Chapter 165: A genius hat trick, or a super double!
After losing the ball at the start, Genoa began to try to counterattack.
Although they are currently one place above the relegation zone, the 9 points do not provide any advantage and it is very likely that they will be in the bottom three when they wake up.
Serie A's end-of-season dividends are pitifully small. For broadcasting rights, last season's league champion Inter Milan could only get 23.4 million euros, which is about the same as the broadcasting rights of the English Championship champion, a quarter of the 94.4 million pounds of Norwich, , and a quarter of the 166 million pounds of Premier League champion Manchester City...
Forget it, even the Serie A media can’t keep counting anymore, it’s all tears if they keep counting too much.
The league has small investment and few stars, so the team competition is not exciting, the attention is low, and there are fewer broadcasts and sponsorships, which leads to less prize money, which in turn further reduces the team's investment.
Last season, the three relegated Serie A teams received only 2.6 million, 1.6 million and 900,000 euros in broadcasting revenue.
So for teams like Genoa and Venice, they can either fight to stay in Serie A or simply be relegated to Serie B so they don't have to lose every week and make their fans upset.
Obviously, Genoa wants to save face.
Especially the head coach they just replaced, AC Milan legend and Ukrainian "nuclear warhead" Shevchenko.
In the summer, the legendary striker led the Ukrainian national team as head coach and reached the quarterfinals of the European Cup, the second time in their history that they reached the quarterfinals of a major tournament. Then his contract expired and was not renewed.
More than half a month ago, on November 7, Genoa, which was hovering in the relegation zone, fired the original head coach and hired a Ukrainian to take over.
He really wants to make a difference in Serie A and continue his coaching career.
For Mourinho, Shevchenko is a knot in his past - and has nothing to do with the Ukrainian himself.
In his first coaching cycle at Chelsea, after winning the Premier League title for two consecutive years but failing to go further in the Champions League, Chelsea owner Abramovich forced Mourinho to sign Shevchenko and Ballack in the summer transfer window of 2006, and asked him to "make good use of" the two.
From the perspective of Mourinho's tactical thinking and formation arrangements, these two people did not fit his team building. Coupled with a series of other things, Chelsea ultimately failed to achieve three consecutive championships. Also because of serious differences in transfer concepts, the Portuguese was fired by the club a year later.
So at this moment, sitting in the coaching booth and looking confidently at Shevchenko shouting not far away, Mourinho was not worried at all. He had already sent out the best lineup and also made good use of the 12-day international match cycle to get enough rest. There would be no loss in this game.
His tactics did catch Genoa off guard.
Before the game, Shevchenko specially designed an offensive route, a 3-5-2 formation, two defensive midfielders and wingbacks, plus two forwards, targeting Roma's two flanks.
How to counterattack, how to flank, how to get in, how to cross, how to grab the ball.
All the "how" revolves around one key point - avoid Roma's strongest defensive midfielder position, attack their weak defensive full-backs and slow central defenders.
Badelj, the core midfielder of Genoa who was responsible for distributing the ball to the two wingers, was originally ordered not to advance and to concentrate on distributing the ball and organizing in the midfield.
Now, Chen Xiaoliang's position has moved forward, and the two people who Shevchenko had imagined would not meet have become opponents with overlapping positions and direct competition.
Thanks to Chen Xiaoliang's covering and running abilities, Badley couldn't even get the ball a few times in the midfield, and his teammates passing the ball to him was equivalent to passing the ball to Chen Xiaoliang.
Badley had to keep retreating and move closer to the central defender to get the ball, but this made him very far away from the two wingbacks, and his passing efficiency and accuracy dropped sharply.
Shevchenko looked at all this and had no good solution for the moment. He could not ask too much of these players of ordinary value under his command.
But he was a little depressed. On the one hand, he secretly cursed Mourinho as an old fox, and on the other hand, he was amazed. When they played football before, their teammate Pirlo was a forward midfielder. How come today, this red country kid showed him how to play as a defensive midfielder in front...
