Unai Emery - former Valencia's coach failed in Russia.

@ivan88 (193)
Canada
December 28, 2012 7:55pm CST
Everything, everything was pretty good for him in Valencia. Suddenly, a change in career with a pretty good salary in Moscow, has led him to appear in a northern federation to bring the former glory of a local club with the largest fan-base in Russia - Spartak (Spartacus, in English) Moscow. A few leading players in Spartak have been represented by Brazilian players. A couple of local Russian strikers started scoring and were even invited to play for the Russian National team, the highest level of soccer-recognition for that country. What happened? Why did he spoil the progress of a former Spartak's coach and brought the team down to the 8th position? The thing is - the reason WHY Spartak hired him was to establish a more reliable style of the game. That team, conceding lots of goals, has been winning with scores like 2:1, 3:2, 4:3. So, it was obvious - time to set up a more defensive style, play "for a zero" goals on your net. If clean sheets aren't achieved at the moment, it is obviously important to set up a better defence-line, train and play in such a formation that would bring those clean sheets and, as a result, necessary confidence that the rest of the team could build up on. Then, after that, settle on a more open attacking style. However, Emery trained Spartak in the same routine as he trained Valencia. There is even a quote of his (in a press-conference): "4:3 is valued more than 1:0." Perhaps, it is time to change the training focus of Emery. He's a young and ambitious coach, and I am sure he will achieve many goals in the future. However, he needs to grow up form the typical routine that he trains his teams in. He needs to see and mark the abilities of his teams. Thus, perhaps, he will be able to set up sober and correct training routines on the defence first, especially, for the teams that have a hard time winning in a clean way. I am a former goalkeeper, and I would say that a team defending in the most organized way and winning most of their games with 1:0 or 2:0 score looks MUCH better than the one letting any opponent crawl up to 2:1 or 4:3 score. The last scores are much less secure and show that your team lets your opponents too much inside your danger-zone. A team needs to work together - attack and defend well. If everything is okay in the attack line, it is obviously necessary to focus on strict and patient defence-like type of game. Confidence, fiery scoring, and breathtaking dribbling all come with confidence that appears after the clean-sheet victories.
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