Chapter 421: Victory and Funeral

The formation sent by the two teams today is almost exactly the same, both are 3-5-2 positions without a forward midfield, and the technical characteristics of the core of the two sides have a lot of imagination, Barella and Baseli are both modern midfielders with a large range of activities and a more balanced passing ability, so the offensive tactics arranged by the managers on both sides are somewhat mirrored, and they are all layers of advancement, and the main direction of attack is the gap between the opponent's three central defenders.

However, although the difference in ability between the two midfield cores is not huge, the overall quality of the visiting team players still has a slight upper hand, coupled with the targeted deployment that Li Mudi has come up with after studying for many days, and the fact that some players in the Torino team are in excellent form today, these factors combined to make the game a one-sided situation. After the first 10 minutes of probing each other, the Red Bulls quickly took the initiative on the court and launched a number of dangerous attacks on the home team's goal in a short period of time, ending the suspense of the game early.

In the seventeenth minute, after a series of passes, Febas suddenly sent a delicate through plug in the front, Bareka on the left side inserted the ball in front of the bottom line and passed to the penalty area, Belotti accelerated from the top of the penalty area to catch and dribble directly to the corner of the left small penalty area. In the face of the attacking goalkeeper Cragno, the red babe shot directly from a small angle, but although the ball passed under the armpit of the former, it hit the post in the near corner and did not fly in the direction of the goal.

However, when the home team breathed a sigh of relief, the danger was not lifted, and the ball showed an almost vertical mirror effect, and went straight back to the spot where Belotti took the shot. Due to the very fast speed of the ball, both Red Babe and Cragno, who fell to the ground, failed to react in time, and the ball did not know which of the two of them had touched, and rebounded again, this time in the direction of the small penalty line in the middle. As many as four players from both teams rushed to the goal, but no one was ready for the ball to come to the area, so everyone could only watch as the ball slid past the feet of the two home defenders after a series of rebounds, and finally crashed into the innocent-looking Immobile calf and into the unguarded empty goal.

Torino took the lead in knocking on the opponent's city away from home with this goal with an indescribable lucky goal, and the local broadcaster's commentator sighed that the home team's luck was really bad today.

But four minutes later, the Red Bulls players shut up those who attributed the score change to luck. In another multi-player attack, Barceli received Belotti's header and sent a through ball to his right front, as Mobile used his speed to get past the home team's centre-back Kastan (the Brazilian who was loaned to Torino by Roma last season, and joined Cagliari on loan in January this year) burst into the right side of the penalty area, attracted the attention of other defenders and then passed the ball back to the penalty spot, where Belotti met the ball and fired it into the bottom left corner of the goal. Extended the visitors' lead to two goals.

This goal fully shows the super high tacit understanding between the Torino players, especially the two national team strikers, and the director of the Celestial Empire, Zhan Jun, posted a Weibo after the game, thinking that Di Biagio should watch the video of this game, from which he can feel what kind of sparks these two contemporary Italian strikers will produce together, which may have a certain inspiration for the tactical arrangement of the national team.

Let's not mention the off-the-field tidbits, and turn our attention back to the live scene of the battle of Kadu. Facing the disadvantage of being two goals down in the first 21 minutes, the home team has very little room to choose, although Uruguayan coach Diego López does not trust his side's attacking line that has only scored 27 goals in 28 league games, but the backline, which has conceded more than 1.6 goals per game, looks worse today, and the probability of this plan becoming a reality is indeed a little low. So Lopes can only instruct his players to step up their attack, and look for opportunities to score in front of the court while suppressing the visitors' attacks.

And as we all know, Li Mudi, a coach from the Real Madrid department, can not only use ball control and offensive tactics, defensive counterattack is his unique ability to press the bottom of the box, how many strong teams are defeated under his "obscene" anti-counter tricks, in terms of Cagliari's current staffing and overall strength, it is obviously impossible to prevent the Red Bulls from attacking, the score was rewritten to 0-3 in the thirty-eighth minute of the first half, the home team theoretically still has the hope of getting points, but those who see the situation on the field are very clear, All they could do was try to avoid a massacre.

