Chapter 471: The League Ends

Regarding the transfer operation conflict that Real Madrid is facing now, the two did not say too much on the phone, after all, the various communication equipment in the world behind the prism door is actually not very safe, and no one knows whether the call at the moment will be monitored, so important things still need to be interviewed to be safer.

With both teams set to play the final league game of the season and Real Madrid to add an additional Champions League final, the topic will have to wait until Torino returns to Spain after the league game against Genoa on Monday night.

Because of the Europa League final, and the Griffin Army has been relegated early, the Italian Football Federation and the Serie A league have specially approved that the hot-to-all battle can be postponed to Monday, and the other nine matches will end this weekend as originally planned, which is still very interesting.

First, the suspense of the league title was kept alive until the last minute, the first time since the 2009-10 season. Juventus's previous six consecutive championships were largely decided early, with only two seasons being won by one round in advance, which shows the dominance of the Old Lady on the Apennine Peninsula today. Fortunately, this year's Napoli persevered until the last minute, although they had the opportunity to seek the usurpation of the throne, but unfortunately in the end it was still a bad move, and the gap of two points was like a chasm to prevent them from rising again since the Maradona era.

Although the White Dolphins will sit at home against the relegation team Crotone in the final round, it is said that the victory is in hand, but Juventus is also at home against the weak Verona in this round, and the possibility of overturning is really unlikely. Even if the Bianconeri are upset and only get a draw, Napoli will only be able to level the difference, considering that the two sides have the same record in the two meetings this season, they will compare the goal difference to determine the final qualification, and the current comparison of this data is 59 to 46, Juventus are far ahead, and the advantage is almost unshakable.

So the only possibility for Napoli to succeed in the counterattack is that while they win, the old lady loses at home to Verona, who was relegated early, and this probability can happen about 1 in 10,000? But theoretically speaking, the suspense of this season's Serie A championship still exists, and it is also one of the biggest highlights.

Secondly, the battle for the last ticket to the Champions League and Europa League has also come to the final hurdle. After 37 rounds, Roma are two points ahead of Inter and have a weaker opponent (the Red Wolves take on a desperate Sassuolo away and Inter also face Lazio who have already secured a Europa League spot), and the Nerazzurri are in a similar situation to Napoli and will need luck to turn the tables around. Their local rivals AC Milan are much more comfortable, with the Rossoneri, who are one point ahead of Atalanta, only need to win Fiorentina at home to achieve their goal of qualifying for European competition, without having to look at the faces of others.

Finally, the relegation battle has also entered a moment of life and death, with Crotone on 34 points the worst prospects of the five teams at risk of relegation, and facing Napoli away from home, who must win to have a chance of winning the title, no one thinks that this underdog team who completed a shocking comeback at the last minute last season can perform a miracle for the second year in a row. But if the goddess of fate comes to the aid again, Spall, who has 34 points, will have to score against Sampdoria, who are stronger than him but have no pressure to win, and Chievo, Cagliari and Udinese must not slack off, otherwise they may become the protagonists of the tragedy.

While the Italian media continued to report on Torino's Europa League triumph and began to focus on the tension of the league finale in an effort to attract more fans, the time quickly came on Saturday evening, and the top two teams in the table set foot on their home stadiums at the same time to start the final battle for the ultimate supremacy.

After an hour and a half of fierce confrontation, Juventus and Napoli both won 2-1, and the suspense of this season's Serie A title and relegation was solved at the same time.

The Bianconeri became only the second team in Europe's top five leagues to win seven consecutive league titles after Lyon in 2001-08, and Juventus can be said to have made a new history considering that Ligue 1 has not been strong as a whole. After going all out but still reaping the bitter fruits of the failure to win the title, the Napoli team, which has become a European powerhouse in the last two or three seasons, is likely to usher in the crisis of disintegration, at least the manager Maurizio Sarri has run out of patience to wear it out, facing the temptation to go to Stamford Bridge to replace his compatriot Conte, the current top manager in Italian football is difficult to stay in the Campania capital team that lacks championship heritage.

Crotone's defeat to the Stadio São Paulo meant that they were stuck at 34 points, and because they were behind Spal on the same points, it also announced that the team from the Calabria region in southern Italy had finally returned to the second division after two seasons without other games played. I don't know how long it will take for them to re-emerge with the nickname Pythagoreas, as a rule, players who perform well in the team are almost always poached by other teams, and it will take a chance for a team with a big loss to be promoted back to Serie A in a short period of time.

In the turn of the day, before the atmosphere of Juventus' seven-game winning streak began to show signs of fading, the battle for a European place began to kick off on Sunday evening. In several key matchups that kicked off at the same time and ended almost at the same time, Milan was happy and sad. Although Inter defeated Lazio 3-2 away, they had no choice but to wait for the news of Roma's one-goal victory over Sassuolo, and finally could only rank fifth in the standings with a two-point difference and miss the Champions League qualification.

AC Milan sat at the San Siro and defeated the Purple Lilies 5-1 with high morale, successfully getting the last ticket to the European League, which gave a lot of comfort to the club that was mired in UEFA's financial fair punishment investigation, and the chairman "Brother Li", who broke out in financial crisis.

In the rest of the games that had nothing to do with the big picture, the home teams came out victorious, giving a final gift to their respective fans.

Due to points and wins, there is no real possibility of any change in the Serie A table in the 2017-18 season before Genoa's match with Torino. The four teams that have qualified for next season's Champions League are Juventus, Napoli, Torino and Roma; The three teams that qualified for the Europa League were Inter Milan, Lazio and AC Milan; The three places in Serie B unfortunately fell to Benevento and Verona, two promoted horses plus Crotone.

