As they were on their way to the stadium in a taxi, Li Mudi received a call from Valentino Cairo, who told him that it was not good or bad news: just an hour earlier, Udinese had held a press conference announcing the official departure of head coach Beppe Iachini, becoming the second manager to be sacked in Serie A this season.

The midfielder, who played as a midfielder and had made over 200 appearances in Italy's top flight, began his coaching career in Cesena in 2002/03 and went on to manage the likes of Vicenza, Piacenza, Chievo, Brescia, Sampdoria, Siena and Palermo. Although he has not yet won any accolades in terms of coaching achievements, Yaccini's attacking philosophy has been recognised by many fans, and he also has a knack for developing young players, with Belotti and Dybala emerging from two of the hottest stars in European football today.

In the middle and late stages of last season, in the 29th round of the league, Udinese lost 1-2 at home to Roma, leaving only four points away from the relegation zone, and the situation was very urgent. The decision was made at the club's top to change the manager, allowing former coach Luigicanio, who had lost his job since sacking Catania in 2013-14, to replace former coach Stefano Colantuono. And Decanio only did not do it well, with 2 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses in the last nine rounds of the league ranking 16th in the league, only one point higher than the relegated Kapi, scaring the team nicknamed Little Zebra (Udinese's official nickname is the Black and White Army, Little Zebra, Friuli Zebra, and Black Rooster is a misinformation of the Celestial Empire). So at the end of the season, Decanio was rightfully not given a contract extension, and his successor was Bepeacchini.

Unfortunately, due to the unfavorable schedule and its own reasons, Udinese lost 0-4, 1-2, 0-1, 0-3 to Roma, Chievo, Sassuolo and Lazio in the first seven rounds of this season. According to the instant news searched by Li Mudi on his mobile phone, most of the media are more optimistic that Idi Rhea, Eugenio Corini and Andrea Mandolini and others have the opportunity to take over the position left by Yacini, but the FM system in his mind once again confirms how unreliable those media are. Luigi del Neri, the 66-year-old Italian football coach and former coach of Juventus before the five-time title in a row (which was really bad enough), has signed with Udinese and will lead the team to the rest of the Serie A schedule, just to be officially announced.

However, Li Mudi didn't have much feeling for this fired colleague, after all, there are really few people in this line of work who can do it well except Lord Wei, and Lord Fu can really do it well, of course, the legendary Guy Roux, who has been in charge of Auxerre for 44 years, is not in the scope of this discussion. Not to mention the still chaotic Celestial Empire football, only as far as the traditional five major European leagues are concerned, at least five or six coaches in each league have to leave class halfway through a season to catch up with the "peak season", and it is normal to have one. Although the current results of the Torino team are too good to be a mess, if Li Mudi does not prepare enough every minute, maybe a two-game losing streak will make him hear the sound of dismissal, three consecutive defeats or four rounds of winless may make the chairman really think about the managerial position, if the heavy defeat is under Juventus, maybe he will be released from the contract at that time. Therefore, the head coach of any professional team is not qualified to pity his peers who have been dismissed, because no one can say whether he will be the next poor creature to lose his job.

Fortunately, the taxi driver is very skilled, and the stadium is very close to the airport, and it takes about seven or eight minutes to get two people to their destination. After paying for the car, they hurriedly took out the tickets they had bought and rushed through the security checkpoint before the start of the game.

It was one of the highlights of the second round of Group G of the 2018 FIFA World Cup European Qualifiers in Russia, with Italy hosting Spain, both teams winning the previous round of fixtures, a game widely seen as a battle for top spot in the group, with a win in the race for direct qualification. Speaking of which, the relationship between the two teams and Li Mudi is still very close, one is the country where he has lived for ten years and coached the first team in his life, and the other is where he works and lives now. Even the managers of the two teams are inextricably linked to him, Ventura is his predecessor at the Turin club, and the head coach of the Spanish national team, Julien Lopetegui, who was born in the Real Madrid academy and was a classmate of Li Mudi for three months when he was admitted to the coaching certificate in 10 years, and they are also very familiar with each other.

