Chapter 287: Legend of the Hungry Wolf
When the entire Roma team arrived in Salzburg, the fourth largest city in Austria with a population of about 200,000, the 8th round of Serie A matches that night were all over.
Napoli beat Torino 3-1 at home and Atalanta beat Fiorentina 1-0 at home. Both teams remained unbeaten with 6 wins and 2 draws, ranking in the top two with 20 points. Roma ranked third with 6 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, and 19 points.
AC Milan and Juventus also won each, ranking 5th and 8th respectively.
Inter Milan, who were defeated by Roma at the Meazza, have 4 wins and 4 losses, 12 points and are ranked 9th behind Juventus based on goal difference.
The team only rested for two days before facing Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League group match.
Faced with a compact game and a relatively weaker opponent, Mourinho almost changed the starting lineup.
The right back is Binya, the left back is Spinazzola, and the two central defenders are Smalling and Ibanez;
Cristante and Volpato started as defensive midfielders, while Pellegrini was given the central midfield role;
Left winger Zalewski, right winger Dybala, center forward Abraham.
Opposite them is the masterpiece of the Red Bull series.
Mourinho even suspected that their head coach, German coach Jaisler, sent on 37-year-old Austrian left-back Ulmer to deliberately raise the average age of the starting 11.
Because after leaving out this veteran, the oldest of the remaining 10 is the 24-year-old Swiss goalkeeper Kuhn, and the average age of 23.1 years old drops directly to 21.7 years old.
This is a very crazy number, which means that in other teams, those young players who have just left the U21 reserve team and are preparing to debut for the first team are already the main players in Salzburg Red Bull.
Besides, they are not giving up.
Last season, also relying on this young guard, they had 17 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss in 22 rounds of the Austrian Super League regular season, accumulating 55 points, 18 points ahead of the second-placed Graz Sturm.
In the championship play-offs, according to the Austrian Super League's competition system, the regular season points are halved and carried over to the play-offs, with the 1st to 6th-placed teams playing a home and away double round-robin.
As a result, Salzburg Red Bull started with 27 points, and after 10 games, they had 8 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. With a final score of 52 points, they won the league championship with a huge advantage of 15 points over the second place and directly advanced to the Champions League.
When the commentator in the broadcast room announced Salzburg Red Bull's starting lineup and the ages of the players tonight, even the old fans who had rich experience in watching football couldn't help but marvel at it.
Bosnian right back Dediq is 20 years old, Serbian center back Pavlovic is 21 years old, French midfielder Duas is 19 years old, Norwegian left forward Sevold is 21 years old, Croatian attacking midfielder Susic is 20 years old, Swiss forward Okafor is 22 years old, and Brazilian forward Fernando is 23 years old.
The Roma players only understood today why the 18-year-old Cesco could start so often in this team, while Red Bull was just playing in kindergarten.
Facing the hot Roma's patronage, this game naturally attracted the attention of the whole world. Red Bull also spared no effort to show their supermarket of monsters to major clubs, as if the subtext was:
Red Bull is yours, you can take it as you like.
However, compared with the four traditional European black shops, Benfica, Porto, Monaco and Dortmund, their reputation is completely polarized. Doing business with Red Bull always makes big clubs and scouts very happy.
Here, Red Bull relies on its super global scout network and youth training system to mass-produce talented players. If a player really becomes successful, they will not raise the price. This is completely different from the style of the four major black shops that will not sell unless the price is over 100 million or 3-5 times the premium of Fan Ge. The 2-3 times premium of Red Bull is already very high.
Their goal is to establish long-term cooperative relationships with those top teams and send out young talents to achieve stable transfer income.
Abraham, who had just celebrated his 25th birthday, stood on the court and suddenly felt that he was already an old man. After the opening of the game, this feeling obviously became stronger.
Facing the defending champions of Serie A, the young men of Salzburg Red Bull were like wolf cubs crying for food. Just like the high-pressing tactics formulated by Rangnick when he was the sports director of Red Bull, no matter where Roma controlled the ball on the field tonight, they would be faced with tight pressing and interceptions by Salzburg Red Bull.
