Chapter 270: The Person Recruiting (Part 2)
While the team was fighting away from home, Pinto was busy with Gvardiol's affairs in Germany.
As the transfer deadline was approaching, Roma did not have time for Guevadiol to pack his luggage, settle down and then go to a hospital in Rome for a physical examination. Instead, with the help of RB Leipzig, they found an authoritative hospital in the local area to conduct a health check for the player.
This is also a necessary step before any transfer.
Even though it is just a loan transfer, and a loan fee of 4 million euros is not big news in European football, but objectively speaking, this is really not a small investment.
Fortunately, Germany is not too far from Italy. Unlike the previous trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina to discuss Enzo's transfer, the time difference alone was enough to make Pinto feel overwhelmed. He negotiated with River Plate while yawning and relying on American espresso to "keep alive".
But there is also a daily job requirement for him on the Roma board.
Since owner Dan Friedkin's main business is in the United States, the world's 600th richest man in the latest Forbes list rarely appears directly in Trigoria.
However, this does not mean that he rarely participated in the management of Rome.
In addition to the weekly board meetings and his son Ryan Friedkin's frequent travel between Texas and Rome, Dan Friedkin made a specific request to Pinto - write a daily work report to the board of directors, so that other directors, including himself as chairman, vice chairman, executive directors, independent directors, etc. can keep abreast of the work progress of the management team headed by Pinto.
Of course, this daily report cannot be made up. It must have a progress chart, completion status, next plan, team training situation summary, game day situation summary, etc.
What is more critical is the financial data, which is the core and soul of a company and the board of directors must have access to it in real time.
They came all the way to buy the club, not to do charity. Short-term investment is about long-term returns.
However, Pinto has been too busy these days. Loaning seems to be worse than transfer, but due to the temporary change in the player's ownership, the steps involved are actually more troublesome than transfer.
After the text is agreed upon by both parties, it must be faxed to the German Football Association, the Italian Football Association, UEFA and FIFA, and must be completed before the deadline, unless there are special reasons, such as tsunamis, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions, otherwise it cannot be delayed even a second.
The most famous example in the past decade is De Gea's transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid. All the agreements were negotiated, but Real Madrid's fax machine broke down for some reason and the text could not be sent to FIFA on time, resulting in the Spanish goalkeeper staying in Manchester.
Apparently Pinto had been "off-duty" for the past few days and hadn't submitted daily reports to the board of directors for two days in a row. However, given that he and his team were really busy, the wise, great, and benevolent directors all chose to forgive him.
Pinto is on a tight schedule here, and the atmosphere in the locker room over there is also tense.
"It's impossible to play on the court without mistakes, but what I saw today was not only mistakes, but also carelessness and serious underestimation of the opponent!"
After Chen Xiaoliang and all the other players entered the locker room, he stood up from his seat and spoke loudly.
"You have all played football longer than I have. In the professional league, it has never been a rule that the strong will definitely win. Otherwise, we would not have been able to defeat the top three in the north and win the league championship last season!"
"What right do we have to underestimate the enemy? We can't even beat Udinese, how can we beat Liverpool?!"
At this time, Mourinho gently waved his hand at Chen Xiaoliang.
Chen Xiaoliang sat down and drank the sports drink in one gulp, as if he wanted to use the drink to quench his inner anger.
"I apologize to everyone. It was my mistake that caused the team to suffer the current predicament."
The deathly silence was suddenly interrupted by an apology. Spinazzola, who had been "reflecting" here for half an hour, stood up and spoke in a gentle voice near the inside of the house.
“Uh, yeah, me too.” Mancini, who has a large tattoo on his left arm, is a very arrogant player. But when he heard Spinazzola take the initiative to speak, he felt that it would be inappropriate if he didn’t say something, so he had to agree with him, looking very embarrassed.
There was another silence until Mourinho spoke up: "It's good to apologize, but an apology alone can't help us turn the tide. They still have a two-goal advantage and are playing very conservatively, obviously trying to keep the score."
"They won't let us have a fast break, and this score means we can't give up the ball. Even if we do, they'll kill time by passing the ball back and forth in the midfield, which will only make us die faster!"
“There is no other way to win this game except to attack wildly. In the second half, our forwards must always run in the offensive third zone, the midfielders must be able to rush into the penalty area and attack the goal at any time, and the back line must also move above the midline to fight for all possession of the ball and create shots as soon as possible!”
Although these professional players knew in their hearts that there was no other way except to attack in the current situation, they were still surprised when Mourinho himself said that they wanted to attack violently and control the ball.
