"Diego, I hope you can understand the arrangement of coach Spalletti, according to the test report of the medical center, your fitness status is not up to standard, you still need time to ......"

Chen Lin was interrupted by Maradona before he finished speaking: "When things on the football field can be decided by those few small notes, I know my own body best, Mr. President, I am not old enough to retire, I need to play, I hope you remember what you said to me in Miami." Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

At this point, if you continue to talk about it, the two sides will only fall out, Chen Lin was silent for a long time and said: "Okay, I respect your wishes, I will talk to Coach Spalletti about your match." ”

Maradona smiled ruefully and put his arm around Chen Lin's shoulder: "You won't be disappointed!" ”

The next day, Chen Lin called Spalletti into his office and euphemistically brought up the matter of Maradona. Spalletti, although his face was not good-looking, finally agreed.

At the weekend, Prato had their first match in the second division, away to Atalanta, who were relegated from the First Division last season. Maradona was in the starting line-up for the first time this season, with Dunga in the middle of the pitch, while Effenberg replaced the substituted Doni at right midfield.

This season's ambitious Prato team did not take the opponent seriously, in fact, Prato was still a third division team when it had frequently defeated the first division teams, such as Inter, Foggia, Torino, etc., in their opinion, Atalanta is just a team at the bottom of the first division, the phoenix that has shed its hair is not as good as a chicken, but the result of the game was unexpected, 0:2, Prato lost without anything to say.

The match was a sign that Prato had its first match in the Cup Winners' Cup in midweek against former Yugoslav giants Dinamo Zagreb, but the breakup of Yugoslavia and frequent fighting in the Balkans had left the former Yugoslav powerhouse struggling to make ends meet.

Although Prato is playing away from home, there seems to be no reason to lose to Dinamo Zagreb, who have travelled from afar. Dinamo Zagreb is said to have been in arrears for nearly three months, and in order to ease the financial pressure on the club, at the beginning of the season, the team sold almost all the stars it could sell, and at this time it was a completely young Dinamo Zagreb team.

On 28 September, the Stadio Maksimir (home of Dinamo Zagreb), which can accommodate nearly 40,000 spectators, was packed, and although most of the seats in the stadium were made of concrete, the biggest function of the stands was to give the fans a foothold during the game.

However, this game, the Prato team played extremely hard, because Effenberg was more accustomed to the position in the middle, and Maradona, who was often and frequently inserted, ran into a heavy position. On the right side, there were frequent openings, so Perugia seized the opportunity to score a goal from the ribs on the right. Prato didn't equalise until stoppage time just before half-time when Inzaghi missed the equaliser.

Spalletti rotated his line-up this weekend due to two games in a week, and as a result, Prato unexpectedly swallowed three bombs against Venezia in the middle of the second division, losing 0-3.

However, this was only the beginning, and in the following weeks, Pleit lost 1-0 at home to Udinese, then drew 1-1 away to Perugia, and faced Dinamo Zagreb from afar, only to rely on strict defense to force the opponent 0-0 to reach the next round with the advantage of away goals.

After six consecutive rounds of winlessness, the whole team began to permeate a depressing atmosphere, and there was less laughter and laughter during practice, and everyone had tense faces. To be fair, Prato's unbeaten streak in this period has little to do with Maradona, the problem is still in the pre-season preparations, because the Century Cup did not end until July 17, followed by Prato's trip to China that lasted for half a month, and by the start of the season in mid-August, Prato had not even conducted a full week of training. Nearly half of the team's first team is a newcomer, especially since several key positions are all newcomers.

Modern football is very important to the overall sport, 11 world stars who don't know each other may not be able to play a tacit understanding of the general team, not to mention that the level of the Italian league in this era is the highest in the world, even the level of the second division is very high, such as Batistuta, Effenberg, Bierhoff and other famous foreign stars have played in the Italian second division at their peak. Therefore, when Chen Lin, who lacked knowledge, despised these opponents in the second division, he immediately paid the price for his own mistakes.

Another reason for the sluggish results is actually inseparable from Spalletti. It's not that his ability is insufficient, it's because of his age and personality. The 35-year-old Spalletti is definitely a junior among coaches, Prato was his first team in charge, with the exception of last year's Coppa Italia runners-up, his managerial record has been lackluster, and he himself has been in the lower leagues for a long time as a player, which can be described as unremarkable. With such qualifications, it is almost impossible to suppress the stars of several world champions in the Prato team.