The full implementation of the five-substitution system has also contributed to the popularity of high-pressure pressing.
Physical strength? What is physical strength?
These young players know very well that they just need to run. If they can't run anymore, there will be a group of teammates younger than them on the bench who will replace them.
Moreover, unlike Inter Milan's inexperienced midfielder Asllani in the previous game, most of these kids from Salzburg Red Bull have been tempered in the domestic league for more than two seasons and are completely incomparable to the rookies.
Although he still has little experience in the Champions League, especially when facing teams with different styles from other national leagues, he is very methodical and experienced in attack and defense on the field.
The two teams ended up in a 0-0 draw in the first half. Salzburg Red Bull had three threatening shots, and Abraham also hit the post once with a triangle pass from Zalewski.
After the change of sides, Mourinho still did not make any substitutions.
First of all, he believed that his rotation lineup was enough to deal with the young opponent tonight.
Secondly, two days after returning to Rome, they will face Lecce at home, then rest for three days, and then face the fourth round of the Champions League group stage, playing against Salzburg Red Bull at home.
His goal is a home match against unbeaten league leaders Napoli later this month.
Fighting on two fronts and leading in points made him consider every step of the team's future arrangements more carefully.
Unfortunately, Abraham and Cristante's two sure-shot chances in the second half hit the crossbar, and the situation did not go in the expected direction.
In the 87th minute, Salzburg Red Bull was pressing forward all the way. Left center back Pavlovic made a cross from the left side of the rib, and right midfielder Argentine Capaldo headed the ball into Patricio's goal after offside.
However, just as the Austrians were preparing to celebrate the winning goal, in the 91st minute, Pellegrini took advantage of a free kick opportunity outside the penalty area, and with the help of Dybala's feint, he directly kicked a curved ball and scored, saving 1 point for Roma.
In another match, Liverpool beat Glasgow Rangers 2-0 at home.
After 3 rounds, Roma has 2 wins and 1 draw with 7 points, Liverpool has 2 wins and 1 loss with 6 points, far ahead of Salzburg Red Bull with 2 points and Rangers with 1 point, and the prospect of advancing to the knockout stage is basically clear.
Chen Xiaoliang did not play in this game and did not get a penny in mission rewards, but in the league after returning to Rome, he maintained his good form of scoring goals in consecutive games. In the first half, he received a cross from Kva on the wing in a counterattack, and shot at the near post, scoring the first goal and eventually helping the team to a 2-1 victory over Lecce, which was ranked 13th in the standings.
The other goal was a header scored by Gvardiol from a corner kick taken by Pellegrini in the 55th minute of the second half, which was also his first goal after joining Roma.
Lecce's goal in the 86th minute, taking advantage of Roma's slack defense, only made the home team a little nervous but did not change the outcome.
There was not much to pay attention to in this game. After the game, Lecce goalkeeper Falcone, who made 8 successful saves, was named the best player of the game.
But the media were surprised to find that after 9 rounds of the league, the person ranked second in the scorer list, only 2 goals behind the top scorer Osimhen, was Chen Xiaoliang, while Lautaro, who was previously ranked second, was still ranked third with 7 goals.
What's more, among these 8 goals, there was not a single penalty kick, all of them were goals scored in open play.
"The captain of Roma puts all the strikers in Serie A to shame"
Chen Xiaoliang is following the path of Lampard and Gerrard
The person chasing Haaland in Europe is actually a midfielder
Related reports and analysis became a hot topic for a while.
Compared with the total of 13 goals and 23 assists in all competitions last season, he has only played for more than two months this season, and has contributed 9 goals and 6 assists in 11 games, averaging 1.36 goals per game. In the top five leagues, he is second only to the "Devil" Haaland, who played 12 games for Manchester City, contributed 19 goals and 3 assists, averaging 1.83 goals per game.
