Chapter 176: The first victory against the three giants! The legendary star card is actually that Brazilian!
Without the most dynamic and comprehensive core on the field, Inter Milan's midfield passing and running abilities have obviously declined.
The 34-year-old Vidal is no longer the B2B midfielder he used to be. This season will be his last season playing in Europe as he has won eight titles in the top five leagues.
He will then return to South America to spend the last days of his career.
After he came on the pitch, Calhanoglu had no bodyguards around him, and the Turk could only cooperate with Perisic on the wing and try to find some assists and pass opportunities.
The whole team played more steadily, but also slower.
Stamina recovery card 5→4
Chen Xiaoliang used the physical recovery card right after scoring the goal, which forced Inter Milan's defense to constantly deal with his running back and forth.
Young Inzaghi and assistant coach Faris on the sidelines finally witnessed the running ability of the legendary "Roman perpetual motion machine" with their own eyes.
The two were silent, but they both felt regretful: Why did Roma buy him? If he was in our team... then...
They were not the only ones who had the same idea, Zhang Kangyang in the stands also had it.
He was discussing with the club director Ausilio next to him:
"In your opinion, how much would it cost to buy Chen Xiaoliang next summer?"
Ausilio leaned close to his boss and whispered, "At least 120 million, plus various additional fees. If it's not paid in full at once, the number will be much higher."
Zhang Kangyang couldn't believe it: "So much? He can increase so much in just one year?"
Ausilio spread his hands helplessly: "After Dan Friedkin and the Hong Kong boss surnamed Wu teamed up to re-privatize the Roma club, they provided the stock exchange with a public financial report showing that Chen Xiaoliang alone could increase the club's revenue by at least 30 million euros a year through online and offline global traffic."
"After he won the Kopa Trophy recently, I heard that several Asian companies took the initiative to approach him and were willing to sign sponsorship agreements, which may bring Roma another 30 million euros in revenue a year."
"Boss, to be honest, not only us, but also other big clubs didn't expect this kid to be so popular. The research data we have shows that football is just an 'unpopular non-mainstream sport' in the Red Country. The number of people participating in and paying attention to domestic football is far less than table tennis, badminton and basketball, and these are not the most popular sports in the Red Country."
Zhang Kangyang was curious and asked, "What do you think is the most popular sport in the Red Country?"
Ausilio said seriously: "I heard that there are 80 to 100 million people who regularly participate in a group project called square dancing. We thought that football is not a mainstream project in the Red Country, just like in the United States. Who knows... But I learned that Manchester City and Manchester United are ready to restart the transfer negotiations for him."
Zhang Kangyang didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He paused for a long time before saying, "Americans are not keen on football because there are too many advantageous sports that they can be keen on, such as ice hockey, rugby, baseball, and basketball. The United States has world-class leagues for these sports.
As for the Reds…it’s not that they don’t love football, they just don’t want to be saddened by football anymore .”
Osilio knew that the young boss was thinking about the fact that their family "once" had a football club in the Red Country.
Zhang Kangyang seemed to no longer care about the game, and began to complain to Osilio about the "433 Stock Reform" plan carried out by the Red Football Association in the country.
As an experienced professional manager, Ausilio said he understood the Red Country boss's feelings, but he felt that what he said was "unbelievable."
He even gave Zhang Kangyang an example to make sure he heard it correctly:
The Spanish Football Association ordered Real Madrid to transfer 40% of its shares free of charge to the sports department of the Madrid municipal government, and 30% of its shares to a local state-owned enterprise or institution in Madrid. All members of the Real Madrid club headed by Florentino can only own 30% of the shares of this membership club and can only exercise 30% of the power on the board of directors, but have to bear all operating costs and investment expenditures, otherwise the Spanish Football Association will ban Real Madrid from participating in La Liga next season.
"Boss, is this what you mean?"
Zhang Kangyang nodded and said that was what he meant.
Ausilio opened his eyes wide. He didn't know why there was such "professional football" in the second decade of the 21st century. If this idea was followed, all professional clubs in the five major European leagues would lose their qualifications to participate, and all American, Middle Eastern and Asian capitals in the "Prosperous Premier League" would withdraw their investments.
Which investor would be willing to have only 30% of the decision-making power while taking on 100% of the management operations and capital investment ?