As for the starting lineup, the matadors who are away are still quite decent, with a 4-3-3 position, except for Sevilla's winger Vitolo (Victor Machin, nicknamed Vitolo) on the front line to partner Diego Costa in the front, the rest of the starting nine are the previous main teams. Julen Lopetegui basically overthrew the strikerless formation often used by his predecessor boss Bosque, and established the tactical idea of "beauty in the prime of life" as a single arrow in front, Bitolo's position was fixed in the position of right winger, and Silva, although called left winger, is the player with the largest range of activities in the entire Spanish team, equivalent to a free man in the front. This makes their overall formation more like an "unbalanced formation" with a right side when they have the ball in control, which is very unique.

On the other hand, looking at the starting list of the Italian team, Li Mudi feels that he and Ventura have a completely incompatible brain circuit, and the current Torino coach has always felt that in the case of using a two-striker strategy, Belotti and Immobile are the most efficient frontcourt combination of the current Azzurri. But Ventura just kept holding on to Pelle and Eder, and it seemed that he had an "unswerving" trust. God knows how a "money maniac" who can't play the main team in Inter Milan clubs, who has not scored a goal in seven league games, and a "money madman" who can't achieve an average goal rate of 0.5 even in Celestial Empire football, is ranked in front of Red Babe, who scored eight goals in six games, and Immobile, who scored four goals in seven games, this kind of judgment is absolutely rare in the world. In addition, Chiellini's red card suspension in the previous round could pose a problem for the defence, and AC Milan's young centre-back Romagnoli was given his first start in his international career.

As two of the best teams in European football, there is still a lot of exchange between Italy and Spain, and since 2011, the two sides have met seven times before this game, winning two each, three of which were draws (one of which ended up being decided by penalty kicks), but in terms of gold content, it is clear that the matadors have the upper hand. The record of 1 win, 1 draw and 1 defeat in three friendlies is evenly matched, but Italy's other victory was the just-concluded European Championship in France, where they won 2-0 in the quarter-finals, but unfortunately fell to the iron hooves of the German chariot. Spain's victory came in the Euro 2012 final, a 4-0 scoreline that not only set a record, but also made it a second time that Italian football missed out on its best chance to lift the trophy since 1968 (the first was a 2010 Golden Ball defeat by France). The final exceptional draw came in the 2013 Confederations Cup, where the two sides played to a goalless score within 120 minutes, and the penalty shoot-out was once again in favour of the Spaniards, 6-7, ending Italy's hopes of reaching the final of the tournament for the first time in their history. Of course, don't forget that in 2008, when the Spanish dynasty was first established, they eliminated the Italians in the quarter-finals on penalties.

However, after the change of new managers, both teams have entered a period of adjustment, although the starting lineups of both sides have not changed much compared to their predecessors, but compared to Ventura's conservatism, Lopetegui has some changes in the frontcourt, but from this game it seems that there is no positive effect. In order to better control the midfield, Lopetegui sent a total of five midfielders, including wingers who can drop back at any time, but the Italian team's defensive strategy, which is mainly defensive tactics, is to firmly follow the ball and the movement of the players to carry out defensive formations, facing the opponent's players to form a number of small defensive lines in an instant, forcing Spain to return the ball to re-attack, once the opponent re-develops the ball to the other side, they have rearranged the defensive layer.

