Chapter 167: Three consecutive wins! Heading to the highest hall of world football
"Jose, I don't know if this is my illusion, but do you feel the same way, as long as..."
On the sidelines, Joao was watching the team's performance on the field and was interrupted by Mourinho in the middle of his speech.
"As long as Chen is the captain, the players will be more excited, right?"
Joao found that his feelings resonated with him and said excitedly, "Yes! You found it too?"
Mourinho nodded.
Including the last match against Genoa, as well as in normal team training, whenever Chen Xiaoliang was asked to be the captain of a group to select players and arrange the lineup in the group competition, his players would perform slightly more excitedly.
This difference is very subtle, so subtle that it can only be discovered by working and training together day after day and knowing each other well.
Originally Mourinho thought that it was Chen Xiaoliang's performance on the field that motivated the players to work harder, but sometimes when they were in the same group and he let Pellegrini or Mancini be captain and in the same group with Chen Xiaoliang, those subtle excitement disappeared.
Mourinho asked Joao: "Why do you think this is?"
"My career was too ordinary and too short to really understand this feeling. Perhaps a captain who is reassuring in defense will make the players feel less worried?"
Mourinho did not respond.
He didn't know how to respond to such mysterious things, because he was also a former professional player whose career was "too ordinary and too short."
Except for Veretout and Smalling, Pellegrini and Zaniolo started instead, and the formation was adjusted to 4-3-3. Moreover, the team was at home, but these players, who were the absolute main force, also tried hard to find opportunities, but they played obviously worse than the previous game.
The frontcourt clearly found an open space and created an opportunity, but the final pass could never get to the target;
The defense clearly occupied the position and intercepted the ball, but the ball passed from defense to offense could not always keep up with the speed of the counterattack.
This would be fine if it had been a long time, but it’s only been two days since Vitesse’s Europa League group match, and all the main players are on the field.
Obviously, he was in good shape during training, but his performance on the field at the moment is hardly satisfactory.
To put it simply, the players just can't get excited.
Although Torino had 7 players in the backcourt - 3 central defenders, 2 defensive midfielders and 2 wingbacks, they controlled the ball for 66%, which was basically a turnaround.
Especially Andrea Belotti, the lone striker of Torino's front line. The striker who participated in Italy's European Cup victory this summer has tested Patricio's concentration twice in the first 20 minutes of the first half.
If it weren't for the Portuguese goalkeeper's desperate save, the score might have been 0-2.
The wing, and the wing again.
With the support of the opponent's wing-back, defensive midfielder and midfielder, Karsdorp has been exposed many times.
Mourinho really hopes that tomorrow will be January 1st, so that when he opens his eyes, the two new full-backs Celik and Malacia will appear at the Trigoria base.
In the league that ended two days ago, Juventus beat Atalanta 1-0 at home, and the points have been caught up to 22 points, only 6 points behind Roma;
AC Milan lost to Sassuolo 1-3 at home.
Inter Milan defeated Venice 0-2 away, with 31 points, surpassing AC Milan to rank second, and temporarily tied in points with Napoli, the last team to play in this round.
If Roma does not win this game, their ranking will drop from 3rd to 4th, and the gap between them and Atalanta and Juventus will be further narrowed.
But no matter what, the game had just started for more than 20 minutes, and he could only remind the players on the field to pay attention to tactical execution on the sidelines. He could not make substitutions so early or directly change the captain.
Fortunately, although the defense on the right side was still poor today, the defense in the middle was still very solid.
Because Chen Xiaoliang was running and covering there endlessly.
It was also the first time for Torino's players and coaches to experience this kind of oppressive defense, a fierce defense that didn't even take a single card.
Torino's two attacking midfielders, Belgium's Praet and Croatia's Blekalo, were almost scared by Chen Xiaoliang's tackle.
No matter how Torino head coach Ivan Juric protested and appealed on the sidelines, the fourth official could only tell him through repeated communication between the referee and the video referee team that Chen Xiaoliang's steal was very clean.