However, Ausilio did not despise this model. On the contrary, he even had a hint of self- doubt.
After all, the Red Country has created countless development miracles in all walks of life in the past three or four decades. Many of its models and rules are completely different from those of the Western world. They were widely questioned at the beginning, but most of them achieved amazing results in the end.
"Maybe... the president of your football association is a genius?"
"Ha ha ha ha!"
Zhang Kangyang couldn't help laughing while sitting in the stands.
"This is the best joke I have ever heard in my life! Hahahaha!"
The smile of Inter Milan club chairman was immediately caught by the director.
Barrage:
[Is Zhang Kangyang crazy? The team was being beaten by Roma on the field, but he was laughing in the stands? ]
【How shameless! 】
[Maybe I got in touch with some young model tonight, and I couldn’t help but feel happy]
[I guess they found a buyer who is ready to take over the club at a high price. It’s good to sell it. My national team Milan can revive again.]
[Wake up, the guy above, these are all the dishes you ordered? It must be that some player has negotiated a price. It seems that Boss Zhang has tasted the sweetness of selling Lukaku.]
[It’s good enough that Inter Milan disbanded after not winning the championship, but they still want to revive? 】
…
"Boss, I just can't understand, since Chen Xiaoliang is so popular in the Red Country, why can't the football industry develop in the Red Country?"
Zhang Kangyang didn't want to talk about this topic because it was too big and he didn't have the ability to care about it. But when he saw Chen Xiaoliang running around on the court, Ausilio's words still touched his sore spot:
"A country that can rapidly develop nuclear bombs, navigation satellites, quantum applications, aircraft carriers, and hypersonic weapons, and is leading the world in emerging technologies such as the Internet, 5G, and drones, is now focusing on chips. Everyone believes that this technical bottleneck can be overcome in due course, but why can't a mere football be played?"
Ausilio: “W-why?”
"Because football is not part of this state machine that is running at full speed. Everyone knows that if we train five or six million children to play football, the Red Country will become a world football power in 20 years. This is not a difficult task for the state machine.
But what about those children who can't get out? And the advanced things you just heard are the successful results of the entire education system operating for decades.
If you were a senior leader and were asked to make the final decision, would you train more teachers, technicians, scientists, and IT engineers to solve difficult problems that will have a major impact on the fate of the entire country, or would you train 23 outstanding football players to compete for the top four or top eight in the World Cup?
On the other hand, if you look at the countries that are good at playing football in the past decade, their economic development has been getting slower and slower.
Argentina won the World Cup in 1978, lost the Falkland Islands in 1982, and won the World Cup again in 1986, but it did not increase its diplomatic confidence in the slightest.
Football cannot solve the country's problems. At least to this day, there are still too many important problems in this country that rank ahead of football.
In the Red Country, the Football Association alone cannot solve the football problem. On the contrary, the innovations thought up by those few "geniuses" are accelerating the collapse and decline of the football market. "
Zhang Kangyang said this and waved his hand, indicating that he didn't want to continue talking about this topic.
Osilio naturally didn't ask any more questions.
But after a while, Zhang Kangyang suddenly spoke again: "In my personal name (remember, I am an individual and have nothing to do with the club), send a letter to the Roma Club, inviting Chen Xiaoliang to dinner tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."
Ausilio wondered: "If it was a personal matter, I could contact Chen directly through his agent, why would I need to inform Roma?"
Zhang Kangyang: "If paparazzi photographed Chen Xiaoliang and I having dinner together without the club knowing, what would the media write?
We should do things in an aboveboard way, respect the football tradition of this country, and avoid causing trouble for others."
On the court, the pace of both sides was very slow.
After Vidal came on the pitch, he formed a double defensive midfielder with Brozovic and simply didn't press forward easily in the backcourt. The offense was completely left to the three midfielders and two wingbacks to complete.
Neither side launched a large-scale offensive, but instead struggled to find opportunities through small-scale positional warfare.
In the 70th minute, the head coaches of both teams made adjustments at the same time.
Inter Milan replaced veteran Dzeko and Bastoni with another Argentine striker, 27-year-old Correa and Italian defender Dimarco.
Roma replaced Veretout with Pellegrini.
