Vince's Biography: Feeding Biographies into the AI Model to Make It Come Alive! You're the Only One Who Can Make a Change!

Tang Long stared intently at his phone screen.

He was indeed reading, but not a novel; it was a biography.

A biography of a teammate!

He quickly read through a 500-page biography of Kompany, ghostwritten by a Belgium journalist, in six hours.

In other countries, many players publish biographies even though they are still far from retirement.

Since players don't have the time or writing skills to write their own books, the common practice is to authorize a trusted journalist to ghostwrite them through recorded interviews.

Rather than saying Tang Long was reading a biography, it would be more accurate to say he was using his eyes to scan the text as quickly as possible, inputting it into his AI brain for analysis!

Despite not having a full squad, Pellegrini stubbornly persisted with his possession-based tactics, which revealed the Chile veteran coach's inflexible personality to Tang Long.

In this respect, he felt that Pellegrini was not as good as his former coach Mancini.

As a player, Tang Long cannot influence Pellegrini's lineup. His mission is simply to play well on the field, and winning is always Tang Long's primary goal, regardless of which teammates he has.

Tang Long always likes to plan ahead. After witnessing the Manchester City manager's character flaws, he realized that these flaws would continue to cause trouble for the team in the following matches—until Ranocchia, Silva, Agüero returned to the team.

He needs to prepare in advance!

You must understand your teammates better and make full use of those teammates who are not good at passing and controlling the ball, but still have a winning mentality, no matter what kind of adversity you are in!

Simply watching videos or scanning teammates for AI data analysis is far from enough.

Previously, Tang Long had created personal models for both Sterling and Bony;

Through the model construction, the AI System also provided corresponding analysis and suggestions, which Tang Long could use as a reference on the field.

This is a huge step forward.

This means that Tang Long's AI predictions have been elevated, and his understanding of specific players has taken a step further!

However, the data entered is always cold and impersonal.

A player's positioning and abilities can perhaps be derived from video footage, height, weight, and physical characteristics, and then used as a reference to feed into a model.

But players aren't machines!

They are first and foremost living, breathing human beings, and only then do they have the added advantage of being professional athletes.

Every human being has their own thoughts, emotions, desires, loves, hates, and grudges; they have things they dislike, things they like, things they observe indifferently, and things they strive for their entire lives!

The upgrade of the [Green Field Intelligence Engine] from the intermediate to the advanced stage greatly improved its [computing power], providing Tang Long with an opportunity.

That means when building individual player models, we should no longer rely on cold, hard data for analysis, but instead incorporate emotional factors!

To bring the model to life, making it more "human."

From a commercial perspective, playing football is a job for professional players.

When people work, they inevitably bring their personal emotions into it.

For example, Bony.

He suddenly exploded onto the scene, scoring four goals in 20 minutes, shocking the entire Premier League!

While it's true that his own abilities haven't been fully showcased, the story behind Bony is equally important.

Bony grew up in Ivory Coast slum and, after becoming a professional footballer, had to support his family of 200.

After arriving in the Premier League, he suffered from invisible racial discrimination and was looked down upon.

Under the weight of all these oppressive emotions, Bony was seething with anger!

This spirit ensures that Bony will never give up on his career or his ultimate goal of becoming a world-class striker—this is what distinguishes Bony from many Europe players who grew up in privileged families.

The latter enjoy the comprehensive social welfare system of developed countries, and even if they don't play football, they can live a comfortable life.

But Bony didn't have that kind of comfortable mindset!

If eliminated by Manchester City, he will face a severe blow to his family's reputation, a sharp drop in salary, and the inability to support 200 people!

Therefore, Bony brought this passion into his work as a football player, which made him show a more obvious tenacity than the average Europe player!

Tang Long already knew Bony very well, so he made the most of his time to read the biographies of his other teammates.

These biographies, written by experienced Europe journalists, often detail the players' development and the changes in their mindset year by year as they play professional football.

Through these detailed texts and accompanying pictures, Tang Long was able to learn as much as possible about the untold stories behind some of his teammates in a short period of time—stories that many people had never told Tang Long before.

Let's start with the autobiography of Manchester City captain Kompany.

The Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium in Sevilla.

Nearly 50,000 fans filled the small stadium to capacity, creating a deafening roar and the sound of cheering for the home team!

"Sevilla!"

"Sevilla!"

"Sevilla! Represent Spain and defeat these arrogant UK colonists!"

