"This won't work, that won't work. Then what exactly will work?"
"I think you're just trying to take advantage of this and steal my job as head coach!"
"We're going to defend. That's the only way we have any chance of escaping Liverpool."
"Look at all the teams who played Liverpool before. Some attacked, some counterattacked, and some didn't know their place and tried to go toe-to-toe with Liverpool's high press. And what happened in the end? Without exception, Liverpool sent every single one of them home."
"We're lucky, because we're behind those clueless teams in the queue. That means we have to learn from their mistakes."
"We absolutely cannot play conventional tactics anymore. Those won't work against Liverpool at all."
While preparing for the FA Cup semifinal, Watford's head coach ended up arguing with his assistant coaching team. Everyone was working hard to prepare for Liverpool, but their tactical ideas were not aligned.
"Boss, I understand your concerns, but we really can approach this differently."
"Dragging the match into a penalty shootout is impossible. If we start defending from the very first minute, there's no way we can defend for the full 90 minutes."
"Who can guarantee they won't make a single defensive mistake in 90 minutes?"
"If Liverpool score first and we haven't prepared a tactical plan in advance, then we'll definitely be the ones who collapse."
The discussion became extremely heated. In the end, the head coach decided to eat an ice cream first and calm himself down, even though it was only April.
As he ate the ice-cream cone and stared at its shape, Watford's head coach suddenly seemed to realize something. Immediately after that, Watford's coaching team began a new round of tactical research.
A spiral formation resembling some strange strip-like object slowly began to take shape in the Watford head coach's mind.
Liverpool had reached the FA Cup semifinals, and their opponent in the semifinal was Watford.
Watford had worked extremely hard to get this far. In the previous knockout round, they had luckily beaten Tottenham 3-2 with a last-minute winner and successfully reached the semifinals. For Watford, a club with very little investment, this was already an exceptionally rare achievement.
But even after such a brave performance from Watford, no one believed they could beat Liverpool.
"If Watford want to beat Liverpool, then an ant might as well lift me into the air out of nowhere."
"No chance. Watford don't have even the tiniest chance!"
"All right, if anyone actually favors Watford right now, I'll definitely believe you're one of their die-hard fans. A seriously die-hard one."
Precisely because his own team was stronger, Klopp prepared even more seriously. He needed the team to bring out all of its strength.
It was still the herding press combined with other tactics. Since Watford's defensive line might not have the ability to form up quickly, Liverpool would combine it with multi-player attacking patterns.
Klopp wanted more players to take part in the attack and use that to suppress Watford.
Time soon reached April 21, the day of the FA Cup semifinal. Wembley Stadium was once again the venue for the FA Cup semifinal.
The fans entered the stadium in high spirits, ready to watch this semifinal. The big screen above the pitch began showing Watford's starting lineup.
When Gomes appeared as the goalkeeper, the atmosphere was still normal. Add in the four defenders, Holebas, Cathcart, Mariappa, and Femenía, and there was still nothing strange about it.
Then came the two defensive midfielders, Capoue partnered with Doucouré. Still no problem. It was all a very conventional lineup arrangement.
But after that, when an attacking midfielder and a second striker appeared, Pereyra partnered with Will Hughes, the fans at the stadium began to feel that something was off.
Then the two-striker pairing appeared. Gray and Deeney. That officially confirmed Watford's formation for this match.
"What is this thing?"
Gullit found the lineup unbelievable as well. After all, Gullit himself had once been the kind of bold thinker who dared to experiment, playing all the way from center back to center forward.
But even he could not understand what Watford meant by setting up in this formation.
"If you want to play a conventional 4-2-2-2, then you should at least use two attacking midfielders or two central midfielders, then pair a center forward with a second striker."
"But he's used two center forwards, and both are traditional big center forwards. Then he added a second striker and an attacking midfielder. How is this combination supposed to work?"
"The pitch is going to become chaotic."
On Liverpool's side, their reaction to Watford's starting formation was exactly the same as Gullit's.
Zubizarreta thought it over. In all his years in the profession, he had never felt as relaxed as he did now.
Because he felt Watford's formation did not require him to make any defensive arrangements at all. In his view, this attacking setup from Watford would not pose any danger.
"Based on the characteristics of Watford's front players, their threat out wide will probably be very small. So the fullbacks need to judge the timing and help the center backs defend together at the right moments."
This was the only suggestion Zubizarreta gave the defensive line. Liverpool's starting players also began to walk out.
Liverpool's starting lineup appeared on the big screen inside the stadium. Compared with Watford's, it was clearly much more conventional.
"Alisson continues to start, while Mignolet remains on the bench."
"At fullback, Robertson partners Alexander-Arnold. Alexander-Arnold has finally returned to the starting lineup, and we hope he puts in a good performance. The center backs are Van Dijk and Lovren, Rodri is the single defensive midfielder, and Fabinho partners Leo Lin in central midfield."
"Shaqiri starts on the left wing, Solanke is the center forward, and Salah is on the right wing. Mané and Firmino are both being rotated and rested for this match!"
Henderson, Matip, and Mignolet were all out of the starting lineup. Leo Lin entered the pitch as captain, and in the end, Leo Lin won the coin toss and chose for his side to kick off first.
After Solanke passed the ball back, Liverpool deliberately moved the ball into a very deep position in their own half. This was Zubizarreta's arrangement.
He wanted to first see what kind of combinations Watford were actually going to play. Then Watford's movement on the pitch, and the way their players pressed between one another, made Klopp's eyes light up.
Every fan watching the match had their eyes light up as well.
Watford's players were actually forming a spiral motion on the pitch.
Their pressing looked like a vertical tornado, with the very base aimed at Liverpool's back line before it began spinning wildly.
This was the pressing tactic Watford's manager had thought of while eating an ice-cream cone, inspired by the shape of the cone itself. By relying on this spiral-style press, they would first scatter Liverpool's players and make Liverpool's attack become disorganized.
Then, when Liverpool launched a large-scale attack, Watford's tornado would shrink back into their own half and use that to stop Liverpool's attack.