Considering the two players' completely different positions on the field, this even made Mourinho feel incredible at the press conference, and he bluntly stated that he had not assigned Chen Xiaoliang any special offensive tasks during the team's training.
Of course Chen Xiaoliang himself knew what was going on. Last season, all the points were added from other places, but this season he finally improved his shots... so the number of goals increased.
However, compared with Lampard, who scored 261 goals in 843 games, and Gerrard, who scored 206 goals in 794 games, he still has a long way to go.
However, there is a saying that goes, records are meant to be pursued and broken by future generations.
The 1-1 draw with Roma at home gave great confidence to the young players of Red Bull Salzburg who came to the Italian capital as guests.
However, they forgot one thing, Mourinho did not field his real trump card in that game.
Before the game started, Chen Xiaoliang sorted out the resources accumulated in the system.
Against Inter Milan, he scored 4 goals and received a full score of 10 points after the game, and was unsurprisingly elected as the best player of the game. (5 points), plus 4 goals (8 points), this game received a total of 16 training points (23→39) and 1 physical recovery card (4→5).
The first time I got the "Big Four", I triggered a dazzling achievement:
[The first time in my career that I have scored four goals in a single game has been achieved]
[Achievement Reward: Shooting, Heading, Long Shot, Any Two +1]
Although headers are both offensive and defensive, they still need bounce as a guarantee. Moreover, instead of rushing into the penalty area and fighting with the opponent's central defender to compete for headers, it is better for me to take advantage of the cross from both sides.
Shots 15→16, Long shots 15→16
He performed a hat trick once again, and also completed the [Perform a hat trick in the next game] [Reward: Any technical attribute +1] for the second time.
Since the points rewarded by this task could not be used for attributes above 18, based on the principle of practicing one skill and improving it, he combined it with the existing skill of [Excellent at Long-Distance Shooting] and increased his long-range shooting from 16 to 17.
Defeating Inter Milan and winning Barella also gave him two chances to draw Inter Milan star cards.
One drew the peak Matthäus mid-range long-range shot attribute card (five minutes), and the other got the peak Vieri confrontation attribute card (five minutes).
The positive incentive system, coupled with the extremely high rewards brought by playing against top clubs, has resulted in a considerable improvement in efficiency after every victory against top clubs, especially in the two times he faced Inter Milan.
The next game against Lecce was less eventful.
1 Stamina Recovery Card (5→6), 1 Goal (2 points), 3 points for other tasks, a total of 5 training points (39→44), and the 24 training points accumulated through training in the past 6 days (Training value 44→68)
If you can get 12 technical points in this game, you can use the season BUFF of [get equal training points when you gain skill points in the new season] to accumulate 80 training points and then increase the attribute by 1 point.
This feeling of seeing that you are just a little bit away from improving your attributes is completely different from the mentality of using up the training points you have worked so hard to accumulate and then starting over again after the points are reduced to single digits. The motivation it brings is also different.
Not only does Chen Xiaoliang have clear personal goals and strong motivation, Mourinho also issued a strict order before the game.
Liverpool will challenge Glasgow Rangers away. Although they are in a bad situation in the Premier League, he absolutely does not believe that Klopp will lead the team to failure in the Champions League.
In this case, if Roma wants to maintain its first place in the group, it must win the game at hand.
Otherwise, in the Champions League round of 16, they would most likely be drawn against very difficult teams such as Real Madrid, Bayern, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
What's more, Mourinho made a harsh remark in the locker room before the game:
"Whether you go to Qatar to play in the World Cup next month or not, I have given you a rest in the first few games. If you don't play well tonight, then you can report directly to your national team and don't need to come to the next games."
Abraham, who was going to be a substitute for Cesco again in this game, muttered:
"No one is taking me to the World Cup..."
The locker room, which had been serious just now, suddenly burst into laughter. Mourinho picked up a towel and covered Abraham's head with it: "Then go home. If Southgate doesn't take you, I won't take you either."