"Drive them out of our country!"

The vast majority of Sevilla's players are Spain.

They have an innate hatred of UK.

In 1704, the UK fleet launched a surprise attack and occupied Gibraltar.

In the subsequent Treaty of Utrecht, Spain was forced to cede Gibraltar to UK.

Although Spain never truly relinquished its claim to sovereignty over Gibraltar, the signing of the treaty marked Gibraltar's formal transition into UK colony.

Gibraltar, a narrow strip of land in southern Spain, is not large in area, but it has been the site of complex relations between Spain and UK for centuries.

Today, it remains an UK Overseas Territory, despite its geographical proximity to mainland Spain.

For many years, Spain has sought to recapture Gibraltar through numerous wars, but until now, this dream seems to be a distant dream.

Indeed, Spain, a developed country in Western Europe, had an UK colony within its territory!

Although Manchester City doesn't have many UK, there are only three in total: Joe Hart, Delph, and Sterling.

However, this did not stop the people of Sevilla from venting their hatred for the UK colonizers on Manchester City.

"In this match, Manchester City still fielded their usual 4-2-3-1 formation!"

"Perhaps due to the team's poor performance in the last match, where they were held to a draw by Swansea, Pellegrini made significant rotations in this Pellegrini."

"Caballero remains the starting goalkeeper, but his center-back partners have changed to Kompany and Demichelis, Otamendi is on the bench!"

"Kolarov has replaced Clichy and is now starting at left-back!"

"The two defensive midfielders are Delph and Fernandinho!"

The broadcast camera cut to Toure on the bench, who was resting his head on his hand with a blank expression, looking rather unhappy.

"Nasri is in the starting lineup!"

"The former Four Little Swans of France' —we haven't seen them shine in the UEFA Champions League for a long time."

"Navas is back in the starting lineup."

"Tang Long remains in the attacking midfield position!"

"The starting striker has changed from Bony to young Iheanacho!"

"This is Iheanacho's first UEFA Champions League match of the season... no! It's his professional debut!"

Let's look forward to seeing what kind of impressive performance this 19-year-old will deliver.

However, Manchester City didn't have any standout performances in the first half!

Manchester City's expensive, low-slung sports car underwent a major overhaul in this match, with Pellegrini replacing many new parts.

This adjustment was naturally partly due to considerations of regular rotation in the UEFA Champions League, but more importantly, it was Pellegrini's response to his dissatisfaction with the players' performance in the previous match.

He needs to give the team a talking-to!

The personnel have changed, but the tactics remain the same!

They continued to use the ground passing and control tactics he insisted on.

In the backfield, the most crucial link in the ball distribution center-back position has changed from Otamendi to Demichelis;

However, both defensive midfielders, Fernandinho and Delph, have relatively average footwork skills; they are purely defensive midfielders focused on interception.

Even though Demichelis's footwork is slightly better Otamendi's, it still presents him with a significant challenge in connecting with the midfield.

More importantly, they are facing Sevilla, a truly traditional powerhouse in La Liga!

Sevilla's technical skills are also a strength. At least in terms of the current squad, Sevilla, with their full-strength lineup, showed much better passing and control than Manchester City in the first half!

"Underfoot, underfoot!"

"Pull back, reposition!"

"Yes, that's it, try to give the shortest possible one!"

Spain's head coach and tactical mastermind Emery was gesturing and shouting incessantly from the sidelines.

Emery taking this match very seriously; only by defeating Manchester City can he gain a favorable position in the race against Juventus for second place in the group!

In the 15th minute of the first half, Demichelis evaded striker Gameiro's pressure and passed the ball to Delph.

Delph naturally made a sweeping motion, intending to get past the slender Banega.

However, what he didn't expect was that Banega had already seen through Delph's intentions at a glance, and immediately made a steal by extending his foot to block it!

On the bench, Toure slapped his thigh hard and shouted:

"How could Delph play like that? He didn't observe the situation behind him and was too presumptuous!"

If it weren't for Demichelis's diving save, pushing his body to its limit to break Banega's through ball, Manchester City's goal would probably have been wide open!

Manchester City's attack still appears very "complicated".

This dilemma mainly manifests in the lack of fluidity in passing and control under the current personnel configuration.

Tang Long frequently dropped back and moved a wide area to receive the ball in midfield, alleviating the lack of fluidity, and delivered penetrating through balls based on his teammates' runs;

But as soon as the ball leaves Tang Long's feet, his teammates lose their rhythm.