Or perhaps it is because he has been in a low position for a long time, which makes Spalletti have a very amiable personality and a very good person, and he has historically gotten along well with all the club owners who have hired him, which has a lot to do with this character. But in other words, such a character is very easy to compromise and does not have the principles that he adheres to. Historically, Spalletti has been able to quickly build a team that has been scattered into a strong team, but it has always been difficult to achieve further results, and there is no reason for this character.

In order to make all these big-name stars that Chen Lin worked so hard to find come in handy, Spalletti constantly modified his tactics, such as in order to solve the problem of the position conflict between Effenberg and Maradona, he re-sacrificed the three-back formation, let Effenberg drag the organization, Dunga and Tomasi swept left and right in the midfield, Leonardo retreated to the left-back position, and Maradona was responsible for the deployment and tandem of the front.

But the back three is an unconventional line-up after all, it needs two very strong full-backs, Leonardo on the left may be barely competent, and Zanetti on the right is still too young to reach the level of later generations in terms of attacking ability. And after all, the three-back tactic was improvised by Spalletti this season, and there are still many incomplete places, and the Prato players who are accustomed to the midfield's double back will be difficult to adapt to for a while, which makes Prato, who is already lacking pre-season training, even worse in the team's run-in.

So Prato seems to be in a strange circle at this time, because of the bad results, he looks for problems in tactics, but the more he adjusts his tactics, the more chaotic he becomes, and the result is faster to lose.

On the other hand, Prato's luck during this period was indeed not good, sometimes it was clear that he had an absolute advantage on the field, and the players did not make too many mistakes, but they were scored by the opponent in a daze. And that bad luck also spread to the team's injuries, with Vieri having to miss a month after suffering a right Achilles tendon injury against Piacenza. Although Montella, who replaced him, is very good, his characteristics have a lot of overlap with Inzaghi, and the two are far less skilled than Vieri and Inzaghi.

The world doesn't revolve around one person, and in the same way, a team can't collapse because of one person. However, in the eyes of most people in Prato, it was Maradona's addition to the team's main squad that the team's results plummeted. Originally, Maradona's state was not as good as before, and it was rumored in the World Cup that he had a notorious reputation for taking banned games to play, which made many people regard him as the team's "cancer".

And Maradona's unruly personality exacerbated this contradiction. In the Coppa Italia on 26 October, Prato travels to Napoli, a side of the first division.

Maradona received a heroic welcome at the Stadio de São Paulo in Naples, and many Neapolitan fans held pictures of Maradona as if it were Prato's home stadium, but none of this is surprising for a city that enshrines Maradona in a shrine.

Maradona was extremely excited in this game, but it could not save the team from an overall slump. In the 17th minute of the first half, Napoli unexpectedly broke the door of Prato through a corner kick.

After taking a one-goal lead, Napoli, as a first-division team, put on a defensive counterattack lineup without hesitation. As it turns out, this set of tactics does not necessarily work only for the weak. Prato's attacks were frequently fruitless in the face of the Napoli defence.

It's not that Napoli's defense has reached the point of being impeccable, but it is because Prato's main lineup is very chaotic, especially the several midfielders, who are constrained by each other and lack of cooperation.

Prato's midfield, which was once the strongest link, has now become the weakest link, unable to provide an effective attacking organisation and shield the backfield defence, making it appear to be full of mistakes.

This situation lasted until the 75th minute of the second half, when Prato, despite frequent onslaughts, could not open up the situation, and the scene fell into a stalemate for a while. And Maradona was too excited in the first half, and his lack of physical weakness was finally exposed in this fierce game, and later, Maradona simply stood in the front court with his waist crossed and did not return to defense, just waiting for his teammates to pass the ball in the front court.

In order to strengthen the attack on the flanks, Spalletti opted for a substitution, with Doni coming on to replace Maradona.

At this time, Maradona had just tried to break through a Napoli player, but was put to the ground by his opponent, and was about to get up to reason with the opponent when he saw a substitution bulletin board on the sidelines. Maradona, who suddenly felt humiliated, walked to the sideline with a blank face, ignored Doni's hug, did not return to the team's bench, and walked straight towards the player's exit channel.

After the game, when asked by reporters about the move, Maradona lashed out at his teammates' inaction, saying: "It wasn't me who should have been replaced, but those who were almost asleep on the field." ”

This remark naturally angered his teammates, so not surprisingly, a fierce conflict broke out.