On the Inter Milan side, Dimarco replaced Bastoni as left center back, Correa and Lautaro switched positions to play left forward, plus Perisic and Calhanoglu who always supported on the left. After this substitution, almost all the attacks were carried out around the left.
Roma's response was also simple. Chen Xiaoliang leaned to the right to intercept and block Inter Milan's attack on the left. Pellegrini helped distribute the ball and organize in the midfield to keep the attack smooth.
Mourinho knew Inzaghi's intention when he saw the Inter players warming up, so it was a targeted tactical adjustment.
After Dzeko left the field, the frontcourt lost a tall point, but Correa is fast, good at dribbling and has good skills. Although his shooting and passing abilities are not outstanding, his characteristic is that he can run, or in other words, "mix up" in the opponent's defense line.
Although the attack on the left was stumbling under Chen Xiaoliang's defense, Inter Milan was able to launch several threatening attacks thanks to Perisic's off-ball support and Calhanoglu's elusive last pass.
In the 79th minute, Dimarco received the ball and passed it to Perisic. Perisic on the center line saw Chen Xiaoliang staring at him from 3 meters away and gave up his preparation to dribble past him.
Seeing that Perisic couldn't move, Dimarco immediately made a diagonal move to the middle, while Correa outside the penalty area retreated.
Perisic didn't dare to pass the ball on the ground, so he just made a high pass to Correa.
Ibanez played in his new position on the wing for nearly 80 minutes. Not only did his physical strength decline, but as a central defender, his awareness of making connections was not as strong as that of a real full-back.
Faced with Correa's sudden retreat to receive the ball, he did not react.
Unexpectedly, after Correa received the ball, he rushed over with the ball, and with a fried meatball pass, he knocked Ibanez to the ground!
Seeing Correa was about to rush into the penalty area, Mancini hurried over to prepare for defense.
Correa cuts inside and Mancini blocks his right foot!
Inter Milan only had 2 people in Roma's penalty area, while Roma, including two defensive midfielders, had 5 people defending in the penalty area!
Correa forced his way inside, but there was no space to shoot, so he passed the ball back to Calhanoglu outside the penalty area.
The latter made a straight pass, and when Correa cut inside, Lautaro had already run back from the right to the left!
Mancini, who was defending here, has been taken away by Correa!
"Lautaro receives the ball, adjusts to his right foot and shoots!"
"Smolin blocked the attack!"
"The ball bounced out of the baseline!"
"Lautaro raised his hand to signal handball!"
"The referee ignored it. He saw clearly that Smalling's arms were completely tucked into his chest. The referee would not call a penalty for such a ball."
Huang Jianxiang: "Inter Milan's offensive players are indeed much better than Roma in running without the ball in the frontcourt and coordinating in a small area.
They fell behind in the score today mainly because the team adopted the wrong tactical arrangement. They should not have pressed forward so much, completely exposing the gap behind them. Roma's only two counterattacks were successful. "
In the subsequent games, Inter Milan, not wanting to fall too far behind in goal difference, did not choose to press forward madly, and Roma's counterattack was limited to three or four players in the frontcourt.
No one was willing to press forward, and the game became more and more boring towards the end.
But for Roma fans, there is no better result than 3 points.
After replacing Wu Lei, Calafiori, Dalbo and others to kill time, the referee finally blew the final whistle!
Roma had 5 shots, 2 on target, 39% ball possession, 0 to 4 corner kicks, and eventually defeated defending champions Inter Milan 2 to 1.
After the game, the Korean media spoke out collectively, belittling Roma's football, saying that they "won obscenely" and Inter Milan "lost heroically."
After this round of matches, AC Milan defeated Salernitana 2-0 and topped the league table with 36 points;
Napoli lost 2-3 to Atalanta at home and fell to second place with 35 points;
With this victory, Roma has 34 points, and once again relies on goal difference to surpass Inter Milan and rank third, while Inter Milan ranks fourth;
Juventus, who are behind them, beat Genoa 2-0 and are ranked fifth with 28 points, closely following the top four.
The 6th to 8th places are Atalanta, Bologna and Fiorentina respectively.
Chen Xiaoliang was successfully selected as the best player of the game with a post-match score of 8.8 points, and received a total of 10 training points plus 1 physical recovery card.
