Chapter 288 He drew a C in the air!
You don’t know until you see it. It’s shocking.
6-1, the biggest score in the Champions League this season just created by Roma, was broken by Liverpool three hours later.
Klopp, who was very angry about the Premier League, led his disciples to Ibrox Stadium and beat Glasgow Rangers 1-7.
In the 17th minute, Arfield helped Rangers score the first goal. At that time, Liverpool fans and the English media believed that this game would be another continuation of Liverpool's poor performance this season. Unexpectedly, from the 24th minute, the Red Army seemed to be awakened and set off an offensive frenzy.
Firmino scored twice, Salah scored a hat-trick, and even Nunez, who was often called "Dongli" among the "Five Wonders" in today's football by fans because his shots went wide of the far corner, finally succeeded in pushing the ball into the far corner.
In this game, Salah's goal tally was raised to 6, the same as Mbappe, pushing him to the top of the Champions League scorer list.
On the assist list, Chen Xiaoliang also ranked first in the assist list thanks to his assist hat trick in this game, which is also the number 6.
What’s more interesting is that the three people tied for second place in the assists list are Messi of Paris Saint-Germain, Jota of Liverpool and Kvaratskhelia of Roma.
When the group draw was made, everyone thought that the two teams in Group A would compete with each other, but they didn't expect that even the number of goals and assists would be compared.
Currently, Roma has 3 wins and 1 draw with 10 points, and Liverpool has 3 wins and 1 loss with 9 points, having secured the top two spots in the group. The remaining two games, especially the last round of direct confrontation between the two teams at Anfield, the Reds' home ground, will determine who will be No. 1 in Group A.
Salzburg Red Bull with 2 points and Glasgow Rangers with 1 point can only compete for the third place and fight for a place in the Europa League round of 16 knockout play-offs.
In this Champions League, in addition to the basic tasks (5 points), Chen Xiaoliang, who connected the team together offensively, once again won the best player of the game (5 points), and also had 3 assists (6 points), for a total of 16 skill points.
It’s a pity that although Salzburg Red Bull is well-known in the youth training circle, the overall reputation of the team is not high, and the reward is only 1.5 times. In the end, Chen Xiaoliang got 24 skill points and 24 training points.
Training value 68→92
Skill value 22 → 46
In this way, the long shots from 17 finally increased to 18.
Training value 92→12
In addition, because of the assist hat trick, a skill card was obtained through the cup mission, which can obtain a specified skill in any game and last for the entire game.
Of course, it can also be used as a material card for upgrading attributes above 18.
After three days of training, the team flew to Genoa, a famous seaside city in northern Italy, with sufficient confidence and in good shape to prepare for the away game against Sampdoria in the 10th round of the league.
This veteran Serie A team coached by former Inter Milan star Dejan Stankovic is now in a precarious situation, which is also indirect evidence of Serie A's gradual decline from a "small World Cup" to the fourth largest league in Europe.
Sampdoria once enjoyed great success in the early 1990s. Under the joint leadership of current Italian national team head coach Roberto Mancini and another legendary star Gianluca Vialli, they won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1990, the Serie A championship in the 1990-91 season, the Italian Super Cup championship, and reached the final of the Champions League the following year, only to lose to Barcelona in a penalty shootout.
In addition, in the late 1980s, Serie A signed almost all the big-name stars in Europe, including the Dutch trio of Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard, the German trio of Matthäus, Brehme and Klinsmann, as well as Platini, Boniek, Falcao, Socrates, Laudrup and Passarella. Even small clubs like Verona and Udinese signed Elkyer and "White Pele" Zico. The Napoli team in the south even invited the famous Maradona!
What does this mean? For example, in the current Premier League, in addition to Haaland, De Bruyne, B Fee, Salah, Harry Kane and other stars, the BIG6 also bought Mbappe, Neymar, Benzema, Lewandowski, Modric, Mane, Kimmich, Vinicius, and then Newcastle made a big move and directly bought Messi!
It is conceivable how glorious it was for Sampdoria to win the Serie A championship under such circumstances. They also formed the "Seven Sisters of Serie A" that dominated European football together with the three northern powers Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan, as well as Naples, Parma and Fiorentina.
Roma? Lazio? They were not even worthy of being the shoes of these teams in that era.
At that time, Sampdoria was called "Golden Samp", not only because of its good results, but also because of its passionate football style, which later attracted Gullit, Mihajlovic, Klisman, Argentina's "Little Donkey" Ortega to move here, as well as the young Seedorf and Veron.
Eriksson, who later coached the England national team, brought the team its last championship to date, the Italian Cup.
As the millennium approached, Italian football began to move in a different direction.
In the world of football, as television has entered hundreds of millions of households, the income from broadcasting and advertising has also been pushing up transfer fees. In 1990, the transfer record Baggio transferred from Fiorentina to Juventus for 8 million pounds, and the transfer record Figo in 2000 transferred from Barcelona to Real Madrid for 60 million euros.
