Chapter 326: A Great Opportunity to Achieve the Triple Crown
Boli was really anxious, but anyone would be anxious too.
The British government spent 2.5 billion pounds to acquire shares in the club. The money was placed in a designated frozen account at the request of the British government. It was originally intended to be donated to charity in accordance with the wishes of the former owner Abramovich.
But later, because of the outbreak of the Uh-Wu conflict that shocked the world, the money was finally taken away by the Great Yingdi Country, saying that it was to support Wuklan. But for Boli, no matter how the money was used in the end, it was thrown away by him.
After buying Chelsea, he spent another 611 million pounds just on buying players. Although this is still a long way from the full investment of 1.75 billion pounds he promised, and the 600 million will have to be paid off in 5-8 years, but he spent more than 600 million to get 10th place in the Premier League, which still makes him a symbol of rich fools in the eyes of European fans.
After Burleigh hung up the phone, sports director Lawrence Stewart asked the transfer team to immediately email Roma to inquire about the psychological price of Cesco and others, and asked the scout team to prepare an analysis report to see whether the purchase would be really useful or just another bad deal.
On the field, Chelsea had basically lost their spirit, with only Kante and Enzo still full of fighting spirit.
The French defensive midfielder has seen a lot. He has won the World Cup, the Champions League, the Europa League, the League, the UEFA Nations League, the FA Cup, and basically all the team honors. Before he won the Premier League with Leicester City and became famous all over the world, what kind of hard times did he not go through? What is happening now is nothing.
Enzo did not want to admit defeat or embarrass himself in front of his old teammates and Chen Xiaoliang, whom he regarded as his second idol, nor did he want to be labeled as a fake because of his transfer fee of 120 million euros.
The two midfielders, one old and one young, continued to defend Chen Xiaoliang, and after Kante came on the court, Enzo was able to have more space to organize the midfield.
As usual, Chen Xiaoliang used up his stamina recovery card in the 65th minute and continued to run almost non-stop to cover all areas between the two penalty areas.
Afterwards, the coaches of both sides replaced several players one after another. Mourinho deliberately replaced Cesco, who scored the goal, with Abraham, as if he was displaying a product. Abraham also played very diligently. When Chelsea sold him to Roma, they left a buyback clause, allowing them to buy him back at any time for 80 million euros.
But obviously, considering his current appearances and performances, even with his English household registration included, the price of 80 million is higher than his reasonable price.
But this is not important. Mourinho even replaced Dybala and Kvadrat, as if announcing to Stamford Bridge that the game had entered insignificant garbage time, and his team's rotation lineup was enough to deal with the host here.
It is still Mourinho who rules Stamford Bridge, although now his team's colors have changed to red and yellow.
In the end, the referee Zwar blew the whistle to end the game. Chelsea lost 0-3 to Roma at home. The only possibility left for them in the second round was to create a miracle.
Although all kinds of hard and soft methods were used on Chen Xiaoliang during the game, Enzo still hugged and chatted with Chen Xiaoliang and greeted each other in a friendly manner after the game, and old teammates also came over.
According to the rules, since Roma and Chelsea are not in the same league, if Roma wins the league or Champions League this season, Enzo, who has played enough games to meet the rules, can get the championship medal.
But everyone still hopes that Enzo can have a smooth journey at Chelsea and play his own football.
Enzo originally wanted to exchange jerseys with Chen Xiaoliang, but Chen Xiaoliang gave the opportunity to veteran Kante and told Enzo that he would leave the home jersey to him when he returned to the Olympic Stadium in Rome for the second round.
Kanter, with a dark face and white teeth, was very happy that this dazzling young man showed respect for him. He happily took off his jersey and handed it to Chen Xiaoliang, and took a photo in front of the reporters.
When being interviewed by the media, the usually low-key French midfielder also gave Chen Xiaoliang high praise, saying that he made him see the combination of Chelsea's three legendary midfielders Lampard, Ballack and Essien.
Zhan Jun, who saw this scene, also sighed in the live broadcast room: "There used to be a saying in the football circle that 71% of the earth is covered by oceans, and the remaining 29% of the land is covered by Kante. But after today's game, Kante himself should have realized that his midfield era is completely over."
"Technical statistics show that Xiaoliang's running distance today is 15.53 kilometers, which is far more than Enzo's 12.96 kilometers. Although Enzo's running distance is already the second highest in the game, Xiaoliang's data is just his usual performance."
Zhang Lu: "That's true. You see, he ran 15 kilometers today without breathing or feeling tired. He looked relaxed. In the last few minutes of the game, he fought, jumped and sprinted just like he did at the beginning. Basically, with him in the midfield, Mourinho had half an extra person fighting."
"It's not that Enzo is incompetent, it's that Xiaoliang is too strong ."