After all, in the era of VAR, in an era of rapid dissemination of online videos, no matter how "ideative" a referee is, he cannot risk the world's condemnation and openly make a distorted judgment on things that are clearly seen in the video. He can only exert some bias on those ambiguous things that can be judged or not.
Roma's best chance in the entire first half was a corner kick in the 45th minute. Pellegrini's corner kick found Abraham in the middle, but the latter's header was bravely saved by Torino goalkeeper Savic.
It was a dull draw at halftime, with shots 3 to 6, shots on target 2 to 4, and ball possession 36% to 64%. Such a boring scene made the home fans lose some of their passion.
They also wanted to get back at Chen Xiaoliang and humiliate the Turin Sports Daily which deliberately caused trouble, but first the players on the field had to give their all.
At halftime, the Italian media specifically reported the content of Juventus' post-match press conference which had just ended the game.
When talking about the Turin Sports Daily's suspected deliberate suppression of Chen Xiaoliang, Juventus head coach Allegri once again highly praised Chen Xiaoliang, saying that his performance has long surpassed the scope of U21, and he should not be compared only with players of this age group, but with players in the entire Serie A.
And as the head coach, he once again emphasized that the actions of Turin Sports Daily have nothing to do with Juventus Club, and Juventus does not need to use such behavior to gain traffic and attention.
Moreover, Chen Xiaoliang was selected as one of the top three Golden Boy Awards as a representative of young Serie A players, and Allegri also sent him a congratulatory letter in his personal name.
This has also been confirmed by the Roma club.
However, Allegri's statement did not reach the Roma locker room immediately.
Mourinho was repeatedly emphasizing tactics in front of the tactical board, requiring that the passing routes for counterattacks be simple and concise, and that the transition between offense and defense must be fast.
But after the start of the second half, the situation did not improve, and Roma's counterattack was still a bit chaotic.
Either he blindly wanted to get the ball in one go and the pass to initiate the counterattack was too purposeful, or the final pass was not in place, wasting his teammates' high-speed insertion.
You know, for offensive players, if the ball cannot be passed to them after continuous running into position, it will greatly undermine their morale and patience, making the offense more impatient and uncalm.
In the 70th minute, seeing that the score was still 0-0 and the team was likely to let the opponent score first if the game continued like this, Mourinho no longer hesitated and sent Veretout on to replace Pellegrini. The 4-1-2-3 formation became 4-2-1-3, and Chen Xiaoliang moved from the single defensive midfielder to the front to play as a central midfielder again.
He also asked Pellegrini to hand him the captain's armband before leaving the field.
Sure enough, the team's performance improved.
In recent games, not only Mourinho, but also Chen Xiaoliang himself discovered a flaw, that is, when playing as a single defensive midfielder, because he has to cover the entire midfield and backcourt alone , the number of times he goes to the side and makes insertions will be greatly reduced.
The defense is stronger, but the offensive effect is basically ineffective.
This style of play was very useful for him in the past stage because he had not yet developed the ability to pass and cross the ball. He only needed to be a good defender in the backcourt and give all the intercepted balls to his teammates to organize the attack.
At Rangers, their attacking power is one of the best in the Scottish Premier League, so they are unlikely to encounter a situation where they cannot open up the game.
However, Roma's attacking group is not the best combination in Serie A.
What's more, he is now a very important part of Roma's offense. If he continues to play as a single defensive midfielder, only defending and not attacking, it means that the team's offensive method will lack many combinations and changes.
To put it simply, a player's excellent ability will make him play a significant role on the court, and his significant role will make his teammates dependent on him.
Once this effect disappears, teammates will lose their dependence, and it will not be easy to adapt again.
This is also the reason why many teams will experience a period of pain after their tactical core members and big names transfer.
Just like Manchester United, they have been trying to recreate the scene of both wings flying together since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, but in the end both wings are useless.