This is a man who talks about dense defense, quick counterattack, and giving up the ball voluntarily all the time, especially when playing against strong teams!
Although they were surprised, Mourinho's instructions still excited the players.
They know the importance of defense in Mourinho's football philosophy, and they also know that defensive counterattacks brought them three championship trophies last season , but the players are still more obsessed with offense in their hearts, not to mention that the head coach's instructions now are to attack wildly!
Returning to the field in the second half, Roma's players went completely crazy!
Chen Xiaoliang basically stayed within 10 meters outside Udinese's penalty area, running back and forth and organizing as the ball moved on both sides.
Kva and Dybala, one uses his super breakthrough ability when possessing the ball, while the other uses his elusiveness when running without the ball to pull the opponent into position and create killing opportunities.
Sesco became a bridgehead in the penalty area, heading, scoring, and making supplementary shots, ready to break the opponent's goal in the face of Udinese's tight defense.
But Sodil was not unprepared.
After Udinese finished 12th in the league last season and successfully avoided relegation, the club changed its head coach and Sodil took over with his team.
This local coach, who has long coached lower-level league and Serie A relegation teams , has enabled his team to have the same points as Juventus after four rounds of this season, and is only one point behind last season's runner-up AC Milan. His 3-5-2 formation played an indispensable role in this.
In the midfield, he guessed that Roma would use continuous attacks in the second half to achieve a qualitative change in order to score goals, and the flanks were a key to Roma's offense. So in the second half, the two goal scorers Roberto Perreira and Udogi had retreated to the full-back positions, and the two forwards retreated to the central midfielder positions. The team's actual formation had become 5-3-2, or more strictly speaking, 5-5-0.
But if you think Udinese has given up attacking because of this, you are totally wrong.
A mid-to-lower-level team like this one does not have any attitude or posture that they cannot let go of, and they have also experienced enough suppression and siege when playing against upper-level teams. Therefore, the current full retreat has not made them feel confused and lost. Instead, they are getting more and more excited as time goes by and they get closer to victory.
Everyone was like a fearless death squad warrior who was willing to sacrifice his life to block the shot. Even German midfielder Arslan dived with his head to block Matic's powerful long shot in the 55th minute!
Although this directly led to a mild concussion, which prevented him from continuing the game and forced him to be replaced by his French teammate Makengo, it not only won applause from the fans in the stadium, but also had a strong inspiring effect on the players on the field.
Under multiple stimulations, Roma's players found that they were like playing against a group of excited, tireless and even fearless robots. As long as the attack was interrupted and there was an opportunity for a quick counterattack, Udinese's players would rush forward without any signs of slowing down due to fatigue.
Mourinho knows that this is the tuition fee that the team must pay in the process of maturing. The arrogance, underestimation of the enemy and blind self-confidence after success will appear not only in competitive sports, but also in all walks of life.
But he still hopes that the team can win. After all, seizing as many opportunities to score points as possible and establishing a leading advantage in the league early on will allow the team to have more energy in the second half of the season to deal with increasingly powerful opponents in the Champions League.
In the 60th minute, Mourinho brought on Enzo to replace Matic.
In the 62nd minute, Chen Xiaoliang received a pass from Dybala outside the penalty area and took a long shot. The ball hit the left center back Perez and bounced out of the bottom line.
In the subsequent corner kick, Mancini jumped high again to head the ball that Dybala sent to the back post, but just like his header that hit the crossbar in the first half, this ball hit the crossbar hard, and Mancini missed the opportunity to atone for his mistake again.
In the 69th minute, Binya made a two-pass combination with Dybala on the right side and broke into the penalty area, but was tripped by Udogi.
The Roma players immediately raised their hands, but the referee not only did not award a penalty, but also warned Binya not to fake a foul. Enzo and Malacia, who were closest to the referee, immediately rushed over and surrounded the referee, strongly questioning his decision and asking him to watch VAR, but the referee rejected their requests and warned them to return to the game immediately or he would show them a yellow card.
Mourinho on the sidelines was very dissatisfied and stared at the fourth official for an explanation.
The fourth official also warned him that if he did not return, he would be sent to the stands for leaving the command and marking area without permission.
"Whoa..." Coupled with the Udinese fans in the stadium booing Roma in unison, the referee seemed to be more determined not to change his decision.
After 70 minutes, the score was still 3-1. Roma had already taken 9 shots in the second half but still couldn't score another goal.
