Chapter 303: Second match with AC Milan
At the end of December, all the players returned to the Trigoria base, including Enzo and Dybala who returned home to participate in the championship parade.
After learning that his fellow countryman wanted to transfer to Chelsea, big brother Dybala also expressed his understanding.
But he also used his experience in Juventus to remind Enzo that the pressure and competition of the top clubs are on another level. As a player, if you want to gain a foothold and stand out in the top clubs, you must have a strong and persevering heart.
The board ignored Mourinho's opinion and directly approved Enzo's transfer. As a compromise, the transaction date was set on January 30, before the end of the winter break.
This means that Enzo can still play for Roma for another month.
In this month, the football world seems to have undergone earth-shaking changes.
Messi finally won the World Cup and was officially crowned the king, while Ronaldo ended the farce planned for him by Piers Morgan and left for Saudi Arabia in a grand manner with the highest salary in football.
In terms of market value, Mbappe, who unfortunately finished second, raised his market value to a record high of 180 million euros thanks to his outstanding performance. Following closely behind him is Haaland, who did not participate in the World Cup like Chen Xiaoliang, with 170 million euros.
Vinicius is worth 120 million, England's two "princes" Bellingham and Foden are worth 110 million, and Chen Xiaoliang has reached the 100 million mark with his explosive data this season, the same as Pedri, Murcia, LS Ka and Valverde.
Looking around, players under the age of 24 completely occupy the top 12 of the world's most valuable list, until the Japanese star Harry Kane with 90 million euros.
More than 20 days of training and extra practice, plus the rewards from the match against Torino, and the cost of 3 stamina recovery cards, gave Chen Xiaoliang a total of 112 training value rewards.
Training value 18 → 130
Stamina recovery card 4→2
[The achievement of 90 million euros has been achieved]
[Achievement Reward: Leadership +2]
Leadership 17→19
【The achievement of being worth 100 million euros has been achieved】
[Achievement Reward: Any attribute +2]
As for the attributes, he added the 2 points rewarded for the achievement and the 1 point exchanged for 80 training points to the burst.
Outbreak 17→20
Training value 130 → 50
His burst and speed are finally full, with a double speed of 20. He really wants to have a chance to meet Mbappe again to see if he will be left behind by him in the first two steps.
Since most attributes require 80 training points to increase by 1 point, Chen Xiaoliang has significantly reduced the frequency of checking the system. He is more accustomed to reviewing the various elements prepared by the system before the next game.
At this time, he discovered that the star card gift pack that he had drawn for the mission against Liverpool had not been used up.
While Chen Xiaoliang prayed that he would not be given such perverted things as the Suarez bite card, he started the random draw.
The result was an old face, John Barnes, the greatest left winger in Liverpool's history.
The effect of the card is pretty good, with speed 19, technique 18, dribbling 18, and a skill that makes one good at advancing from the left.
The five major leagues, which had been silent for more than a month, resumed one after another after the arrival of January.
Sky Sports and L'Equipe also published similar headlines. While various teams were competing for Qatar, two superstars were waiting for the opportunity. One was Haaland, who was tearing apart the Premier League teams in Manchester City, and the other was Chen Xiaoliang, who came on the court with a 1-0 aura.
The first unlucky guy is Bologna, Roma's home opponent on January 4, currently ranked 10th in the Serie A standings.
In this game, Mourinho excluded Enzo and Guevadiol, who had returned to the team and had a week of recovery training but played in the last few days of the World Cup, from the roster, allowing them to continue to rest, and let Dybala, who was basically a substitute and had only played for a few minutes in the national team, start.
However, before the game, when the players of both teams entered the stadium, they lined up to welcome two World Cup champions and one third-place winner into the stadium and accept congratulations and praise from the entire Olympic Stadium.
The relaxed atmosphere soon dissipated. Bologna's coaching bench and the 22 players on the field, or everyone who watched the game, were surprised to find that Chen Xiaoliang had changed again .
Not a single hair was lost, but it is still getting stronger.
He can catch up with any opposing player within 15 meters even if he is 3 to 5 meters behind, or he can shake off any opposing defensive player within three steps through an unreasonable sudden start.