However, what surprised the entire coaching staff was that in addition to maintaining the midfield position as in the previous game, Chen Xiaoliang also began to actively look for opportunities to make through passes, and the balls he passed became more and more flirtatious.
"How did this kid train? When did he become so good at passing the ball forward?"
This time, not only Joao, but also Mourinho's other two trusted fitness coach Carlos Larin and analyst Giovanni Serra raised questions in surprise.
As coaches responsible for training and analysts who collect game reports and data to analyze the team's strengths and weaknesses, they both really want to know what training method can enable a young player to improve so quickly.
Mourinho nodded with satisfaction and thought to himself: If I knew how to train, wouldn't I train everyone to be like this?
But Gerrard had mentioned it to him on the phone, and it was also recorded in Chen Xiaoliang's transfer scout report:
"In addition to daily extra training, the player will also watch the video clips produced by the club's analysis team repeatedly at night to understand every tactic arranged by the coach and the playing style and tactics of the opposing players."
Although there are two beauties hidden in the golden house, there is no messy gossip. They only go between the training base and home. Apart from training, they also practice extra. When they have nothing to do, they can recommend suitable signings to the club.
As Mourinho thought about it, he couldn't help but exclaim: Where can you find such a player?
On the field, 77th minute.
Facing the tight pressure from Torino's Serbian midfielder Lukic, Chen Xiaoliang turned his back and used the outside of his foot to flick the ball passed by Cristante to the right, then passed it to Zaniolo who was cruising on the left.
Zaniolo broke through diagonally into the penalty area, and Czech center back David Zi, who came on as a substitute at halftime, immediately squeezed Zaniolo to prevent him from going inside.
Zaniolo had to pull the ball and then pass it back with his left foot to Chen Xiaoliang on the left side of the penalty area line at the top of the arc.
The retreating Lukic rushed forward again to press, but Chen Xiaoliang still did not stop the ball. As if he had eyes behind his head, he knocked the ball with his heel and passed it to Cristante who was behind him on the right.
The Italian international shot from 23 meters outside the penalty area, and the ball went straight to the upper left corner of the goal!
Torino goalkeeper Savic flew to save the ball!
Central defender Bremer kicked the ball forward, Belotti leaned on Veretout to take the ball off, used his physical advantage to turn around and pass the Frenchman.
When Torino's two wingbacks and two attacking midfielders saw the ball in the frontcourt, they immediately rushed forward at full speed.
Belotti secretly felt that there was a chance. Cristante had just finished a long shot and was still in the frontcourt. He had passed Veretout again. There were only two central defenders defending in front of him. After his teammates came up to support him, he could form a situation of outnumbering the opponent!
As he ran forward with the ball, he looked up and observed the situation on both sides.
Blackallo comes up from the left!
Prae on the right is also waving!
Ibanez came up to interfere with him, and Mancini kept retreating.
Just as Belotti arrived in front of Roma's penalty area and was about to pass the ball to Praet on the right, he heard his teammate shouting at him. Before he could react, his right foot with the ball was tripped and he stumbled forward.
The referee stopped the game!
Belotti immediately raised his hands in anger and shouted that this was a foul from behind!
The Roma players looked calm.
The referee also ran all the way, panting and asking Belotti to stop complaining.
He only saw Chen Xiaoliang running all the way from outside the Torino penalty area, straight towards Belotti and then sliding to intercept the ball, but his sight was blocked by Chen Xiaoliang's back and he did not see clearly what happened at the moment of the tackle.
The referee's first reaction told him that it might be a foul.
However, they also specifically discussed Chen Xiaoliang during their regular meetings to discuss controversial cases.
The conclusion is: this is a very decisive defensive player. Although he often uses big defensive moves, such as sliding tackles and even tackling from behind, almost every time he challenges VAR, he can be seen touching the ball first and then the opponent's body, and he tries not to make any related moves if possible.
He has a good reputation in terms of sports ethics and has no record of malicious fouls.