Chen Xiaoliang stood up and walked to the middle, and as usual, he led the players in shouting:
"Everyone has understood it these days. The coach actually asked us to attack the other side from the first minute. I thought I heard it wrong at first, but I didn't expect the coach to be serious."
"Guys, wait a thousand years, wait another thousand years."
"The last game was a draw. Today at home, we will let them know how high the sky is and how deep the earth is."
"There's nothing else to say, just one word: do it!"
Everyone gathered around, put their hands on the shoulders of their teammates, bent down and shouted:
"Dry!"
Before the game, the Austrian media kept saying that Red Bull Salzburg might be able to create a miracle. After this group of young people get familiar with the rhythm of the Champions League, if they can win this game unexpectedly, they can definitely come from behind and carve out a niche in the seemingly bright Group A, and advance to the knockout stage as the second place.
Although it is often said that the Champions League was reformed in 1992, when the European Cup was officially renamed the European Champions League, which is still used today, the framework of 8 groups and 32 teams was not established until the 1999-00 season, after the European Cup Winners' Cup ended.
But at that time, the teams that entered the round of 16 would need to be divided into four groups and play two rounds of group matches, with the top two in each group advancing to the quarterfinals.
The current knockout format after the round of 16 was determined in the 2003-04 season.
The reforms of that season made it difficult for European giants to adapt, which ultimately led to what can be said to be the most unpopular Champions League in recent decades.
Porto coached by Mourinho, Monaco coached by Deschamps, Chelsea coached by Ranieri and Deportivo La Coruna coached by Irureta entered the semi-finals, and Porto finally won the cup.
Against the backdrop of the strong team competition system and club points establishment, European football has since completely entered the era of giants.
The winners of the subsequent 18 championships were all monopolized by those world-famous giants.
In addition to the influence of factors such as broadcast ratings, event influence, and topic marketing, some tacit and invisible interventions are also protecting the giants.
For example, the draw, the home whistle of the giants, etc., although these factors can only play a small role in interfering with the final outcome, the giants still have to rely on strength and performance to make it to the end, but on the scale that already has a clear distinction between the strong and the weak, even if there is a 1% tilt, the final result will be significantly tilted.
The current Champions League is no longer a hotbed for frequent upsets for small and medium-sized clubs.
The young men of Salzburg Red Bull, who had just entered the arena, were full of ambition when they walked into the stadium from the player tunnel, "daring to change the world of Rome", but after the game whistle sounded, they realized that if they could be called a pack of wolves crying for food, they were at most a group of wolf cubs, and the 11 people on the opposite side were the real hungry wolf legends.
Binya, the full-back who will represent Uruguay in the World Cup, has been pressed on the right by Mourinho since joining from Malaysia and Spinazzola recovered from injury. He often has to compete with Celik, who is strong in defense but weak in attack, for a starting position.
Mourinho's ultimate order today allowed this player, who has the offensive blood of South American football in his bones, to completely let go of himself.
Just 3 minutes into the game, he received a pass from Enzo on the right, dribbled the ball from the wing and cut towards the middle.
After taking a few steps, he found that he could not get rid of the opponent's left winger Seward, so he passed the ball horizontally to Chen Xiaoliang who was making a forward run in the middle.
However, right after passing the ball, Binya told his captain his intention by his running position. He turned from behind Sevold and went straight into the penalty area. Chen Xiaoliang did not hesitate at all. He used the outside of his right foot to push the ball in the direction of Binya's forward advance. The ball arrived as soon as he got there!
Faced with the perfect pass from Chen Xiaoliang, Binya jumped lightly and lofted the ball into the far corner before goalkeeper Kuhn could react!
Roma takes the lead 1-0!
In the 9th minute, still in the transition from offense to defense, Gwadiol blocked the shot of the opponent's forward Okafor in the backcourt. Cristante made a long pass, and Kwa received the ball on the left and dribbled all the way to the front of the penalty area.