Mourinho replaced Cristante with Abraham and changed the formation to a radical 4-1-1-4, with four forwards piled up in the front, while the single defensive midfielder Enzo and the single central midfielder Chen Xiaoliang almost took on the entire passing, transfer and defense in the middle.
However, the effect of adding a full-time striker in the penalty area soon became apparent.
In the 73rd minute, Chen Xiaoliang received a pass from Enzo in the middle, and got rid of the defense of two midfielders horizontally. While attracting the attention of the wingers, he passed the ball directly to Kvaratskhelia who was heading towards the bottom line.
After getting the ball, Kva immediately used his signature two changes of direction to shake off Udinese captain Roberto Pereira, and then facing Becao who was blocking him, he made an inverted triangle pass to Chen Xiaoliang who had already run into the penalty area from outside the penalty area.
Chen Xiaoliang pretended to shoot, but he was blocked by Sousa and Mackengo. Silvestri had already positioned himself early on the only shooting route. It was difficult to make a strong arc ball from this distance, and even if he shot with force, the goalkeeper would have blocked it. There was really no shooting route.
But before he received the ball, he had already spotted another line on the right, which was vacated because of the line belonging to Dybala who came up to block his shot!
Chen Xiaoliang pushed with his right foot and made a small diagonal pass to the right in the penalty area, but unexpectedly something unexpected happened.
Abraham, eager to score, ran towards the ball from an offside position. Just when he was about to touch the ball and prepare to shoot, he didn't know whether he heard the Udinese fans in the stands shouting "Offside! Offside!" or Dybala's reminder "Don't touch it! Don't touch it!" In short, he ran about two meters after the rolling ball, but in the end he didn't touch the ball.
Seeing such an obvious offside, Udinese players raised their hands and stopped walking.
But at this time, next to Abraham, Dybala, who had just made a pass from Chen Xiaoliang, kicked the ball hard towards the near corner with his left foot. Although Silvestri did not stop defending like his teammates, he still failed to touch the ball after his desperate save.
The linesman's flag had been raised. Udinese's players were very dissatisfied. But when they were about to accuse Dybala of forcing a shot after being offside, Dybala ran to the linesman and used his hands and mouth to say and gesture:
"He didn't touch the ball! I'm not offside! Look carefully!"
At this time, the referee also ran over, and after speaking briefly to the linesman, he actually put the whistle to his mouth, it beeped, and then pointed to the center circle!
At this point, everyone in the Friuli Stadium was stunned, even the Roma fans who had traveled with the team to the away game. Although they were cheering and shouting, they only knew that the referee had ruled that the ball had gone in, but they didn't understand how he determined that it was not offside.
The barrage of comments also exploded immediately, and many fans of the three northern powers rushed out:
[Is the Italian Football Association so supportive of Roma now? Can they even blow the ball into the goal? ]
[Isn’t this offside? If this isn’t offside, then there won’t be any offside balls in the future! ]
[What do you mean he didn't touch the ball? Abraham was in an offside position and went over to protect the ball. He was obviously involved in the attack! How could he not be offside? ]
[The fake is indeed fake, the real is getting faker and faker]
In the broadcast room, Zhan Jun and Zhang Lu were also confused.
These two have been dealing with football for most of their lives and make a living from football, but this is the first time they have seen such a penalty.
However, Zhan Jun said something that made a lot of sense: " The controversy over this penalty will definitely ferment after the game, but Udinese players should also summarize that at any time, when the referee does not blow the whistle to let the game enter the dead ball stage, the players cannot stop defending. In that ball just now, Perez and Udoji might have been able to catch up with the ball earlier than Abraham, or even if they couldn't catch up, they could have blocked Dybala's shot, so that Dybala would not have to face the goalkeeper directly and kick a one-on-one shot."
Zhang Lu: "That's right. It makes a lot of sense. No matter what the referee blows, you can't stop the game without hearing the whistle."
Now, the Udinese players and fans who had just treated today's referee as their own family are not happy. Just now, it was the Roma players who followed Dybala and surrounded the referee, but now it is the home team fans who are asking the referee for an explanation.
Sodil on the sidelines was even clearly captured by the camera spitting and spitting at the fourth official. The fourth official also knew that he would have a lot of fun after the game today, so he did not give any response to Sodil.
This kind of silence is also a statement - the person on the field is the one making the judgment, it has nothing to do with me, so don't pick on me.
In any case, both sides returned to their respective halves, and Udinese kicked off again with anger, 3 to 2. There were less than 20 minutes left in the game, and Roma's desperate gamble had to continue!
