Chapter 111: Do you want to pick the purple lilies on the roadside?
Accompanied by Helena, Chen Xiaoliang drove the car and the two visited several places in the suburbs of the city.
We spent some time together, without any commercial endorsements or football training, and returned home at night.
Just as Chen Xiaoliang was lying on the bed and getting ready to go to sleep, his cell phone rang.
"There is a friend request"
I clicked on it and saw, what the hell! Why did this woman come to me again? I finally managed to get rid of her!
He decisively pressed the button "Agree to add Kaia Gerber as a friend".
"Hi, Chen, we had a great time working together today. You left in a hurry and I forgot to add you as my friend. I asked your agent for his phone number. Do you mind?"
Damn it, it’s this guy Reese who sold me out again!
"No problem, I was just about to ask him for your phone number."
"Look, this is the last photo we took today. The director edited it. It's so beautiful. I set it as my phone wallpaper (love heart)."
"Yes, they are all beautiful. By the way, there is a competition the day after tomorrow, do you want to come and watch?"
"I really want to go, but unfortunately I have to leave tomorrow."
"Going back to America?"
"No, I'm going to Salzburg, Austria. I have work to do there. Well, it's getting late. I'm going to rest first. Have a good dream."
Salzburg...
There seems to be a team called Red Bull Salzburg...
This conversation reminded Chen Xiaoliang of something.
He quickly searched the Internet and found it was true!
"Reese! Are you asleep?!"
There was strong and dynamic music and rhythmic sounds on the other end of the phone.
Damn! This guy is having a lot of fun!
"What's the matter? Chen, do you need me for something so late?"
"You're so carefree. You dragged me to take weird photos for a whole day, and then you went out to play!"
"I'm with Totti! He was my former captain!"
"You... pay tribute to Totti for me!"
After a while, Reese seemed to walk to a quiet place: "What's the matter? You must have something important to talk to me about so late at night."
“How much money do I have now?”
"The first year's income from the five endorsements, plus the miscellaneous income from before, minus the money I spent, the total is about 4 million Euros. Don't worry, the money is all in the Royal Bank of Scotland. If you need to use the money, you can always ask the bank to open a detailed statement for you to check."
"There is a player named Cesco who plays for Red Bull Salzburg in Austria. Go find out more about him. If the conditions are right, you can sign him!"
Reese was stunned: "Where did you get the news?"
"Never mind, the authority is reliable, hurry up!"
"Okay! I believe you. I will investigate this player tomorrow."
Nothing happened that night, and the next morning, we arrived at the Trigoria base.
After completing the targeted tactical training in the morning, the main players only conducted simple recovery training in the afternoon.
Mourinho gathered the main players together to arrange tactics and asked fitness coach Lapetti to continue to conduct high-intensity training with the players who would not play in the opening match of Serie A, including Diawara and Santon, who he was determined to sell.
In response to the goal conceded in the last Europa Cup, Mourinho said that in the next game, the team will play with three central defenders, with Smalling in the middle, Mancini as right central defender, and Ibanez as left central defender.
The two full-backs were changed to wing-backs, with Karsdorp and Binya on the left and right.
In front of the three central defenders are two defensive midfielders, Chen Xiaoliang on the left and Cristante on the right.
This also means that the two defensive midfielders not only have to defend the front, but also help the wingbacks to protect the space behind the wingers.
Captain and offensive core Pellegrini still plays as central midfielder.
Abraham and Zaniolo play as double strikers.
Wu Lei was once again on the bench.
After announcing the formation and the roster, Mourinho talked about many key points about the 3412 formation, especially the three central defenders, how to divide the activity areas and the key targets to defend, who will pass the ball, who will assist in defense, etc.
Next is an introduction to Fiorentina's starting lineup as predicted by the club's coaching team, as well as their personal situations.
Among them, Mourinho specifically mentioned one person, Fiorentina's 21-year-old main center, Serbian Vlahovic.
He transferred to Florence from the Serbian club Guerrilla Belgrade for 3.2 million euros in 2018 and has become an absolute main force of the team.
Last season, he made 37 league appearances and scored 21 goals, including 6 penalties, averaging a goal every 140 minutes. This efficiency already makes him a top striker in Serie A, ranking fourth in the scorer list last season.
Afterwards, assistant coach Joao played a compilation of Vlahovic's offensive habits.
The old players all understood that this video was purely for the new players who joined the team this year, especially Chen Xiaoliang, Niles, Binya on the defensive line and goalkeeper Patricio.
In the edited video, Chen Xiaoliang discovered that Vlahovic was an extraordinary player.
His level is definitely not comparable to any center player he has played against before.
After all, when facing Manchester United last season, Manchester United's legendary center forward Cavani was already 34 years old.
Although Vardy of Leicester City is also an excellent player, he is more like an opportunist who tears open the opponent's defense by running. Even compared with Iheanacho in the team, he is not a pure center forward.