There was no quick transfer of low balls on the left and right flanks, and long passes lacked accuracy, which resulted in Genoa's flank attack having to be carried out in one direction. This allowed Roma's players to invest their forces with confidence.
Coupled with the difference in their own abilities, Genoa's wing attack was completely unsuccessful.
The situation once again turned into Rome pressing in half the field and laying siege.
In the 11th minute, Chen Xiaoliang, who was pulled to the left, made a cross with his right foot near the bottom line. The ball flew towards the goal in a strong arc, making Genoa goalkeeper Sirigu dare not attack.
Facing the Mexican central defender John Vazquez who was marking him, Cesco, who had the advantage in height and weight, leaned on the opponent and kicked the ball sideways. Sirigu's outstretched hand touched the ball, but it still couldn't change its flight trajectory!
0 to 2!
The Roman attack continues!
In the 23rd minute, Genoa's 35-year-old central defender Masiello made a long pass to his teammate in front, Ghanaian striker Cuban. Smalling headed the ball and Veretout on the side kicked it directly to Chen Xiaoliang in front.
"Double-team! Double-team!"
Seeing that Chen Xiaoliang was about to launch another attack, Shevchenko immediately called on his players to step forward to defend.
Tactics can change suddenly, but players' abilities cannot change overnight!
Also during the international competition cycle, my coaching team and I studied it very carefully!
Chen Xiaoliang is an excellent crosser, fierce defender, and has explosive abilities in free kicks and long shots, but for some reason he has only used them once. However, his dribbling, stopping the ball, and passing the ball forward are his weaknesses!
Mourinho putting him in this position is obviously a double-edged sword!
As long as our players double-team him, he will definitely...
!!!
Before Shevchenko finished his inner monologue, his two defensive midfielders Sturaro and Rovira missed their target!
Chen Xiaoliang just received the ball and saw two people coming to double-team him, so he kicked it directly to Zalewski on the left.
Genoa's right wingback Sabelli suffered a loss just now and did not rush to steal the ball. Instead, he kept a safe distance and marked the man. Zalewski did not have a good breakthrough route for a while.
Chen Xiaoliang took a few steps back and Zalewski passed the ball back to him.
Genoa's two defensive midfielders stepped forward again to double-team.
As soon as Chen Xiaoliang received the ball, he immediately passed it back to Cristante behind him.
One touch! Another touch! All with one touch!
Shevchenko was frustrated. How could there be such a midfielder? When defending or not defending, in the middle or on the wing, when splitting the ball or crossing, he almost always used one kick to pass the ball!
Doesn't he dribble? Doesn't he observe? Doesn't he control?
On the other side of the coaching bench, Joao asked a similar question: "Jose, is this what you ask of him? All passes should be made with one foot, as simple as possible?"
Mourinho said only one sentence with a confident smile: "I let him play freely and I think he did a good job."
In fact, he was also very surprised. After all, when playing as a defensive midfielder, Chen Xiaoliang would occasionally control the ball to observe the positions of his teammates, and then pass the ball to his teammates to launch an attack.
Even he was caught off guard by today's style of play, and it had never appeared in training before.
Chen Xiaoliang spent several nights thinking about how to move forward.
Looking at his defensive and physical attributes, he has been thinking about how to maintain his position and not lose the ball.
After thinking for a long time, I finally came to the conclusion that if we don’t control the ball, we won’t lose it.
After all, there are only 76 training points, and passing, dribbling, technique, and stopping all need to be added, which is not enough.
Therefore, he added passing to all his training values, and relied on off-ball running to occupy a safe position on the field in advance. When facing the incoming ball, he tried not to control the ball, but directly kicked the ball to the two wingers or passed it back to two defensive midfielders with good passing ability.
Coupled with his superb stealing ability, even if he makes a mistake when receiving the ball and is intercepted by the opponent around him, he can still quickly get the ball back.
In this way, Mourinho's pre-match expectation was realized - there was an extra protective barrier in front of the back, and the two defensive midfielders, especially Cristante who had good footwork but slow movement, could make more long passes in the back position.
After receiving the ball, Cristante took a few steps and made a long diagonal pass to Karsdorp on the right.