But on the scorer list, there is still a trace of variables. Inter captain Mauro Icardi scored a goal in the final league game against the Blue Eagles to take his tally to 29 league goals this season, equalling Immobile. The latter has one game to play, whether to monopolize the title of season's top scorer or share the honour with others depends on whether the Torino 10 can win at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium.

In terms of the ranking of scorers in other countries' leagues, some will compare the number of penalties when the total number of goals is the same, and some will compare the number of appearances to rank the efficiency of a single game, but after asking the relevant staff of the Serie A league, Li Mudi got the answer that there is only a number of goals here, so that the Torino coach can only put Immobile in the starting list in this last game that does not have much meaning.

The Italian international played the whole game in the big game against Atletico Madrid three days ago, and the next day he didn't train because of the celebration parade, and his fitness was really not good. If he can lock in the Serie A scorer king in advance, Li Mudi does not want to send the striker whose physical fitness value has only recovered to 70% before the game, but unfortunately, in order not to leave the player with regrets, he can only go against the rotation policy he has formulated once. Fortunately, the Italian national team missed the World Cup in Russia after that, because Mobile has enough rest time, so as not to affect the form at the beginning of next season due to excessive fatigue.

In order to be able to help his love score a goal as soon as possible, the Torino coach has also made a careful design in the midfield position, Falke and Jesse as wingers on both sides, and the three midfielders are sent to two playmakers, Febas and Gourcuff, and Tulalang, who is delayed, also has a certain passing ability and can provide a lot of firepower support for the forwards. The backline, on the other hand, is dominated by a group of youngsters, which can attract Genoa players to invest more attacking force, thereby reducing the number and energy of their defence, making it easier for Immobile to find opportunities.

The final trend of the game is basically according to the trend expected by Li Mudi, and the Griffin Army, who do not have any pressure to earn points, naturally wants to draw a perfect end to the whole season with a victory in front of their supporters, and if they can't win, it is acceptable to choose to play a good game instead. Therefore, the head coach Ballardini chose to put all the main players including Perrin, Bertolacci, Veloso, and Lapadula into the starting lineup, and tactically used an offensive strategy, making the whole game very impressive.

As a result, in the attacking battle between the two sides, the visitors used a quick counter-attack in the thirtieth minute, which was broken into the box by Falke, and the middle of the mobile followed up and pushed the empty goal. While helping the Red Bulls take a one-goal lead, he became the twelfth player in Serie A history to score more than 30 goals in a single season, and he also became the 16th player in history to win at least two league top scorers.

In the end, both sides scored two more goals in the second half, and Torino narrowly beat Genoa 3-2 away, ending the 2017-18 Serie A season with an excellent record of 25 wins, 8 draws, 5 losses, 83 points, 82 goals scored and 37 goals conceded.

Compared to last season, although the Red Bulls have only improved one place in the rankings, the progress from getting the right to participate in the Europa League at the last minute to securing the Champions League spot early is still very huge. With five more wins, 12 more points, two more goals scored and 16 fewer goals conceded, all of these changes in just one season, the team's rise has been very evident.

The battle is also the last game of the season in Europe's top five leagues, with the final rounds of the Bundesliga and Premier League having ended last weekend, while Ligue 1 and La Liga have all been played by this Sunday, with the exception of Real Madrid and Liverpool, who need to make final preparations for the Champions League final, the rest of the teams can enter the off-season. Of course, the internationals who will spend a summer of passion and glory in Russia cannot relax yet, and the quadrennial event requires them to continue the form of the previous nine months, but there will be no deep blue in it.

In the first year of the new Champions League quota scheme, Arsenal was the only one left behind among the giants who were previously expected to get a ticket. Another team to watch out for is Torino, whose Europa League title squandered third-place qualification and failed to see Serie A play the Champions League with five Premier League teams this season.

Torino officially announced the start of the holiday season after returning to the club's home on Tuesday afternoon and hosting an end-of-season dinner in the evening. While the players and coaches can pack their bags and head home or to the tourist destinations, the work of the uniform team has just begun, and the transfer of players next season will be enough for them to keep busy for a while before the end of the transfer period.

Because there is a World Cup this year, according to the convention, each team that intends to strengthen will keep some funds to sign some former unknown players who broke out in the tournament, and those giants will also make a final inspection of the person they like, so many high-impact transfers will always occur during or after the World Cup.

However, Li Mudi, who confirmed from the marketing department that he would get a huge transfer fund, did not want to delay the operation of squad adjustment too late, and he did not want to experience the situation of long nights and dreams, so as not to attract other competitors to raise the price. Adjusting the squad for the new season as early as possible is also of great benefit to pre-season tactical training, so he has always believed in the concept of quick decisions to carry out transfer operations.

In the Champions League sentinel - various analyses and revelations from the British and Spanish media, Italians are concerned about whether Buffon will accept the invitation of Paris to switch to Ligue 1, Germans are concerned about being able to defend their title in the World Cup, Brazilians are looking forward to Neymar's return from injury as soon as possible, and various transfer rumors are being circulated in various countries, all the teams participating in the World Cup in Russia began to announce their 23-man squads one after another, which instantly attracted most of the eyeballs.

It's just that in the new European League champion Torino team, there is not a single player selected into the list of 23×32=736 people, which has become one of the main topics ridiculed by the melon-eating masses.