

Chapter 441: Style of Play II

Versatility and Experience.

Versatility was because of well… versatility.

He could shoot with both legs, could dribble with both legs, could dribble speedily or technically, and could dribble simply or flamboyantly.

It meant he was never out of his element anywhere in the final third and that was a good starting point.

The second word was ‘Experience’.

It meant a culmination of everything he had ever done and gone through and it was probably what had helped him so far.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but he was an old dog who had seen all the tricks before and had experienced an age rejuvenation.

Thanks to his experience, he could easily read people’s movement, motion, and their intentions and that had always helped him to be at the right place most of the time, but what if he stopped using that attribute passively and began to use it actively both when he was on the ball and off the ball.

If before the ball reached him, he moved himself into the best position to easily evade his marker right from his touch on the ball, then things would become a lot easier.

It would become a lot harder for him to be surrounded by opposition players.

The key was his initial positioning and an already prepared escape plan.

The good thing was that since he was almost never out of his element, he could constantly think of a lot of ways to escape defenders.

With a framework of an idea popping in his head, he started thinking more about how to best employ this new playing style, but unfortunately there wasn’t a chance for him to do that right now, however, Jason contented himself with image training.

He had read somewhere that mental image training was just as effective as actual training… though that was only in regards to technical training.

Image training had no effect on the physique as any sane person would know.

The rest of Jason’s day consisted of doing ‘light’ physical training and doing image training during the rest periods in-between the training sessions.

As the training for the day neared it’s end, the players were called for a meeting concerning the upcoming match.

On receiving the summons from the manager, the players who were training immediately went to freshen up before heading to the meeting room where the match focus meeting would take place.

Jason, Cuadrado, Mckennie, Ronaldo, and Dybala arrived at the meeting room together for the meeting as they had been together when they were called.

On a noticeboard near the entrance of the room, a list of the players in the provisional squad that would be going to Milan for the match the following day was pasted for the players to see.

The players went to check the list before going to their seats and as expected, everyone but Dybala was on the list as he was still not cleared to get back on the field.

Jason was happy to see his name on the list as that was a good start, but he didn’t get ahead of himself as he knew that it was almost impossible for him to be in the starting line-up for that match for so many reasons.

However, he did have some hope to get some time on the field in the match, but there was a high chance that might not happen.

‘No matter,’ he thought to himself, willing to wait even though he did want to try out the new style he was developing.

The guys around him didn’t talk much about it and he didn’t either and just sat to await the manager who soon arrived and after a few pleasantries quickly got into their game plan for the coming game.

Jason watched and listened intently during the meeting, soaking in the tactical instructions given to each player as it allowed him to have an idea of what was supposed to be happening on the pitch at any given moment.

Listening to the tactical instructions would help him understand not only the game plan, but also to understand his teammates and what each one of them were likely to do when they were with the ball.

While he listened, Jason could not help but note the disparity in how things were done here in Uventus as to how they were done at Oporto.

There was a lot more attention to details here at Uventus and what the manager expected a lot from his players, but at the same time, he allowed them to pitch in on ideas as the playes at Uventus were players who were all individual talents in their own rights.

Any one of them could easily turn the game around when they were in a hot run of form and each had their distinct playing styles.

To bring out the best from them, then the manager had to listen to their opinions and consider them when making his game plans if he wanted a team that was free to display their best talents and bring about collective victory.

Pirlo wasn’t someone so rigid as to force instructions that would be difficult to follow through on a player.

Freedom to a certain level was best in a team like this because all the players had their own egos and if the tactics he chose to use didn’t match their style of play, they might just go ahead and do whatever they wanted on the field.

That wouldn’t do anyone any good and could cause problems in team chemistry in the long run.

With all this in mind, Pirlo explained the tactical instructions he had for the players in the coming match.

“Now that we all know our roles for the coming match, here is the starting line-up,”

“Sczesny will be the goalkeeper, Chiellini and De Ligt will be the central defenders,”

“Cuadrado will be on the right side of the defense line while Aleix Sandro will be on the left,”

“In center midfield will be Ramsey and Arthur, with Mckennie on the left and Kulusevski will be on the right,”

“Upfront are Ronaldo and Morata as usual,” Pirlo said and began to reiterate what he had said earlier but this time, he directed his words to the players who had been chosen to be in the starting line-up.