Chapter 160: The "low-key" Celestial Empire

"With two players sent off in one game, and a number of big fouls, the style of play of the Torino team is evident, and the coaching philosophy and ethical standards of the Celestial Empire coach deserve everyone's attention." - The Courier;

"Lady Luck clearly favored the Celestial Empire that night, and Pescara, who dominated the game, still failed to get their first win of the new season, and Otto needed to work harder. However, the foul of Torino captain Vives's back tackle is too bad, and Italian football must not let go of such a dirty action if it wants to catch up with England and Spain and return to the top, and I hope that the Football Association will give punishment as soon as possible and return Italian football to a fair and clean environment. - Milan Sport Newspaper;

"The true level of the Red Bulls is that of a relegation team! After a victory at Adriatico in incredibly difficult fashion, Lee's side have reached their goal of two straight wins, and it looks like it's not too bad. But if you take a closer look at the opponents and the course of the game in these two games, you will find that the strength of the Torino team has always been overrated by the outside world. Empoli, third from bottom in the league; Pescara, the bottom of the table, should be the two weakest Serie A teams this season. In the face of such an opponent, the Red Bulls could only rely on two lucky goals to score six points, which shows that their level is only at the bottom of the league. With the emergence of strong teams such as the back opponents Roma Twins, Fiorentina and Inter Milan in turn, I believe that the Celestial Empire and his team are likely to be beaten back to the prototype, and the relegation battle has just begun! - Roma Sport;

"Last night's Serie A match was another noteworthy game for the majority of fans, as the away team Torino won 1-0 against Pescara with a score of 1-0 with two fewer players. Although the two sides did not play well on the offensive end of the whole game, the visiting team's Celestial Empire coach Li Mudi still showed everyone the unique magical ability from the mysterious ancient country of the East. With a one-goal lead and two sent off, he decisively transformed a top scorer in Serie A into a ubiquitous and powerful midfielder, making the home team's next dozen attacks all fruitless, which is really genius thinking and execution, and maybe Italy will witness the rise of a magical coach. β€”La Repubblica;

"Since coming close to a comeback at the San Siro in the first round of the league this season, the Red Bulls have shown a tenacity and versatility unlike previous years. After the young Celestial Empire coach Li Mudi took over, the players seem to have gradually turned into immortal Xiaoqiang, although the level of play is still a certain gap with those top stars, but at least at the mental level, they are already difficult to be defeated by the opponent. I believe that with the gradual run-in of the team and the further growth of young players, the results of the Torino team will definitely get better and better, please support and understand. - Torino Sport.

With AC Milan's home game against Lazio, the only highlight of the league fixture, was played on Tuesday night, the vast majority of the Italian media on Thursday morning focused on Torino's narrow victory. Last night's battle at the Adriatico Stadium was a surprising one, both in terms of process and final result. Although at the post-match press conference, Li Mudi did not say anything nutritious, but has been defending Vives, who was sent off by the red card, thinking that the captain of the team does not want to hurt people on purpose, and hopes to use his own support and media reports to relieve the pressure on the "old man", and it would be better if it could affect the punishment of the Football Association.

It's a pity that the organization that has always appeared as a villain can make the protagonist easily satisfied? At noon on Friday, the Torino club received a penalty document from the other party, and at the same time, a notice was posted on the official website of the Italian Football Federation: Vives was banned for four league games for his uncool behavior in the last game, and he also had to pay a fine of 16,000 euros. In the eyes of the Torino manager, this penalty is a little heavier, but the team is far from having the confidence to smash the "superior. leadership.", so the appeal was abandoned at the persuasion of Valentino Cairo. However, as a result, Torino is left with only one person in terms of the staffing of the defensive midfield, and the Ghanaian will be suspended for the next round of games, which can pose a very big problem for the entire coaching staff.

The team returned to Turin by plane at noon on Thursday, with only three days left until Sunday's home game against Roma, and now they must race against time to prepare an effective tactical play, after all, the opponent's strength is there, and that is the existence of third place in the league!

Speaking of the standings, after successive victories over two weak teams, Torino is temporarily in seventh place in the league with 3 wins and 2 losses, scoring 11 goals and conceding 6 goals, only three points away from the top rivals. They were pressed by AC Milan and Fiorentina, while Lazio, who had just lost 2-0 to the Rossoneri, only picked up seven points and were squeezed out of the top 10. Since it was only late September, the number of games was still small, so the gap between the top 13 and 4 in the league was not large. However, it is somewhat surprising that Red Red Bull, which was widely disliked before, can perform so well. Fortunately, the hard-mouthed media still have the excuse that the opponent's strength is too weak, thinking that Torino will soon collapse under the attack of a strong team, but there are still more than half of the relevant people who have initially recognized the strength of the coach of the Celestial Empire, after all, it is really difficult for ordinary people to achieve such results in the top league in the second year of their coaching career.

So in just three days, from Friday to Sunday, the Torino club's public relations department received as many as thirty or forty invitations from large and small media outlets, all of whom wanted to conduct an exclusive interview with the team's manager. However, the feedback received was very devastating, and the director in charge of public relations and reception, Castellazzi, actually informed them: "Coach Li Mudi has been preparing for the team's difficult schedule for the next month in the past few days, and there is only less than ten hours of personal rest every day, and he has no time to come out for media interviews for the time being, so he can only refuse everyone's kindness in desperation." However, we at the Torino Club will always provide the most truthful and detailed information for the media, if you need it, you can contact our staff directly, and the club will reply and deal with it as soon as possible. In addition......"

