Chapter 426: Lucky Strikes Back
Li Mudi, who was very low-key in the pre-match press conference, did not be conservative in the opening stage, and in the starting line-up similar to that of three days ago, he only replaced Tulalang and Vukocevic with two central midfielders, Musis and Baseli, after all, players in this position need enough fitness to play at both offensive and defensive ends.
In the first five minutes after kick-off, Torino adopted a high-pressing strategy with great intensity, which made Inter suddenly unable to adjust the rhythm of possession in time, causing the visiting team's defense to make consecutive mistakes and almost score at the beginning of the game.
In the second minute, Benasi's through ball penetrated the entire Inter defence, but the start of Mobile was a little earlier, and the extra arm was accurately judged by the linesman, avoiding an unjust case.
A minute later, Croatian midfielder Brozovic was under pressure from Belotti and his pass was flimsy and intercepted by Baseli with a scaf up. The latter took a step forward and hit the goal with his right foot directly at a distance of about 278 meters from the opponent's goal, but unfortunately he pursued power and suddenness too much, and failed to master the footwork, forming an anti-aircraft gun, but it has already made Spalletti very dissatisfied with the performance of his players. The Inter coach came to the sidelines to signal Valero, who played as a midfielder in this game, and the two wingers to pay more attention to retreating to meet their teammates, and not to give the Torino players a chance to press.
After some adjustments, the away team finally stabilized its position, and Li Mudi also gave up the high-position pressing tactics that consumed too much physical strength, and the two teams began to enter a face-to-face situation.
Inter Milan, who used a 4-2-3-1 formation today, mainly emphasized the control in the midfield, Gagliardini, Brozovic and Valero still have a good level of control of the ball. However, the tactics devised by the boss failed to bring out the agility and quickness of the front trident of Candreva, Perisic and Icardi, because there was no aerial superiority, and short passes were difficult to achieve in the home team's dense defence, so they could only try to play through balls and wingers cut inside after a long period of meaningless inversions, but the effect was worse in the first 20 minutes of the game.
The Torino coach found out through the FM system before the game that the Spanish veteran Valero was in very average form, so he focused on arranging three midfielders to put pressure on him in turn, forcing his organisation to be completed in a very short time. After a few passing errors, Valero made adjustments, reducing the number of dangerous passes with a high error rate, and began to focus on stability, which also caused Inter's offensive to threaten the home team's defense through passing, so that the attacking players in the front court had to turn on the solo mode, which was really inefficient.
In the eighth minute, Candreva won the ball on the right side of midfield and burst forward, but did not see any good routes for the ball. Icardi was surrounded by two defenders at all times; Perisic tried to pull space for his team-mate by running and had already run to the far end; The three midfielders behind him were a little slow to follow up. As a result, Candreva had to barely shake off an angle and tried a long-range shot of his own, but the kick was too good and was easily pocketed by Cassie, but it was still a shot on target.
Two minutes later, the home side's attack was new, Benassi was fouled by Brozovic on the left side of the midfield line about 10 meters in front of the halfway line, and before everyone could come to their senses, the former quickly sent a free-kick to Barceli who came up to pick it up. The latter made an accurate long-distance diagonal long pass, sent the ball into the back point of the away team's penalty area, Belotti instantly started to get rid of the opposing player's marking, came to the right corner of the small penalty area and poked out his left foot to volley, but unfortunately failed to touch the target in the high-speed movement, unfortunately missed the opportunity to play the world wave.
In retrospect, Inter's attack once again stalled at Valero's feet, with Candreva having to drop back to near midfield to receive a pass. He couldn't make a strong run down the right flank and could only deliver an unreliable 45-degree cross with a big foot after being caught in the bag, as there were no players in the home box to fight for the top. However, Cassie made a low-level mistake at this point, he failed to communicate with Diego Llorente in time, and both of them ran to the landing point to form a mutual interference. The home goalkeeper hurriedly lifted the ball out of the box with his right hand, only to be met by Perisic there.