Firstly, Vlahovic does not have any obvious physical weaknesses. He is very strong, and his left-footed shots are very powerful. He even looks a bit like the former Fiorentina legend Batistuta.
This makes him not only a threat in the penalty area, but also allows him to have excellent long-range shooting ability outside the penalty area.
But this does not mean that he can only shoot violently. His dribbling and passing abilities are also at an upper-middle level.
In addition, in terms of jumping and heading, his excellent physique and excellent balance ability also make him not easily defeated by the opponent's central defender.
As a center forward, Chen Xiaoliang found that Vlahovic's speed and explosiveness seemed to be comparable to his own, and he was even taller and heavier than him.
This means that I won't have any advantage in a physical fight with him now.
This reminded him of a man whom Gerrard had once asked him to observe carefully on the sidelines of the court, Darwin Nunez of Benfica.
However, as Mourinho's assistant, Joao would not simply show everyone such a video.
Judging from past data analysis, Vlahovic also has his own weaknesses.
First of all, although his right foot is not weak, he still relies too much on his left foot. Whether it is protecting the ball, passing, or shooting, he will first try to adjust the ball to his left foot.
Secondly, although he is 190 cm tall, heading is not the top priority in attack, and he prefers to use his feet to complete the final shot.
Furthermore, when facing tight defense, the way he handles the ball is not very reasonable, which is also related to his age, the league he is in, and the level of his team.
After all, among the five major leagues, the physical confrontation in Serie A is not the most intense, which means that he, who is in the upper-middle team Fiorentina, often has relatively ample time after holding the ball to use his physical advantage to think about how to get rid of the defenders or pass the ball to his teammates.
If this habit were applied to the Premier League, where physical confrontations are extremely fierce and referees' penalties are relatively lenient, the ball at his feet might have been destroyed by the defender's fierce tackle.
But despite these analyzed weaknesses, Vlahovic is still a very strong player.
Just like Messi, the six-time Ballon d'Or winner, everyone knows that height is his shortcoming and confrontation is his weakness, but this does not mean that he is not the strongest player on the planet.
All theories on paper must be used in practice to be meaningful, otherwise they are just empty talk.
While Joao was analyzing, Mourinho's eyes were fixed on Chen Xiaoliang with anticipation.
Chen Xiaoliang knew very well that his biggest task in this Serie A opening game was whether he could defend against Vlahovic.
He asked João for the video, and when he got home he watched it dozens of times on loop.
At the same time, I also looked for videos of Fiorentina's games last season and watched them until very late before going to bed.
He opened the system panel and collected the mission rewards from the previous European Cup.
Since Trabzonspor's reputation is very average, the base reward for the mission in this game is only 1.
Fortunately, he has the reward BUFF given by the limited-time transfer task, and he can get double rewards in the European war tasks in the new season.
[Enter the roster for the next game] [Reward: 1 skill point]
[Next game appearance] [Reward: 2 skill points]
[Appear in the next game and win] [Reward: 2 skill points]
[Score/Assist in the Next Game] [Reward: 2 Skill Points]
Therefore, after completing the above four tasks, he can still obtain 14 skill points, and has accumulated the skill points to 70 points. It seems that he is not far from unlocking another skill.
At the same time, the limited-time task in the previous game [Win this game] also increased his professional quality by one point, making it 14.
After the last game, he only did three hours of recovery training today, and his training value remained at a pitiful 13 points.
Well, this number made him, a native of the East China Sea, a little unhappy...
Seeing that Chen Xiaoliang had not turned off the lights and gone to bed yet, Helena asked him what was wrong with concern.
Chen Xiaoliang told Helena that he might meet the toughest opponent he has ever faced in tomorrow's game.
Helena rubbed his shoulders and legs, and suddenly smiled and said to him: "I once studied in your Red Country for a period of time, and at that time I heard a very famous song called Don't Pick Wild Flowers by the Roadside.
I didn't know what he meant at first and thought it was just an environmental song.
Later, when I saw many middle-aged men dancing the square dance that is very popular in your area to the accompaniment of this song, they all had a lewd smile on their faces, and then I realized that this was not the case.
I asked my classmates in Hongguo, and they told me that this song is a metaphor for men not to be promiscuous.
However, today I will make an exception and allow you to pick flowers once."
Chen Xiaoliang seemed to have guessed what Helena was going to say, but looking at her emotional and sincere expression, he pretended not to know and showed a surprised expression: "Oh? Are you going to let me applaud for love with the supermodel today?"
"You wish!" Helena
"I'll ask you to pick this purple lily from Florence tomorrow."
"You're so cold... If a novel used a plot like this, it would definitely lose all its fans..." Chen Xiaoliang couldn't help but teased.
Helena blushed and approached him and said, "Do you want to get warm?"
Chen Xiaoliang kissed her, then turned off the lights, lay down and covered himself with a quilt.
Not today, he doesn't want to make his legs sore before facing a strong enemy.
Tomorrow, after the game, he will not be afraid even if he is burned by fire.