Zhan Jun: "In terms of intuitive data, Xiaoliang, who provided two assists in this game, has raised his assists in the Champions League this season to 10 times. In second place are his teammate Kva and Cancelo, who is on loan from Manchester City to Bayern Munich, both of whom have only 5 assists."
"In terms of goals, he ranks third in the scorer list with 7 goals, ahead of Haaland with 10 goals and Salah with 8 goals. In addition, Mbappe of Paris Saint-Germain is tied with him for third place, but Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain have been eliminated. The only ones who can surpass Xiaoliang are his teammate Cesco, Vinicius of Real Madrid and Joao Mario of Benfica!"
Zhang Lu: "We have to thank Dortmund for giving Xiaoliang 5 goals in one game."
Zhan Jun: "I don't know if there are any Dortmund fans who have seen this. Zhang Zhi is just talking about something irrelevant!"
They both said together: “Hahaha…”
The team that left London and returned to Rome also received the results of several other games. In the other half of the zone, Real Madrid also beat AC Milan 3-0 at home. Like Roma, they have one foot in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
In the focus battle between Manchester City and Bayern at home, Tuchel took over the Bundesliga giants for less than half a month and did not have enough time to remove the traces left by the former coach Nagelsmann. Guardiola's team won the first leg 2-1.
Inter Milan lost 2-0 to Benfica led by Roger Schmidt away from home. The Portuguese Super League team won all the data over the Nerazzurri.
This also means that Roma became the only team among the three Serie A teams to win in the first round.
In this match, Chen Xiaoliang was named the best player of the match with a score of 8.8 and received a basic reward of 16 skill points. With the doubling coefficient of Chelsea's reputation, he finally received 32 skill points (1→33) and 32 training points (53→85).
Probably since the skill value system was introduced, this was the first time that Chen Xiaoliang discovered that a Premier League BIG6 team like Chelsea had become his "point-giving boy" today, with the reward for one game being equal to the total of several league games.
In addition, with a clean sheet, a victory, and two assists, the newly unlocked Beyond the Peak mode is officially opened, and 2 breakthrough points are credited (0→2).
The reward for the giants' mission is winning the [Peak Robben Cut-In Shot Card (5 minutes)], which gives +2 for left foot and +2 for shot when cutting in from the right to the left near the penalty area line.
After returning to Rome for three days of adjustment, the team came to Turin to challenge Torino.
At the beginning of the game, as the only one of the three Serie A quarterfinal teams to win, the Torino fans, who have always been quite hostile, still applauded the Roma players. After all, they are rivals internally, but representatives of Italian professional football externally.
Although Torino, currently ranked 9th in the league, is not as strong as its wealthy neighbor Juventus, they gave Roma a tenacious resistance at home.
Mourinho knew that it would be difficult to play away in Turin, so he didn't even think about rotation in this round. Except for Wijnaldum and Smalling, all other main players appeared on the field.
But Torino, who used the same 3-4-2-1 formation as Chelsea in the previous game, also encountered the same problem.
Neither the 21-year-old young midfielder Samuel Ricci, who is worth 15 million euros, nor the 28-year-old Polish midfielder Lineti, who is worth only 3.5 million euros, can effectively curb Chen Xiaoliang's role in the middle.
Even in the 27th minute of the game, Chen Xiaoliang was unguarded in the area 36 meters away from the goal and on the left side outside the penalty area. His shot flew 10 meters and hit Ricci who was turning sideways to block the hole. The Italian midfielder was knocked to the ground on the spot. He felt chest tightness and shortness of breath and couldn't breathe. He shed tears in pain and even thought that he was going to retire and say goodbye to his professional career.
This goal made the local commentator, Ballon d'Or winner Cannavaro, exclaim that if the ball had not hit Richie's neck by chance, he might have been seriously injured.
The host asked Cannavaro if he could analyze why Chen Xiaoliang had such abnormal shooting power at such an age.
Cannavaro thought about it, and then replied that based on his understanding and experience with the players, he could only conclude that it was the combination of a rare super talent and long-term, extensive and effective training that ultimately produced such a monster.
He also predicted that it was thought that after Messi and Ronaldo would be the new era of the duo of Mbappe and Haaland. Later, after Chen Xiaoliang emerged in Serie A last season, some people believed that there would be a three-way competition in the next five to ten years. However, he felt that if Chen Xiaoliang continued to develop at his current pace, he would most likely surpass the two and become the unique one.
The reason why Cannavaro, who once won the World Cup as the captain of the Italian team, made such a judgment is that Chen Xiaoliang has a very important ability that the other two lack the most - leadership.
It can be seen from the last game that Enzo with Chen Xiaoliang and Enzo with Kovacic are completely different people. When Kante came on the court, Enzo's performance was much better, but there was still a clear gap from his performance in Rome.