Such a clean record and good reputation will undoubtedly allow Chen Xiaoliang to be removed from the referee's blacklist of priority "care" and added to the trusted whitelist.
So even though the referee stopped the game based on his first reaction, he did not make a penalty decision immediately.
He listened to the headphones and repeatedly confirmed with the video referee team. After receiving the affirmative answer, he told everyone that there was no foul and the ball was given to Roma to kick off in the penalty area.
Belotti and his teammates pestered the referee, asking him to take a look at the VAR, and vowed that Chen Xiaoliang must have committed a foul.
The referee ignored it and blew the whistle to let Roma kick off.
Just as the Torino players were reluctantly leaving the referee and preparing to return to their positions, Cristante was about to take a free kick and kicked a long, low, straight pass forward!
Chen Xiaoliang had told him to try to pass the ball low, otherwise it would be "difficult to receive".
His teammates all thought it was because of his football habits, but in fact... How could a player with a ball-stopping attribute of only 10 receive a long pass over 30 meters high... If there was an opponent player pressing him, it would be like giving the ball to the opponent...
In just a few seconds, the ball arrived and a line of small words appeared on the system:
Stamina recovery card 4→3
Chen Xiaoliang, who was just in front of his own penalty area, ran outside the opponent's penalty area again. Lukic, who was defending this area, was still on his way back from the counterattack!
At this time, there were only three central defenders in Torino's penalty area, while on Roma's side, Zaniolo, Cesco and Abraham had not returned to defense at all, but now they rushed into the penalty area again with a few jogs.
4 vs 3 in the frontcourt!
Isn't this the counterattack situation that Belotti wanted just now, with more people against fewer?
Chen Xiaoliang wanted to pass the ball directly to Cesco, after all, the success rate of passing the ball to him was the highest, but Cesco's position was relatively right and Torino central defender Buongiorno was on the passing route.
Abraham was in close combat with Torino's ace defender, Brazilian Bremer, in the middle.
Both of them are worth 40 million euros, but Abraham, who has the advantage in height and weight, couldn't gain any advantage in the fight and was pushed by Bremer and couldn't even hold his position.
There was no choice in this situation. Chen Xiaoliang dribbled the ball diagonally into the penalty area and raised his foot to shoot 1 meter after entering the penalty area line!
David Zima, who was defending Zaniolo, immediately stepped forward to block!
This guy can score a super shot from 40 meters away, isn't this an easy goal for him?!
Thinking in his mind, David Zima stretched out his right leg as hard as if doing a split to block the shooting path!
The opportunity has come!
He was just waiting for one of the opposing center backs to pounce on him first!
Chen Xiaoliang rubbed the ball and it flew gently towards Zaniolo on the left.
Zaniolo didn't stop the ball and volleyed it directly!
This explosive shot from the edge of the small penalty area gave Savage no time to react. The ball hit the goal from the right side of his body and knocked the entire net into the air!
1-0! Zaniolo scored his third league goal of the season!
After being bored for most of the game, Roma fans can finally sing loudly and cheer!
They sang the world-famous children's song "Brother Jacques", which is also known to the Red Chinese as "Two Tigers".
"Turin Brothers, Turin Brothers"
“How strange, how strange”
"One will not be in the top four, and the other will be relegated"
“It’s so nice, so nice”
Erica and David Jr., who came to the home box to watch the game, were also there dancing and singing along with the fans.
Torino coach Ivan Juric's face turned pale, thinking to himself, who the hell did I offend? Juventus's mouthpiece went to belittle Chen Xiaoliang, why was he taking his anger out on Torino?
But no matter what he thought, the fact that the entire stadium and the stands were dominated by Rome could not be changed.
Chen Xiaoliang's forward movement once again cut off the connection between the opponent's left, middle and right lines in the midfield and frontcourt. Once Torino was stuck in a deadlock on the wing, they could only pass the ball back to the central defender to completely reorganize. The offensive efficiency was greatly reduced and the formation could not move forward.