However, the Croatian winger didn't seem to want to accept this big gift sent to the door, and his first volley was like coming from the feet of an amateur football fan, and the youth team players who were weak enough to be twelve or thirteen years old were not as good, so that Casillas, who had just landed after flying near the penalty spot, did not have to jump, and raised his hands to firmly grasp the ball, it was so easy!
However, Inter Milan is worthy of being a traditional giant in Italian and even world football, and the previous five rounds of the league have also won 3 wins and 2 draws unbeaten, and there is no problem with the overall morale.
In the thirteenth minute, Candreva's cross to the bottom line was touched outside the bottom line, and he immediately took a corner kick, and in a scuffle at the front post, Gagliardini touched the first spot. Although it was only a slight rub, it formed a perfect ferrying effect, and the ball flew right towards Icardi, who was standing about a meter and a half outside the small penalty area line in front of the goal.
The Argentine striker, who is currently competing with Immobile for the league's top scorer, is well aware of the situation he faces, and if he can't finish in time, he could be disrupted by the home team's defenders who rush over if he makes a slight adjustment. So he made a quick decision, directly raised his right leg to meet the ball and came with a volley, and the ball went straight to the top of the near corner. But what he never expected was that this wonderful attack was defused in time by Casillas, who reacted against the sky.
The Torino goalkeeper quickly extended his left hand in the face of such a close-range shot and leaped upwards to poke the ball off the crossbar just before it flew off the line. saved the team with this miracle save, and at the same time made many home fans in the stadium also take the initiative to give warm applause after a huge exclamation.
The camera turned to the bench on the sidelines, and the Inter generals were almost carved out of a mold, all with their heads in their hands, with expressions of surprise and regret on their faces, and even the calm Spalletti also showed a frowning look, which confirmed from the side how good Cassie's save was this time.
Buoyed by their goalkeeper's brilliant save, Torino then defended a successful corner and played a quick counter-attack, forcing Brazilian Miranda to bring down Immobile at high speed at the edge of the penalty area at the cost of a yellow card, which defused the crisis. However, the home side's weakness was once again exposed, and although Benassi and Baseli combined to give the former's curling shot a better angle, the ball still went high over the crossbar and failed to cause Handanovic any problems.
Li Muddy has wanted to introduce a free kick master more than once, but most of the players with this ability value above 18 given by the FM system are the kind of players with a single function that are not suitable for the team's current tactical system, and the rest are world-class superstars, and it is almost impossible for the Torino team to buy. Therefore, he can only set up a training program to strengthen free kick shooting in his daily training, hoping to tap the potential of the existing players in the team, but the effect is obviously not very ideal.
Without mentioning the Torino manager's troubles in this regard, let's get back to the game. Just when the home team wanted to take advantage of the momentum to invest more troops in the offensive end, they were shocked into a cold sweat by a counterattack by Inter Milan, and had to honestly implement the manager's pre-game arrangement, first stabilize the defense and then wait for the opportunity to attack.
In the 19th minute, Gagliardini intercepted Barcelona one-on-one in his own half, and immediately after the break, he sent a precise long ball to Icardi outside the home team's penalty area, and only two central defenders were left in front of the defenders. The Inter captain did not choose to force a breakthrough at this time, but paused slightly and then distributed the ball diagonally to the right front, where Candreva who was inserted at high speed just in time, and volleyed into the near corner from a position of 17 or 8 meters away from the goal, which was saved by Cassie.
Candreva whipped in a corner and the Torino defenders made a rare mistake in collective judgement, with the tall men all rushing forward to give Perisic a great header at the far post. Fortunately, Canneman reacted quickly and tried to interfere with the Croatian winger, and Perisic's header was not very good, and it was so close to the goal that it could be high, so anxious that many visiting fans jumped to their feet. The broadcaster's slow-motion replay showed that the header also hit the top edge of the crossbar slightly, which can be said to be quite thrilling.