Chen Xiaoliang is not only able to perform explosively himself, but can enable his teammates to perform at a much better level.
The game went as Cannavaro said. After 60 minutes of resolute resistance, Turin's gate was finally breached. The hammer that blew open the gate came from the Cardinal of Rome.
In the 61st minute, Pellegrini was tripped when he cut inside after receiving the ball on the right, and Roma won a free kick in the frontcourt.
Pellegrini took the penalty, but he pushed the ball lightly to the left rear, and Chen Xiaoliang, who had already started running, kicked the ball forward.
At that moment, the human wall in Turin was terrified. Although they covered their vital parts with both hands and jumped bravely, they were praying to God in their hearts that they would not be the ones to be crushed to death.
The young player Richie took the initiative to assume the "heavy responsibility" of defending Kva. Once bitten, one will be afraid of the rope for ten years. Having suffered the pain once, he was unwilling to block the cardinal's red cannon again.
However, Chen Xiaoliang did not shoot the ball into the upper corner, but instead made a low shot. Since Torino's human wall did not have a "threshold" lying on the ground, the ball rolled quickly along the grass from under the jumping human wall to the near corner of the goal.
Torino goalkeeper Vanja Savic failed to save the ball and Torino fell behind 0-1.
Forti on the sidelines couldn't help but sigh in his heart that it was so easy to play football with Chen Xiaoliang. If he had had such a captain by his side back then, maybe his career would have taken off.
As Mourinho's assistant coach, one of his important jobs is to compile and analyze data information from scouts and technical teams.
The technical and scouting teams will not only track clubs in the domestic league, but will also pay close attention to the games of foreign clubs, especially the major giants.
Manchester City's Guardiola, as Mourinho's old rival and one of the biggest potential opponents in the Champions League, is the focus of the follow-up investigation.
Take Manchester City's midfielder De Bruyne as an example. This season he ranks first in the assist list in the Premier League with 12 assists, but his total number of passes is 1,019, which means that he has to pass the ball 85 times to make a successful assist.
This is when De Bruyne only needs to be responsible for forward delivery and organization most of the time.
Similarly, Odegaard, the midfield core of Arsenal, who is ranked first in the Premier League, has made a total of 1,235 passes, but he only has 6 assists, which means that he has 1 assist for every 206 passes.
The number of threatening through passes by the two were 21 and 17 respectively, also ranking first and tied for second in the Premier League, and they are definitely representatives of the best midfielders in the Premier League.
What are the statistics of Pellegrini, who has limited starting opportunities in the Roma league this season and serves as a rotation role for Chen Xiaoliang and Dybala?
He made 554 passes and provided 8 assists, an average of one assist for every 69 passes. The free kick assist in this game was only his third pass after replacing Dybala.
What's more, he only made 6 threatening through passes, which further proves that among Pellegrini's 8 assists, at least 2 were like today, which were not opportunities created by passing at all.
Any fan watching the game would not think that Pellegrini is a better midfielder than De Bruyne and Odegaard, but judging from the data, Pellegrini's efficiency is far better than both of them. The key lies in that Chen Xiaoliang is standing next to him.
When explaining Chen Xiaoliang's case to the youth training team players, Forti even used the example of NBA star Curry:
"You pass the ball to him, and then wait for him to raise his hand and shoot, and the result is that the team adds 3 points, and you easily get an assist, but that has nothing to do with how strong your assist ability is."
After taking the lead by one goal, Roma played more easily. As they will play against Chelsea at home next Thursday night, the whole Roma team chose a safe style of play, focusing on controlling the game to waste time.
Before the end of the game, Zalewski, who replaced Kva, made a back pass from the left. Chen Xiaoliang pretended to shoot on the left side of the penalty area and then deliberately let the ball slip, passing it to Cristante on the right side of the arc. The latter shot hard and the ball hit Torino central defender Schulz and deflected into the net. The score became 0-2.
In the end, the goal was attributed to Schuurs, becoming an own goal, and the 23-year-old Dutch central defender's overall score was the lowest at 5.7 points.
This goal was also because Chen Xiaoliang attracted two Torino midfielders to defend in the penalty area at the same time, and Cristante outside the penalty area was forgotten, thus having ample space to shoot.
Cannavaro finally made a summary analysis, and his analysis had actually been implemented by Mourinho at the end of last season.
Chen Xiaoliang is now being used like Messi by Mourinho. Although their positions and playing styles are very different, as long as they stand near the offensive third zone, even if they don't have the ball at their feet, they can attract the attention of at least 2-3 defensive players, making it much easier for other players to acquire space, handle routes and run more efficiently.
The team returned to Rome with ease after a seamless victory.
In these two rounds of the league, although Roma won two consecutive victories with scores of 4-0 and 0-2 respectively, Napoli also won two consecutive victories by defeating AC Milan 3-1 at home and Lecce 0-3 away.
