Chapter Ninety-Seven: Completing the Mission
The rest of the game was already under Fiorentina's control, and although Barcelona's attack was very fierce, they were far from being a match for the Purple Lilies in terms of organization.
In the fifteenth minute of the second half, Maradona decisively replaced Baggio and Batistuta, replaced Shepchenko as a single striker, and replaced Chinese midfielder Yue Lingxiang, and seven minutes later replaced Effenberg, replaced another Chinese teenager Liu Dong, to strengthen the midfield's organization and ball control.
"Maradona is going to train the newcomers in the World Cup!" This is the general view of the media, after the news that Lao Ma took over as the head coach of the Chinese national team, many reporters have noticed several Chinese youngsters who have been quite eye-catching in the Champions Cup, especially these two youngsters who have played the most and received many praises.
Because in an international competition such as the World Cup, no matter how strong Ling Feng is, he may not be able to stand up to a Chinese team, and Ling Feng's characteristics are now clear to all coaches, and he still has a group of powerful teammates in Florence to back him, but when it comes to the Chinese national team, it is difficult to put the strength of his teammates around him in the eyes of the major teams.
However, with the emergence of several Chinese youngsters who have trained secretly in Florence, several teams that will play against China have focused some of their attention on these youngsters, who will surely become China's wonder soldiers in the World Cup with their skills and spirituality, as well as their qualifications to participate in top competitions such as the Champions Cup.
As for whether these youngsters can go to the World Cup - Lao Ma dares to send them to play in the semi-finals of the European Champions Cup, let alone the World Cup!
And the youngster's performance did not disappoint everyone, after successfully controlling the rhythm of the midfield to attract Barcelona to step forward and steal, in the 35th minute, Liu Dong's free kick pass directly helped Ling Feng to score with a header, and the two Chinese players completed a goal, which also widened the gap in the score to three.
The win is already decided, and even if the next game is at Barcelona's home stadium, it should be impossible to score three or more goals against Fiorentina without allowing the opponent to score.
Fiorentina won 4-1 in this game, and it can be said that one foot has stepped into the final of the Champions League, and people are concerned about the other game of the semi-finals, Juventus away to Real Madrid.
The score was 2-1, with Juventus losing by a narrow goal at the Bernabeu – but it wasn't a bad situation as they also scored an away goal and Real Madrid may not be able to win the next game back on their home turf.
But now, a delicate situation has arisen.
In the thirtieth round of Serie A, Juventus will visit Fiorentina.
For Fiorentina, who have won the championship eight rounds in advance, this game has no meaning, but it is not the case for Juventus, who are now in third place in the league, while Parma in fourth place and Lazio in fifth place are chasing very closely, and the points gap between the three teams is no more than three points, although there is no hope of winning the championship, but Juventus must compete for next year's Champions League qualification.
Therefore, whether they can get points in this game is very important for Juventus.
However, four days after this game, Juventus will face a more important Champions League match, and Lippi does not want to drag a team of injured soldiers to face Real Madrid, so there is a lot of luck in this.
The Spanish media have already begun to shout, hoping that Fiorentina can show their work ethic to face this game that is not important to them - to put it bluntly, they hope that the two Serie A teams will come to a meaningless death, and it is better to lose both, maybe Fiorentina will not be able to win the next game against Barcelona after being shoveled down a few times.
This kind of thing that harms others and is not beneficial to oneself is not something that the Florentine gangsters would do.
Against Juventus, Fiorentina's 29-game winning streak was finally broken.
This was also expected by everyone, Juventus beat Fiorentina 1-0 away, neither side lined up the main line-up, and finally Trezeguet scored the only goal of the game with a header from a corner.
In response to the doubts of the foreign media, Maradona meant: "Players are not machines, they also need rest, the 29-game winning streak is already in history, there is no need to continue to waste the precious physical strength of the players in order to maintain a record, but also to risk injury." ”
The old horse used to be Barcelona, everyone knows that Barcelona and Real Madrid are mortal enemies, although they broke with Barcelona, but after all, they also had a memory there, so help Juventus, if Real Madrid is eliminated, how to say it can be regarded as giving Barcelona people a little balance in their hearts.
Only a tournament like the World Cup would have a third- or fourth-place final – what is there to play against two defeated teams? For some of the world's top teams, they don't bother to participate in the finals of the third or fourth place, and if they lose, they will roll up and go home, and do so much useless stuff to do.
Therefore, in the Champions Cup, there is no such thing as a third or fourth place final, otherwise if Juventus successfully defeats Real Madrid, and Fiorentina does not have any stubble, then fans can still enjoy a classic duel between two rivals.
The two semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League are played at the same time, with Fiorentina visiting Camp Nou and Juventus hosting Real Madrid.
Most of the fans will have their eyes on Torino, as the result of the other match should not be too surprising.
But before the game, a shocking news came out from the Camp Nou, Maradona actually sent five Chinese players to the starting list!
Batistuta, Baggio, Effenberg, Rui Costa were all on the bench, and the offensive line was all Chinese except for a little Laudrup!
