For the four Serie A teams, except Roma, the draw situation for the other three teams can be described as hell mode.
The situation in Group A is not bad for Roma. Although Glasgow Rangers was the runner-up of the Europa League last season, like Salzburg Red Bull, their players do not have much experience in the Champions League and their overall strength is limited. As long as Roma takes it seriously, the possibility of an upset is not great.
The only serious opponent in the group is Liverpool.
In the summer, Liverpool let go of Sadio Mane, an important contributor to helping the team win the Premier League and Champions League titles, and let the African striker join the Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich.
As a supplement, they spent 100 million euros to buy Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez from Benfica.
Chen Xiaoliang was familiar with this guy. When he was at Rangers, in the Europa League group match against Benfica, the registration deadline had passed when Chen Xiaoliang joined the team, so he sat next to Gerrard and watched the game carefully.
At that time, Gerrard asked him to pay more attention to Nunez, saying that the striker would definitely be able to play for a big club in the future.
Last season, he made 28 appearances in the Portuguese Super League and scored 26 goals, averaging nearly one goal per game, which is an amazing efficiency.
He also scored 6 goals in 10 Champions League games, which is still a pretty good result.
This is on par with Haaland, who made 30 appearances and scored 29 goals for Dortmund last season.
Although he only scored 2 goals in the first 4 rounds of the new Premier League season and was suspended for a red card in the second round, and was not as popular as Haaland who scored 6 goals in 4 games, Liverpool's 9-0 victory over Bournemouth on the 27th made the Reds' fans full of confidence in the home team and Nunez, vowing to snatch the Premier League championship trophy from Manchester City.
For Roma, this is a draw where they have to maintain second place and fight for first place. Whether they can get first place in the group depends on the results of the two games against Liverpool.
The three northern powers were not as lucky as Rome.
Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and Barcelona are in Group C. The other opponent is Czech team Viktoria Plzen, which is also the only "underdog".
AC Milan's Group E includes two strong teams, Chelsea and Ajax.
Juventus are in Group H together with Paris Saint-Germain and Benfica.
The former has amazing strength on paper. Once he gets into his best form, no one in Europe can guarantee they can beat him.
Although the latter looks average, in the Champions League group stage last season, after being defeated twice by Bayern, Benfica first defeated Barcelona 3-0 at home, and then tied 0-0 at Camp Nou, and finally escaped unscathed. It ranked second in the group and kicked Barcelona into the Europa League.
Although they are rivals in domestic competitions, when their own teams compete together in European competitions, they usually hope that they can finish as far behind each other as possible.
After all, in the knockout stage, teams often fight on two or even three fronts. Being able to meet their own team means, firstly, they know each other better and the pressure of preparation will be lower. Secondly, with the transportation distance, they can save a lot of time on the road.
But compared to Roma, which has a "red hand", Juventus head coach Allegri has a very painful headache at the moment. Compared to the Champions League, the most urgent thing is the upcoming third round of the league.
The entire Roma team arrived in Turin on the 26th, ready to play this away game.
The three northern teams, Napoli and Roma are considered the five best teams in Serie A. This is also the first strong dialogue among the top five teams in Serie A this season.
At the pre-match press conference, Mourinho and Allegri began to compete to see who was more humble.
Mourinho said Juventus completed a series of great deals in the summer and completed the transition from old to new in the team. This season is the time for them to return to the competition.
Although Roma performed well last season, the team has too many young players and no experience in defending the league title. In addition, they are playing away, so a draw in this game will be a good result.
Allegri did not deny Mourinho's talk of a transition from old to new.
This summer he sent away veterans such as Ramsey, Dybala, Bernardeschi and Chiellini, and also sold De Ligt to Bayern Munich for 67 million euros.
After buying Torino central defender Bremer to replace De Ligt for 41 million, they also signed players in their prime such as Pogba and Di Maria for free, and also bought several players at low prices to supplement the lineup.
But Allegri says Juventus are still far from being able to compete for the Serie A title again.
Not to mention that several main players at the moment, including Pogba, Chiesa, Bonucci, and even goalkeeper Szczesny are all injured.
The team will take some time to adjust its lineup while striving to reach the top of the standings.
He also complimented Mourinho, saying that the Portuguese's achievements were incredible and worthy of learning for all coaches.
What I mean is, with my broken lineup, with old players, young players, injured players, and useless players, it would be good enough if we can draw with Roma at home.
However, soon after the players entered the locker room on the afternoon of the second day, both head coaches revealed their true colors.