The two sides still maintain a gap of 6 points. One can't catch up, and the other can't get rid of it. Inter Milan, ranked third, is already 21 points behind Roma and has completely become a spectator.
At this crucial moment with only nine rounds left in the league, both teams were fighting hard to see who would make a mistake first.
A goal and victory in this game (5 points), plus the training in the previous two days (8 points), gave Chen Xiaoliang a total of 13 training points (85→98). He also increased his flexibility by one point from 16 to 17, and his training value from 98 to 18.
The day after the game, two incidents occurred.
The first one was that a fan launched a poll on social media: [Chen Xiaoliang VS Gerrard, who has better long-range shooting ability? ]
There was a lot of debate at the time, with some saying who was better. Some said Chen Xiaoliang was of higher quality, but Gerrard had more shots. Others said Chen Xiaoliang did not take enough long shots against top opponents. As a result, some people even mentioned Gerrard's slip.
Finally, some careful fans discovered that Gerrard himself and his daughter Lily also participated in the vote, and both voted for Chen Xiaoliang.
Of course, there are also rumors that Lily stole her father's phone to vote. In short, her statement did not reduce the heat of the discussion at all.
Secondly, a member of the Red Country Olympic Committee came to Rome to participate in the International Olympic Committee activities, and specifically notified Chen Xiaoliang privately through Boss Wu that he wanted to meet with him.
But he didn't say what.
But Chen Xiaoliang knew that he was a football player, so the topic must be football-related. Could it be that the Olympic Committee wanted to talk to him to ask him to participate in a basketball game? Or to solve the epic problem of whether salty tofu pudding or sweet tofu pudding is authentic?
Although the time of compatriots in China is tight, the time in Rome is tighter. Potter, who has been at the top of the Premier League head coach sack odds for more than two months, has come to Rome with Chelsea to train.
At the pre-match press conference, he made it clear that Chelsea had nothing to lose and there was only one way forward in the second round, which was to attack, attack, and attack again. Even if it had to go into a penalty shootout, they would try every effort to make up for the three-goal gap.
Mourinho made full mobilization before the game and asked the players to stay highly focused.
Since its establishment 96 years ago, Roma has only reached the Champions League final once, in the 1983-84 season, and lost to Liverpool, which had won the Champions League four times in eight years.
After that, it was not until last season that Roma achieved success in European competitions and won the Europa League.
This year, if they can beat Chelsea, their next opponent, whether it is Benfica, who is leading by two goals, or Inter Milan, their old league rival, will mean that the team has a great chance of advancing to the final.
He said passionately:
"Italian football started in 1898, and since the first Champions League in 1956, in the past 67 years, there has only been one treble-winning team."
When he said this, he patted his chest and raised his eyebrows. The players immediately understood that the head coach was going to start pretending to be a big shot:
"What a coincidence, that team is led by me." (Tactical retreat)
"But now we have a great opportunity to once again achieve this unprecedented great honor. If you miss it due to mistakes, carelessness caused by underestimating the enemy, blind arrogance and other stupid behaviors, you will regret it for the rest of your life!"
"Because such an opportunity may only come once in a lifetime!"
Although the players knew that the head coach was just making empty promises and pretending to be awesome, they also knew that what he said was true.
The soul of this team is Chen Xiaoliang. The other core members gather around the Roma captain and unleash amazing fighting power.
Although there was no discussion within the team and Chen Xiaoliang personally did not announce the transfer, almost everyone knows that with Serie A's economic strength and league influence, this top player in European football who is being fought over is destined to leave next season.
None of his teammates would think that the team would still have such fighting power and results without Chen Xiaoliang, so everyone really wanted to do as Mourinho said, seize the opportunity to create history, and then they could be like this Portuguese madman, pat their chests, retreat tactically, and then start pretending to be the first with a beaming face, and make others unable to refute.
At the Rome Olympic Stadium, just as Chen Xiaoliang led the team out of the player tunnel, the broadcaster turned the camera to the VIP area in the stands.
The domestic Olympic Committee representatives, accompanied by Antonio Tajani, a representative of the Italian sports world, were dressed in casual clothes and watched Chen Xiaoliang's appearance with interest.
Football fans in the Red Country never dreamed that our country would one day be able to bring glory to the country through football. In the past, this thing might have been the most embarrassing thing for this ancient country.
Just based on this one aspect, Chen Xiaoliang's influence is self-evident. Many people have already believed that he has surpassed Yao Ming when he played in the NBA.
Since someone from my mother's family has come, let alone if they are very successful, even if they are just average, we cannot embarrass them.
As soon as the whistle sounded, Chen Xiaoliang and his brothers showed their real skills and started to attack Chelsea fiercely.
