THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME
Juju Mental Zinedine-Pirlo In Action I

*FREEEE*

All the players have taken their starting positions on the field. The referee looked around the pitch once more before blowing the whistle and gesturing for the match to restart.

Leke James, one of Aalesund's attackers, kicked the ball back into the half area, starting the game once again. Jason Morrison, the defensive midfielder in Aalesunds' 4-4-2 diamond formation, picked up the ball deep in his half— and directly aimed it at Hugh Wembangomo, right-back. Over the next few seconds, the Aalesunds players passed the ball around their backline, trying their best to slow down the tempo of the game.

However, Rosenborg doesn't have any of that. Their players swarmed the Aalesunds territory like locusts and sealed off almost all of the routes the opponent passed. They played like they had consumed a strange dose of energy-boosting elixir. They're in overdrive.

Every time an Aalesunds player touched the ball, Rosenborg's opponent would directly attack him, forcing him to hand it over to his teammate. If another player receives the resulting pass, another Rosenborg player will also do the same.

However, Aalesunds players remain patient and continue to try to pass the ball in their back line despite the pressure. However, the Rosenborg players did not give up either.

They continued to use high-pressing tactics while suppressing their 4-3-3 formation to narrow the space in the middle. Rosenborg continues to create an intense atmosphere around any opponent who has the ball, making it difficult for Aalesund players to distribute or receive passes.

That way, Rosenborg's team managed to force his opponent to play a high and long ball towards their two attackers. But that's exactly what Zachary and his team-mates had anticipated.

Verner Ronning, Rosenborg's centre-back, came into action and intercepted the long ball before two Aalesund attackers could reach it. He steered it back to Lund Hansen, the goalkeeper.

Rosenborg returned to possession for the first time after scoring. Lund Hansen wasn't messing around, though. He ran to the edge of the box and made a long throw to the left wing where Mikael Dorsin, Rosenborg's number 3, was waiting.

Mikael received the ball with a deft touch and released a cut-back pass into the middle of the field— towards Jonas Svensson, Rosenborg's defensive midfielder.

Upon seeing Jonas Svensson receive the ball, Zachary ran into open space outside the rival's strong pressure zone. Jonas saw it a moment later and passed the ball to him. But as he received the pass, Fredrik Carlsen, Aalesund's left midfielder, was on top of him.

It seems the opponent has decided to use a high-pressure strategy to pressure Rosenborg into losing possession. They keep the Rosenborg players tight in their own half of the pitch.

However, Zachary did not panic due to the pressure. Instead, he brought the ball to the ground with his back facing left midfielder Aalesunds, who almost hit him.

He then pretended to go to the right, forcing Fredrik Carlsen to buy a doll and follow the trick on his body. But a moment later, he braked for a moment and turned around, going to the left with the ball stuck to his right foot. With that one move, he managed to lose left midfielder Aalesunds, creating a yard of space for himself in the process.

However, he did not let himself relax just yet. His football instincts chanted that Fredrick Carlsen had retraced his pace and would be on top of it once again in mere seconds. So, he does not laze around and flick the ball further to the left, gaining extra space.

The adrenaline flooded his system as he assessed the situation on the pitch. His mind went into higher gear to utilize the Zinedine-Pirlo Mental Juju and build a mental map of all the players in his field of vision. Meanwhile, he continued to move, going further than the opponents surrounding him.

In an instant, three linear trajectory routes connecting several of his teammates appeared in his visual field. They emerged as an almost intangible thread, stretching from him to his teammates. Furthermore, Zachary realized that they were not in his mind, like the mental maps he used to track other players, but— was projected into which his eyes explored.

Zachary was surprised for a moment because this was the first time he had faced such a situation. The threads almost fascinated him to the point of making a mistake and making an amateur mistake by leaving the ball. But luckily, he had already stepped a few yards away from Fredrick Carlsen, the midfielder of Aalesunds. And thus, he took a few seconds to recall himself and control the ball before it was too late.

Meanwhile, he also used those few seconds to observe the linear passing path and decide where to distribute the ball as quickly as possible. He could see that the three threads in his visual field— were linked to the zone around his teammates, which was neither marked nor had metre-long space to work with the ball.

Zachary smiled inwardly, realizing that thread was the perfect guide that revealed the best and most suitable passing options available to him on the field. But he still had to decide where to go because the thread was just a visual guide.

As a midfielder, he still has to use his game intelligence to determine which of the three passing routes projected in front of him will produce the best results. He can't just base a decision on a teammate who is open to receiving a pass. If he does that, he will eventually pass the ball out to his teammate who is completely unsuited. That's not acceptable. What he had to consider, however, was the performance of his teammate during that match. Only then could he release a long-range pass that could have a real impact on the match situation.