Chapter 159: The competition for the Golden Boy Award is becoming increasingly fierce!
The "championship speeches" from the head coach and core players mean that Roma no longer regards winning the championship as an impossible goal in the short term. This is also what Roma's players wanted to say before but were not willing to express publicly.
Roma's position in Serie A is somewhat similar to Tottenham's in the Premier League.
Although they are not a strong team, they can often reach the top four, enter the Champions League, and even win the league runner-up;
Although they are a strong team, they often fail to perform well and wander around the Europa League. The two teams even "joined hands" to enter the first European Cup this year and became the two most famous teams in the European Cup.
Although they are not a wealthy club, Roma is second only to the three major clubs in Serie A, and Tottenham is also one of the BIG6 in the Premier League. No one dares to underestimate them.
Tottenham Hotspur may be one of the twelve founding teams of the planned European Super League.
Tottenham fans will also say that Arsenal does not have the amazing achievements of its ancestors. Even in the three major European cups in the past, Tottenham has won two UEFA Cups and one European Cup Winners' Cup, while Arsenal has only won one European Cup Winners' Cup. In the first ten years, it was the spokesperson for "4 looking for 4". The number of times it has become a meme in football forums far exceeds the number of times it has become a member of the honor list. In the past five seasons, it has missed out on the Champions League in a row. It is not as good as Tottenham. Why is Arsenal a wealthy club?
Roma's slogan for winning the championship is just like Tottenham's slogan for winning the championship in the Premier League. Not to mention whether the fans of this team think it is feasible, even the fans of Manchester City and Liverpool are too lazy to pay attention to you.
However, it is precisely because of this mentality that it makes it more difficult for the team to achieve good results.
How can you achieve something if you don’t believe you can do it?
Obviously, Mourinho felt that the time was ripe and that shouting the slogan of winning the championship was not to intimidate the opponents, but to change the team's mentality step by step.
This is also the purpose of his introduction of these players in the summer.
Patricio is the Portuguese Cup champion and the European Cup champion;
Abraham just won the Champions League and European Super Cup this year;
Even Cesco won the Austrian Bundesliga championship at the age of 17.
Although his Scottish Premier League championship, like Chen Xiaoliang's, is far less valuable than the top five leagues, the experience of dealing with opponents of various levels in a whole year of the league, facing off against major competing teams at critical moments and maintaining points advantage is invaluable.
Coupled with the unique drive of several young people and the strong mental effect of Chen Xiaoliang, Mourinho set a goal to win a championship in all three competitions this season.
But you still have to eat one bite at a time and walk one step at a time.
Mourinho made some adjustments to Mura's starting lineup in this game.
He put Cesco, Pellegrini, Zaniolo and Ibanez on the bench to rest.
The back four is Niles, Smalling, Mancini and Karsdorp;
Single defensive midfielder Chen Xiaoliang, midfielders Cristante and Mkhitaryan;
Zalewski is on the left, Carles Perez is on the right, and Abraham returns to the center position.
This lineup is strong, but its attacking power and teamwork are naturally a little worse than that of the full main lineup.
Besides, Mourinho still included those main players in the roster, because even if he made rotations in this game, he still had to ensure victory, so that he could accumulate 10 points and be one step closer to securing qualification for the group stage.
Mura still deployed their usual 4-2-3-1 formation in this game. Having not won a single game so far, they treat every game as an opportunity to fight and show themselves.
Before the game, the Italian media calculated the value of their starting lineup, which was only 7.53 million euros. It can be said that almost any player on the Roma field is more expensive than the entire opposing team.
Despite its limited strength, the team's style and will on the field were unanimously praised by the Italian media and Mourinho at the pre-match press conference.
In the 3rd minute, Roma took the lead. Carles Perez made consecutive breakthroughs on the right and made an inverted triangle pass to Mkhitaryan outside the penalty area. The Armenian Footballer of the Year shot immediately, but the angle was not tricky enough and was caught by Mura goalkeeper Matko.
Facing the young wing combination of Mura, Karsdorp, who was abused by the wingers of strong teams in the league, turned into a god of war, rushing up and down, and seemed to have learned all the things that Theo did in the previous game against Milan. He was the busiest person on the field in the first twenty minutes.