The Dutch right-back is not very good at defense, but he is quite good at offense.
With a light stop, he dribbled past Andrea Cambiasso, the 22-year-old left wingback who was the most valuable player on the field for Genoa, and sprinted straight to the baseline!
Karsdorp broke into the penalty area and John Vazquez came up to defend. Karsdorp swept the ball out with a footwork that was hard to tell whether it was a shot or a cross in front of the goal!
Abraham's sliding shot missed!
Zalewski at the back followed up and pushed with his right foot!
0 to 3!
24 minutes! Roma, playing away from home, is already leading by 3 goals!
This is Zalewski's first league goal of the season! The Polish teenager was very excited! He rushed over to hug Mourinho and thank him!
Abraham got up from the ground and jogged off to celebrate with his teammates.
He seemed to have realized a fact in a trance, that is, he had changed from the team's main forward to a supporting forward...
His running and positioning in the penalty area are all to attract the defensive attention of his teammates. Today, Cesco scored two goals, which also surpassed his own 5 league goals...
The big black English guy couldn't hide what was going on in his mind. Chen Xiaoliang could see that he was a little disappointed when he high-fived him. They were obviously playing against a weak team, and he couldn't get any scoring chances even .
Chen Xiaoliang thought: There is no way, I gave you the chance but you are useless...
He encouraged Abraham and said he would pass him a few more later.
The game continues!
The game was only 25 minutes in and Genoa's players and their new head coach were already confused.
The weakness of the Serie A relegation team was far beyond Shevchenko's imagination!
What team did he play for before?
AC Milan! Chelsea!
Who are these people in Genoa now?
There is nothing we can do.
There are not many talented forwards who become successful head coaches after retirement. It is often the midfielders and backcourt players who are more likely to succeed as head coaches.
There is a saying that these forwards rely more on their own inspiration and talent, or the killer's instinct, to find scoring opportunities on the court.
This ability can only be understood and cannot be expressed in words.
For Shevchenko, he thinks he can score the goal by doing a few moves like this or that, but his players may not be able to do the moves that he thinks are easy a few times in their entire lives.
However, Shevchenko also understood that if he continued to play like this, his debut would become a complete disaster. He had to wave his hand and let the players retreat in full force, trying to concede as few goals as possible amid the boos of the fans.
Inside the stadium, many of the posters and banners that the home team fans had originally put out to support their new coach had also "disappeared".
Seeing a tragedy about to happen, they felt disheartened.
However, the young men of Roma were so blood-thirsty that they saw that their opponents were defenseless. How could they miss such a good opportunity to show their prowess?
In the 42nd minute, Genoa continued to defend against Roma's relentless pursuit.
Abraham received a cross from Chen Xiaoliang at the top of the penalty area on the left, dribbled past Sturaro and made a lob shot.
Sirigu made a great dive and blocked the ball!
Corner kick!
Without Pellegrini, none of the Roma players on the field even went to the corner area.
Veretout and Christante were puzzled to see Chen Xiaoliang also staying in the restricted area.
His eyes seemed to say: What are you standing here for? Go play the game.
Chen Xiaoliang thought: I'm teeing off? Do you believe I can tee it out of the baseline?
He gave a look to his "little brother" Wellertu, and Wellertu hurried over.
Corner kick taken!
Not the front point! Not the back point!
This is exactly what Wellertu is looking for in Chen Xiaoliang!
The Genoa players, especially the three midfielders, were already furious with Chen Xiaoliang.
We can't do anything to you in open play, but we let you do whatever you want in set pieces?!
Sturaro, Rovira and Badelj surrounded them together!
One of them secretly pulled Chen Xiaoliang's pants, one jumped up and pressed him in the air, and the other one tried his best to head the ball!
With this situation, even if Ibrahimovic were to come in, he wouldn't be able to handle it.
Chen Xiaoliang was completely unable to jump up, so he simply retreated out of the penalty area.
Sturaro headed the ball out, and the legendary North Macedonian veteran, 38-year-old forward Pandev received the ball and wanted to pass it to his teammate, the young and strong Cuban.