Mourinho was very satisfied, and everything turned out well after the change in formation.
The remaining ten minutes passed in a flash and the score of 1-0 remained unchanged.
Roma won three consecutive victories in all competitions.
Torino relied on its tenacious defense to avoid a devastating defeat like Genoa.
With this victory, after 14 rounds of the league, Roma has 31 points and continues to surpass Inter Milan with the same points by goal difference, ranking second in the league, still 3 points behind the top Napoli.
Soon, fans discovered that Pascal Ferre, editor-in-chief of France Football, posted a new update on his Rath account:
"Including this assist in this game, Chen Xiaoliang's assists in Serie A this season have risen to 9, surpassing Sassuolo's Italian international Berardi and ranking first in the league. This is mainly due to Chen Xiaoliang's assist hat trick for Cesco in Roma's last victory over Genoa.
So far, he has ranked first in the Serie A interception, steals and assists lists.
#2021BallonD'Or##2021KopaAward#
@Team @Serie A @Roma Football Club”
Fans look again, this is the first update released by Pascal Ferré in a month. The previous one was the official wording "The 2021 Golden Globe Awards ceremony is scheduled to be held on November 30th"!
The next day, early in the morning of November 29, the famous Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano also posted a meaningful update:
"According to my sources, Messi's family has travelled to Paris to meet him. Lewandowski will also receive an important award, and the result of the Kopa Trophy may surprise everyone!"
Another famous reporter from Sky Sports, Matteo Moretto, also posted a message with only one line of words:
"Messi's friends know about it, and a certain newspaper will be furious when it sees who will be presenting the award tomorrow. Let's wait and see."
Chen Xiaoliang packed his luggage and rushed to the airport with Helena, Erica, Reese and David to fly to Paris.
Two days ago, the selection committee had already sent a notice telling Chen Xiaoliang that in addition to his personal staff, he could also bring several relatives or friends to attend the award ceremony.
Reese was very happy when he received the notice, because according to convention, this was a treatment only given to the top three in a certain award.
It was already the evening of the 29th when they arrived in Paris. The organizing committee took the group to the designated hotel, which had already been surrounded by layers of security. Many media reporters and fans were waiting outside the hotel for their idols to arrive.
With banners announcing the Ballon d'Or awards hanging on both sides of the streets throughout Paris, in recent days, as this annual football event approaches, this European metropolis has once again become the focus of the world.
Mourinho called in the evening to ask if Chen Xiaoliang's journey was smooth.
Chen Xiaoliang replied that everything was fine.
When Mourinho asked him what he was doing and he replied that he was running in the gym, the Portuguese madman laughed uncontrollably on the phone.
"I really admire you. Just give yourself a day off. Take your friends and go around the city secretly tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But you are a big star now, so be careful not to be recognized, otherwise you will be in big trouble."
"Coach, there is a game at noon on the 31st. I have informed the club to buy me a flight directly from Paris to Bologna tomorrow night."
Mourinho laughed again: "Joao told me, I asked the club management not to buy you a plane ticket."
"What?!" Chen Xiaoliang on the other end of the phone was shocked and screamed, scaring the other guests in the hotel gym.
"You go straight back to Rome and have a good rest these few days. As the head coach, I order you to relax."
"Coach, there is nothing wrong with my body. I have rested for 12 days."
"Did you rest well during those 12 days? I know you didn't stop training when you were at home.
You have to learn to enjoy life and face life. In our line of work, the psychological and physical pressures are equally great.
Your work attitude is certainly worth learning from for other players, but the life of a professional player is not just about training and winning or losing. You have to learn to adjust and relax, which is good for your family, friends and your own mentality.
Listen to me, take a good rest these days, leave Bologna's away game to your teammates, and you have to focus on the next two big games, especially the next one! "
"Okay, I got it."
After Chen Xiaoliang hung up the phone, he had to accept Mourinho's arrangement, but he still ran on the treadmill for the set time before returning to his room to rest.
