Chapter 307: Human Cannon Level 1 Preparation!
After 11 days of training and extra practice, and 2 league games, Chen Xiaoliang scored 35+19, with a total of 54 training points.
The 18 skill points gained from the Italian Super Cup final against AC Milan also increased his training value by 18 points (72 → 144).
Although I got two stamina recovery cards, there was no change because I used them up in extra training and competition.
Before the game, Chen Xiaoliang increased his strength from 15 to 16, and his training value from 144 to 64.
The purpose is also very clear. Napoli's core striker and this season's Serie A top scorer Osimhen is a striker who has speed, strength, balance and bounce. Cameroonian midfielder Anguisa, who is bound to fight with him, is also energetic and strong as an ox.
Coupled with the improvement in strength, it can not only increase the initiative in positioning and collision in defense, but also help increase the success rate of breakthroughs and shooting in offense. Improving such physical attributes can benefit both offense and defense.
As the guessing game ended, Napoli, playing at home, attacked first. Players from both teams walked towards their own half, and the starting lineups of the two teams were also displayed on the screen.
The starting lineup of the home team Napoli is exactly the same as the last time the two teams met in the league:
Goalkeeper Meret;
The defense includes captain Di Lorenzo, Rahmani, Kim Min-jae, and Rui;
The three midfielders are Anguiza, Lobotka and Zielinski;
The attacking trident is Lozano, Osimhen and Politano.
Roma also made very few changes, and all the main players were out:
goalkeeper Patricio;
Defenders: Spinazzola, Mancini, Gvardiol, Malacia;
Defensive midfielder Enzo, Matic, central midfielder Chen Xiaoliang;
The three forwards are Luke Waal on the left, Dybala on the right, and Cesco in the middle.
The newly joined Perrone has just arrived in Rome and did not come to Naples with the team.
Both teams have rested for 6 days and have full lineups.
Apart from the difference between home and away, the other conditions are almost exactly the same.
"Beep!" With the sound of Osato's whistle, the game officially begins!
Osimhen kicked the ball back in the middle, and six Napoli players in blue immediately rushed to the front court.
Although not as exaggerated as the last time with 8 people, this formation made Capello, who was in the live broadcast room, believe that Spalletti's tactics today were still to attack with all their strength, and it was a fast break that emphasized efficiency and speed.
After receiving the ball, Rahmani kicked the ball forward and the ball went straight to their ace striker Osimen.
The Nigerian, who has scored 17 goals and 3 assists in 19 rounds of Serie A, is now very popular and has attracted the attention of many top clubs including Manchester United, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Bayern.
At this moment, under the double-team of Matic and Mancini from the front and back, he still used his jumping ability to head the ball to Politano on the left before the two of them.
After receiving the ball, Politano adjusted his dribbling and immediately made a half-high cross into the penalty area.
After the header, Osimhen didn't stop for a moment, he turned and rushed towards Roma's left goal post. When Politano's cross flew over, he stretched out his right foot and tried to shoot forward.
Gvadiol, who had been observing at the other end, saw the two's cooperation routine in advance, cleared the ball first, and collided with Osimhen who arrived half a beat late.
The two men fell to the ground at the same time, cursing in their hearts: "Fuck, why is this guy so strong!"
Compared to Osimhen, Gvardiol has also become a hot commodity . In the World Cup, he has confronted Neymar, defended Lautaro, and fought against Ziyech, Mitoma Kaoru and other famous players with outstanding performances. He even defended Lukaku, who passed the goal three times but failed to score, and was called the "Croatian legend" by fans.
The only defeat was due to mistakes when facing Messi, and Argentina eventually scored 3 goals.
But people will not deny his strong performance in the World Cup just because of his less impressive performance against the king of football.
If we talk about which player on the field has become stronger mentally after the World Cup, he may be even stronger than Enzo who won the championship.
After all, Croatia was not a popular team like France, Germany, Brazil and Argentina before the game, and the outstanding result of finally winning the third place was enough to comfort their 4 million fellow citizens.
Today, Gvadiol's morale, confidence and form are all at their peak. In his heart, there is no center in the world that he dare not defend alone.
After the two young and hot rising stars collided, they realized that each other's strength had improved compared to the last time they met.
The ball went out of bounds and Napoli took a corner kick.
After Zielinski kicked the ball out, he went to the middle to find Osimhen.
Napoli coach Spalletti knew that he had a very versatile striker who was in excellent form this season, so he did not set up too complicated routines in his offensive tactics. He kept it as simple as possible and focused on quick penetration, getting the ball to the front court as quickly as possible to allow Osimhen to complete the shot.