Musis launched a long ball directly after the midfield broke the ball, Belotti faced his own field to resist the home team's central defender Chepitelli, rubbed the ball to his right back, and Immobile, who was cruising there, accelerated to shake off the home team's right wing-back Farago, and accelerated to the opponent's hinterland with the ball.

As soon as he stepped onto the penalty line, he was met by another centre-back, Romagna, who had just moved to Cagliari from Juventus last summer and had plenty of potential at the heart of Italy's youth team of all ages. However, the young man's experience was obviously not enough, and the veteran Immobile quickly lost his center of gravity with a feint, and the Torino No. 10 immediately flicked the ball horizontally with his right foot, dodged Romagner's defensive area, and directly kicked up with a powerful slash to the ground.

The defender struggled to reach out with his right foot in the hope of blocking the striker's powerful shot, but the ball passed under his crotch and headed straight for the near corner of the net at great speed. The home team's goalkeeper Cragno was blocked by his teammates, and when he found that the powerful shot went straight to the bottom corner of his right hand side, he made a fall to the ground to save, and he was already half a beat slower, and could only watch the ball slide in front of his fingers and crash into the net, helplessly accepting the reality that the gate was breached for the third time.

The appearance of this goal also declared that the remaining 60 minutes of the game were garbage time, because in the face of the Torino team, who mainly played defensive counter-attacks, it was almost impossible to equalize the score with Cagliari's attacking ability. The demoralised home side gave up their hopes of a point early and used the opportunity to train their newcomers, with 20-year-old Colombian Damir Seth and 19-year-old North Korean demon Han Kwang-song coming off the bench to improve the youngsters' skills against a strong team like Torino. And Li Mudi also replaced several cores early to prepare for the next schedule.

In the 82nd minute, the visitors took advantage of the counter-attack to score again, when Boyer's cross from the edge of the Febas penalty area was successfully countered offside, and the latter burst to the left side of the baseline to knock the ball across the goal, a nanny-style pass helped the unmarked Pellegri in the middle to push the empty goal, and the final score was fixed at 0-4.

After a complete away win over Cagliari, Torino currently have an impressive record of 19 wins, 6 draws and 4 defeats, and are firmly in third place in the Serie A table. And because the Roma team, which was the first to end this round of games, was forced to 1-1 by Bologna away from home, the Red Bulls have widened the gap between the two sides to five points with one less game, consolidating the situation of qualifying for the Champions League.

In the rest of the matches, Fiorentina won 2-0 against Crotone, extending the unbeaten record since Astori's death; Inter Milan and Lazio both claimed a big win at their respective home stadiums; Napoli were the only strong team to capsize unexpectedly, and they were forced to score 1-1 by mid-table Sassuolo after winning 75% possession on the road, causing the biggest upset of the weekend. Juventus, who had received such a big gift before the start of the game, naturally did not waste this great opportunity to widen the difference, and the old lady won 3-1 at home to AC Milan, who had recently rebounded in form, to lead the Serie A title race by two points.

Just as the Italian media began to make all sorts of predictions about Juventus' prospect of a staggering seventh consecutive title, Li Mudi, who had rushed to cope with the post-match press conference, got on a plane with his colleagues and players and flew back to Turin overnight. The team will face Europa League opponents Red Bull Salzburg in five days' time, and the head coach has decided to take a day off tomorrow in order to give everyone a better rest. Spending the night in an out-of-town hotel is obviously not as comfortable as returning to your own home, and the game is not too late to finish, so that everyone can get into their own home bed before midnight.

However, on Sunday, the players were allowed to rest, but the club's staff were still unable to enjoy the holiday. In addition to some employees who already had to work overtime, some of the club's top executives dressed in dark clothes gathered at the residence at 10 a.m. and drove together to a church in the city, and Li Mudi was one of them.