Although his dribbling and ball-control style remained simple, thanks to his abnormal speed, no one in Bologna could stop Chen Xiaoliang in a one-on-one defense.
Not to mention the off-ball movement during counterattacks.
In the 4th minute, Chen Xiaoliang got the ball on the left during a counterattack and rushed forward with his legs flying on the grass. He shook off Bologna's right-back Boschi without any skill and went straight into the penalty area.
The retreating Scottish midfielder Lewis Ferguson had no choice but to reach out and pull Chen Xiaoliang down when he passed by him.
The referee decisively awarded a penalty kick.
Dybala, who had just scored a crucial penalty in the World Cup final, scored the goal and Roma took the lead 1-0.
In the 30th minute, Chen Xiaoliang received a pass from Kva on the left again. This time he did not choose to break into the penalty area, but accelerated and cut into the middle.
Lewis Ferguson, the defensive midfielder on the left side of the defense, had already received a yellow card and now he didn't even dare to pull Chen Xiaoliang. He was not fast to begin with, so he didn't even have a chance to catch the ball. He lost Chen Xiaoliang after running sideways for only two steps.
Before another defensive midfielder, the Chilean veteran Medel, who had once clashed with Messi and bumped chests with him, came to defend, Chen Xiaoliang shot directly with his right foot. The ball was not tricky, but with the help of the full burst, the explosive power of Chen Xiaoliang's shot was also greatly improved.
Although the opponent's goalkeeper Skorupski made a save, the ball went into the goal before his hand could reach the shot at a speed of over 150 kilometers per hour.
2-0, Chen Xiaoliang used almost the most brute force on the court to force the ball into the net.
Now, not only the opponent was confused, but also the players and coaches on the Roma side were confused.
As Enzo was about to kick off in Bologna, he asked Cristante, who had not participated in the World Cup but had been training with the team, "What has the captain done in the past month?"
Cristante was also confused: "I didn't do anything... I just trained with us, and then went to Qatar with Kwa and others to watch a few World Cup games."
Enzo scratched his head: "Could it be that he was inspired by a certain game he watched?"
Cristante: "This is not the peak period of Bale and Robben. Your boss Messi and Di Maria don't play like this now that they are older. Mbappe doesn't play like this either. Tell me who inspired him?"
Enzo nodded: "Yeah, damn, I'm still playing on the field. If I really want to be inspired, why am I not inspired?"
The Bologna coach was afraid that the 8 goals he had accumulated with great difficulty would be wiped out in one game, so he waved his hands and shouted, and quickly ordered the team to retreat, sacrificing the offense in exchange for coverage in depth.
Without depth, the threat of high-speed advancement would be much smaller in a dense defensive formation.
However, although doing so did prevent Chen Xiaoliang from relying on his speed to directly tear through Bologna's defense, it also meant that Roma's defensive pressure was greatly reduced, and the rest of the game basically became a half-court offense and defense drill.
Although Mourinho did not understand how his trusted general made such rapid progress in such a short period of time, he kept telling the coaching staff that Chen Xiaoliang was a top player, and only a top player could compress the opponent's tactical space by his own strength.
Finally, in the 72nd minute of the second half, when Chen Xiaoliang had already clocked out and didn't even need to use the stamina recovery card, Dybala took a corner kick from the right. Cesco's header missed the target but hit the back post by mistake, allowing Kvaro who was guarding there to pick up the ball.
The score was fixed at 3-0.
When Roma won 3 points and achieved 9 consecutive wins in the league, in a key match of this round held the next night, Inter Milan scored a header from veteran Dzeko at home in the Meazza, giving the strong Napoli its second defeat of the season.
Relying on this victory, although Inter Milan still ranks fifth after Juventus with 33 points, it is only 5 points behind Napoli in second place, while Napoli is already 5 points behind Roma.
At this stage, with the strong performances of several main players, especially Chen Xiaoliang, the entire Roma team knows that defending the league title is no longer a difficult task. While ensuring that every opponent is taken seriously, more preparations and energy must be placed on the Champions League.
But before that, they have to meet their old friend AC Milan.
