跟讀練習: The problem with Roberto De Zerbi's football - 通過影片學習英語口語

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For a long time, the received wisdom of football tactics was as follows.

Attack big spaces, defend small spaces.

This makes sense.

You defend small spaces and attack open spaces because it makes the task of attacking and defending easier.

Pep Guardiola's football, however, turned this logic on its head.

Citing the inspiration of Marcela Bielsa, Guardiola's football sought instead to compact the space that you attacked and leave space behind you open to defend,

defend, all through possessing the ball.

The downsides are obvious – you leave a lot of space behind you to defend.

But the upsides are that you get more players in attacking positions

and that if you lose the ball you're actually quite far away from your own goal.

Plus, you prepare a rest defence to deal with these situations.

It might not sound that radical now, but this was the foundation for Guardiola's domination of the game.

The problem is that you need an incredibly high level of technical

and physical players in your squad in order to play this way.

So, after years of attempting to imitate Guardiola's style, inevitably other coaches started to look back to the old received wisdom to interrogate it for new ideas.

One of these coaches was the young Italian Roberto Di Zerbi.

What follows is a story from the new book, The Spectre of Pep, How Guardiola Haunts Modern Football by John McKenzie.

This was adapted for video, so is much shorter than the original, which contains far more detail and is is worth reading.

You can find a link to buy the book in the description.

The origin story of De Zerbi's tactical approach is told by

one of the players he coached at Foggia right at the outset of his coaching career.

Antonio Vacker had grown up a keen futsal and five-a-side player in Naples, the town where he was from.

On the Neapolitan futsal courts, he developed a habit of controlling the ball with the sole of his foot, something that irked his coach at Foggia.

At times, De Zerbi would stop a training session to lecture Vacker about his habit, telling him that it was fine to use his sole from time to time, but only when it was absolutely necessary.

If he didn't need to, then he shouldn't.

And for the most part, Wacker took the criticism on board and got on with practice.

But on one occasion, he didn't.

Wacker himself recounts the story.

My teammates on the opposing side weren't stepping out to press me.

So the coach kept telling me, pass it, move it.

So I replied, coach, if our opponents on Sunday come here

and play for a point and I move it without getting one of them to jump and press the ball, it's no use.

I argued that if I put the sole of my foot on the ball and lured the opponent out, I've invited him to press me.

As he does that, we can break the line with a pass."

Calling out a coach like that in the middle of a practice session could have backfired, but eight years later Dezebbi would credit Wacker with having provided him with the tool through

which to implement one of the fundamental principles of his tactical philosophy – baiting the press.

The concept of press baiting is the in-possession counterpart to the out-of-possession concept of low blocking.

Where the low block drags the opposition forward in their attempt to score a goal, the press bait drags the opposition forward in their attempt to win possession of the ball back.

The result can be the same in both scenarios though, creating the conditions to attack large spaces, like the old logic says.

De Zerbe had found a way to get the same benefits of low block encounter football, but without having to give up the ball to do so.

When it comes to playing through the press, De Zerbi's teams use quick changes of tempo to aid them.

He teaches his players to quickly calculate if they have a territorial overload

or not by counting the number of defenders the opposition have in their backline.

If Brighton, for example, have three attackers in their front line, but the opposition have four defenders in their backline,

plus a goalkeeper, obviously, the Brighton players should instantly know that they have an extra player, as well as a goalkeeper, deeper in the field.

In these instances, De Zerbi tells his team to develop the play slowly.

If, however, the opposition only have three defenders in their backline, taking your goalkeeper out of the equation,

you now know that you have a situation of numerical equality with their opposition.

In these conditions, De Zerbi encourages his team to play vertically, essentially faster, longer balls, to try and take advantage of an improved balance up front,

where your attackers are now 1v1 with their defenders.

So baiting the press opens out the possibility of a return to the old logics – defend small spaces, attack big ones.

But there are similarities to Guardiola's football.

While Guardiola's teams have to break down a low block deep in the opponent's half, Di Zerbi's teams have to break a high press deep in their own half.