In the past, Cantona transferred from Leeds to Manchester United in 1992 for 1.2 million pounds, and in 2003, when Manchester United bought Ferdinand from Leeds, the transfer fee was a Premier League record-breaking 30 million pounds.
In ten years, the price of the highest-priced player has increased sixfold, and the average transfer fee of ordinary players has generally increased nearly tenfold.
You know, even 10 years later, the record price for Cristiano Ronaldo's transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2010 was only 94 million euros.
Even though Neymar later received the current highest transfer fee in history of 222 million euros, against the backdrop of the economic crisis in European countries caused by the 2008 financial crisis, the transfer fee increase in the two decades after 2000 has never reached such an exaggerated rate as the decade before the millennium.
In ten years, transfer fees have increased tenfold, but it is impossible for the club's revenue to also increase tenfold.
After the millennium, the performance of teams such as Sampdoria, Parma and Fiorentina plummeted due to financial problems, and no one mentioned the "Seven Sisters" anymore. However, AC Milan's dominance in the Champions League made the Italian football world unaware of the coming crisis.
Napoli went bankrupt in 2004, Parma was relegated in 2008, and AC Milan lost its luster after winning the Champions League in 2006. After Inter Milan won the Champions League for the last time representing Serie A in 2010, only Juventus is still struggling in European competitions, but they lost to the two giants of La Liga in both Champions League finals.
In the past 12 years, five teams from England, Spain and Germany have divided up 12 Champions League trophies, and the Italians could only watch helplessly.
If the Europa League, formerly the UEFA Cup, is included, the record will be even worse. The last team that helped Serie A win the UEFA Cup was Parma, who won the championship for the last time in 1999. In the following 23 seasons, Serie A had no chance to win the championship again. Only Inter Milan reached the final once and lost to Sevilla, the most successful team in the history of this tournament.
Sampdoria now has only one goal, which is to avoid relegation, but they have 3 draws and 6 losses this season without a win and are ranked last in terms of goal difference of -12, which gives Mourinho an opportunity to train young players.
Cesco and Abraham formed a double striker for the first time in a long time, with Chen Xiaoliang playing as a central midfielder behind them;
Lukeva on the left and Zalewski on the right are called wingbacks, but they are actually used as wingers;
The defensive midfielders are Enzo and Volpato, and the three defenders are Ibanez, Guadiol and Malacia.
The goalkeeper also sent in the newly purchased second goalkeeper Svilar.
A 3-4-1-2 formation with an average age of 22.7 years old.
Forti asked Mourinho if he was worried about failure, but Mourinho was not worried at all.
Because he knew that as long as Chen Xiaoliang was there, there would be no possibility of an upset between the two teams with such a huge disparity in strength.
The game went as he expected. Led by the new wolf king, Roma's wolves kept biting Sampdoria's bloated and slow body until it was covered in blood and wounds.
In the 10th minute, Zalewski made a cross from the right, Abraham received Cesco's header and was about to shoot, but was pulled down by the opponent's defender and the referee awarded a penalty.
Abraham scored in one fell swoop before the league started this season, and Roma took the lead by one goal!
In the 23rd minute, Sampdoria's Venezuelan midfielder Lincon was knocked down by Chen Xiaoliang with his signature powerful tackle, which involved first touching the ball, then the player, and then flipping the player over with the ball. However, no matter how Sampdoria's players complained, the referee and the video referee team said that it was just a very clean tackle, and they couldn't let the defensive player disappear after tackling the ball.
The 35-year-old Lin Kong was so angry that he pretended to raise his hand after jumping in the subsequent header competition, and then secretly elbowed Chen Xiaoliang on the side of the neck.
Nowadays, when there are more than a dozen VAR cameras in a stadium covering every frame of the shot without blind spots, there is really no other possibility of committing fouls without being caught, unless you encounter an amateur referee who is blind or cannot even draw the offside line.
Lin Kong was directly sent off the field. Chen Xiaoliang lay on the ground to rest for a while, then stood up and twisted his neck after Lin Kong left the field, indicating that he was not injured at all.
With one man less, Sampdoria couldn't even launch a decent attack and was pressed and ravaged by the Roma boys in the half.
The scene was that 10 grown men took turns to shoot wildly at the hole not far away...
Roma's second goalkeeper Svilar, who finally got a chance to play, seemed to understand why the coaching staff turned him over today. It turned out that they were afraid that the main goalkeeper Patricio would stand stupidly in front of his own goal for 90 minutes and catch a cold...
In the 31st minute, Kva took a corner kick and Gvadiol's header from the center was saved by Sampdoria goalkeeper Audero, which triggered a melee in the penalty area. After a scramble, the ball was finally picked up by Ibanez in front of the goal and he shot to score the second goal of the game.
"Too weak." Mourinho couldn't help shaking his head on the sidelines.
