Of course, this is not to say that the players in this Torino squad are really very good, whether in terms of real-world sensory judgment, or the figures given by the FM system and scouting tools, they are completely inferior to Juventus, Roma, Napoli and even AC Milan, which have just been reconstituted in the summer. The current ability of Belotti, the number one star in the team, is only 156, which is really not enough in front of the 160+ or even 170+ superstars of the Old Lady's first team.

However, the overall strength of the team depends not only on the strength of each player, but also on whether the staffing is reasonable, whether the team cooperation is tacit, whether the tactical play can maximize the strength of the players, etc., and the latter points are precisely the most confident places of Li Mudi. Even the most unsatisfactory tactical adaptation at the moment, after a month and a half of intense training and consecutive warm-up games, has reached a high rating of 87% in the FM system, coupled with the fact that the team has not met strong opponents in the first few rounds of the league, which can help the players continue to improve their understanding.

The Italian Super Cup on the 14th also proved that the ability of the players is not the most important factor in determining the final outcome of the game. With Juventus winning last season's league and domestic cup titles, the clash between the Italian "king of kings" was between the Old Lady and cup runners-up Lazio.

Compared with the Bianconeri, who spent a lot of money to bring in Szczesny, De Sciglio and Bernardeschi this summer, the transfer operation of the Blue Eagles has made the outside world shout that it is incomprehensible, after successively selling Immobile, Biglia and Wesley Hoult and other key players from last season, Mihajlovic has been so stingy in recruitment, and the five newcomers who are not well-known (excluding the three exchanged from the Torino side) have spent less than 13 million in total. As a result, the club's income in the transfer market so far has reached 43 million, becoming the king of net income in Serie A.

But just when the outside world thought that they were very likely to almost be able to attack European qualification in the new season, Lazio slapped everyone in the face with this Italian Super Cup. With a brace from Senegalese striker Keita Balde, who has been a mainstay since Immobile's departure, and a 92nd-minute winner from midfielder Murguia, Miha's side won 3-2 against the mighty Juventus.

Allegri's conservatism also received unanimous criticism from the media after the game, in addition to replacing Bonucci, who joined AC Milan with Benatia, who was bought from Bayern, the other ten starters used by Uncle Yi in this game were all the main players of last season, and his attitude towards winning the first title of this season has been very clear. However, Gianluigi Buffon and Giorgio Chiellini, who are a year older, were a bit disappointing in their form in this game, with Higuain, Mandzukic and Cuadrado sleepwalking all over the pitch, and if it weren't for Dybala's two goals in a row to equalise the game before the game, the old lady would have been on her knees.

Judging from the situation of this game, many people have certain doubts about whether Juventus can complete the seventh consecutive league title, but more people are still neutral, they are waiting to see if the defending champions can make timely adjustments, after all, in terms of hard power, Allegri's team is still in the top ranks.

Contrary to Juve's slightly ageing performance in pre-season, Real Madrid played a perfect wave of youth storm. They defended their UEFA Super Cup title with a 2-1 win over last season's Europa League champions Manchester United in the UEFA Super Cup, and then beat arch-rivals Barcelona home and away in the two-legged Spanish Super Cup to lift the trophy for the 10th time in their history, 5-1. It is worth noting that these two titles were won after the team's top card Cristiano Ronaldo played only 34 minutes due to injury and red card suspension, and the strength of this young version of the Galaxy Battleship surprised everyone.

In mid-August, Western media also broke the news that Real Madrid Club was about to renew the contract with Isco, Asensio, Benzema and Ramos and other important members of the team, and the most eye-catching thing is undoubtedly the new contract of coach Zidane. The former World Footballer of the Year, who has won seven trophies (two Champions Leagues, two UEFA Super Cups, one Club World Cup, one La Liga and one Spanish Super Cup) in less than two years after taking over the team, has also become the joint third-most winning manager in Real Madrid's history (along with Bosque). According to the newspaper As, Zizou's new contract is about to be reached, and his annual salary will increase from the current 4.35 million euros to close to 8 million euros, and if the news is true, then he will become the top five in the salary list of football managers today.

In this regard, Li Mudi also called his friend on Thursday to congratulate him, and the other party did not talk much about the salary, but expressed a lot of concern about Ronaldo's suspension during the call. The Torino coach suggested that Zizou take the opportunity to give Mbappe and other young people more opportunities, due to the French youngster's crazy performance in Monaco last season, after his return to Madrid, many media put the name of "Ronaldo's successor" on his head, which made the Portuguese superstar a little dissatisfied, which is undoubtedly very bad for the young man. However, Ronaldo's suspension will provide a rare opportunity for Mbappe to ascend to the top, and according to the Torino manager's advice, this kind of healthy competition within the team will far outweigh the disadvantages for the team.

It's a pity that Zizu and Lafayette didn't realize that they were actually a little too indulgent with Ronaldo (or realized, but they didn't want to or even couldn't make changes), and everything needed this very stubborn superstar to make decisions, for fear of going against the other party's intentions and causing him to be unhappy. The previous incidents such as "the tax evasion case club did not express support", "teammates did not support him when commenting on the Ballon d'Or", "there is no need to sell De Gea, because Navas is better" and other incidents are classic cases of Ronaldo forcing the world's No. 1 club to compromise with him as a player, and if this continues, Real Madrid will be really dangerous.

Although he admires the skills and efforts of this quasi-football king, Li Mudi never thinks that a player can expand his personal influence to the point where he can interfere with the daily work of the club. Even if he can help the team win one victory after another on the field, if it weren't for his veto, De Gea would probably have made up for Real Madrid's goalkeeper weaknesses, and without his inclination, Morata would not have been pressed on the bench by Benzema and finally chose to leave, in that case, the team's strength would obviously be a notch higher.

