Chapter 180: The Two Heavens of Joy and Sorrow (Part 3)
Veteran coach Delneri is an attacking manager, as evidenced by the number of goals scored by the team since he took over Udinese, with only six goals scored in the first seven league games, and seven goals in the last three rounds, improving their attacking ability by more than one level. However, after more than 30 years of coaching the team, he will naturally not only attack on a single basis, whether it is a low-level team like Teramo, a ladder in the first and second divisions like Novara and Verona, or a traditional powerhouse such as Roma and Juventus, he can always find the most suitable way to increase the number of goals. Ball control, speed, set-pieces...... In short, as long as the team has any strengths, he will integrate them into his tactical system and then show them to the fullest. Judging from the ability values given by the FM system, Delneri has strong willpower, is good at using pressing defensive methods, and has achieved the ultimate in core players and making full use of the width of the field (full value of 20). In addition, both of them have reached the discipline requirements of 19 and the youth training ability, both of which are 17 to judge the current ability and potential of the value, which shows that the old coach is a very good youth team manager, Li Mudi feels that it would be good if he could be poached to the Torino club, and within five years, the first team can have more than a third of the youth players available.
Of course, he has reached the age of 66, but he still has not shown the slightest intention of retreating into the background, and the Torino coach is destined to be here for himself. However, this also proves that the strength of the other party cannot be underestimated, and if you can't be prepared, you will capsize in the gutter.
Speaking of the core players of Udinese, we have to mention their French goalscorer Cyril Théréau, a 33-year-old veteran who has wandered through multiple teams earlier in his career (even eight months older than Li Mudi!). After landing in Serie A in the summer of 2009, he quickly established himself in Verona and has been an absolute mainstay in the team's forward line. Last season, the Black and White team, in order to find a replacement for the elderly (a word mentioned here would be a bit ironic), bought Taylor for a transfer fee of 2 million euros, and the latter also repaid the new club with two consecutive seasons of scoring doubles, although only 21 goals combined. This player is the typical all-round player who has no character, and seems to be able to do anything, but there is nothing he can do when he encounters a first-class defensive player, but it is more than enough to be the core of a team like Udinese that has to fight for relegation every year.
The talent of this team is indeed limited, and from the information previously found through scouting tools, the players with the highest potential value in the team are the famous demon goalkeeper Alex Meret (Alex Meret) born in 97 and another goalkeeper born in 96 Simone Scuffet, both of whom are highly coveted young talents by Li Mudi, but there is no expensive euro to open the way, and I believe that they will never be able to take them home from the most famous black shop in Italy. The Pozzo family, whose strategy is to sell potential new stars, once famously said: "Except for Di Natale, everything else in the team can be sold!" "Looking at it this way, it is not surprising that they sold the team's two most valuable players, Polish midfielder Piotr Zielinski and Uruguayan striker Nicolás López, to Napoli and Brazil International for 15 million and 9.4 million euros respectively in spite of the team's difficult relegation situation in the summer. The biggest loss of the team is that Di Natale, the team soul who has played for 12 years, chose to retire, which is a great loss for the team that has no sense of belonging.
In terms of recruitment, Udinese did not invest much, but although the players bought were not famous, their strength was still no worse than the original players in the team, even if no one could have the potential to become the core, but the thickness of the team in various positions has been strengthened.
Seven league games have been completed before the official start of this game, and in one of the most interesting matches, the old lady beat Napoli 2-1 at home, and Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina have also won their respective opponents, and gradually and steadily progressed. Roma, on the other hand, were forced to 0-0 away from home by Empoli, and the gap was widened by Juventus. Another traditional giants who failed to take all three points were the new manager Inter Milan, with Stefano Pioli drawing just one on their debut, and Sampdoria showing a stunning momentum at home and deserving a 1-1 bonus. Finally, it was the league's vice-leaders who finally got their first win of the new season, winning 2-0 at home to Chievo and finally moving up one place. Of course, there is another old rivalry that has attracted national attention, Gasperini led Atalanta, who have been in super good form recently, to beat his old club Genoa by three goals at home, and he also proved that his choice of summer and Li Mudi's vision were not wrong.
However, the Torino coach, who has been secretly called the "Prophet of the East" by some people, failed to seize the opportunity to prove that he and his team had stepped into this unwinnable cycle at this stage, and after 90 minutes, the score was 2-2 on the big screen of the Stadio Friuli. The visitors have also slipped further down the table from second place, which almost made history eight days ago, to fourth, while the gap to the leaders has been extended to six points, while seventh-placed Atalanta are just two points away from them, and European qualification is already in jeopardy.
