Chapter 330: Leading by nine points again, he is not fighting alone!
Although they achieved the final victory after a reversal and some twists and turns, they failed to get any breakthrough points in this game because they failed to keep a clean sheet.
The final training value reward is 5 points (52→57), and 1 stamina recovery card is obtained but also used up so there is no change.
The next day Helena also returned from Germany, accompanied by her sister Erica.
Erica represented the German women's 4x400m national team and finished 7th in Europe, which is not good, but not bad either. As a veteran, she also played a role in mentoring and guiding newcomers in this competition.
After finishing their own tasks, the next thing the sisters have to do is to take good care of Chen Xiaoliang and prepare for his sprint at the end of the season.
This made Sesco, Perrone and Kova very happy.
There was a saying in the army in the past: soldiers watch each other during the day and count stars at night. The Roma players are similar now.
The atmosphere in the locker room is quite positive. Players are usually forbidden to appear in entertainment venues except on holidays, let alone at the end of the season when a devilish schedule is about to come.
Of course, Cesco also told the two "juniors" how Mourinho and Chen Xiaoliang dealt with El Shaarawy, Santon and Zaniolo when they first arrived in Rome.
Coupled with the news network among the players and the paparazzi everywhere in Rome, the players dare not act rashly. Even without these, with their current popularity in Rome, ordinary fans will immediately take pictures of them with their mobile phones when they see them, and the club will know about it soon.
Everyone knows how strict Chen Xiaoliang's locker room rules are, but everyone also knows how good the team's performance is under such constraints.
Therefore, several young men who usually never see beautiful women, or either don’t have girlfriends or their girlfriends are not around, were so happy when suddenly two beautiful women appeared.
Every day at 6:30, the three of them would show up at Chen Xiaoliang's home on time. They would first go for a half-hour morning jog together, and then go home to wait for Helena's delicious breakfast. Although the club restaurant also provided breakfast, they never went there.
The reason was very solid. They wanted to go jogging with the captain in the morning. They just wanted to keep up with the captain's pace and they had no other thoughts.
Originally there were four people jogging in the morning, but now with Erica, there are five people jogging. Helena has long adapted to such a regular and self-disciplined pace of life. However, Erica sometimes stays in bed during her rare holidays.
But once they entered the morning jog session, she became "Teacher Erica" to the three of them.
These three guys called me "teacher" and "teacher" one after another in a very friendly way. But to be honest, the saying "don't compare your hobby with your profession" also applies to athletes.
In terms of running, the frequency and stride of players when dribbling and running without the ball are completely different. In addition, players pay more attention to sprinting and changing direction, rather than the strict distribution of physical strength and stable and consistent rhythm like runners.
With the team's high morale, the coaching staff also arranged very scientific training. In the 6 days, including the trip to Atlanta, the work and rest were arranged very reasonably. Cesco's hamstring discomfort was also confirmed to be no problem. The team stepped onto the grass of the Azzurri Stadium with full confidence.
Atalanta and AC Milan currently have 52 points each, ranking 5th and 6th, 6 points behind 4th-placed Lazio. With eight rounds left in the league, both teams have to go all out, otherwise they will only be able to play in the Europa League and UEFA Cup next season.
Moreover, Roma's only two defeats in the league this season, apart from the city derby defeat caused by the incompetence of the refereeing team, were the 0-1 loss to the tenacious Atalanta at home in the first half of the season, where they could not score no matter how many shots they took.
Old coach Gasperini obviously watched the two rounds of matches between Roma and Chelsea and fully experienced Porter's chaotic tactical arrangements.
In this game, the old coach, who has always been recognized by the industry for his tactical arrangements, demonstrated how to use the 3-4-2-1 formation of blocking by the defensive midfielder and retreating to the frontcourt to curb Roma's most powerful midfield as much as possible.
Scalvini, who is 194cm tall and 76kg, plays as a left centre-back. The 19-year-old versatile defender's market value has risen from 10 million euros at the beginning of the season to 30 million euros. He has attracted the attention of major clubs across Europe and was selected by Roberto Mancini for the national team to participate in the European Cup qualifiers.
The other two are Palomino, who is 188cm tall and weighs 87kg, and captain Toloy, who is 185cm tall and weighs 75kg.
He is neither a bulky center back like Maguire, nor a pseudo center back like Cucurella who is more flexible than capable of confrontation.
The two defensive midfielders are Ederson, 183cm tall and 86kg, and De Jong, 185cm tall and 76kg.
