I AM the Football Star

Chapter 534: Chapter 145: Defense Matters, But Defense Isn’t Valued_4

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.

Such behavior is very heart-wrenching and doesn’t gain the so-called respect.

”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.

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.

...

Quickly, the match restarted.

Nice players, ashamed, were eager to regain the lead.

Because they are the only team from the Five Major Leagues in the Europa League Group C.

What about the Russian Super League or Belgian First Division A? And Serie B dares to show up?

But under Morici’s coordination, Nice’s interception efficiency was not high, and they couldn’t organize San Remo’s midfield operation.

The reason is firstly, their personal defense ability is not as strong as they thought.

Without Kaint to organize defense and guide, Nice’s forward players showed many gaps in pressing.

Secondly, why is there no organization of defense by Kaint?

Because this time, the person responsible for coordination from San Remo is Morici, but the one lining up against Kaint became Lu Yang.

Morici passed to Lu Yang, who then deliberately sought out Kaint after taking possession.

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.

But on Nice’s side, apart from Kaint, no one could freeze Morici; Morici regained his dynamism.

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.

And these are something Kaint couldn’t compensate for with vision, anticipation, pressing, or collisions.

After a half match, Lu Yang could assure that Kaint couldn’t defend against players of the ”tower” type like him.

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.

Lu Yang was now using a ”back-off” style to control the ball and compete with Kaint.

Kaint was retreating step by step.

Though Lu Yang started to show bruises, on the field, he held a huge advantage.

Conversely, for San Remo’s defense, they intentionally left Kaint open.

They did not press Kaint but focused on cutting off his passing routes, following him about five meters away.

Whether Kaint wanted to advance with the ball or shoot from a distance, San Remo didn’t stop him.

Thus, the other members of Nice were defensively pinned down by San Remo tightly.

But the only player enjoying a relaxed environment, Kaint, couldn’t help with the attack.

His current performance was even worse than Manchester United’s recent Sancho.

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.

But Sancho still has some skills in passing and ball control.

While Kaint fell short on all fronts.

Therefore, Nice’s offense completely stagnated, failing to create a single effective attack within ten minutes.

This made the Nice team, eager to equalize, very anxious.

For Nice’s coaching staff, the problem has surfaced.

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!

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.

Yet, the Nice coaching staff didn’t consider if another player could receive the same treatment as Kaint.

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.

But... replacing with other forwards wouldn’t even have as many threatening goal opportunities as Werner.

So, Werner’s goal efficiency, though indeed very low, is actually far higher than what people see.

Beep!

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.

Disrupting a counter, if you make a move at the opponent’s ball moment, you may not get carded.

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.

Kaint has a lot of football intelligence.

Kaint actively reached out and pulled up the fallen Lu Yang.

Lu Yang reluctantly smiled.

Reluctance because Kaint is really damn smart, if he hesitated just a bit, Lu Yang would have soared.

And smiled because... Lu Yang saw by the sidelines!

The next moment, the substitution board lit up at the sideline.

The Nice team substituted Kaint with a reserve midfielder.