When Mura saw that he couldn't play on the left and that the central midfielder Martin was firmly locked down by Chen Xiaoliang, he simply focused on defensive counterattacks on the right, making long passes when he had the chance and crossing the ball when he advanced to the front court. There was a lot of back and forth movement on the field, which was quite lively for the fans.
But the goal took a long time to come.
In the 43rd minute, Karsdorp made a short pass from the right to the middle, Christant received the ball and made a light lob pass. Abraham and Mura center back Kaishiput were unable to completely grab the ball. Mura goalkeeper Matko was blocked by two people's bodies and his shot did not go far. Zalewski on the side took advantage of the chaos and pushed the ball into the empty goal to score a goal.
Roma leads 1-0 at home.
During the half-time break, Mourinho rarely asked the team to press forward in formation and maintain the distance between the midfield and the front and back fields. As a result, the game in the second half became more open.
However, the performance of Niles, who was loaned from Arsenal, made Mourinho shake his head.
Niles, who joined Arsenal's youth training at the age of 6, can be said to be a thorough Gunner, but it seems that the Englishman only learned some of the Gunners' offensive skills under Wenger, but failed to practice his own job skills.
Although his position is right back, when he was loaned to Roma, both parties agreed and the player personally agreed that he would often play the role of left back.
Mourinho made the first substitution in the 56th minute, replacing Niles with Calafiori and Chen Xiaoliang with Darbo.
You don’t know until you change it, and you’ll be shocked when you do.
Chen Xiaoliang's departure directly led to a complete imbalance in the team's offense and defense. After several attempts to attack were unable to be recovered and Mura almost succeeded in a counterattack, Roma, which was leading by one goal, had to retreat completely and launched a defensive counterattack at home.
As soon as their waists went weak, the whole team collapsed.
However, Roma fans seemed to have gotten used to this kind of scene. In addition, there were indeed many substitutes in this game, and the more than 50,000 fans present were still cheering for the team.
For this game, Mourinho specially invited the club's football director Pinto to the stadium and watch the game sitting on the bench.
60 minutes later, he, Joao, Lapeti and Pinto almost treated the sidelines as a meeting room to discuss the progress of the winter transfer window.
Now Chen Xiaoliang understood why Mourinho was willing to take the risk of replacing so many main players, especially replacing himself after the team was one goal ahead. It turned out that he was deliberately playing the victim in front of Pinto so that the board of directors and the transfer team would speed up their purchasing process.
According to Mourinho's personal ideal, it would be best if the team could buy another good winger, a defensive midfielder who can assist Chen Xiaoliang and a pair of full-backs with solid defense.
He had many candidates for the winger position, the first of which was Ivan Perisic, the Croatian who he had asked the board to buy countless times when he was at Manchester United.
In addition, Perisic's contract at Inter will expire next summer. Inter's poor financial situation has forced them to cut high-paid players and reduce the team's overall spending. They have clearly announced that they will not renew the contract with Perisic, who will be nearly 33 years old by then.
But the Croatian's weekly salary demand of 140,000 euros was explicitly rejected by Pinto, and the reason was very good - the Financial Fair Play Act.
Moreover, at the beginning of the season, Mourinho had just let go of Spaniard Pedro to his city rivals Lazio on the grounds that he was too old and could not run fast enough. It was simply unconscionable for him to buy Perisic, who is one year younger than him.
For the defensive midfielder position, he has his eyes on Manchester United veteran Nemanja Matic.
It was when he was at Manchester United that Matic was bought from Chelsea for 40 million pounds. Now the 32-year-old Serbian is in the last year of his contract at Manchester United. In the winter window, Manchester United should be willing to let him go and may only charge a symbolic transfer fee.
Pinto did not reject the deal, but the problem is that Manchester United is in a precarious situation at the moment. After the rapid progress in the early stages of the league, the team suddenly lost its momentum. In the last six rounds of the league, it had an embarrassing record of 1 win, 1 draw and 4 losses, and directly fell out of the top 10.
Solskjaer's position as coach is in jeopardy. At this juncture when a new coach is likely to take office, the club will not be willing to communicate too deeply with the outside world about transfer matters.