Li Mudi was naturally strongly dissatisfied with this situation, he came to the sidelines to remind the players to concentrate their attention at all times, and the core of the defense Ranocchia nodded vigorously to the boss outside the field in response, and then took advantage of the caddy did not throw the ball back, and made a simple communication with several teammates.
Since then, the visitors have gradually taken the initiative on the field, and although the combination in positional battles is still jerky, they have made some names in attack based on the individual ability of stars such as Icardi.
In the 23rd minute, Icardi was brought down by a relentless Belotti from around two metres out of the top of the box to win a well-placed free-kick, and Candreva followed Carlos's example of a small break to deliver a powerful shot that went over the crossbar. Four minutes later, it was Candreva who forced his foot to volley from the top of the box, but couldn't get out of the way and the ball was easily confiscated by Cassie.
The Torino team is not blindly passively beaten, and has planned several counterattacks, but most of them have not worked, only Belotti received a long pass from Benassi in the 31st minute of the game, and completed a difficult cushion shot on the right side of the penalty area, which naturally failed to hit the target.
However, the Red Bulls' chance was not long in coming, and in the 34th minute, the home team's veteran D'Ambrosio picked up a cross from the left, and the outflanked Icardi earned a rare landing point, and his header back allowed the follow-up Miranda to complete a cushion shot in front of goal. Today, Cassie was like a god, and he quickly fell to the ground with a reaction that did not look like he was about to turn 37, and saved the close goal. Just when the fans at the scene once again gave him warm applause, the referee's whistle also sounded, and it turned out that the linesman had raised the flag to signal that Miranda was offside.
The decision immediately stopped a number of players from both sides who rushed over to compete for the second spot, but at this time, Ranocchia, who was closest to the ball, suddenly accelerated to the front of the ball, pressed it firmly to the turf to form a complete standstill, and immediately kicked the ball to Barceli ten meters away. The latter stopped the ball and turned around and then found Belotti near the halfway line with a long pass, and the others, especially the Inter players, reacted and the home team's counter-attack had begun. With the exception of Torino's two centre-backs and the visitors' Icardi, everyone started to play for their lives and raced to the other half of the pitch.
Fortunately, Inter's previous offensive was not pressed by all players, and Brozovic still stood in front of the red bebe in time. Although Benasi's response allowed Belotti to shake off the Croatian's entanglement after completing a one-two, his speed of advancing with the ball was inevitably slowed down, and there were not many points in front of him, so the Torino No. 9 had to choose to carry the ball forward by himself at a not too fast pace.
After this counterattack evolved into this situation, there was basically no big threat. Although Immobile has already swam to the left of the penalty area, and Silvestri on the right is also desperately accelerating forward, but with Belotti's passing ability, it is obviously too difficult for him to send a diagonal pass that must be brilliant and go around the opposing defender to find his teammates. If it really succeeds, then Red Babe will not only be a powerful center, but definitely a world-class superstar at the Mero level.
However, the luck of the Red Bulls continued to make other teams jealous, and when Belotti used his ordinary vision to find a way to pass the ball, and ran to the front of the opponent's penalty area, the ball at his feet was suddenly stabbed away by the force behind him. It turned out that the fast horse Perisic on the wing returned to the defense in time and found the opportunity to break the offensive of the Torino team. But his broken ball thoroughly explained what it means to do good things with good intentions, and the diagonal straight plug that the opponent's center forward couldn't pass was born under the random stab of the Croatian winger.
The ball passed through the space between Miranda and D'Ambrosio, and with a strong side spin, it didn't fly straight off the line, but instead turned to the left side of the away half, allowing Silvestri to get the assist. The Torino right wing-back knocked the ball into the back post area without stopping, Slovakia central defender Skriniar tried to fall to the ground and tackle the interception, Handanovic, who had just moved to the front post, turned back to block but could not have time, and the ball was easily pushed into the empty goal by Immobile who rushed to the back post.
1-0, the Red Bulls took the lead in knocking on the opponent's city with a lucky counterattack, and temporarily took the lead in this strong dialogue.