Forget it, let's not talk about this useless nonsense, but turn our attention back to Italy. At 17 o'clock in the evening of August 19th, the new season of Serie A finally kicked off in the anticipation of fans, with the opening match of defending champion Juventus hosting Cagliari, who finished eleventh last season. Thanks to goals from the front trident of Mandzukic, Dybala and Gonzalo Higuain, the Bianconeri won 3-0 against their first league opponent and set themselves on a journey to defend their league title for the sixth time in a row.

It is worth mentioning that the VAR system, the video assistant referee, which was officially launched this season, played a role in its debut. In the 37th minute, Moldovan international Artur Jonica burst into the left side of the penalty area and crossed, Croatian center Kop, who had just returned from loan at Sporting Gijón in the summer, took the ball with his back and fell to the ground under Alex Sandro's close defense.

But just as the Cagliari players were about to take a corner, Maresca blew the whistle to call a timeout, and ran to the sidelines to watch the video replay and listen to the video assistant referee. More than ten seconds later, he returned to the field to decisively change the decision, pointed to the home team's penalty spot, and signaled Sandro to stomp on Kop's feet from behind in defence. No one expected that the first cut by VAR would be towards the defending champion. However, Farias' penalty was easily blocked by Buffon because it was too right, and the enthusiastic applause of the fans and the praise of the commentators from all over the world proved that the Italian international is still one of the best goalkeepers in the world.

Li Mudi didn't really have much of a concept about video assistant refereeing before, and although the technology was used in several leagues, including the Bundesliga, last season, Italian clubs who have never had access to it still don't know much about it. At the beginning of August, the Italian Football Federation held a VAR study course to explain to the managers of all Serie A teams how it works and how it works, but it is like a blind man touching an elephant, and he will not be impressed without experiencing it in the game. However, the first appearance of this new technology is really shocking, and it gives everyone a better understanding of what this thing is, so that they can be mentally prepared for similar situations in the future.

After the game, almost all the media praised the application of the video assistant referee, considering it a revolution. The change of fate can effectively prevent the occurrence of missed judgments and misjudgments, and restore the result of the game to 100% to the real strength of the team, which is no less than an important change in the three-point system for winning and prohibiting the return of the goalkeeper rule. But there is still a small group of people who firmly believe that misjudgment is part of the charm of this glamorous sport and that there should be too much human interference in it, but so far the supporters have the absolute advantage.

In an interview with reporters before the start of the game on the second day, Li Mudi was also optimistic about the addition of new technology, but he also believes that referees should continue to strengthen their law enforcement capabilities as the most important job, because the use of VAR too often will obviously slow down the progress of the game, which is a big disadvantage for the game.

However, no one cared about his small doubts at all, and now everyone is in a state of high recognition and praise for VAR, and rarely cares about negative remarks, so the Torino coach's answer is like a breeze, and there is no trace of the past, no sense of existence.

Back in the league, Napoli, who are looking for the second leg of the Champions League play-offs in midweek, also made their debut on matchday, only to beat promoted side Verona 3-1 away with reservations and achieved their goal relatively well.

And the third strong team to play is the Red Bulls, their first round of the league was scheduled to 15 o'clock in the afternoon of the 20th local time, of course, this is to take care of the fans of the Celestial Empire can not stay up too late, but play in the high temperature of 28 degrees Celsius, the players of the two teams are also extremely hard, and the physical test for them is very difficult.

Donadoni was clearly unhappy with last season's 15th finish, so this summer, instead of letting go of any of the main players in the original team, he also spent less than 10 million to bring in new Swedish international centre-back Filip Holland and bought out Algerian midfielder Slett Ted, who is on loan from Inter. Most crucially, midfield playmaker Poli and "Braid" Palacio both joined from Milan as free agents, strengthening the team.

Bologna were also seen by many media outlets as having a chance to challenge for the top half of the table before the start of the season, so they will have to give their best at their first home stadium to lay a good foundation for the rest of the campaign. To this end, Donadoni abandoned his usual 4-3-3 formation and instead discharged the 4-2-3-1 that Li Mudi had previously excelled at, and the intention to strengthen the midfield control was very obvious.

The Torino coach also made a bold change in the first game of the new season, offering a 3-4-1-2 position for a summer of training as soon as he came up, and the starting list was as follows: goalkeeper: Casey, three central defenders: Diego Llorente, Ranocchia and Canneman, four midfielders: Zampacosta, Vukocevic, Baseli and Barreca, forward: Benasi, and the forward line is the partnership of Belotti and Immobile.

This is the line-up he has been wanting to put out since last season, and players in all positions are theoretically the best options for each position, with only Las Diarra being on the bench because he is not as good as newcomer Vukocevic. Since this position has been used in several warm-up matches, other teams in Serie A, including Bologna, will not be too unfamiliar with it, but Li Mudi dared to take it out in the first round of the league, which was somewhat unexpected by everyone.

He believes that the purpose of the Torino coach to change the routine is obvious, that is, to give full play to the overall strength of his own players at both offensive and defensive ends, and completely abandon the way that he can only rely on the individual ability of individual players when he encounters strong opponents or stalemate in the game last season. This philosophy is undoubtedly an improvement, but how effective it will be will still need to be tested in the competition.

Then, the referee on duty, Davide Massa, blew the whistle for the kick-off, and the first round of Serie A matches that attracted the attention of Celestial Empire fans began.