Therefore, Matic's transfer can only be temporarily shelved.
Finally, there are the two full-backs. After Riise's operations, Malacia and Celik, who were able to reach a transfer intention, were not Mourinho's first choice.
His first choice is 30-year-old Kieran Trippier, who plays for Atletico Madrid.
Pinto has contacted Atletico Madrid, and both the club and head coach Simeone are willing to let him go. Since there is only one and a half years left on his contract, the transfer fee will be in line with other competing teams, around 13.6 million euros.
But Roma encountered a strong rival - Newcastle United.
After the Saudi sovereign wealth fund "Public Investment Fund" spent 300 million pounds to acquire 100% of the shares of this veteran English team last month, specifically on October 7, 2021, everyone knew that another Premier League team waving oil checks would be born.
Not only did Newcastle agree to a transfer fee of 12 million pounds, they were also willing to pay the English right-back a weekly salary of 140,000 pounds, equivalent to 160,000 euros, a price that Roma could hardly afford.
This is the first time Mourinho has felt so stretched since leaving Porto...
Fortunately, he is still at peace with himself. At least after Dan Friedkin took over Roma, the funds are guaranteed. The reason they cannot spend money now is mainly because the club's own profitability is limited. If they spend too much, the amount of book losses will exceed the requirements of UEFA's Financial Fair Play Act.
Not only will they be fined, but they will also be deprived of the qualification to participate in European competitions and may even be banned from transferring for 1-2 transfer windows.
Therefore, as long as the team's performance can be improved this season, traffic will increase, commercial endorsement fees will also rise, and total revenue will increase while losses will decrease. The boss will be able to continue to provide funds to the team by injecting capital.
Since Trippier's deal fell through again, he could only settle for the next best thing and agree to buy Celik and Malachia.
Compared with the dull and boring game situation on the field, the director turned the camera more to Mourinho's four-person discussion and also invited a lip-reading expert to discuss the content of communication among these people.
In the 68th minute, Mourinho asked Joao to replace Carles Perez with Wu Lei, Abraham with Marayol, and Cristante with Trippi, and simply played a five-defender formation.
Although Mura's offensive increased as Roma retreated, Roma's substitutes fought harder than each other, especially Wu Lei. He hadn't played for a while and didn't have many attacking opportunities after he came on the court, but he relied on active fighting and running to become a right wing-back on the right.
The game ended in a dull situation, with Roma winning 1-0.
Mourinho was even happier after the game and talked a lot in the press conference.
First, the team spent the least cost and achieved a victory with most of the main players resting, which also gave more practical opportunities to the substitute players and young players.
Second, he was extremely excited when he learned that Tottenham Hotspur tied 2-2 in the second match with Vitesse at home in another group match that started at the same time.
As a result, Roma ranks first in the group with 3 wins and 1 draw, and 10 points. As long as they beat Vitesse at home in the next round, they will secure the top spot in the group.
Vitesse is ranked second with 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss and 7 points;
Tottenham Hotspur ranked third with 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss and 5 points;
Mura lost all four games and ranked last with 0 points.
Seeing his arch-rival Conte repeatedly failing in the Europa Cup, how could Mourinho not take the opportunity to add insult to injury?
He first unexpectedly "praised" Conte's transformation of Tottenham. After all, Tottenham ranked 7th in the Premier League at the end of last season, and now ranks 10th with 14 points. This transformation can be said to be successful.
Secondly, congratulations to Tottenham on winning a prestigious trophy.
The reporters were all stunned. Although they could tell he was being sarcastic, what the hell was winning the championship?
Mourinho very seriously said the name of a tournament - the European Cup, abbreviated as the European Cup.
He argued that in the European group stage, the third-ranked team will participate in the first knockout round of the next level competition. For example, the third place in the Champions League group stage will participate in the first knockout round of the Europa League, and the third place in the Europa League group stage will participate in the first knockout round of the European Cup.
What about the third place in the Europa League group stage? Of course, they will go to participate in this "top" event created for Conte, the Europa League!
Since Conte claims to be a "champion coach", he must be given a championship.
And since only Conte's Tottenham Hotspur participated in this event, Mourinho specially congratulated him on winning the championship in advance.