They are both tall, one can fight and the other can run.
This concept is also reflected in the configuration of the shadow striker, one is Muriel, who is 179 cm tall and 79 kg, and the other is Pasalic, who is 188 cm tall and 83 kg.
The striker is Colombian Zapata, who is 189cm tall and 88kg.
None of them were losers who would fall down at the first touch of confrontation. Players like Ruggeri and Kupmenas, who often played but were not strong in confrontation, were all defeated.
After the game started, the two shadow forwards were basically positioned near the midfield, while the two defensive midfielders were always running back and forth in the space 5-15 meters in front of the central defenders.
If necessary, striker Zapata can retreat at any time to participate in the pressing of Roma's double defensive midfielders and Chen Xiaoliang.
The five strong men in the middle were like a meat grinder, ready to use their sweat and muscles to have close contact with Chen Xiaoliang again and again.
Gasperini is not Porter. The total value of Atalanta's team is 330 million euros, which is only one-third of Chelsea's. He has been able to lead the team into European competitions in the past five years, including three times in the Champions League. All he has done is to use one word - pragmatic.
When the team sticks to fixed tactics for a long time, it can flexibly make large-scale targeted rotations based on the opponent's strengths and weaknesses to avoid using its own weaknesses to attack the opponent's strengths.
In the first 10 minutes, Roma had a hard time playing. Atalanta relied on their home advantage and frequently committed fouls or kicked the ball out of bounds. Roma's offense was never smooth and they kept switching back and forth between free kicks and out-of-bounds balls.
However, Atalanta does not focus on counterattacks. Gasperini has been here for 7 years. The team has a deep tactical imprint. The use of space and the transition between the two flanks are the characteristics of Atalanta. They will skillfully move the ball out of dense areas, and then create shooting opportunities through crosses and flank penetration.
In the 7th minute, Pasalic and Sapat made a two-pass combination on the right, passed Spinazzo, Sapat rushed to the edge of the penalty area and passed the ball to Muriel who was waiting in the middle. The latter's low shot was blocked by Patricio.
Seeing that the enemy was not friendly, Mourinho immediately ordered the team to shrink the defense line, the midfielder retreated, and the central midfielder Chen Xiaoliang also retreated, and they were fully in a counterattack posture.
In the 22nd minute, Zappacosta played on the right again, received a pass from De Jong and made a cross to the bottom, but Pasalic in front of the goal headed the ball high.
In Atlanta's lineup, almost all the players are over 180cm tall. As long as a high ball is passed into the penalty area, anyone who gets in can head it.
Mourinho also sighed. Some real experts in the industry may be destined not to become the helmsman of a giant club because of their personality, resume or other factors. In Gasperini's long career, he only had an unpleasant experience of coaching at Inter Milan for 89 days. The giant clubs cannot give him enough patience to build a tactical style. The giant clubs need a plug-and-play head coach who can fight and win.
In addition, there are two Chileans, Pellegrini and Bielsa, as well as Queiroz, who assisted Sir Alex Ferguson in winning the Premier League and Champions League double in the 2007-08 season, but they have not been able to gain a firm position in the top clubs.
On the field, as soon as Roma retreated, the game entered Atalanta's rhythm.
The passes back and forth between the left and right sides turned Roma's penalty area into an aerial battle scene. Gvardiol and Mancini were almost jumping all the time, while on Atalanta's side different players took turns running into the penalty area to compete for headers.
In the 37th minute, Zappacost took a corner kick from the right side. The ball fell behind the penalty spot. Chen Xiaoliang predicted the landing point and ran over.
Atlanta's central defender Palomino and defensive midfielder De Jong were only looking up at the ball and did not see each other, and jumped up at the same time to compete for the header.
Chen Xiaoliang jumped up to defend, and he was sandwiched between the two men in the air like a sausage in a hot dog.
Although he was extremely strong and his jumping speed was much faster than that of ordinary players due to his full burst, his balance attribute was still 15. Under the impact from both sides at the same time, although he successfully headed the ball, his body was knocked out of control in the air and he almost fell to the ground headfirst.
"oh……!"
The fans in the stadium exclaimed!
Mourinho and the Roma coaching staff immediately stood up from their seats and rushed to the sidelines! Team doctor Manara subconsciously raised the first aid kit and was ready to rush into the field at any time!
Cristante next to him raised his hand high to signal to the referee and immediately kicked the ball out.