Mourinho: "Forget the meaningless rubbish I said at the press conference, which was just to deal with the media."
"Believe me, Allegri must be saying the same thing as me in the home team's locker room not far away!"
"They are Juventus. They are not a small club that would normally be relegated to Serie B. As long as they appear in this league, their goal is to win the championship! This is why their newspapers spare no effort to target us. In the past, it was the two teams in Milan, but now that we have become the biggest favorite to win the championship, we have naturally become the target of their mouthpiece attacks!"
"They have four main players who can't play tonight. I will conduct a complete evaluation of all of your performances!"
"If you can't even beat Juventus now, then don't come to me with a face like that and want to play in the Champions League!"
Then, it was time for Chen Xiaoliang to lead his teammates to give encouragement before going on the court:
"Get ready, guys! No matter if he was once the Serie A champion, remember! We are the Serie A champions!"
"one two three!"
Everyone: "Champion! Champion! Champion!"
Since the new Premier League season started in early August, coupled with the very dramatic game status of several top teams, and the attention brought by heavyweight transfers such as Haaland, Nunez, Anthony and Casemiro, almost all the attention of the five major leagues in August was focused on the Premier League.
Today's game finally allowed Serie A to slightly grab the attention of the world football community from the Premier League.
Judging from the pre-match rosters, both teams fielded a 4-2-3-1 lineup.
Juventus side:
Goalkeeper Szczesny's return to the front line led many reporters to directly say on social media that Allegri deliberately set off smoke bombs to confuse the opponent before the game;
Defenders from left to right: Sandro, Danilo, Bremer, De Sciglio;
Double defensive midfielders Locatelli and Rabiot;
The two 34-year-old veterans, Di Maria on the left and Cuadrado on the right, are stationed on the wing;
In the central midfielder position, Allegri unexpectedly started the 19-year-old Fabio Mireti.
The center is Vlahovic, the most valuable player in the team.
In Rome:
goalkeeper Patricio;
The back four: Celik, Mancini, Smalling, Malacia;
Double defensive midfielders Enzo and Matic;
Zalewski, who performed well in the last game, started as the left winger, while Dybala started on the right wing to face his old club.
In the frontcourt center axis, Chen Xiaoliang is still at the back and Cesco is in front.
Excluding Zalewski on the left winger position, this lineup can be said to be Roma's strongest lineup at present.
Cuadrado, Mourinho's former subordinate at Chelsea, was the captain of Juventus in this game. He tossed a coin with Chen Xiaoliang in front of the referee, and in the end Juventus attacked first.
Both sides stand still and the game begins!
The first two rounds were all bullying, but tonight we have to take the mule and the horse out for a walk!
Juventus continued to implement Allegri's old tactics - attacking at the beginning.
Taking advantage of the opportunity of kicking off first, they immediately organized an attack towards Roma's half.
【Boom boom boom! 】
As soon as Vlahovic kicked the ball out, Chen Xiaoliang 's system rang.
[Enemy detected: Dusan Vlahovic]
[Rival Mission: In this game, the rival has no goals and no assists]
[Restriction conditions: Player rating after the game, enemy rating is lower than the host]
[Mission Reward: 1 Legendary Star Card of the Enemy's Team]
[Superstar detected: Angel Di Maria]
[Superstar Mission: Complete 5 steals when Di Maria is in possession of the ball]
[Mission Reward: Di Maria Skill Training Package]
Yo!
Chen Xiaoliang stood in position, read the task requirements as quickly as possible, and immediately closed the words that appeared.
There are actually two tasks, but considering Di Maria's status and football resume, he can definitely be called a superstar.
Chen Xiaoliang kept his eyes on the middle, while the ball was passing between Cuadrado, Rabiot and De Sciglio on the right.
The three of them kept using short passes in a small area and forward runs after passing the ball, testing Zalewski and Malaysia's wing defense.
Just as the ball was advancing along the right side to the frontcourt and was about to enter the offensive third zone, Cuadrado did not choose to force his way down the bottom, but suddenly passed the ball to the middle to Mireti who was making a run!
The young Italian player wanted to shoot, but Enzo slid towards him without mercy!
“Beep!”
Just as Enzo was about to stand up and run forward to join the counterattack after shoveling the ball away, the referee blew the whistle.
"What?! This is a foul?!"
Enzo, who had just run a few steps and wanted to rush forward excitedly, turned around and yelled at the referee with a look of disappointment and unhappiness on his face, as if someone had taught him to put on his pants immediately when he was excited.
