Chapter 244: Finish
At this time, the broadcast camera of the scene also switched to the stands, first Zhang Kangyang, who represented the high-level supervision of the Inter Milan club, and saw him with a surprised face, as if he had won the lottery. Three or four seconds later, the person who appeared on the live broadcast screen was the president of the Torino club, Urbano Cairo, a wealthy Italian businessman who will celebrate his 60th birthday next month, but his face was extremely ugly, and his eyes were firmly fixed on the field below.
In fact, when it comes to Joe Hart's retention, the Torino president and the team's head coach have diametrically opposed views, with the former believing that the England international is the highest-level and most famous goalkeeper they can get given the Red Bulls' current prestige.
So even though Jonathan Barnett, the agent of Manchester City's goalkeeper, rejected the Torino team's buyout invitation twice at the end of last year and the beginning of this year because of the annual salary problem, almost completely cutting off the possibility of Hart's transfer to join, but Urbano Cairo still did not give up on this matter and has always had unrealistic illusions. In an interview with the reporter of "Torino Sports Newspaper" two days ago, he revealed that he wanted to renew Joe Hart's lease for another year, which caused a lot of heated discussions.
At this time, the Italian television broadcast director photographer gave the president of Torino a seven-second close-up, whether he was inquiring about whether he would waver in his previous firm willingness to recruit after seeing the goalkeeper put on such a poor performance, this outsider is unknown.
However, no matter what everyone's attitude is towards the home team's goalkeeper's performance today, it will have to wait until after the game to comment, and Li Mudi's most anxious thing now is how to get these three points in his hands. With Lazio, Atalanta, AC Milan and Fiorentina all facing very weak teams in this round of the league, it is almost certain that Torino will have to slip down the table if they fail to win today, which would be a huge blow to the Red Bulls, who were in good shape two weeks ago.
The Torino boss had to give it a go with half an hour to go, replacing the somewhat lacking Falke with Cerci in the 65th minute, allowing the veteran striker to use his experience to help a previously lonely Belotti. Five minutes later, Lars Diarra was brought on to replace Jesus, leaving the two full-backs in the right place, while the defensive task was handed over to the two centre-backs and two midfielders, with Russ having to juggle some tandem work.
And this fighting style of play did have an effect, and in the following period of time, the Torino team's offensive broke out all of a sudden, and there was a faint momentum to suppress the opponent.
In the 71st minute, Barcelona sent a second pass, and Cerci, who had just come on the pitch, won the ball in the box and shook it past Brazilian centre-back Miranda with a very concise croquette, and then got a chance to face Handanovic directly from a small angle. Unfortunately, the ball caught up with his right foot, which he was not very good at, and the subsequent shot, although not small, could not be kicked out of the angle and was blocked by the Inter goalkeeper with his knee.
Two minutes later, Zampacosta, who had become a right winger, was tucked straight forward on the right rib, and Belotti was marked by the visiting team on the right side of the penalty area 13 meters from the goal, and chose to shoot directly when he saw that there was little hope of a breakthrough, but he couldn't get the right direction and the ball went wide of the far post. If this ball is analyzed from God's point of view, if Red Babe can wait a little longer and then cross to the middle, Cherci, who follows up in the middle, may get a golden chance, but this is all an afterthought.
However, being beaten passively is not something Pioli can bear, Torino is not Barcelona after all, and other teams other than the latter cannot make the arrogant Inter people willing to defend, even Juventus can't do it. The visitors made their final change of the day in the 76th minute, replacing goal-scorer Kondogbia with Croatian defensive midfielder Marcelo Brozovic, and then starting to fight back, taking advantage of the hosts' eagerness to attack and creating a couple of dangerous attacks.
In the 79th minute, Inter Milan formed a quick counterattack after the ball broke off in the middle of the field, and Perisic got a long-range shot at the edge of the penalty area under the influence of his teammates' running, but his hesitant handling still made it impossible to get on target, and the ball deflected off the right post.
Two minutes later, the visitors combined again when D'Ambrosio and Brozovic crossed in quick succession, and Eder's effort from 20 yards was lifted over the crossbar by Hart, before Candreva headed Perisic's corner high.
For the opponent's sharp counterattack, Li Mudi really didn't have a good way for a while, after all, he still wanted to keep his strength in the front court and strive to score the third goal. If you withdraw people, you should be able to prevent attacks like Inter with only three or four people, but it is basically impossible to score goals yourself, and at this time, the physical strength of most of the players on the field is close to exhaustion, and the attack and defense can only choose the same. Whether to stop now and secure a slightly weak point, or to continue the desperate onslaught and succeed if it doesn't work, the Torino boss is in a difficult position at the moment and has not been able to make a decision.
However, after seeing that Belotti's repeated strong attacks were fruitless, but allowed the away team to almost succeed in the 89th minute, Li Mudi made up his mind to take it safe and put safety first. Candreva sent a cross from the right side of the penalty area, Icardi in the middle leaned on Ranocchia to create space for his teammates, and Perissi's Rosetini at the back post volleyed a volley from about 10 meters from the goal, and the ball rushed high into the sky, shocking the home team in a cold sweat.
And when the Torino players started to control the ball in central midfield, leaving only two strikers in front of them, the tempo of the game was finally reduced. In the third minute of stoppage time, after Perisic, who also performed undercover today, kicked Eder's central split ball away, referee Luca Banty finally blew the whistle for the end of the game, and the two sides finally drew 2-2, and the result of scoring one point each was obviously not very satisfactory for both teams.
