[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-i-am-the-football-star":3,"chapter-i-am-the-football-star-i-am-the-football-star-chapter-534":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","I AM the Football Star",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1686429,2153,"Chapter 534 - 145: Defense Matters, But Defense Isn’t Valued_4","i-am-the-football-star-chapter-534",534,"\u003Cp>The key point is that Kaint himself has a very honest and straightforward personality. Although he feels wronged, he never argues with his teammates, just silently nods and apologizes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such behavior is very heart-wrenching and doesn’t gain the so-called respect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"If your plan succeeds, the performance of Nice this season won’t be good, because they simply don’t know who their real defensive anchor is!\" Morici was very angry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He empathized with Kaint’s experience, because at some point in the past, the value of organizing the midfield was underestimated and lacked proper respect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Quickly, the match restarted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nice players, ashamed, were eager to regain the lead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because they are the only team from the Five Major Leagues in the Europa League Group C.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What about the Russian Super League or Belgian First Division A? And Serie B dares to show up?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But under Morici’s coordination, Nice’s interception efficiency was not high, and they couldn’t organize San Remo’s midfield operation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reason is firstly, their personal defense ability is not as strong as they thought.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Without Kaint to organize defense and guide, Nice’s forward players showed many gaps in pressing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Secondly, why is there no organization of defense by Kaint?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because this time, the person responsible for coordination from San Remo is Morici, but the one lining up against Kaint became Lu Yang.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Morici passed to Lu Yang, who then deliberately sought out Kaint after taking possession.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once Kaint took charge of Lu Yang, other defenders naturally had to pull back slightly to deal with Morici, who originally was supposed to be managed by Kaint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But on Nice’s side, apart from Kaint, no one could freeze Morici; Morici regained his dynamism.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for Lu Yang’s dribbling and ball control skills, which might be lower than Morici’s... but his physical strength, resistance, height, and weight were far superior to Morici.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And these are something Kaint couldn’t compensate for with vision, anticipation, pressing, or collisions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a half match, Lu Yang could assure that Kaint couldn’t defend against players of the \"tower\" type like him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To put it bluntly, even the best perimeter defenders can’t stop the \"big rear end’s\" back-off attack starting from the three-point line.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lu Yang was now using a \"back-off\" style to control the ball and compete with Kaint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kaint was retreating step by step.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though Lu Yang started to show bruises, on the field, he held a huge advantage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Conversely, for San Remo’s defense, they intentionally left Kaint open.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They did not press Kaint but focused on cutting off his passing routes, following him about five meters away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether Kaint wanted to advance with the ball or shoot from a distance, San Remo didn’t stop him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus, the other members of Nice were defensively pinned down by San Remo tightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the only player enjoying a relaxed environment, Kaint, couldn’t help with the attack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His current performance was even worse than Manchester United’s recent Sancho.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sancho’s characteristic is that after holding the ball, he can’t penetrate the opponent’s defense. He habitually chooses to pass back, his personal dribbling speed is quite slow, becoming a constipation point in attack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Sancho still has some skills in passing and ball control.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>While Kaint fell short on all fronts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, Nice’s offense completely stagnated, failing to create a single effective attack within ten minutes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This made the Nice team, eager to equalize, very anxious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For Nice’s coaching staff, the problem has surfaced.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The person affecting the team’s offense, Kaint, is evident. Just replace Kaint with someone capable of organized attack in his \"position,\" and Nice would have scored for sure!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reason for the quotes around \"position\" is that it’s not Kaint’s \"midfielder\" position but rather the opportunities Kaint acquired on the field.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet, the Nice coaching staff didn’t consider if another player could receive the same treatment as Kaint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is like Chelsea’s golden scout Werner indeed being terrible at shooting, switching these chances to other reliable forwards would score more than ten goals than him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But... replacing with other forwards wouldn’t even have as many threatening goal opportunities as Werner.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, Werner’s goal efficiency, though indeed very low, is actually far higher than what people see.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beep!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kaint made a tactical foul, killing San Remo’s counterattack, and because his move was smart enough, he didn’t even receive a yellow card.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Disrupting a counter, if you make a move at the opponent’s ball moment, you may not get carded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if you act after the opponent has carried the ball for a while, seeing it as a good counter opportunity, you’ll surely get carded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kaint has a lot of football intelligence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kaint actively reached out and pulled up the fallen Lu Yang.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lu Yang reluctantly smiled.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Reluctance because Kaint is really damn smart, if he hesitated just a bit, Lu Yang would have soared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And smiled because... Lu Yang saw by the sidelines!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The next moment, the substitution board lit up at the sideline.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Nice team substituted Kaint with a reserve midfielder.\u003C\u002Fp>",833,"2026-06-06T13:45:17.999Z",1,"novelbin.me","26b5816c7e6c5b064ba739bbbed8dd454066afe1136b7f043aab7c1ccc2ab897","i-am-the-football-star-chapter-535","i-am-the-football-star-chapter-533",836,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fi-am-the-football-star-cover.jpg"]