For Guardiola, the opponent must be forced backwards into their own penalty area to elicit a form of control.

For Di Zerbi, they must be pulled forwards to create space that could be exploited.

However, there is a problem here.

In Guardiola's case, the opponents are forced backwards.

This is about imposing a state of affairs on the opposition.

They must drop deeper.

On the other hand, De Zerbi's approach provokes.

In other words, success requires a voluntary action on the part of the opponent.

The reality is, the success of De Zerbi's approach contains within itself the conditions of its own failure.

What happens if the opposition stops accepting the bait in the first place?

In these instances, without the opponent jumping up and looking to generate numerical equality against De Zerbi's build-up unit, the players are encouraged to build up less vertically,

essentially adopting an approach to ball progression that you might expect to see a Guardiola team using.

But De Zerbi's teams tend to be structured around the fundamentals of the vertical game, both in terms of tactical instruction and squad building.

As a result, a team who are built to generate space through enticement will struggle when coming up against the low block.

For example, when Dezerbi was at Brighton, both David Moyes' West Ham and Sean Dyches' Everton caused him problems with a well-structured lower block,

which could quickly decompress into dangerous fast attacks running through the wide channels.

In the end, then, Dezerbi finds himself caught between these two modes.

The better his team has become at creating at exploiting space through baiting, the more likely his opponents will be to refuse to allow them any space,

and the effectiveness of his approach gradually reduces.

At Brighton, a 6th placed finish in his first season was followed up by an 11th placed finish in his second,

as more and more teams refused to acquiesce to the provocation.

If De Zerbe, at an elite club, had access to the kinds of resources needed to overcome the tactical problems his system produces, it could be different.

Until then, though, he will continue to remain the victim of his own success.

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足球戰術背後的語言與思維

這段影片通過講述羅伯托·德澤爾比的戰術理念，展現了足球世界中戰術邏輯的演變。從瓜迪奧拉對傳統“攻寬守窄”理念的顛覆，到德澤爾比受球員啟發發展出的“誘壓”策略，其中的對話和分析不僅包含豐富的足球術語，還體現了邏輯表達的技巧，非常適合用於雅思口語練習。

日常交流高頻短語

turn...on its head：徹底改變。例：瓜迪奧拉的足球將傳統邏輯徹底顛覆。
take...on board：接受（建議）。例：球員大多接受了教練的批評。
bait the press：誘使壓迫。這一戰術術語已逐漸應用於體育分析語境。
break the line：突破防線。可延伸用於描述各種“突破界限”的場景。
numerical equality：人數均等。在討論資源分配時也可使用。

影子跟讀實戰指南

這段影片的難點在於足球術語多且邏輯複雜，可通過以下步驟練習：

第一步：拆分段落，聚焦邏輯

先將內容按“戰術演變-球員故事-具體策略”拆分，每段跟讀前梳理邏輯鏈，如“傳統理念→瓜迪奧拉的創新→德澤爾比的改進”，有助於理解長句結構。

第二步：模仿重音與停頓

注意術語如“誘壓（bait the press）”“垂直傳球（play vertically）”的重音，以及分析戰術時的停頓，如“如果布萊頓有三名前鋒……（停頓）而對手有四名後衛……”，這能提升口語的節奏感。

第三步：替換詞彙，舉一反三

用日常場景替換足球元素，如將“numerical equality”用於描述會議中的人數分配，強化短語的實際運用能力。藉助shadowing site的工具，反覆對比自己與原音的差異，逐步提升流暢度。

通過這樣的練習，不僅能掌握實用短語，還能提升邏輯表達能力，為雅思口語練習打下基礎。不妨試試用“shadowspeaks”或“shadow speak”的方法，讓跟讀更高效。

影片中的語法

說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：

結構	影片中的用法
被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的	was adapted · is told · must be forced
現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事	I've invited · has become

什麼是跟讀法？

跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。

影子跟讀法: 閱讀完整分步指南 →

跟讀練習: The problem with Roberto De Zerbi's football - 通過影片學習英語口語

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