Therefore, for most of the first half, although the visiting midfielders led by Andres Iniesta and Silva had a considerable advantage in ball control, due to the increase in age, they especially Xiaobai have lost their former power in speed, even if their delicate foot skills are still unique in the world, but they are no longer able to break through the Italian encirclement net by themselves. In the tenth minute, the two completed a wonderful combination, Iniesta played a 2-1 with Silva in the midfield, the former burst all the way to the vicinity of the penalty area, and then he and Silva had a combination, and the latter passed back to Xiaobai, but unfortunately Xiaobai deftly shook off Florench's left-footed shot after a step inside the big penalty area line, and was easily grabbed by Buffon on his chest. These two successive combinations were definitely a wonderful performance of the two midfield masters, but Xiaobai's shot showed that he was already "the end of the crossbow" in the end, breaking through from the midfield all the way to the penalty area, which seemed too difficult for a 32-year-old veteran.

Although the Matadors were still in control of the tempo of the field, their attack was always so weak in front of the Azzurri who were almost back to their peak defence, and from the fourteenth minute onwards, the visitors failed to succeed in a number of threatening attacks. Silva's cross from the left side of the box was blocked by a defender, and then Bitolo's through ball from inside on the right was confiscated by the decisive Buffon before Costa could get off his feet. Two minutes later, Silva broke down the left and crossed for Costa to have his shot blocked by Barzagli. In the 17th minute, Silva deflected the ball from the edge of the box and flew high over the crossbar before Andres Iniesta whipped in a corner from the right and flicked it wide of the post. It looked like Spain had been in the driver's seat, but in the actual details, they weren't much closer to scoring than Italy.

Just as the visitors were about to step up their pitch at the back, the unexpected happened, Real Madrid defender Carvajal left the pitch in the 22nd minute, and the Spaniard's biggest obstacle for the Spaniard, who had the opportunity to become the world's No. 1 right-back, was an injury that seemed to be impossible to get rid of. Julen Lopetegui had to switch on another Real Madrid defender, Nacho, who had almost zero assists, and Spain had to rely on Bitolo and Atletico Madrid midfielder Koke to attack on the right.

At half-time, with a four-point difference in shots on goal and a 10-point difference in possession, the two sides went into their respective dressing rooms with a score of 0-0. However, the situation that the two sides only hit the goal frame once in total also faithfully reflects the tediousness of this game, if it is not for the sitting posture and can't sleep, it is estimated that many fans on the scene should have begun to dream. However, even if someone did practice the magic of sitting and sleeping, they would be woken up, and the cameramen in the stadium began to look for interesting shots in the audience at halftime, and when the Torino manager's face appeared on the big screen above the stadium, the few Juventus fans in the stadium still struggled to create a loud enough boo, although if it were not for the sound effects added by the stadium staff, maybe the boos would not have attracted more attention. However, Li Mudi kept smiling the whole time, and when there was a recent camera shining on his face, he also made a very happy appearance, after all, the boos from the fans of the sworn enemy showed that he did threaten them, isn't it worth being happy?

After the restart of the second half, Lopetegui did not know which tendon was wrong, and even gave up Spain's traditional possession advantage, and began to look for strikers directly in the midfield and increase through balls. However, the success rate of this kind of through ball is not high, and it is easy to be cut off and surrender possession, and the Italian team also took this opportunity to catch up with the gap between the two sides in possession rate step by step. In the 54th minute, Busquets sent a long through ball near the center circle, and the ball was sent to Bitolo, Buffon made an inexplicable mistake outside the penalty line, he failed to touch anything but gave Bitolo an empty goal, who easily pushed the shot, Italy 0-1 Spain!

After conceding the goal, Ventura finally reacted, replacing Pelle and Parolo with Immobile and Belotti one after another, and adjusting the formation to a front three. This kind of desperate play paid off in the 80th minute, with Red Babe crossing the middle on the right side of the penalty area, and Eder being beaten by Ramos (again Shui Ye!) before receiving the ball. The referee awarded a penalty and De Rossi headed it to level the score.

In the end, the two sides shook hands with a score of 1-1 in this world-renowned "revenge battle", but because in another Group G match at the same time, Albania defeated the weak team Liechtenstein to win two consecutive victories, which made the two teams of Spain and Italy, both 1 win and 1 draw, slipped to the second and third positions respectively in the current group standings.