Zalewski, who was lagging behind, pounced on him.
He just saw the three opposing midfielders making small moves on Chen Xiaoliang.
Dare you mess with my elder brother?
Even though Pandev has been active in European football for many years, having won the Champions League and Serie A in Mourinho's triple crown kingdom Milan, and has won a total of five Italian Cups with three Serie A teams, he is 38 years old after all, and when he meets the new disciple of his former coach, he is more than willing to do what he can.
The ball he barely passed under Zalewski's pressure was not strong enough and was intercepted by the retreating Chen Xiaoliang.
The three Genoa midfielders were confused. They thought that they had finally managed to double-team Chen Xiaoliang and let him get the ball, but how come the ball went back to his feet...
Badley reacted the fastest. Just as he took a step forward to pounce, Chen Xiaoliang turned around and made a lob pass.
Didn't you see where Cesco was?
It doesn't matter, the tacit connection means we are in sync at all times!
What if there are only 13 passes?
It doesn’t matter, the tacit understanding value is full, and when passing the ball to Cesco, the passing attribute is 17!
In the penalty area, Abraham, Mancini, Smalling, Ibanez and Cristante, defending these people made Genoa feel very uncomfortable, and the three midfielders just double -teamed Chen Xiaoliang.
With a height of 195 cm at his highest point, Cesco was able to get whatever he wanted in the Genoa penalty area, which was relatively short and had limited defensive strength.
The Genoa defense, who had just intercepted the ball and were about to move forward a little, were caught off guard by the lob pass coming towards them and quickly retreated again.
Unfortunately, it was too late. Before Sirigu attacked, Cesco stretched out his left foot and blocked the ball with the outside of his foot like a flying kick in a kung fu movie, and catapulted the ball into the upper right corner of the goal!
In the Penguin Live broadcast room, the stand-up female commentator of this game, Liu Chang, shouted in a shrill voice:
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
“0 to 4!”
"Genoa is completely defeated!"
"This is Cesco's first hat trick in Serie A and Roma!"
"Mourinho didn't give his old subordinate Shevchenko any face!"
"Cesco is celebrating with Chen Xiaoliang!"
"oh!"
"oh!"
After shouting for a while, it seemed that a staff member reminded her.
"This is also Chen Xiaoliang's first assist hat trick in his career!"
"Let's congratulate him with applause!"
Barrage:
【What is this woman talking about? 】
[I only heard the "hmm" and "ahh" sounds, and ignored the rest.]
[One is Liu Chang, the other is Shi Qingsheng, why would they invite such people? I will just mute the sound when I see them in the show]
[This should be the best game played by Roma this season]
[Be more confident, remove the word "should", it was too easy to score today]
[There are too many opponents. Roma failed to defeat several giants and strong teams. That shows their true skills.]
[Is Chen Xiaoliang going to play like this from now on? Or is he just making a cameo appearance today?]
[Mourinho didn’t say anything before the game, why not listen to it after the game]
Not only fans in the Red Country are discussing it, but fans in Europe are also discussing it.
Many of them are English and Spanish, and are die-hard fans of Mourinho, so they have been following his coaching performance in Rome.
Many European sports journalists have posted new updates on their Rath accounts:
Mourinho finally found his midfield answer
"The Reds responded to the doubts from Turin with a goal"
"The Golden Boy Awards are about to be presented, but the outburst of the Red Countryman cannot change the selection results"
"The most ridiculous thing is that we can't even see the 18-year-old Cesco in the list of candidates for the Golden Boy Award"
"If Chen Xiaoliang and Cesco were Juventus players, Pedri would definitely be ranked third"
Faced with a lot of praise for Chen Xiaoliang's amazing performance and doubts about Turin Sports Daily's selection of the Golden Boy Award, Portman, who was also watching the game, was very angry.
She immediately called her gunners.
Soon, a wave of counterattack posts emerged.
"Short-term brilliant performance cannot replace stable long-term performance"
"Counting those U21 meteor players who flashed by"
As the two awards representing the highest honors for U21 today are about to be presented, an invisible collision has already ignited in public opinion.