And it wasn't just one battle, it was two consecutive battles, one in Milan and the other in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
The Italian Super Cup has always had a tradition of holding its matches abroad. It was held once in Riyadh in 2019, in Doha, Qatar in 2016, in Donghai City, the Red Country in 2015, and in the imperial capital three times in 2009 and 2011-12.
Other years have brought visits to New York, Washington, and even to such unexpected places as Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
In fact, from the perspective of viewing pleasure, the Italian Super Cup is not too intense, and a game held once a year does not do much to promote the league's ratings.
It is extremely painful for the players to fly across half the globe for a game.
But the Italian Football Association is so amazing that instead of taking the traditional approach of significantly increasing the number of noon matches to attract the huge Asian audience, it puts all its efforts into organizing such a single cup match in a distant foreign country.
Mourinho was unable to complain at the press conference. At the same time, AC Milan head coach Pioli also implicitly stated that in January, when the schedule was very tight after the World Cup, it was really tiring for the club to take out six days between two league games to rush back and forth from the Middle East.
But a fait accompli is a fait accompli, and they are powerless to change it. Moreover, judging from their tone, the two men not only want to compete in the league which starts first, but also want to fight it out in the Super Cup which will be held later. Neither of them wants to give in to the other.
On the evening of January 8, at the San Siro Stadium, the two teams started the first game of the second match.
Compared to Roma, where only Wijnaldum is absent due to long-term injury, AC Milan is full of injuries. Ibrahimovic has recovered from knee surgery for 8 months, goalkeeper Maignan has torn calf muscle, defender Ballo Toure has dislocated acromioclavicular joint, and midfielder Krunic has muscle fatigue. Although the injuries, big and small, did not affect their starting lineup, they affected the reasonable rotation of players in the intensive schedule.
Both teams used a 4-2-3-1 formation in this match. AC Milan started with goalkeeper Tatarusanu and the back four of captain Calabria, Kalulu, Tomori and Theo.
Bennacer and Tonali are defensive midfielders, and Diaz is attacking midfielder;
The two wings are Salemachos and Leao, and the center is French veteran Giroud.
For Roma, Gvardiol and Enzo returned to the starting lineup, Celik and Malacia also rotated in, and Chen Xiaoliang continued to play as central midfielder, operating behind Cesco.
Ibrahimovic, who is still in the recovery period, also came to the home stadium with the team to watch the game. Before the game, he shook hands with Chen Xiaoliang in the player channel and exchanged a few words with him.
To the proud Swede, there are few people in the world of football who he can look up to, let alone the younger generation. However, Chen Xiaoliang's fierce performance on the field made the veteran feel that this kid is the same kind of person as himself.
Although Ibrahimovic said things like "be careful not to lose and go home crying", Chen Xiaoliang knew that this was a unique way of expression for the rebellious Swedes, and he also responded with a joke.
The 41-year-old Ibrahimovic has long been detached from his career. He also knows that AC Milan cannot realize his Champions League dream, which has always been lacking for him. However, in such an old and powerful team, he can be respected by his teammates, give full play to his remaining energy, and accompany his son in the youth training camp to continue to grow. This is also the biggest motivation for him to give full play to his remaining energy at the end of his career.
AC Milan coach Pioli obviously watched the video of the previous match between Roma and Bologna a lot. As for the defense of Chen Xiaoliang, he specially arranged man-to-man coverage tactics in zone marking for all the midfielders except Giroud.
In addition to the players in charge of this area marking Chen Xiaoliang, a player closest to the frontcourt will double-team him. Even if it means sacrificing the offense, they must tighten the fence and cut off Roma's offensive engine.
In the 15th minute, Dybala took a corner kick from the right side. Ibanez, who started the game with Guevadiol jumped high in the penalty area and scored with a header. AC Milan 0-1 Roma!
In the 43rd minute, Roma's set-piece attack resumed. Dybala took a free kick outside the penalty area on the right. Cristante bypassed Tonali's defense and headed the ball. Tatarusanu saved the ball, but the ball fell right in front of Chen Xiaoliang who rushed into the penalty area to compete for it. The Roma captain poked the ball with his foot and the ball immediately went into the net.
In the first half, AC Milan trailed Roma 0-2 at home!