“Beep, beep, beep!”
The referee's whistle sounded immediately and everyone gathered around!
"Captain! Captain!" A group of people shouted at the side. Chen Xiaoliang only felt a little dizzy, but there was no obvious pain. When he landed, he supported himself a little with his hands to dissipate most of the strength.
The hot-tempered Mancini also had an argument with Palomino, accusing him of deliberately raising his hands in the air to disrupt Chen Xiaoliang's balance, causing him to land upside down.
The referee saw that Chen Xiaoliang did not move and was about to wave to call the team doctor, but Chen Xiaoliang bent his back and knees and propped himself up with his hands, then twisted his neck and quickly stood up.
Chen Xiaoliang: "Is your face not broken?"
The players breathed a sigh of relief, and the veteran handsome guy Dybala complained: "You almost scared me to death."
Chen Xiaoliang laughed: "It's good that your face is not disfigured, otherwise you would have taken away the position of the most handsome guy in the team."
Atlanta fans and players were stunned. It was okay to fall like that?! Are they human?!
Mourinho's heart rate on the sidelines dropped from 130 to 70. He shook his head thankfully and sat back on the bench.
Although it was a small episode, Chen Xiaoliang showed off his strong character.
The referee awarded Roma the kick-off in the penalty area, and Mancini kicked the ball to Chen Xiaoliang near the right.
Muriel and left wingback Ruggie immediately blocked him one after the other. The instruction they received today was not to let Chen Xiaoliang speed up. Even if they used all kinds of fouls such as pulling, tripping, pushing and bumping, they could not let him run.
Chen Xiaoliang directly used his skill of [being good at passing the ball from one side of the court to the other] to pass the ball from the right side at a distance of 50 meters to Kwa who was already advancing without the ball on the left side.
Because the ball was so far away, the moment it was passed, almost all Atlanta players and fans thought it was just an ordinary transfer to break out of the encirclement, but they didn't expect that this kick would directly send the shell to their own heartland.
Gasperini shook his head: "It's a pity that we can't afford so much money. If we had him, we could also win the Serie A championship."
After receiving the ball, Kwa did not continue advancing along the left side, but rushed diagonally towards the middle of the penalty area.
Cesco and Dybala rushed over, Dybala went into the penalty area, while Cesco and Kvar made a crossing run and advanced to the left side of the penalty area.
At this time, Chen Xiaoliang was still in Roma's half. Atalanta only had three players from Roma's three strikers in the half. Ederson and De Jong immediately rushed towards Kva from the left and right, and the central defender Palomino in the penalty area also came up.
Kva broke in from the top of the arc, then slowed down, swung his right foot and made a shooting motion. Palomino immediately moved his body to the left to block it, and De Jong who rushed to the front of the goal thought he was really going to shoot, so he slid to the ground and blocked it with his body!
Then Kva kicked the ball to the left with his right foot, followed by two steps with his signature small steps, and immediately swung his left foot back!
Palomino turned around and stretched his legs. Another midfielder, Edson, who was rushing over, stopped immediately, straightened his body, and prepared to block!
However, Kva still didn't shoot. He kicked the ball with his left foot again, then back to the right, still taking two short steps with small steps!
At this time, Panomino in front of him was shaken twice and it was too late for him to change his center of gravity. DeRon fell in front of the goal and was about to get up. Edson, who stopped suddenly to block, was too late to speed up again.
Goalkeeper Musso was also forced to change his center of gravity twice.
Beside him, Zappacosta who had been chasing all the way back and Scalvini who had been watching Dybala just now also gave up other goals and rushed over. One of them rushed towards Kva and the other ran to the front of the goal to increase the blocking area!
Together with Pasalic who ran all the way to three body lengths behind Kva, six defensive players suddenly appeared around the Georgian!
This time, Kva didn't pause and shot the ball directly into the upper corner of the goal with his right foot!
This shot, which was equivalent to a penalty kick, left Musso with no choice but to guess blindly and dive towards the left side of the goal where no teammates could block him!
However, the ball went into the goal over the head of Scalvini who was blocking the goal!
"Oh My God!!!"
“What the hell!!!”
"No way!!!"
At this moment, countless countries and countless fans watching the game couldn't help but exclaim!
If Chen Xiaoliang's goal in the match against Chelsea was the ultimate combination of physical strength, then Kva's goal at this moment was the perfect combination of flexibility and technique!
