After winning the title in a hard-fought match, the Torino team only had a simple celebration before assistant coach Xavi Platz announced the decision to take the official holiday.

Italian football is heading into its annual winter break after this weekend's league fixture, with the first fixture of 2019 set to go and an extra week to adjust for most teams.

In the spring of 2018, the Italian Olympic Committee (part of which is equivalent to the country's sports chief) made a decision at a meeting to discuss the reform of the Italian professional football league, and made certain adjustments to the early closure of the transfer window and the schedule of match days for the new season. This matter has been mentioned many times in the article, and it is a waste of pen and ink here.

There was also a decision on the reform of the Italian Cup format, which was also adopted at that meeting, which had a great impact on many participating teams, especially the strongest teams in Serie A.

In contrast to the previous rules, which have been in place since 2007, the new format retains the seeding arrangements, with teams in the top eight of last season's Serie A table still advancing directly to the round of 16 and not meeting immediately. But the most important change is the choice of venues.

Previously, the venue for each match was determined based on the standings of the opposing sides in the previous season, with the better side having home advantage. As a result, seven-time Serie A winners Juventus play at home in every round of their matches (away and then home in the two-legged semi-finals), which is one of the main reasons why they have been able to win the Coppa Italia four years in a row. After all, the strength is stronger than the opponent, and it also has the support of the home fans and the convenience of the field adaptability, if it still loses, it will be a shocking upset.

However, the Italian Olympic Committee and the Football Association obviously also believe that this arrangement is not reasonable and is not conducive to other weaker teams to achieve better results. So it was decided to make a change, emulating the FA Cup and League Cup of the English league, and let the playing field be generated by draw, which can be regarded as a blessing for small and medium-sized teams.

At the end of July, the Football Association and Serie A announced the 2018-19 league and Coppa Italia schedules, with last season's Serie A runners-up Torino being placed as the sixth seed, along with Fiorentina, Inter Milan and Juventus in the bottom half.

The result of this draw is still relatively bad for the Torino team, which wants to build on the runner-up finish last year. If the Red Bulls can successfully advance to the quarterfinals, they should have a good chance of winning against the Purple Lily. However, the semi-finals are a huge difficulty, both Juventus and Inter are strong opponents, and it is not ordinarily difficult to reach the final.

But that's all for later, as Torino's first opponent in this season's domestic cup competition was already confirmed at the beginning of December, with Frosinone having just returned to the First Division. Although the opponent was lucky to gain home advantage, the difference in quality between the two sides was somewhat obvious, so not many people thought that Li Mudi's team would capsize in the gutter. You can see from the odds given by the bookmakers how obvious the advantage of the away team is.

With the victory seemingly secure, the Torino boss graciously set the gathering time of most of his squad on January 10, three days before the first game of the new year. However, a handful of first-team players who usually don't play well will be back two days in advance, with Lee set to mix them up with some of the youngsters who have been drawn from the youth team for the opening game of the Coppa Italia.

This decision obviously made the players feel very happy, and they all slapped their bosses with a smile on their faces, and almost shouted "Hooray, hooray, hooray".

With a particularly happy mood, the members of the Turin team started this rare vacation in the Celestial Empire, returning home, going abroad for vacation, and doing everything. Fortunately, there are a few people who go to Xiangjiang to play, but they have not gone to Oriental Casino, and the quality of the players is still very reassuring to the management and coaching staff.

As for Li Mudi, he naturally stayed in his homeland and had a good time. Although I stayed in the capital for two days during the period, dealt with some endorsement affairs, and accepted some interviews that I couldn't get rid of, I was almost tired like a dog. And during the trip, it was inevitable to be disturbed by many media, fans and even Lin Yun'er fans, but fortunately, the family's mood remained in a good state. So on the whole, this trip to the Celestial Empire with his parents and fiancée was very successful.

In addition, unlike in the past, Li Mudi has no transfer plans this winter, although the team is far from perfect at the moment, but combined with the club's financial situation, the players that can be brought in in on the market and his own imminent departure, there is really no need to make reinforcements.

Even if one or two powerful new signings can be introduced, it will have a great impact on the overall run-in of the team, and it may lead to a decline in performance, so it is better to stabilize.

Therefore, when the news came out that Juventus announced the signing of Bonucci in order to make up for the holes in the backline, even though the Turin senior management represented by Urbano Cairo repeatedly asked whether to make targeted reinforcements, Li Mudi gave a negative response, because he really didn't know how to adjust this team.

So when all kinds of rumors were circulating in the transfer market from other Serie A giants, the Red Bulls were almost forgotten as if they had been isolated from a prison on an island.

Until the return of the winter break, after the Torino team successfully advanced to the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia with a group of rotating players and young demons on the road, beating Frosinone 4-2 away from home, Argentine central midfielder Franco Musis, who retired due to injury at the beginning of December and has not been included in the squad for any games even after recovering from injury, suddenly approached the team manager accompanied by his agent and expressed his desire to leave.

Although several teams have maintained their interest in the defensive midfielder, there have been no suitors who are particularly interested in the player, so Li Mudi has not paid much attention to it. It wasn't until around New Year's Day, at the beginning of the winter transfer window in European football, that four teams popped up in Muthis's profile on FM that they were very interested. However, since such a situation is too common for the Torino team, Li Mudi naturally did not pay special attention to it.