After yelling, Enzo loudly stated that he was the one who touched the ball first, and Mireti fell because he was tripped by the ball.
Chen Xiaoliang was about to stop him, but it was too late.
Who is the referee today? Daniele Orsato is the best referee in Italy. In order to avoid wrong decisions in key matches last season, the Italian Football Association often sent him to referee.
Orsato was notoriously strict in controlling the game, not to mention the fouls, let alone openly and loudly complaining to the referee?
Enzo immediately received a yellow card as a welcome gift from Orsato to Serie A, and at the same time gave Juventus a free kick about 27 meters away from the goal on the right side of the penalty area.
Orsato told Enzo that the video referee team watched the replay and found that it was the person who touched first.
Enzo was completely speechless and didn't dare to talk back. He could only run back to the penalty area to defend with an unhappy look on his face.
Roma lined up a five-man wall, with Zarafsky lying on the ground to create a gap in the goal.
Vlahovic stood behind the penalty spot with no one else around him.
The main center with a height of 190cm has stepped out. No one will believe him if he pretends to pass the ball.
“Beep!”
At this moment, the clock on the screen just jumped to 1 minute and 15 seconds.
The referee blew the whistle, Vlahovic looked up at Patricio and the human wall again, then took a deep breath and started to run!
Right foot, left foot, right foot!
He took three steps to run, and after the last step of his right foot touching the ground, he swung his left foot and then swung it downward suddenly, hitting the lower middle part of the ball between the arch and the inner instep. The ball instantly flew up and passed over the human wall!
Chen Xiaoliang, who was responsible for guarding Juventus' supporting players in the middle of the penalty area, began watching the arc from the moment the ball came out.
I saw him flying up, I saw him passing through, and I saw him falling slightly.
Then it hit the bottom edge of the crossbar on the upper right side of the goal and bounced into the goal!
Zhan Jun: "A beautiful free kick! This ball goes in! 1 minute and 20 seconds! Juventus gave the defending champion Roma a warning at home!"
"Who said I am a down-and-out old woman! Vlahovic used a wonderful world wave to prove that the skinny Juventus is bigger than Roma!"
"Mourinho on the sidelines had no expression on his face. Patricio had no way to deal with this ball."
Zhang Lu: "There is almost no way a goalkeeper can save this ball. It was fast and the angle was tricky. If we really want to blame someone, we can only blame Enzo. He just fouled Mireti. That position made his long shot less threatening. There were also many people in the penalty area. Whether he could hit the goal was another matter."
“Of course, Enzo didn’t expect Vlahovic’s footwork to be so fiery today.”
In the stands, the passion of Juventus fans was ignited at the first moment, black and white flags were flying repeatedly, and when the camera swept across, it was all about the excited and screaming men and women. Even Pogba and Bonucci, who were watching the game in the stands with their hands up, stood up and applauded Vlahovic.
Enzo was very unconvinced, but he also knew in his heart that it was his foul that caused the goal, and he also received a yellow card as tuition.
Chen Xiaoliang was also a little confused. In just over a minute, his nemesis mission was over?
The two young men, full of vigor and vitality, looked at each other. Although they didn't say a word, they understood each other tacitly.
One word: fuck him!
Sesco kicked off from the center circle and it was Roma's turn to attack.
After a great success in the opening attack, Juventus began a slow and steady defensive tactic.
If Chen Xiaoliang's sudden appearance in Serie A made all the head coaches feel something different, then the 19-year-old Mireti's appearance was obviously the idea that Allegri summarized from Chen Xiaoliang.
Although Mireti does not have Chen Xiaoliang's excellent and comprehensive physical qualities, and his one-on-one defensive ability is not that great, Allegri values ​​his awareness and awareness of spatial utilization.
Several times, the ball was passed to the frontcourt, and after receiving the ball, Chen Xiaoliang found that there was no good point to pass the ball forward. He was about to pass it back and reorganize, but found that Mireti was standing in the middle of his route.
That's disgusting.
In terms of data statistics, this kind of behavior will not leave any traces, but in actual offensive and defensive confrontations, the impact of this kind of running on the situation is very important.
Just like Busquets and Carrick, who were once invisible men on the field, sometimes after watching a game, you don’t know what they did on the field. In the eyes of fans, they are not as popular as Xavi, Iniesta, Scholes and others in front of them. However, as a head coach, he will actually start such players in every game.
A professional player who has a certain basic level of technique, physique and awareness can stand out if one of these three improves to excellence, and he can stand out in a decent professional team, just like the fledgling Chen Xiaoliang who had a superb ability to steal the ball.