Technically, Inter had the upper hand with 55% possession and made nearly 100 more passes than the home team. However, the two sides were very close in terms of shooting, with Torino 5-of-17 and the visitors 4-of-19, both of which were poorly accurate, but the fact that two goals each proved that neither goalkeeper on either side had a particularly good performance, especially Joe Hart.
In his post-match press conference, Inter striker Candreva said in an interview that conceding two goals did not look like a mistake for the team, saying: "It's disappointing because we want to continue the winning streak. We had a lot of chances, but they were all disappointing in the end. It's hard to say where we didn't work, but we conceded two goals and that's clearly a mistake we shouldn't have made. We did do have some things that didn't do much like us, and then we also paid a heavy price for mistakes like this. ”
Stefano Pioli was very good at not criticising his players, but praised the performance of the Torino manager: "I noticed Coach Lee at the beginning of the season and thought that his dynamism and advanced tactical literacy were lacking in us old guys, and as the results of the Torino team got better and better, the manager, who was not a few years older than my children, did surprise me even more. He's so sharp, but he's always cool-headed, which is so rare and I'm optimistic about Lee's future. ”
For the Inter coach's compliments, Li Mudi naturally did not dare to admit it with a big grin, he learned about this remark from reporters in an interview with the home team later on, but modestly said: "Coach Stefano's words are an encouragement to me, I am still far from the level of excellence he said, I have to learn more from old-timers like them in the coming days, and I look forward to the next time we meet, I can grow." ”
However, the biggest problem for the Torino coach today came from the fact that the reporters had been clinging to the mistakes of the England international, but he did not want to shift the blame for the failure of the game to achieve the desired result on one person, so he has been avoiding evaluating Joe Hart's individual performance alone, which has made the atmosphere in the media room a little awkward. Fortunately, the Penguin Sports reporter stood up in time and attracted everyone's attention with the national team squad that was freshly released five hours ago, which was considered a step down for both sides.
In order to prepare for the group stage of the World Preliminary Championship against Albania in Palermo on March 24 and the friendly match against the Netherlands away in Amsterdam on the 28th, the veteran coach Ventura announced the new national team squad. For Torino, only Zampacosta and Belotti have been called up, while Benassi and Baseli, two playmakers, are still out of reach.
In addition to Eder and Candreva, Gagliardini, who has just moved from Atalanta to Inter Milan in the winter, and Torino right-back right-back D'Ambrosio are both expected to officially wear the national team shirt for the first time.
The club manager will inevitably report his grievances to the media for the fact that Ranocchia and the midfield duo, who have been in good form and have performed well recently, have not been selected for the national team: "Albania's main attacking method is to bomb from the sky, and in Chiellini's absence due to injury, Andrea's header is indeed a very good addition to the Azzurri backline, but unfortunately Giampiero has his own opinion; As for Marco and Danielle, I don't think they're any worse than Gagliardini and Verratti, and maybe in June it's my lad's turn to show their quality. ”
Although I don't want my players to participate in the national team too much during the league, because fatigue and injuries will always appear when they go to the national team to report, but for these players who want to play for the country are almost stunned, Li Mudi can only make a strong high posture, so as to slightly resolve the depression in their hearts, otherwise it is likely to affect the league in the future. The job of the club coach is really not simply to direct the game and train the players, but also to take care of the psychological condition and even personal affairs of everyone in the team.
It's just that it's hard to say what kind of impact his words will have on the future of Ranokia's future service to the country, and the old fox Ventura has always had no good impression of the Celestial Empire who led the team and was obviously much stronger than he was at the beginning. Although he has never spoken ill of Torino's current head coach in public, he has never made any positive comments about the latter, and he has avoided reporters when asked to comment on Li Moody. However, from the information provided on the FM system, it can be seen that the Italian national team coach has a certain degree of disgust towards his successor at the club, hoping that he will not be harmed by the pond fish, which is too wrongful for the local players in the Torino team.
However, at this time, Li Mudi could not take care of so many things, and after the press conference, he hurried back to the home team's locker room and made a brief summary of the game that had just ended with the members of the coaching staff. Finally, after telling everyone to pay attention to taking care of their bodies, they announced the official holiday.
The league will be over today and tomorrow, and from Monday, the European national teams will begin to assemble for the first national break of the year. The Red Bulls have six internationals in this edition, in addition to the two Italians, Joe Hart, Ajeti, Akwa and Rajandzic, in addition to the likes of Vallejo, Issa Diop, Hou Yongyong and the Egerstein brothers who have been selected for their respective youth teams, and the rest will receive up to five days off. And Li Mudi booked a ticket to Kimchi Country early on Sunday morning, and he will visit his girlfriend at the same time as visiting the other party's father, after all, he is abducting someone's baby daughter, and it would be too much to say if he didn't show up.
Just as the Torino boss returned to his apartment and began to pack his bags with the help of his personal assistant Del Pino, the not-so-good news came from Milan's San Siro: the Rossoneri were at home to a largely hopeless Genoa side, and they had 20 shots on target with 25 per cent of the shots on target, finally thanks to Chilean midfielder Matthias. Fernandes' goal narrowly beat the Griffons to take his tally to 52 points, just one point away from Torino, who have only won a draw in this round.
Li Mudi felt Alexander!