Last Wednesday, Emiliano Mondonico, a famous Italian football coach who just celebrated his 71st birthday, died in the early hours of the same day after battling cancer for nearly seven years. The funeral of the old coach took place on Sunday, and the Torino club, as his old club, naturally could not remain indifferent, and the high-level officials, represented by the president Urbano Cairo, almost all went out to bid farewell to the last of the team's former exploits.

Born in 1947 and part of the small club Clermones, he joined the Red Bulls at the age of 21 as a right winger, but did not settle for the main position, and two years later left for Serie C side Monza with a record of 16 Serie A appearances and two goals. After playing for Atalanta and his parent club Clermones, he returned to Torino at the age of 32, where he eventually hung up his boots and retired.

After a lackluster playing career, he became the head coach of Clermonis' Under-19s in 1979/80 and has since embarked on an illustrious managerial career. In the 1987-90 season, he led Atalanta to the top of the Serie A table and reached the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia and the European Cup Winners' Cup once.

After the World Cup in Italy, Mondonico was recruited by his old club Torino, and the Red Bulls entered a small peak stage. During his four years in charge, the team finished runners-up once in the league, finished fifth once, and reached the final of the League Cup in 1991-92, losing to Ajax, but finishing second was the only European result in the Red Bulls' 100-year history. The following year, under Mondonico's leadership, the Torino team also won the last domestic cup in the team's history, which can be said to be the direct creation of the Red Bull's last glory period.

However, after the peak, the Torino team, whose economic strength is obviously far from the giants, soon experienced a significant decline in results, and after only leading the team to ninth and eighth places in the league in the third and fourth years, the old coach left and returned to the Atalanta coach's box. However, the experience was clearly not as good as it used to be, and after three consecutive years in the bottom half of the standings, the Poseidon Son was finally relegated to the second division after the 1997-98 season, and Mondonico was naturally swept away.

He then moved to the Red Bulls for the second time, bringing relegated Torino back to the First Division, only to return to the Second Division just one season later, eventually bidding farewell to his old club.

After entering the new century, Mondonico, who is over half a hundred years old, is still active in the coaching bench of Italian teams at all levels, not only picking up the coaching whip of Serie A teams such as Napoli and Fiorentina, but also coaching small teams such as Albino Lefe and Cosenza, but basically has not been able to last more than one season in any team and has become a veritable homeless coach.

In 2011, he was diagnosed with cancer and had no choice but to step down from Albino Lefe. But just when it was thought he would never cross paths with football again, Mondonico, who claimed to have fully recovered after just a few months of treatment, took over the relegation of Serie A side Novara. However, the effect of this trip was still not ideal, and even if he led the weak Novara to defeat the giant Inter Milan in Meazza, it did not alleviate the team's already mired relegation quagmire. Two months later, Mondonico, who showed signs of deteriorating fitness, left the team with a record of 1 win, 2 draws and 3 defeats, which was also the end of his career.

Throughout Mondonico's entire coaching career, there were not many dazzling achievements, with the only trophy being the Coppa Italia in 1993. However, he led a number of non-big teams to produce almost the best records in the history of their respective teams at the time, especially during his first time in charge of Torino, allowing Red Bulls supporters to enjoy their last moment of glory before the arrival of Li Moody, so he has a very high status in the hearts of fans. And the old man's popularity in the circle is also very good, Li Mudi met Guidolin, Spalletti and other Serie A coaches at the funeral, and also met Vazquez, one of the five eagles of Real Madrid in the past, who once played for the Torino team coached by Mondonico, and the relationship between the two is very deep.

After bidding farewell to the club's past exploits, Li Mudi focused all his energy on preparing for Thursday's Europa League. In order to study his opponent as thoroughly as possible, he even turned down the invitation of his friend Raul and did not go to watch the highlight match between Juventus and Real Madrid on Tuesday night, but chose to use the FM system at home to sort out the player information of Red Bull Salzburg in more detail. Who knew that he forgot the time when he was busy, and when he remembered to turn on the TV, the score displayed on the screen had become 0-3, and he couldn't help but let the Torino coach pinch his thigh, this Nima is dreaming!