Greatest Of All Legends

**25th May 2021**

"Serie A is done. All eyes on Porto."

The manager's words to them before they began the video analysis session still rang in all the players heads.

Preparations for the champions league finals had begun in full stretch with the players mostly working on their physical fitness the previous day.

With all fitness checks and physical conditioning done the previous day, the training switched to the tactical aspect.

Starting with the video analysis, Pirlo played clip after clip of Bayern's last few games and pointed out various points that the players needed to take note of.

Both big and small points were pointed out by the manager and the players did well to listen. They had as much desire to win the game as did their manager.

After pointing out the tactical disposition of their opponents, Pirlo moved on to players and their characteristics and began pointing out ways to counter individual players and tactical changes.

Pirlo didn't mention any player's name when giving out instructions since he hadn't selected his team for the match, but each player in the appropriate position took note of the manager's instructions, intending to be fully ready if the manager decided to call on them.

Spending most of the morning and part of the noon in tactical analysis, the players finally got back out on the field after a quick lunch and began practicing, incorporating the new tactical changes.

Pirlo quickly called for a scrimmage and put the most likely starting lineup on one team (Team A). He then selected another team that he made to adopt the Bayern Munich playing style (Team B), doing his best to create the scenario his players were likely to face off in the finals.

The scrimmage quickly began and Pirlo watched closely from the sidelines how the most likely starting players performed against a replica of their future opponents.

The team A was playing like how the Uventus team normally played. They defended deep but pressed hard whenever an opponent looked like he would lose the ball, and attacked fast, sending long balls forward or depending on the forwards or wingers to run forward with the ball.

The Team B on the other hand tried to adopt Bayern's playstyle which was a classic high pressure playing style.

When not in possession, they did not hesitate to press high up the pitch relentlessly and aggressively. When they stole the ball, they burst forward on the counter immediately, favoring rapid transitions from defense to attack.

They were also particularly vertical and did not hesitate with vertical passes to move the ball around swiftly and escape tight situations.

Compared with the original Bayern team, the Team B had a bit more agility since the forwards Pirlo was fielding were pretty fast

Jason was the left winger, Chiesa was the main striker, Dybala was behind him playing as a second striker and Bernadeshi was on the left.

Compared to Bayern's usual lineup of Sane on the left, Lewandowski as the striker, Muller as the second striker and Gnabry on the right, the Uventus Team B for the scrimmage had a bit more pace, but Pirlo didn't mind that.

What troubled him was how the Team B's adoption of the Bayern team's tactics enabled them to slice through the Team A's defense and it was terribly effective too.

Jason, Dybala, Chiesa, and Bernadeshi were all pacey players who could dribble and had above average shooting abilities.

Whenever they caught onto the ball and launched a counterattack on Team A's defense, it almost always ended in them getting a shot away and if for some reason, the defenders were out of place, then there was a greater chance for the shot to be on target.

That rang alarming bells in Pirlo's head immediately even though the training match had barely been on for twenty minutes.

The Team B was definitely not as strong a team as Bayern's starting eleven, not to mention that the team chemistry of the Bayern players was on a completely different level.

German teams tended to hold onto their players for longer periods of time and Bayern was one of the teams particularly famous for this.

Their starting lineups hardly ever changed unless a player retired, was injured, or received an offer the Bayern team couldn't refuse and those were very few and far between.

They were strict adopters of the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mentality.

There was a reason Bayern was able to play such beautiful counterattacking football despite most of their players not being pacey.

"Hmmm…" Rubbing his chin, Pirlo tried to think of how best to approach the problem.

The partnership of Chiellini and Bonucci was a solid defense wall in the center, but the flanks were a problem.

All the wide defenders he had were wingbacks who were more adept at attacking than defending. That was not to say they weren't good defenders or didn't pull their weight, but they were nowhere near defensive-minded enough to keep up with the Bayern team's tactics.

This wasn't the first time this had been brought to his attention either. He had long known that the defensive flanks were the weakest parts of the team, but luckily, any attempts to send the ball to the center was usually blocked by the exceptional center backs.

Pirlo even remembered mentioning this matter to the sporting director, but the man had waved it off and said there was no need to make a major investment in that position as they weren't losing games due to the issue.

'They never think to fix a problem before it arises unless it's about money, but when things go south, it's me who'll be shown the door,' the annoying thought flew across his mind and his mood soured slightly, but he shook his head lightly and refocused.

"Dejan! Weston! Fall back and help the wingbacks!" Pirlo shouted to the players on the field.

Glancing at the direction of the shout, Kulusevski and Mckennie quickly began falling back to help with defending.

With them falling back to support, it allowed the Team A defenders to have more passing options, and they were able hold off against the heavy pressure for longer periods of time.

"Hmmm… what to do, what to do?" Pirlo rubbed his chin as he thought.

Should he go for a tactic that would help them control the ball for longer periods of time, or should he opt for the opposite and try to outscore his opponents instead?