Recorders, video cameras, still cameras, and mobile phones were all focused on his face. Some senior reporters were already editing the contents of the news on their phones and notebooks.
Let me ask you, which football reporter doesn’t love Mourinho? !
With him around, there’s always news!
The reporter then directed the question to the recently popular Chen Xiaoliang.
Currently, Chen Xiaoliang has surpassed Borussia Dortmund's England midfielder Bellingham in the odds of the Golden Boy Award, ranking second with odds of 5.5, while Bellingham's odds have risen to 11;
Barcelona midfielder Pedri, who is still ranked first, has his odds increased from 2.5 to 4.
Since Turin Sports Daily will hold an official press conference in late November to announce the results of the 2021 Golden Boy Award, the fact that the odds have changed so much with about 20 days left can only mean that all players except Pedri and Chen Xiaoliang have basically withdrawn from the competition for this year's European Golden Boy Award.
Mourinho naturally wants to build up momentum for his favorite players.
He first mentioned the praises that many celebrities in the circle had for Chen Xiaoliang. For example, after the last round of the league, AC Milan head coach Pioli praised Chen Xiaoliang highly, as well as Totti, De Rossi, Gerrard, Beckham, Cannavaro and so on.
Secondly, he compared the two players' data. The 19-year-old Pedri played 40 times for Barcelona last season, scored 4 goals and assisted 6 times, while the 17-year-old Chen Xiaoliang has scored 5 goals and assisted 6 times in 16 games in less than half a year this season.
This season, Pedri injured his hamstring on September 30 and is expected to rest for 100 days, so he has no game record.
He is ahead of the odds thanks to his performance last season and his outstanding performance in six games for Spain at the European Championship this summer.
However, Mourinho also said that since it is the 2021 Golden Boy Award, this year's performance should be considered.
Finally, Mourinho listed the value. Pedri, born in 2002, was signed from Las Palmas for 5 million euros in 2019, when he was 17 years old.
Chen Xiaoliang, who was born in 2004, was bought by Roma for 41 million euros when he was 17 years old, which was this year. At the same time, according to Transfermarkt, Chen Xiaoliang's value has risen to 51 million euros.
Although Pedri and Bellingham are worth more, 80 million euros and 75 million euros respectively, this is obviously due to the environment they are in.
Both are Europeans, and Pedri, a Spaniard, also has EU citizenship. English players have always been jokingly called "household registration books", benefiting from the popularity of the Premier League. Once Bellingham is willing to leave Dortmund and return to the Premier League, it will inevitably be a sky-high transfer fee or a sky-high contract.
In addition, Pedri's team is the top giant Barcelona, and this alone can add a lot of halo to him. Mourinho frankly admits that this kind of halo unique to giants is incomparable to Roma.
That night, the news was quickly released by several media outlets.
With this kind of big news, everyone would definitely rush to publish it.
When the news spread back to the Red Country, fans were also discussing:
[What Bird said is also true, the rich clubs do have an aura, didn't you see the Manchester United guys, they play like shit, but their value is still very high, Bruno Fernandes and Rashford's value is 85 million euros each, which normal person would pay so much for them? ]
[Just a joke, B waste 85 million euros, De Bruyne 90 million euros]
[It's a pity for Chen Xiaoliang that he has no record of participating in the national team. He is missing a very important part compared to Pedri! ]
[Are you crazy? If Chen Xiaoliang played in the top 12 matches with the Chinese national football team, would he still win the Golden Boy award? He should win the Golden Sea Cucumber award.]
[It's so funny. It's already this late and you still have illusions about the Chinese national football team. If Xiaoliang plays for the national team, won't he be isolated by those uncles? ]
[I just checked Pedri's detailed information. He is 170cm tall and weighs only 60kg. How can he play? He is so light that he can't even fight against others.]
[Look at the above, the Red Country’s football is not doing well, and it’s not just the Football Association’s fault]
[Barcelona: Pedri is awesome, Xavi: Pedri is awesome, Golden Boy Award: Pedri is awesome, netizens: Pedri is too light to play]
[Maguire weighs 99 kilograms. According to this logic, he is the king of confrontation? ]