But such players can be found everywhere in Europe.
There are two who have mastered it to perfection, and they are the famous football stars, such as De Bruyne, who are unique in awareness and technique, but lack some physical fitness.
And if someone can master all three to perfection, then he may only be away from the title of football king if he has a good team and a few trophies of sufficient weight.
Juventus' defense is very patient and their offense is also advancing slowly, especially after taking the lead, they will never attack too aggressively.
Allegri's strategy tonight is to rather end the game at 0-0 than to over-press for the sake of attack, and never give Roma a wide space to counterattack.
Roma, who are still adapting, can only rely on crosses from the flanks and long shots to beat their opponents.
In the 5th minute, Chen Xiaoliang made a cross from the left. Bremer, who was selected into the best team of Serie A last season, relied on his excellent physical confrontation and positioning ability to seriously interfere with Cesco's jumping speed, resulting in the ball failing to be headed and passed directly to the other side.
In the 11th minute, Dybala received a pass from Chen Xiaoliang at the front of the penalty area and completed a long shot at a very tricky angle, but as a former teammate, Szczesny was familiar with his shooting habits, predicted the position in advance, and fell to the ground to catch the ball.
More than ten minutes passed, and although Roma had the upper hand overall, their attacks were like scratching an itch, just like what those teams that were obviously weaker than them had done in the past when facing their defense.
Mourinho also saw it on the sidelines. Allegri was prepared to defend the 1-0 score until the end. No matter how ugly the scene was, 3 points were the most cost-effective.
He turned around and waved to Kwa, making a warm-up gesture.
Kwa, who was not even wearing a jersey and was only wearing a long-sleeved sports shirt, was stunned for a moment, then he understood what the coach meant, and quickly put on a fluorescent vest and went to the sidelines to run and stretch in preparation.
When warming up on the sidelines, players wear brightly colored reflective vests, mainly to prevent interference with players on the court.
Many times when players pass the ball, especially when they are under pressure or making long passes, they have no time to look closely. They just follow the tactics and team formation, and when they see someone in their own color running at the passing point, they know where to pass the ball.
So occasionally there would be funny scenes where the ball was passed to the team’s coach or to a billboard of a similar color.
But there was no way Kwa could come on with less than 20 minutes to go, so Mourinho made another change.
When the ball was dead, he waved to Malaysia, who was closest to him, and quickly said a few words to him.
Malaysia returned to the court and told Chen Xiaoliang, who immediately understood.
Not long after, he and Enzo were seen in the defensive midfielder position, while Matic was pushed to the central midfielder or even further forward.
But Mourinho did not want these two guys to play as defensive midfielders. Instead, he wanted them to play as all-around midfielders at the same time, moving forward in offense to increase the number of passing points in the frontcourt, and using their running ability to quickly return to defense in defense.
The effect of this move was immediate.
No matter how good Mireti's spatial awareness is, he is just one person and it is impossible for him to block the mutual transfer and cooperation of the three points in Roma's midfield at the same time.
Rabiot and Locatelli, who finished later, followed the coach's tactics and strangled Roma's three midfielders without any conditions.
For a while, Roma, who always liked to use the flanks to fight positional battles, actually treated the midfield as their own back garden!
Mireti, who was unable to carry the team alone, soon realized that although he was very talented, he was just a surprise weapon sent by Allegri through the inspiration of Chen Xiaoliang.
In the 18th minute, Juventus organized an attack on the left side. Chen Xiaoliang and Celik double-teamed Di Maria, one from the front and one from the side.
The Argentine angel who had just recovered from injury played very hard but avoided physical contact everywhere.
There is no way around it. The first World Cup held at the end of the year has made these big-name stars desperate to avoid injuries.
Especially this World Cup is the last chance not only for Messi, but also for Di Maria to pursue his dream. He doesn't want to lie in the operating room before even touching the edge of his dream.
Taking advantage of this, although his speed is still not as fast as Di Maria, who is already 34 years old, Celik played particularly tough today. He used to like to retreat sideways to defend and compress the space before rushing forward, but today he often went up to physically confront Di Maria without waiting for him to start.
What's more, with Chen Xiaoliang's help in defense, Celik is even more confident.
Di Maria always looks for a chance to break through at the first possible moment. If there is none, he passes the ball immediately to avoid Celik getting entangled with him.
At this time, Di Maria used the same trick again. Seeing two people coming, he passed the ball over Chen Xiaoliang's head and gave it to Mireti in the middle.