Training value 9→19
Stamina recovery card 4→5
At the same time, in the rivalry mission with Barrera, Chen Xiaoliang completed the mission easily without any suspense because the Italian left the field early.
And because of Barrera's reckless and aggressive behavior, after the game the officials and major media unanimously rated him as the lowest among all the starters on both sides.
According to the words of the Red Country fans, Barella in this game was like De Gea facing Ronaldo in the World Cup, and his value of 10 million euros was kicked away in one game.
[Rival Mission: In this game, the rival's passing, steals, interceptions, headers, and assists are all less than the host's and no goals are scored]
[Task progress: Passing 77-41, Steal 5-1, Interception 4-2, Heading 4-1, Assist 1-0, Goal 0-0]
[Restriction conditions: Player rating after the game, enemy rating is lower than the host]
[Task progress: Rating 8.8-5.6]
[Mission Reward: 1 Legendary Star Card of the Enemy's Team]
Chen Xiaoliang opened the reward, and a golden light flashed!
A blurry figure gradually appeared and slowly became clear.
Brazilian!
Bald head!
forward!
This is an Inter Milan legend!
Oh shit!
Could it be him? !
Um?
Number 10?
Not number 9?
Adriano Leite Ribeiro!
[Obtain a Peak Adriano Shooting Attribute Card (Five Minutes)]
Looking at the four star cards of Messi, Scholes, Kaka and Roberto Baggio that were still stored in the system, and this Adriano card that he had just drawn, he didn't know how to use them.
According to the previously unlocked star card fusion system, you can accumulate 10 cards to exchange for 1 point that can be added to the attribute value of 19-20.
But... isn't it a bit of a waste to do this? After all, the abilities of these star cards are really abnormal, and they can turn the tide in critical moments.
After thinking about it, I decided to keep it for now. There will be many tough battles ahead, so I just have to adapt to the situation!
The next day was originally a routine rest day after the game, but the club still notified Chen Xiaoliang in advance to go to the Trigoria base in the evening.
The reason is simple. The club accepted the invitation letter from Inter Milan Club Chairman Zhang Kangyang. However, compared with the 30-year-old rich second generation Zhang Kangyang, the 56-year-old "old" rich second generation Dan Friedkin is obviously much more experienced.
Zhang Kangyang originally wanted to avoid suspicion openly and invite his compatriot to dinner in his personal capacity, but Dan Friedkin took the opportunity and went a step further, directly inviting the Inter Milan chairman to visit the Trigoria base in an official capacity, and asked his son, club director Ryan Friedkin to accompany him in person, and to dine in the club with directors Pinto and Chen Xiaoliang.
Zhang Kangyang gladly accepted it and brought Osilio along.
His refusal to accept it at this time made it seem that he had some not-so-righteous reasons for wanting to meet Chen Xiaoliang.
Under such circumstances, naturally there was no spark of conversation between Chen Xiaoliang and Zhang Kangyang. They talked more about the details of their life in the Red Country and their adaptation after coming to Europe.
After the incident, the team returned to training. Their next game will be the last match of the Europa League group stage at home on December 10. Their opponent is Tottenham Hotspur, with whom they drew 3-3 in the first round.
However, no one expected that after this small episode, there would be a big episode that shocked Europe.
Tottenham Hotspur Club made an official statement and submitted an application to UEFA and the Europa League Competition Committee. Due to the winter temperature, there was cross-infection of influenza within the team and obvious symptoms, which resulted in as many as 9 main players being unable to participate in the competition and there was a risk of infecting opponents on the field.
Therefore, the club applied to forfeit the final round of the UEFA Cup group stage.
This is a very rare thing in Europe!
Although UEFA President Ceferin was extremely reluctant, facing Tottenham's firm attitude and the illness report issued by an authoritative medical institution, UEFA could no longer insist. After all, abandoning the game due to force majeure is also within the scope of the rules.
In this way, Roma missed a game and was directly judged to win 3-0.
In the end, they qualified for the knockout round with an unbeaten record of 5 wins and 1 tie and 16 points.
The second place in the group is Vitesse, who defeated Mura 3-0 in the last round. They have 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses, with 10 points. According to the rules, they will qualify and will play against one of the third-placed teams in each group of the Europa League in the next round to decide who will advance to the round of 16 of the Europa League.