After scoring the goal, Kva ran all the way to the sideline and slid on his knees to celebrate!
Roma's players, substitutes and coaching staff all rushed over and hugged him tightly!
Chen Xiaoliang in the backcourt slowly ran over, and after the crowd of people celebrating passionately dispersed, he hugged and greeted Kwa.
The two also shook hands and raised them together to thank the Roma fans who came to the away game to cheer them on.
Atlanta was immediately deflated.
Including the goalkeeper, he was outnumbered seven and scored the goal alone. This weekend, Atlanta's players are destined to be used as background boards again, appearing on major sports and video websites, and being played and humiliated over and over again.
They set up an iron cage in the middle and tried their best to organize Chen Xiaoliang's performance, but he made a feint to the east and attacked in the west, and a graceful long pass led to another genius's world wave.
It's hard to guard against...
In the subsequent game, Atalanta was still trying to equalize the score, but Roma is no longer in the locker room atmosphere affected by Zaniolo's turmoil in the first half of the season.
They kicked out the bad apples, defeated the timid board of directors, eliminated one strong opponent after another, and now they only have their eyes on the three supreme trophies of this season!
Chen Xiaoliang felt that Atlanta's coaching staff had probably only been studying his personal goal highlights recently, forgetting that he could also pass the ball and organize the team. He also forgot that when he first debuted, due to his limited passing ability, he often used active running and a lot of one-touch passes to help the team get the ball to a safe area.
What's more, the way to help this team move forward is not only to score goals continuously, but helping the talented teammates around you to score goals is also a magic weapon to win.
In the 77th minute of the second half, Kwa took a corner kick from the left side. Gvadiol got the first point, but it was blocked by Atalanta goalkeeper Musso.
Scalvini tried to clear the ball with his head, but the ball went to Kova's feet on the left side outside the penalty area.
Atalanta's defensive players immediately rushed forward, and while they advanced beyond the back line, Zappacosta and Pasalic surrounded Kvar, leaving him no space to dodge and try to pass the opponent.
Kva pushed the ball with his right foot, and Zappacosta thought he was going to shoot, so he immediately fell to the ground to block it, but he didn't expect the ball to hit the middle.
Chen Xiaoliang used his left hand and used his back to push away the Danish center forward Hojlund who was blocking him from approaching the top of the penalty area, then swung his right foot towards the ball!
not good!
The Atlanta players exclaimed in their hearts at the same time!
Edson and DeJon were like bulls seeing a red cloth, they rushed forward recklessly, jumped up and put their arms away to block!
Chen Xiaoliang swung his leg and hit the ball with the inside of his right foot, kicking a ground ball that rolled under the feet of the two people who were blocking it.
Is it the far corner?!
Everyone in the stadium looks in the direction the ball is rolling at the same time.
No! The ball will go out of bounds in that direction!
Did it go astray? !
The ball passed through the gap between the three people and rolled to the left side of the small penalty area. At this time, a long white thigh stretched out and shot with the toe of the right foot!
Musso thought Chen Xiaoliang was shooting and was blocked from view by the crowd, so he didn't react at all. The only thing moving on his body was his neck, which was turning as the ball rolled.
"Sesco!"
"GOALLLLLL!!!"
The host in the broadcast room excitedly shouted the name of the scorer, and Cesco on the field ran to the sidelines and pointed at the number behind him with the same excitement!
This is his 11th league goal this season. Together with his 5 goals in the Champions League, he is tied with Dybala as the second highest scorer in the team!
Along the way, this Slovenian genius has also made great contributions!
0-2, Atlanta had no chance at all.
With shots 17 to 11 and ball possession 58% to 42%, Roma relied on the team's tenacious defense and the flashes of three geniuses to safely take away 3 points on the road.
And just half a day ago, their pursuers Napoli finally lost.
According to the "Roma Sports Daily", Juventus, not only the 15-point penalty cannot be lifted through appeal, but there is also the possibility of more points being deducted due to newly discovered issues. At home, they still used the classic 1-0 mode to defeat Napoli, who had won 6 consecutive league games!
With 7 games left in the league, Roma has once again widened the gap by 9 points. The glorious honor of successfully defending the title in advance is beckoning them!
After the game, many media quoted a report from the Red Country, with a pun in the title, which not only reflected the tacit cooperation between the two teammates and Chen Xiaoliang during the game, but also reflected that Juventus helped Roma at the critical moment of the championship.
The headline of the report is:
[He is not fighting alone]