This time, it was Chen Xiaoliang and Gvardiol who double-teamed Osimhen.
After the ball flew over, the three of them jumped almost at the same time, but Osimhen was purely going for the ball, while Chen Xiaoliang and Gvardiol also used a small part of their strength towards Osimhen.
The two of them squeezed Osimhen in the air like a hot dog and a sausage, but the ball was finally headed out of the penalty area by Gvardiol and cleared successfully.
But after landing, Chen Xiaoliang couldn't help but stagger two steps.
However, under the double-team, Osmeen lost his balance and sat down on the ground.
The full burst value greatly enhanced Chen Xiaoliang's jumping speed, and the increase in strength also indirectly improved his ability to fight.
But in aerial confrontations, especially when facing someone like Osimhen who had just created the highest jumping height goal in Serie A not long ago, it is obvious that the two attributes of jumping and balance play a greater role.
If it weren't for Gvardiol's double-team, Chen Xiaoliang thought that if he jumped from the spot to compete for the header in a one-on-one confrontation with this African striker, he would really suffer a loss.
But this feeling is normal.
With their abilities becoming more powerful and comprehensive, most of the players on most teams have become mediocre in his eyes. He can use his speed, body, passing and shooting to suppress most of them.
And the rest, that is, the group of people standing at the top of today's football world, naturally become the final challenge to occupy the top of the pyramid.
The ball that Gvardiol headed out of the penalty area was kicked forward by Enzo.
Sesco ran forward, but it was obvious that Napoli's full-back Rui was much closer to the ball. He stopped with the instep of his foot and wanted to gently take the ball off, but he didn't expect that the ball falling high was stopped by him and rolled right to the feet of Sesco who was running towards him.
Cesco did not choose to compete with Rui in speed, and he also knew that captain Chen Xiaoliang was just defending in the penalty area and it was too late for him to rush up and counterattack.
But it doesn’t matter. In Roma’s counterattack, every time they switch from offense to defense, there will be a player in the right position to rush forward and receive the pass from the backcourt.
Sesco pushed the ball diagonally to the front left, and Kvaratskhelia crossed the midfield line as quickly as a fox, and rushed towards Napoli's penalty area after getting the ball.
But Napoli's defense did not fall into chaos because of this. Several blue figures had already retreated to their own penalty area from the front court at full speed when Enzo kicked the ball just now.
Kwa ran diagonally towards the penalty area, and Di Lorenzo caught up with him by taking advantage of the short straight-line distance.
Kva stopped suddenly and wanted to change the rhythm, at this time midfielder Anguissa also chased after him.
Seeing that if Kva went further towards the baseline, there would only be Cesco to receive the cross, and he was already double-teamed by Rui and Lobotka, so passing the ball might not result in a shot. So he decided to go all out and suddenly cut inside after an emergency stop, took a few steps towards the middle along the penalty area line, and shot against the two defenders!
Napoli goalkeeper Meret quickly fell to the ground and blocked Kva's shot out of the baseline with his right palm on the grass!
Capello: "Fast, really fast. It seems that Spalletti is ready to compete with Roma in speed and stamina at home today."
Unlike Capello who often makes guest commentary appearances after he retired from coaching, Hitzfeld, known as one of the best coaches in German history, has not appeared on live shows very often after his retirement. The 73-year-old legendary coach is more like sitting in the live broadcast room watching the game, squinting his eyes and concentrating. He basically won't speak unless his supporters ask him questions.
The beautiful host Dilita Leotta asked Hitzfeld if he agreed with Capello's opinion. The old coach nodded: "Roma has tried different styles of play this season, including pressing, attacking, and controlling the ball, but to be honest, defensive counterattacks are more suitable for them."
"It's not that they can't control the ball, but when facing the attacking lines of some strong teams, their defenders and defensive midfielders seem a bit slow. For example, today's Osimhen, Mancini, Matic, Enzo and others in Roma, it would be difficult to catch up with him or keep up with him when defending."
"But facing Roma's retreating defense, AC Milan and Liverpool have adopted high-pressure or continuous pressure tactics, but the effect is not good."
"I think Spalletti played with speed and efficiency today, using the personal abilities of the front court, especially Osimhen, to see if he could score. At the same time, he prevented Roma from launching threatening counterattacks by having a large number of players quickly return to defense."