In the 25th minute of the first half, Navas received the ball and suddenly accelerated down the wing, getting past right-back Koke.

"Pass! Pass!"

Iheanacho, waiting inside the penalty area, could no longer contain himself.

Standing at 1.85 meters tall, he has an amazing jumping ability and is very confident that he can dominate Sevilla's two not-so-tall center-backs and win the headers!

To his surprise, Nasri didn't cross with his left foot, but instead cut the ball back.

Then he passed the ball back to the left-back Kolarov, who was coming to receive it.

Kolarov then passed the ball to Delph, and the ball was passed around in short passes.

"Pass it! Why didn't you pass it when you had such a good opportunity?" Iheanacho stamped his feet in frustration.

"That ball can be passed to Nasri, Iheanacho has a header," Tang Long also called out to Nasri.

Nasri rolled his eyes at Tang Long, pursed his lips, and remained silent.

But he didn't hold back when it came to Izinacho, the young black man!

"The coach wants us to play possession football, what do you know?!"

Nasri is ostensibly strictly implementing Pellegrini's tactics, but in reality, he's trying to curry favor with the Chile veteran.

Nasri is a shrewd person.

He knew that even if the ball was passed out and Iheanacho headed it, Pellegrini wouldn't be happy!

Because long balls from the wings are not a typical possession-based tactic, Pellegrini doesn't like them.

The Chile coach's goal was to penetrate the penalty area and play beautiful football.

Nasri finally got his first UEFA Champions League start of the season, and now he's expected to go against the manager?

He's not stupid!

What if they don't let him play in the next game?

As for what Tang Long said, the France star felt it had nothing to do with him!

This China man is a treasure in Pellegrini's eyes; Pellegrini treats him like his own grandson.

He was featured in the Sun, but they eventually let him off the hook.

While we were all practicing hard, he watched movies and read novels, and nothing happened to him; he still started.

If I had Tang Long's treatment, I could kick the ball however I wanted, but I don't!

The first half ended with the score tied at 0-0.

However, Sevilla far surpasses Manchester City in both possession and shooting efficiency.

Possession: 57% vs. 43%

Shots: Sevilla 4 out of 8, Manchester City 1 out of 5.

If it weren't for Demichelis's numerous valiant saves and Caballero's outstanding performance, the score would likely have been 0-2!

During halftime, Pellegrini encouraged the entire team in the locker room.

"Guys, be more confident!"

"You didn't play well in the first half, but I'm glad you still strictly followed the tactics I laid out before the match, and you deserve praise for that!"

"We've already secured 9 points from the first three group stage matches, giving us a commanding lead. So, in the second half, I ask you to let go of your burdens, approach the game with a calm mindset, and bring out the true essence of passing and possession."

Upon hearing this, the locker room fell silent, and everyone looked at each other in bewilderment.

Tang Long thought Pellegrini's words were absolutely awful!

That's so unprofessional.

He thought to himself, "This is the UEFA Champions League! Is it really safe to secure nine points after the first three rounds? If we lose this match, Sevilla will rise to seven points, only one game behind Manchester City! We still have to play Juventus next, so finishing first in the group isn't guaranteed!"

Tang Long didn't understand why Pellegrini said those things, but Rayne, Pellegrini's assistant coach who had followed him for many years, understood the underlying meaning.

The way they played in the first half was so embarrassing that even Pellegrini himself felt ashamed!

If the coach is adaptable, like Ancelotti, then he might as well use a high-ball, direct style of play, utilizing the attacking power of Navas and Nasri on both flanks, and then sending crosses to the tall striker Iheanacho in the middle for a header.

Even if Pellegrini discovers the flaws in his tactical deployment and personnel allocation mechanisms, he will not easily admit his mistakes—no, not easily, but never!

So he said that on purpose, actually to excuse himself after the loss!

"That old fox, huh," Rayne thought to himself, "This is the UEFA Champions League, you really think this is a friendly match? How could you?"

The constant shouts of Sevilla echoed into the locker room, mostly curses like "Kill these arrogant UK!", "Return our territory to the colonists!", and "Stop dreaming about your British Empire!"

Tang Long pondered for a long time upon hearing these shouts that could boost the morale of his opponents.

If they keep playing like this, it's definitely game over.

A change has to be made.

Since my teammates don't dare to make changes, then the only one who can make changes is me!