Facing the central defender Soler who came forward to block, Kva once again used a two-pass and wall pass, knocked the ball to Chen Xiaoliang and suddenly moved forward. Chen Xiaoliang made a through pass, and after receiving the ball on the left side of the small penalty area, Kva wanted to pass it across the goal, but Soler, who reacted first and caught up with him, stretched out his leg to block it.
The ball changed direction and rolled towards the penalty spot. Facing the wallet right in front of him, Dybala immediately kicked it with his left foot. The ball hit the leg of Cesco who was trying to receive Kova's cross pass and shoot, and bounced into the goal!
The player in the middle of Salzburg Red Bull raised his hand to indicate offside immediately, but he and Soler, who was defending Kva, rushed to the end line, and goalkeeper Kuhn did not attack, and both of them were obviously behind Cesco.
Although Dybala's goal turned into an assist, he was still very happy. He jumped directly onto Cesco's back and let him wave on his back to celebrate.
Less than 10 minutes into the game, two combined punches from the left and right completely stifled the young Salzburg Red Bull team.
The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. The more ambitious you are before the game, the more desperate you will be at this moment.
But the uncles and brothers on the opposite side did not show any intention of feeling sorry for the little brother.
Facing the 20-year-old Bosnian right-back Dediq, Kva, who returned to the starting lineup, could get whatever he wanted. He scored no matter how he passed the ball. Dediq was so shocked that he even cried, like a little kid being bullied by older kids in the neighborhood. He picked up the ball, shouted "I don't want to play anymore" and ran home crying.
In the 18th minute, Cristante dribbled the ball forward from the backcourt and Chen Xiaoliang retreated from the frontcourt to receive the ball.
Cristante passed the ball forward to Chen Xiaoliang. Chen Xiaoliang looked at Kva who was advancing without the ball on the left. During his retreat, he knocked his right foot behind him. The ball turned a corner under his feet and came in front of Kva. Kva jogged all the way into Dediq's defense area.
He first took a few steps towards the center with the ball with his right foot, then suddenly pushed the ball towards the bottom line with his right foot, and quickly changed direction to rush to the left.
Dediq used all his strength to turn around and catch up, only to see Kva swing his left foot to make a cross. He immediately fell to the ground and stretched out his legs to try to tackle the ball. Even if he couldn't, he could still block the cross.
Unexpectedly, when Kva's left foot landed, he dribbled the ball back. Facing Dedic who was lying on the ground, he changed direction again and cut inside to rush towards the middle of the penalty area.
Soler, who was also fooled by Kva just now, pounced again, but this time Kva did not choose to play the man-over game with him again. Instead, he directly pad the bottom of the ball with his left foot and made a half-high cross!
At the back post, Dybala, who was originally wandering on the outside, suddenly inserted from behind the 37-year-old left-back Ulmer, dived forward and headed the ball into the far corner of Kuhn!
3 to 0! 19 minutes!
If the security guards in the stands hadn't tried hard to maintain order, some crazy Roma uncles would have taken off their shirts, jumped off the stands and rushed into the stadium to kiss Mourinho and Roma's players passionately!
The Romans were also bloodthirsty. They hadn't fought such a fierce war in eight hundred years!
After a few rounds of attack with slight adjustments, in the 33rd minute, Dybala took a tactical corner kick from the right. Salzburg Red Bull, who had no idea how to defend correctly, didn't even see Chen Xiaoliang waiting near the corner flagpole.
Chen Xiaoliang received a tactical corner kick and made a direct cross!
Recently, I haven't used my signature skills of rushing in from behind to grab points, make supplementary shots, and help teammates take the heads of enemy generals from thousands of miles away.
Although the opponent's left winger Sevold finally reacted, rushed towards Chen Xiaoliang, jumped high, and raised his left leg to block the cross ball, he was slow at every step. How could he have a chance to struggle?
The ball almost drew a strong inward spin along the baseline, and then flew from the baseline to the middle of the small penalty area and the penalty spot.