Even if you are three goals ahead of your opponent, even if there is no restriction on non-EU players in the Champions Cup, even if you Maradona will become the head coach of the Chinese national team - you can't do that, right?!
But to the surprise of all Barcelona fans, in front of this Chinese army, they actually fell behind 1:2 at the end of the first half?
And the goal scored by Barcelona was scored by Figo at the end of the first half?!
This, how is this possible?
Looking at the statistics of the two teams in the first half, Fiorentina occupied 63% of the time of possession, zhan has an absolute advantage, but in terms of the number of shots, Barcelona actually had 13 shots on goal in the 45 minutes of the first half, scoring one goal, while Fiorentina only had five shots on goal - scored two goals......
Friends who watch a little bit of penalty kicks will understand this data as soon as they look at it.
With home advantage, plus three goals down in the last game, Barcelona will definitely take a big attack.
And Barcelona's style is lightning attack, so even if the time of possession does not take up much, it does not prevent them from attacking sharply - but the offensive efficiency is inevitably a little lower.
Fiorentina, on the other hand, had few chances on goal, but they were almost stabber, with four of their five shots hitting the woodwork, and only one of the three threatening shots Baya saved.
Under Ling Feng's dispatch, these Chinese boys are playing well - the most surprising thing is the Chinese fans, you must know that the current Chinese national team is pulled to the Champions Cup and Barcelona to play, then it will definitely not be able to play such a cooperation!
Although the four top defenders on the back line are all on the field, and the strength shown by Shepchenko on the front line is not comparable to the young player who is his partner now, you must know that except for Ling Feng, who is a pervert, the other four are all only sixteen years old!
Maybe there aren't many places for them in this national team, but what about the next one? 20 years old is a little younger, but it's enough to make an appearance at the World Series - besides, Maradona should recruit the better players into the team, even if he sits on the bench and is a surprise soldier!
How do you know that Maradona thinks so, but not completely - why does it have to be on the bench?!
If Lao Ma's idea spreads, it will definitely scare a large number of people - is it true that every Chinese player he trains under him is a pervert like Ling Feng?
Although the experience of the competition is not very rich, after playing on the field for a period of time, coupled with the care of Ling Feng and others, these young players have gradually found the feeling of the game, playing with a good look, firmly controlling the rhythm of the midfield, and not rashly going up to attack.
Barcelona, on the other hand, are getting more and more impatient – they have to score a lot of goals to qualify for the next round, and the mentality of both sides is as if Barcelona's players are frizzy lads under 20 years old.
In the first half of 25 to 30 minutes, Fiorentina scored two goals in a row in these five minutes, namely Shepchenko received a pass from Yue Lingxiang in a quick counterattack and scored a single goal, and striker Ding Rui took advantage of the opponent's loss of a goal to gain a foothold and stabbed the goal in a scuffle in front of the penalty area.
Extending the aggregate gap to five goals and Fiorentina adding two more away goals, Barcelona have no chance of overtaking.
At the end of the first half, Figo's goal was just a face-saving goal, and in the 45th minute of the second half, it was even more difficult to recover four goals.
No matter how morale-boosting Van Gaal was in midfield, for Barcelona's players, the game was already over early, and in the second half, Rivaldo lost the idea of winning, and the game on the field was played without a little passion.
There is only one person who has not given up yet - Luis•Enrique.
The Spanish bullfighter who defected from Real Madrid showed the spirit of the matador not to be discouraged, but even this tireless fighter did not make the slightest achievement under Fiorentina's strong defense, and the final score was 0:0 in the second half, Fiorentina defeated the opponent 6:2 on aggregate and successfully advanced to the final of the European Champions Cup.
This is the second time Fiorentina have reached the final of the Champions League after the second European Cup in 1957, and they lost 2-0 to Real Madrid last time out.
Almost at the same time, another semi-final in Turin also ended in the referee's whistle, a valuable goal by Piero allowed Juventus to beat Real Madrid 1-0 at home, and the aggregate score of the two teams was 2:2, but because Juventus scored an away goal in the last game, successfully eliminated Real Madrid, and the two Italian teams successfully met in the final of the European Champions Cup!
The Spanish media began to shout about this result, and began to fiercely criticize Fiorentina and Juventus for playing tacit goals in the last Serie A match, but on the contrary, when the news reached the Camp Nou, Barcelona fans began to celebrate.
Perhaps, as long as Real Madrid's situation is not better than their own, Barcelona fans will be satisfied.
However, to the joy of Lao Ma, many people shouted Diego's name in the stands after the game, which satisfied Lao Ma's vanity again - after all, he left Barcelona in a fit of anger because of a discord with the club's top management, and for the fans, Maradona is still their hero.
Just imagine, even the Real Madrid fans are willing to stand up and applaud Maradona, let alone the Barcelona fans.
In this way, Fiorentina's mission for the year is almost over, and there are only two important games left: the UEFA Champions League final against Juventus on May 2 at the Amsterdam Stadium in the Netherlands;
The Coppa Italia final at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on May 12 was played against Roma.
In the next few weeks, Fiorentina will be able to receive summons from their respective countries to begin preparations for the warm-up games leading up to the World Cup.