As soon as this response came out, not only did not dispel the media's attention to Li Mudi, but attracted more people to want to find out what the people of the Celestial Empire were doing. At nine o'clock on Friday night, when Li Mudi came out of a nearby convenience store and was about to walk back to the apartment with a bag of ice cream, he was suddenly attacked by two tabloid reporters, and the Turin coach smashed the freezing point of the large aluminum box in his hand on the head of one of them in a panic, and knocked the person unconscious at that time. The matter was eventually resolved by alerting the police, and as the next round of the league was about to start, Li Mudi was only allowed to go home after being questioned and investigated that night, while Gines and Castellazzi had to juggle between the police station and the district prosecutor as representatives of the parties and the club.

The next morning, many "anti-Lee" media couldn't wait to give the Torino coach the name of a "violent element" and turned him into a football stream on the sidelines. Hooligans, in short, it's just a mess. However, fortunately, because the circumstances of the conflict were still simple and clear, the police soon issued an announcement confirming that Li Mudi was not at fault in the incident. Genes immediately sent a lawyer's letter to the media outlets suspected of insulting and defaming his partner, and threatened in an interview that if the apology letter was not published on the front page as soon as possible, he would see him in court.

And after this accident, the outside world found that the head coach of the Celestial Empire seemed to have disappeared out of thin air, and many tabloids known for their paparazzi strength squatted near Li Mudi's apartment for several days in a row, but did not find him to come back to rest. The reporters who stayed outside the Torino club's training base could not find out where the team's manager went after the daily training, and after analysis, it was roughly confirmed that he should live directly in the club's dormitory. There are also media speculations that the Torino coach was frightened and did not dare to live outside alone, so he urgently hid in a crowded place.

In the current era when media capabilities are almost pervasive, most things really can't be hidden from them, Li Mudi did move into the club's internal dormitory for staff as soon as he left the police station on Friday night, and even the basic daily necessities were picked up by the prince who drove back to the apartment. But the main reason why he moved here was not because he was frightened, although when the two people suddenly came out from behind him, Li Mudi was really startled, thinking that he had been robbed or even kidnapped. However, after seeing the camera and microphone in their hands, they guessed the identity of the reporter, but because they didn't want to be asked about preparing for the Roma team and wanted to avoid the other party's entanglement, but who knew that these two people didn't know whether they were inexperienced when they just entered the industry or felt that the people of the Celestial Empire were easy to bully, so they grabbed the clothes of the Turin coach and didn't let him leave, which forced Li Mudi to make a move.

Originally, the full responsibility for this conflict was on the other party, and it would be fine to explain it clearly at the police station, but when he was questioned, the whole process of this matter spread on the Internet without knowing how, and in just half an hour, everyone knew about it, and Spain and the Celestial Empire also received the news. The parents who heard the rumors from the neighbors immediately called, but fortunately, Li Mudi repeatedly emphasized that he was not harmed, which temporarily dissuaded the old couple from flying over overnight. And then the eldest sister who was far away in the Celestial Empire also made a long-distance call on behalf of the whole family's relatives, according to her, CCTV's news channel mentioned the "attack incident" of the Turin coach in a news program, and this influence is no one.

In order to reassure his parents and relatives, Li Mudi had to agree to move out of the apartment temporarily and live in a safe place for a few days.

However, the benefits of living here are also very obvious, he has more time to discuss with the members of the coaching staff what to pay attention to in the next few tough battles, the Torino coach who has become a workaholic actually held the Saturday night preparation meeting until half past ten in the evening, and got the wives of many coaches to call the post, asking if he is fooling around outside if he is not coming home so late, which makes a group of old drivers laugh.

Fast forward to Sunday, September 25th, and there will be six Serie A matches played on this evening. Juventus and Napoli, who had played early in the Champions League for midweek, both beat their respective opponents and remained in the top two of the table, putting pressure on Roma in third-placed places. Red Wolves, who also need to play in the Europa League midweek, were held to a 1-1 draw away at weaker Czech side FC Viktoria Plzen in the opening round of the group stage, and if they are to make it through, they cannot afford to miss out on a home game against Romanian league champions FC Astra Giurgiu on Thursday night. Therefore, head coach Spalletti is very cautious in the arrangement of the squad for this week's games, wanting to win all the games at the lowest cost.

The match between Torino and Roma is scheduled to kick off at 12:30 p.m. local time, which is 18:30 Celestial Time. CCTV Sports Station has produced a rare large-scale live broadcast event, starting from 17:30 in the afternoon to delay the recording of the pre-game press conference, of course, a condensed version, and then the commentary will immediately switch to the live broadcast signal after the commentators comment. According to news media reports the next day, more than 87 million Tianchao fans watched the game through CCTV channels and Xiaoshi Sports' online feeds, setting a new record for a single Serie A game this season.

Moving the camera back to the press conference before the game, Li Mudi appeared in public for the first time since the "attack incident", which naturally attracted the attention of dozens of domestic and foreign media. Due to the host's forcible intervention, all issues unrelated to the game were blocked, which made many reporters present feel both helpless and angry. And what makes them even more mad is that the Torino coach has always pretended to be low-key on football-related issues, but he keeps complimenting how strong the opponent is and how much he admires him, which makes people want to vomit, and many reporters are so angry that they curse in their hearts: MMP!