On January 11, 2016, the FIFA Golden Ball Awards ceremony was held at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Chelsea star Li Muli beat Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to be elected as this year's Mr. Golden Ball, and he also became the second Chinese player to win this award after Zhang Shujie, in the past three years, the FIFA Golden Ball Award has been won by Chinese twice, which also shows that Chinese football has gradually risen in the world, and the pattern of world football has begun to change.

Cristiano Ronaldo is second, Messi is third, Zhang Shujie is fourth, and Neymar is fifth. In addition, a total of five Chinese players entered the top 30, in addition to Li Mu and Zhang Shujie, who entered the top five, Xu Ziyi ranked 17th, Chen Zihua ranked 21st and Ma Junqiang ranked 29th.

The winter transfer window has also opened, and all major clubs are starting to attack their favorite players, AC Milan does not have much money, mainly because he just spent a lot of money to buy Zhang Shujie half a year ago, Berlusconi is not willing to spend a high price to bring in players, although all the investment in this season will be returned to him by then, but he still doesn't want to pay too much.

At the end of the day, Berlusconi's mind is no longer on AC Milan.

Therefore, AC Milan's investment in the winter transfer market is so small that only one person has come: Boateng. This "Boateng" will certainly not be Bayern's main defender, but the former "prince" of AC Milan: Kevin Boateng.

This situation has shocked the media: is AC Milan going to be poor again after a summer in trenches?

In fact, Zhang Shujie was also a little dissatisfied with the team's recruitment, and he publicly pointed out: "The team should introduce more and more powerful players, so that we can have greater confidence to compete for the championship." ”

Inzaghi offered his opinion like Berlusconi, and then Berlusconi didn't say anything. Inzaghi has no choice but to pin his hopes on the Chinese capital who will officially take over Milan soon.

On January 6, 2017, after a winter break, the Serie A league was rekindled, AC Milan conceded a goal at home, Zhang Shujie and Bacca scored one after another, and won 2-1 against Bologna, getting the three points as desired. Surprisingly, Juventus failed to win this round, losing 0-1 to Verona, and AC Milan overtook Juventus by one point to move up to the top of the table.

"Milan Sport" said after the game: "After winning this victory, AC Milan has the initiative on the road to winning the title, and they cannot make mistakes in the following games, but Juventus and Napoli cannot be wrong." ”

Torino Sport said: "Juventus' unexpected defeat has ceded the leadership to their biggest rival in the league. The only good news is that they are not far apart from AC Milan and have a chance to make it back for the rest of the fixtures. ”

AC Milan's opponent in the next round is Roma, and before the game, Inzaghi encouraged his players in the dressing room: "We are now at the top of the table, but it doesn't mean that we can win the title, our squad is still not as thick as Juventus as a whole, so we can't relax for a moment, do you understand?"

"Understood. ”

"Okay, now go out and get ready for the game. ”

In this game, Boateng was placed in the starting lineup, he came off the bench for 15 minutes in the last game, although the performance was not very impressive, but it was also qualified, in Inzaghi's view, Boateng can add a certain hardness to the midfield, can appropriately reduce the defensive pressure of defenders.

In the 18th minute of the game, AC Milan scored the first goal of the game by Bonaventura with a counterattack opportunity, and AC Milan led Roma 1-0 away.

Then Milan lured Roma to attack with a defensive formation, and the Roma team without Totti will be greatly affected in attack, De Rossi simply cannot completely replace Totti's role, in the entire first half, Roma's ten attacks were three more than AC Milan's, but they have never been able to knock on Donnarumma's ten fingers.

In the second half, Roma began to change their formation, and manager Garcia replaced Totti, although Totti is older, but his ability is still there, and he has a lot of experience, and Roma's attack is more effective than before. With 61 minutes to go, Totti's clever shot from the penalty area almost broke through Milan's goal, and Roma would have equalised had it not been for Romagnoli's goal-line header.

In the seventy-sixth minute, the Roman team, which had been attacking fiercely, gradually extinguished the flame of attack from this moment, because Zhang Shujie expanded the score to 2:0!

Abate's cross from the right was met by Zhang Shujie who leaped high into the Roma penalty area and headed the ball through Szczesny's hands to give AC Milan a two-goal lead. It was a very big blow to the Roma players, and with little time left, the chances of a comeback were slim.

But Roma did not give up, Garcia continued to transfer troops, Kastan, Salah and other players were all sent to the field by him, AC Milan also has corresponding measures on the side, Antonelli, Niang, De Jong and other players were replaced by Inzaghi, just to keep this victory.

When the final whistle blew at full-time, AC Milan won 2-0 away at Roma. Regardless of the outcome of the Juventus game later on, AC Milan will remain at the top of the table for at least another week.

Unexpectedly, Juventus gave AC Milan another big gift: in the away match with Sampdoria, Juventus scored two goals first, and Sampdoria were chased back by two goals in just five minutes to draw 2:2. After the winter break, Juventus are winless for two games in a row and are three points clear of AC Milan in the table. And Napoli also failed to win this round, with a five-point gap with AC Milan.

After learning the result, head coach Inzaghi was so happy that he ran around his house to celebrate. You must know that he lives with his parents now, and his crazy behavior did not surprise his parents much, perhaps the two old men have long been accustomed to all of Inzaghi's actions.

The first 19 rounds of Serie A are all over, AC Milan has become the halfway champion of the league, and the team's top card Zhang Shujie also ranks first in the scorer list with 21 goals, continuing to maintain a three-goal gap with second-placed Higuain.

Chen Hui wrote in Sports Weekly: "After the winter break, everything seems to be moving in favour of AC Milan, with losses at Juventus and Napoli making AC Milan the Serie A leaders. Perhaps now we can definitely think that the giants of the past, Milan, are back. Although most of the other players in the team lack stars except for a few players such as Zhang Shujie and Yan Tao, many of them are very young, such as Romagnoli, if they can get more honors with Milan, I believe that one day Roma will definitely become a top defender!"

Zhang Shujie said in an interview with the media: "I am very happy that AC Milan can occupy the first place in the standings after the halfway, but this so-called 'half-way champion' is just a title, the Italian Football Federation will not award us the league championship trophy at this time, if we want to win the championship this season, we must hold on until the last moment!"

(End of chapter)