After unloading the ball, Mireti turned around to observe. Just as he dribbled a few steps towards the middle, he saw Vlahovic, who was facing him with his back in the penalty area, pointing at him anxiously.
"ah!"
He didn't even have time to think and couldn't help but let out a scream.
"oh!"
This was a sigh of fear coming from almost all Juventus fans in the stadium.
Even a few female fans screamed in fright.
Mireti's feet suddenly flew off the ground, and she felt something underneath her, like a forklift, lifting both of her legs up.
He was completely unprepared and felt his entire body bearing the shock wave generated by the impact.
After falling to the ground, he didn't know whether he should roll over to show his miserable condition, or stay still and check if he was injured.
“Beep!”
The referee Orsato blew the whistle again, and immediately trotted over, then reached for the left pocket of his chest with his right hand, ready to show a yellow card warning to Chen Xiaoliang who had made the tackle.
Chen Xiaoliang was not angry. He said to Orsato with a friendly face but firm eyes: "Mr. Referee, please listen to your colleagues in the video room, or take a look at the VAR, and then decide whether to play a card or not."
Orsato was a little unhappy and thought:
I have been refereeing Serie A for so many years. Although small mistakes are inevitable, I have never made big mistakes. Otherwise, I would not have been selected by FIFA to referee the opening match of the World Cup at the end of the year.
When will it be your turn as a little kid to teach me how to blow the ball?
Even if you are the best player in Serie A, refereeing is still my specialty as a professional referee.
Thinking of this, he still wanted to take out the cards.
However, Chen Xiaoliang did not seem surprised. Before the Juventus players rushed over to protest, he added to Orsato: "The footage that the referee in the video room can see must have been seen by countless people on TV and the Internet at this time."
Orsato was stunned.
I thought to myself: Damn, this has definitely exposed my weak spot.
This kid is right. There are less than four months left before the World Cup starts. In addition to the opening game, I will also referee several other games. FIFA will even let me referee one of the semi-finals.
It's Italy's fault for not making it to the World Cup; Italian referees don't have to consider the principle of recusation at all.
If I make a wrong call now, won’t it affect my World Cup officiating journey?
And at this time, he couldn't help but think that Chen Xiaoliang, as the steals king and interception king last season, had only received one yellow card, which was simply impeccable from the perspective of sports ethics.
A serious appeal from a player like this should be very different from the unreasonable demands he usually faces.
Orsato was indeed an experienced referee. He scratched his chest with the hand that was about to take out a card, pretending to take off his clothes after running. Then he held the earphone with his left hand and began to ask his colleagues, and persuaded the players from both sides who were surrounding him to leave.
The poor Juventus players didn't even have time to appeal and were deprived of the chance to speak .
"Are you sure?"
Orsato asked in disbelief.
"Sure." The headset gave a definite answer.
Orsato looked down at Mireti who was still lying on the ground, then raised his hands and called in the team doctor.
The video referee team said that it was a very clean tackle that touched the ball first.
Then he stopped the game for no reason, which turned out to be a wrong call.
But there was another reason for calling the team doctor in, which was to protect the players.
When Chen Xiaoliang saw Orsato put his hand down from his chest pocket, he knew that the video referee team had told him everything, and then he smiled and blinked his left eye at him to show his friendliness.
Orsato appreciated it, but as a referee he could not show any bias. He just nodded slightly and understood it.
Enzo was dumbfounded when he saw this.
Only then did I realize that a boss is a boss. To be a boss, it is not enough to just be able to kill people by shoveling them, otherwise you can only be called a reckless man.
Being able to get along well with the coach off the court and convince teammates in the locker room is already amazing. Now he can even make the referee happy and change the penalty on the court. This is a bit too amazing.
However, Chen Xiaoliang's tackles are only to scare people and not to intentionally hurt them. Although Mireti was a little confused, the team doctor confirmed that he was fine after checking and could continue the game.
As the "culprit", Chen Xiaoliang has been standing nearby, expressing his concern on the surface.
Finally, he and Vlahovic each stretched out a hand to pull Mireti up.
But in the end, he smiled and said to Mireti who had stood up, and perhaps to Enzo who was looking at him with admiration, with his head slightly raised, as if looking down at him:
“Welcome to Serie A.”
At that moment, Mireti, who was 179cm tall and only 4cm shorter than Chen Xiaoliang, seemed to see a giant with an aura of 3 meters and a glow in his eyes.
He even forgot that the Roma captain was one year younger than him!
The excitement and pride of starting in Serie A for the first time were completely destroyed by the tackle just now and these words!