Veteran Smalling, who started the game, jumped high with almost no defensive pressure and headed the ball comfortably, with Cesco and Gvardiol sharing the defensive attention with him.
4 to 0!
It was too easy, too effortless. Even though it was a miracle and he scored his first goal of the half season, Smalling was too embarrassed to celebrate passionately when he saw the kids on the opposite side who looked like they were dejected.
The camera turned to the Salzburg Red Bull's bench. The coach had a zombie face and the players were dejected one by one.
Mourinho's "coming of age gift" to his children
The Corriere dello Sport had already edited the front-page headline for the next day. It was a double entendre, saying that a big victory had enabled the young people of Roma to develop a king's mentality, and it was also a subtle irony that the young players of Red Bull Salzburg had finally experienced their first lesson in adulthood.
The Salzburg Red Bull team had lost all their strategy, but still wanted to struggle in their hearts and tried every attack with all their might.
But at this point in the game, the leading side became surprisingly relaxed, winning no matter how they played, while the lagging side became more and more anxious, and their movements and tactics became more and more distorted.
In the 45th minute, the first half had entered the overtime period of only 1 minute. Roma launched a quick counterattack. Gvardiol kicked the ball forward in the penalty area, Cesco retreated and headed the ball back to Chen Xiaoliang. Chen Xiaoliang adjusted one step and passed the ball directly forward, but Enzo had already rushed to the front.
Enzo, who had just arrived in Europe and had not yet scored a goal in the Champions League, saw the red on the Salzburg Red Bull players' jerseys and rushed forward like a bull in heat.
Although Cesco retreated and passed the ball and then immediately turned back and moved forward, with the score being what it is now, everyone has conceded that their teammates can act more recklessly.
Enzo took a step into the penalty area, not giving the opponent's goalkeeper Kuhn any chance to attack, and kicked the ball hard with his left foot, looking at the near corner.
However, he did not push the ball into the far corner. Instead, he used pure visual and ankle fake moves to trick Kuhn into taking a gamble on his right side.
As a result, the ball rolled quickly into the goal along the grass to the left hand side of Kuhn, whose center of gravity was shifted.
5 to 0!
After scoring the goal, Enzo excitedly rushed towards the camera on the sidelines and reached down to touch the hem of his jersey.
This made Mourinho nervous. He thought he was going to take off his clothes to celebrate, so he quickly shouted to other players to rush up and stop him.
Although everyone was indeed very excited, it was not worth it to get a yellow card for no reason in a group match where the outcome was already certain.
Fortunately, Enzo just lifted up his jersey, revealing the sports vest underneath, on which was written a blessing message for his 2-year-old daughter. He also put his right thumb into his mouth and made a pacifier gesture.
Enzo started dating at the age of 18 and had a daughter with his girlfriend at the age of 19.
At this moment, the camera immediately turned to his beautiful girlfriend Valentina in the stands and his cute little daughter in her arms.
In the jubilant live broadcast room, the screen was filled with comments:
[Enzo, I'm so sorry. Please go to Qatar and race with peace of mind. Leave the matters of taking care of your wife and children to me.]
[Father-in-law, please accept my greetings! ]
[Although I am 26 years old, I don’t mind calling you: father-in-law! ]
…
During the half-time break, Mourinho praised the team a lot, then replaced Chen Xiaoliang, Kva, Cesco, Dybala and Enzo.
He did ask the team to attack with all their might, but he certainly didn't expect the team to be in such good shape today, and that the group of kids on the opposite side would be so vulnerable...
After all, it is only the group stage. Being too high-profile is not a good thing. It will be easy to become the target of criticism from other teams in future games.
There is no point laughing too early. The one who laughs last is the real winner.
Finally, in the second half, Pellegrini assisted Gvardiol in a set-piece attack on the right, helping him score with a header.
Salzburg Red Bull also took advantage of Roma's foul when defending a corner kick and scored a penalty kick to save some face.
6 to 1, creating the biggest score so far in this season's Champions League!