"Getting one point at home is not a bad result for Napoli. They don't have the pressure of the Champions League, and they can also give up the Italian Cup. As for Roma, if they make a mistake in the league, they may be caught up or even overtaken by Napoli as they will be fighting on three fronts in the future."
The old coach hit the nail on the head and directly pointed out Spalletti's tactical arrangement.
After all, in terms of league coaching alone, Hitzfeld has coached 525 games in the Bundesliga. In addition to leading Bayern and Dortmund to win the Champions League and 7 Bundesliga titles, he also coached Bremen, Frankfurt, Hannover and other teams when he was young. In terms of coaching and match experience, he is not comparable to Spalletti today.
This also hit Mourinho's soft spot. He is a person who is unwilling to admit defeat.
Especially as last season's domestic double champion and the first and only treble winner of Serie A, he wants to replicate Inter Milan's great achievement this season.
He is not willing to give up the Italian Cup on his own initiative, but this also means that the team will have to play many more games, including strong dialogues in the later stages.
This will put a huge burden on the players' physical strength. Once the whole team is tired, they may face the dilemma of continuous collapse at the critical stage of the championship.
However, there is one thing that the commentator in the live broadcast room and Spalletti have not discovered, that is, Napoli pursued simplicity in offense today, and so did Mourinho.
On the field, Dybala took a corner kick from the left side, the ball was headed out by South Korean central defender Kim Min-jae at the first point, and Napoli immediately launched an attack.
Lobotka got the ball outside the penalty area and kicked a long pass in the direction of Osimhen. The Nigerian striker once again turned into a black buffalo. When his feet stepped on the grass, his footsteps were strong and his studs obviously caused a lot of grass branches to fly up.
Behind him, Lozano, Politano, Zielinski and others were also sprinting forward.
The head coach said that tonight we will play fast offense and fast defense. As for when can we slow down and take a breath?
Either you defeat Rome and wait leisurely for victory , or you are defeated by Rome, surrender and wait for a shameful trial.
It is obvious which one the Napoli players who are aiming to win the championship will choose.
Lobotka's long pass made an arc in the air and went slightly to the right. Although Malaysia failed to stop Osimhen, he succeeded in delaying him.
Osimhen, who controlled the ball on the right side, took a few tentative steps towards the middle. Seeing that Malaysia was lowering his body and defending properly without any obvious loopholes, and seeing Anguiza and Lozano rushing up, he directly passed the ball to his teammates in the middle of the penalty area, and then inserted into the penalty area without the ball.
Anguissa received the ball in front of the penalty area and chose to shoot directly!
The ball drew an inward arc and headed straight for the right side of the Roma goal. Patricio did not react at all, because the moment the ball flew out, it flew towards the bottom line outside the goal range.
Just when tens of thousands of Napoli fans at the scene had stood up, raised their hands slightly, ready to cheer at any time, with a "bang", the ball hit the post and bounced straight back!
"Ah!!!" The boos from tens of thousands of people had not yet ended when Gvardiol kicked the ball out of the penalty area.
Enzo rushed over to defend outside the penalty area and kicked the ball again, passing it to Sesco who did not retreat in the previous corner attack and was slowly approaching the Napoli penalty area.
Sesco moved forward and prepared to jump and head the ball.
But Kim Min-jae and Di Lorenzo sandwiched him.
Since the referee Osato was still in the other half and running towards here, still far away, Di Lorenzo secretly grabbed Cesco's clothes to prevent him from jumping.
Kim Min-jae jumped high and headed the ball far away from the penalty area.
Dybala, who was originally preparing to receive Cesco's header and move forward to the top of the penalty area, saw the ball being headed behind him and could only stop and sigh.
But in an instant, when he glanced at Cesco, he saw the anticipation and excitement in his eyes!
Dybala couldn't help but look back. He felt that he guessed who was behind him and what would happen next!
A red figure strode towards the landing point of the ball, and without waiting for the ball to hit the ground, he kicked the ball directly into the air!
Dybala turned around and saw that it was Chen Xiaoliang!
The ball was like a cannonball fired from a large-caliber artillery, with almost no arc and no drop. It had just left Chen Xiaoliang's feet and seemed to fly in front of the goal!
Meret jumped up to save the ball. To be honest, the angle of the ball was not tricky and it was slightly to the left of the goal. But the problem was that the speed was too fast and Meret never expected that Chen Xiaoliang would volley the ball directly with the instep of his foot without making any adjustments at this position!
Even though he jumped up and stretched out his arms, before he could fully execute the save, he had already heard the ball hit the net behind him heavily, causing the goal frame and the fixing rod to shake violently.