However, now that the player himself has applied to leave, he has already found a home, which is a bit surprising to the Torino boss, but after Ascacibal gained more minutes with his continuous performances, Moussis's status in the team inevitably showed a downward trend. With the presence of the Montenegrin international Vukocevic in the same position, it is not a big deal for the Red Bulls to lose the No. 3 defensive midfielder.

So after reiterating his intention to release only when he receives a suitable offer, Li Mudi calmly sent the two visitors off and removed young midfielder Alejandro Ahmetaj, who had joined Cesena a year and a half ago, from the youth team before the start of the afternoon training session.

On January 16, Wolves of the Premier League announced that they had paid 13.5 million euros to bring Moussis to the Molineux Stadium. Although the owner of the opposing club is a consortium from the Celestial Empire, the Torino coach did not deliberately concede profits because of the relationship between compatriots, but the final transaction price is relatively "humane".

Rather than generously leaving it to the club's president or future successor who wanted to build a new stadium, Li Mudi immediately invested it in the transfer market. And on the day of the closing of the Serie A winter window, that is, on the morning of January 19, it was officially announced that Brazilian winger Lucas Moura was loaned from Tottenham Hotspur for 1.5 million euros, and then spent 6 million to book Udinese's Italian homegrown goalkeeper Scuffett.

The former was signed by Premier League upstarts in January 2018 after many years in Paris, but he finally got out of the squeeze of Neymar and Di Maria, two world superstars, and fell into the competition with Son Heung-min and Lamela, and as a result, he did not get too many appearances at White Hart Lane in a year. In addition, he did not seem to be well adapted to the environment in England and did not use his full potential in his limited playing time.

In an effort to regain the form of the 25-year-old wide horse in his former home country in Brazil and in his early days in Paris, Pochettino decided to send him on loan to several major leagues outside of the English league to adjust his mentality, which was caught up by Li Mudi in one fell swoop.

However, the Torino boss was unable to meet Tottenham's request to guarantee the player's main position, so he had to agree to pay a loan fee, and the next five months' salary would naturally have to be paid by the Italian team. Considering Moura's annual salary of up to 5.5 million euros, the Torino team spent about 4 million in order to get the right to use him for half a season, which is very expensive.

It's just that in Li Mudi's opinion, this price is still within an affordable range. Although the team performed very well in the first half of the season, it also exposed some problems, one of the more important being the lack of speed ability of the forward line.

The counter-attacking tactics that are frequently used in the strong dialogue require that the attacking players of the Torino team, especially the forwards, must have a strong ability to escape and instant explosiveness. Of the four strikers in the first team, only Immobile is considered to be up to the manager's standard, and the other three are only average, resulting in the team missing many good opportunities such as through balls and anti-offside positions in the game.

Therefore, Li Mudi has always hoped to bring in a fast forward horse when he has the opportunity, and he can play a role as a surprise soldier when necessary.

Although Moura is a winger, his shooting skills rated 13 in the FM system are combined with strong dribbling skills and physical fitness, and he can also play as a shadow striker or a striker. After all, when he is at the front of the team, he only needs to use the speed advantage to shake off the opponent's defense and everything is OK, and for the Brazilian, who is also a good passer, as long as he can grasp the opportunity in terms of theoretically not too many one-on-one balls, it will bring a huge boost to the whole team.

As for the introduction of Scuffett, it was Li Mudi who was asked by his little fan brother Valentino Cairo. Cassie has decided to leave the major European leagues at the end of this season, while the club's high hopes for Mielinkovic Savic are a bit disappointing, and the prince of Torino is worried that the team will suffer a goalkeeper shortage next season, so he asks the manager to come up with a reliable solution in advance.

With Donnarumma having too many competitors and being overpriced, Perrin being poached by Juventus, and Udinese's other talented goalkeeper Meret sitting in the main position, there are not many options for the Torino team, and Skufet, who has become a bright spot with Meret and is now one step behind in the competition, has become the only suitable candidate.

In order to acquire the 22-year-old who has the potential to become a world-class goalkeeper, the Red Bulls not only need to pay a transfer fee of 6 million euros, but also set a number of floating clauses in the contract with a total value of up to 3 million. However, for a talented goalkeeper with a potential value of 160, the price is totally worth it.

However, because Skufet was loaned to Parma last summer, he can't report to Torino City for the first time, but this is not a big problem, with Casillas who is in good form and not easy to get injured, the Torino team does not need the former at the moment, so this is also an investment for the future.

In this way, before the Serie A league rekindled after the winter break, the Red Bulls made one out and two in (in fact, one in) personnel adjustments. Although the defensive hardness of the midfield has been slightly weakened, the introduction of a fast forward horse will theoretically strengthen the tactical application of the team, so it has been evaluated by the media as a B+ level transfer period operation.

It's just that compared with Juventus, the biggest rival in the league, who have successively introduced Bonucci and Darmian, the outside world still generally believes that the strength of the seven-time Serie A champion has increased more, which has further expanded Juve's lead in overall strength.

Although the difference of six points at the moment seems not to be small, the experienced Bianconeri still have a good chance to complete the comeback, and it is likely that the Torino duo will have the last laugh until the end of the league game.