Although he has not expressed it publicly, he actually supports Serie A reducing the number of teams. Given the current situation of Italian football, among the 20 Serie A teams, 3-4 teams can be said to be almost uncompetitive, and a large number of "weak dialogues" have not brought increased revenue to these downstream teams. On the contrary, the attendance has continued to decline due to the boring games, but the players still have to bear a very heavy game burden.
To put it bluntly, Serie A currently has few top players, and there will not be one less European Golden Boot or Ballon d'Or winner simply because of the reduction of two teams and four fewer games per season.
Reducing the pressure of domestic competitions will also help strong teams to compete in the Champions League.
The Bundesliga has always maintained its size of 18 teams, and Ligue 1 will also be reduced to 18 teams in the next season after the end of this season, that is, the 2023-24 season.
On this side, Mourinho was sitting leisurely in the coaching booth and chatting with Forti, while on the other side, the "wolves" of Roma were still trying their best to lift the veil of the girl opposite.
In the 44th minute, Sampdoria, which had been besieged for more than ten minutes, couldn't stand the pressure again. Volpato's long shot from outside the penalty area missed the target, but to the surprise of all the defensive players, it passed through the gap between several people and turned into a wonderful assist for Sesco. Sesco received the gift in front of the goal. Sampdoria 0-3 Roma!
After the first half, not only was the score disparity huge, the number of shots was also a glaring 1 to 18, and the ball possession rate was 37% to 63%. It was a complete crushing game for Roma.
In the second half, Mourinho continued to train new players and substitutes.
Salah replaced Kva, Bove replaced Enzo, and Tacirovic replaced Cesco, leaving Chen Xiaoliang on the field to continue to stabilize the morale of the team.
Since Kova joined the team, there is a clear difference in Roma's offensive situation with and without him, especially on the left side, which is equivalent to losing a hot spot with a very high success rate of breakthroughs.
Without Kva, Chen Xiaoliang's burden in attack became heavier. He frequently moved to the flanks to make crosses, but Abraham could not stay in position in Sampdoria's iron formation, and his headers were repeatedly interfered and destroyed by the opponent.
In the 62nd minute, Chen Xiaoliang, who moved to the left to receive the pass from El Shaarawy, made a cross again. Sampdoria right-back Bereschenski flew to block it, but Chen Xiaoliang cut the ball directly to the middle with his left foot.
As he ran, he observed the positions of Zalewski, Abraham and others in the penalty area, but there was really no good passing route.
Seeing that the pace and angle were adjusted, Chen Xiaoliang took a long shot! He used the instep of his right foot to hit the middle of the ball with the laces, and the toe part was brought to the bottom of the ball.
At a distance of about 28 meters, with a long-range shooting attribute of 18 and the skill bonus of [Good at long-range shooting], the ball bounced directly from the ground with a "bang"!
Sampdoria goalkeeper Odero's first reaction was that the ball was hit too high. Indeed, the ball's upward trajectory was too high, but he didn't expect that after passing the defensive player in front of the penalty area, the ball fell unreasonably rapidly, as if it had been hit down by a sledgehammer in the air!
The ball seemed to be moving in a straight line, but it actually drew a big C in the penalty area above the court!
But at this moment, this C is not the Crescent Moon Scimitar, not the Elevator Ball, nor anyone else’s C, but Chen Xiaoliang’s C!
Odero never expected that such a long shot could actually fly back into the goal frame. His first reaction was deviated, which led to a complete error in his subsequent judgment. He did not move his body at all and watched the ball fly into his own goal along the right post.
"Wow..." Even the frustrated Sampdoria fans couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.
El Shaarawy was even more surprised. He didn't expect that just a casual pass could earn him an assist bonus.
The team has scored six goals in the last three league games , making Mourinho extremely satisfied.
As a "reward", he replaced Chen Xiaoliang with Pellegrini.
4-0, the rest of the game will be handed over to other teammates. They still have 6 days of rest, and then they will face this season's unexpected but reasonable number one rival in the league - Napoli.
This team located in Sin City showed very good form in the first half of last season, but ultimately failed to make it into the top four in the second half. After 10 league rounds this season, they have 8 wins, 2 draws and 26 points, remaining unbeaten, and are 1 point ahead of Roma in first place in the league. The main striker Osimhen, who was bought from Lille in Ligue 1 for 75 million euros, has completely exploded this season, scoring 9 goals in 7 league rounds, and is tied with Chen Xiaoliang for first place in the Serie A scorer list.
In this season when Inter Milan and Juventus are in poor form, perhaps the only teams that can influence whether Roma can defend the title are Napoli and AC Milan.
There is still one month to go before the World Cup, and it is still unknown what the players' condition will be like after the World Cup. Mourinho must mobilize all the forces he can to allow Roma to continue their hot form in this crucial battle and lay the foundation for defending the title in advance.