The Napoli fans who were still regretting Anguiza's goal post and had not had time to sit down, never expected that a big kick forward and a header to clear the ball would make them stand still in their seats in the blink of an eye, listening to the more than 2,000 red and yellow fans who came all the way from Rome shouting excitedly.
The joys and sorrows of the world change so rapidly on the football field. You may be in hell one moment and in heaven the next!
Capello: "It is hard to imagine that in Serie A, the one competing with Osimhen for the top scorer is actually an all-around midfielder. Unlike a center forward, he does not stay in front most of the time ready to attack at any time. We can see that Chen often appears in front of his own penalty area or even in the penalty area to help his teammates defend, or defend one-on-one with those stars with great speed and breakthrough ability on the wing."
The beautiful host Dilita Leotta first asked Rijkaard and Matthäus: "Since Roma won the Super Cup in January, more and more people have started to discuss online who is better, the current Chen Xiaoliang or the past you. You two came to our live studio today and saw the goal just now. What is your response to this?"
The two legends gave way to each other for a while, and in the end it was Rijkaard who answered first: "The pace of Serie A at that time was slower than it is now, including the Premier League and La Liga. Basically, you could definitely become the league's top scorer if you scored 20 goals."
"Of course, at that time, Serie A's status in Europe was obviously higher than it is now, and the difference in strength between teams was smaller."
"But judging from the statistics of the past two seasons, Chen has indeed done incredible things as a midfielder."
DiRita Leotta pressed: “You mean he created better numbers than you did at the time, right?”
Rijkaard smiled: "There is no doubt that football is improving. When I was playing, when I coached Barcelona, football had undergone some obvious changes. Our statistics at that time were not supported by electronic equipment, so we could not effectively calculate very personal data such as steals, interceptions and headers, but I generally felt that I could not average 4-5 steals and interceptions per game."
"But one thing must be said, personally Chen has the ability to become a legend of a generation, but as a team, this Roma team is a little worse than the AC Milan team led by Sacchi. Of course, if they can win the Champions League this year, it may be a different story."
"But I believe everyone will admit that you can compare Chen to me and see who is better, but you can't compare Dybala to Van Basten, Kvaratskhelia or anyone else to Gullit, not to mention that they are players of different styles and positions."
Dilita Leota asked Mateus: "Lothar, what do you think?"
"I rarely watched Serie A games, but one day last year, Otmar (he said, pointing to Hitzfeld next to him) sent me a text message saying, 'You have to watch the Roma game, there is a talent there who can surpass you'."
"I wondered at first if he was getting senile."
At this point, everyone in the broadcast room laughed.
"But I still turned on the TV and watched it for a while. I remember that game was Roma playing Inter Milan at San Siro and Chen scored a hat trick in that game."
"To be honest, what shocked me was not his goal-scoring ability, but his running everywhere on the field and his fighting spirit in one-on-one defense, as if he wanted to eat his opponent. And despite his fighting spirit, he was never reckless. Have you seen him get a card? Very rarely. Any defensive player knows how amazing this is."
"But I agree with Frank (Rijkaard) that this team is not strong enough yet, strong enough to sweep away all opponents like AC Milan, Bayern or our German team did at that time."
"This team, including Chen himself, still has a lot to prove, the most important of which is honor. Even Messi, who has created so many difficult-to-replicate personal honors in the past, could not say that his career was regret-free until he won the World Cup last December."
"So I think ability is one aspect. Of course, this is the foundation for a player to create a historical position. Without ability, nothing can be discussed. But honor is also indispensable. With his ability, if it were me at that time, I don't know if Otmar would agree. I don't think there would be a head coach who would let him play as a substitute just because I am there."
Hitzfeld nodded, of course he agreed.
Capello on the side said as if to conclude his speech: "Another reason why he can create such data is that the team's dependence on him is far greater than the responsibilities they both assumed when they played football at that time."
"Mourinho has included his responsibilities in almost every detail of attack and defense, so you can see him in the backcourt and in the opponent's penalty area."
"I wouldn't have used Frank like this back then, but the incredible thing is that this kid did it."
Sitting at home in Rome, Helena turned on the TV on time to watch Roma's game as usual.
Listening to Grandpa Heathfield constantly praising Chen Xiaoliang on TV, she couldn't help but beam with joy.
On the field, Chen Xiaoliang and his teammates celebrated and walked back, waving to the away Roma fans.
A small group of Red Country fans raised the eye-catching Red Country flag, and next to the flag there was a slogan :
"Human artillery, level one, ready!"