Torino enjoyed 58.5% of the possession time in this game, and were completely beaten by the old fox Del Neri with the tactics that Li Mudi is good at, and the home team was ahead of the visitors in terms of shots on goal and shots on target, and their counter-attacking tactics were like a replica of the previous Torino team against a strong team, and the away players were frustrated.
Benassi had a great chance to get a solo chance from Belotti in the 15th minute, though, as he volleyed home from inside the box to give the visitors the lead. However, Udinese showed no intention of giving up on scoring or even winning, and in the 60th and 70th minutes of the second half, they completed the lead thanks to Taylor's header in front of the six-yard penalty line in the middle, and Colombian striker Duván Zapata, who is on loan from Napoli, to bounce a team-mate into the net on the goal line. In the 77th minute, Rajadzic cut inside with his left foot after receiving a cross from Zampacosta on the right side of the box, and the ball drilled into the bottom left corner of the goal at a very awkward angle, and Torino stubbornly equalized.
After that, neither side was able to create any good opportunities, so they could only shake hands and make peace. In addition to painfully accepting the team's third consecutive 2-2 scoreline, Li Mudi also got the bad news that Brazilian wingback Bruno Perez was suspected of straining his thigh muscles.
Fortunately, in the next two days, he and the players got a few good news, which can be regarded as turning some bad moods around. On the morning of the 3rd, the team medical director Greco reported to the team coach that Perez's injury was milder than expected, and he would recover in about a week, which was considered to have lifted the right-back crisis of the Torino team. Two days later, the Italian Football Federation announced the latest edition of the national team squad on its official website, in addition to the previous main players all selected, Marchisio, who suffered a serious injury in the European Cup, also returned from injury, and the most noteworthy is that the Torino club finally has a second active international player. Zampacosta, who has been in excellent form recently, has been named in the 28-man squad for the first time and will travel to Milan three days later with team-mate Belotti for a training camp to prepare for the World Cup qualifier away to Liechtenstein on the evening of the 12th. After the young man learned about this, he couldn't help but roar angrily, and then hugged Li Mudi, who was standing on the edge of the training ground with a smile on his face, and kept expressing his gratitude, after all, the reason why he was able to get the national team call-up was nothing more than the club's excellent results and his own outstanding performance, which were inseparable from the credit of the club's coach. So the FM system in Li Mudi's mind prompted that he had another player with a respect value of 50, which was also a surprise.
It's fast approaching the weekend of the week, with Torino making their first appearance in Serie A against Cagliari, who just returned to the Serie B side last season. As the only Sardinian side to have made it to Serie A in the last two decades, Cagliari's fame is not well known in European football, but in the 1969-60 season they won the only top-flight title in their history under superstar Luigi Riva, one of the most important accolades on Italy's second-largest island with a population of around 1.7 million.
In the 2014-15 season, Cagliari was only relegated to Serie B in the penultimate place of Serie A, but there, they did not give up on themselves like other teams, but still maintained a high fighting spirit after the squad overhaul, with a record of 25 wins, 8 draws and 9 losses in 42 rounds of league games, accumulating 83 points, winning the Serie B championship by 1 point over Crotone, and returning to Serie A after a year. The biggest contributor to the team's hiring of head coach Massimo Rastelli last summer, the 47-year-old former professional who spent time playing in the lower leagues but has shown his good side as a coach after retiring. This man is extremely good at adjusting the team's attacking tactics, and Cagliari's return to Serie A is entirely due to his strong attacking ability. Last season, four players in their squad scored in double figures: Joao Pedro (13 goals in 38 games), Diego Farias (14 goals in 34 games), Marco Sau (10 goals in 28 games) and Niccolò Gianetti (10 goals in 29 games), and the final goal tally was fixed at 78, nine more than Pescara, who scored the second most.
Cagliari have scored 19 goals in 11 games this season, despite facing stronger opponents, the sixth highest number of goals scored by all 20 teams, more than Milan duo and Fiorentina. Except for the away defeat to Juventus, the rest of the games have been scored regardless of the wins and losses, and even against the Purple Lily, who have conceded the second fewest goals, they can score three goals in a single game, which is definitely a big test for Torino's unreliable backline.
And they didn't lose a single key player in the previous transfer market, but instead strengthened the already shaky backline, signing Portugal international centre-back Bruno Alves for free, and the 35-year-old veteran performed well at the recently concluded European Championship and played a great role in the team's eventual victory. In addition, they also brought in Chilean international Mauricio Isla (Mauricio Isla) and local veteran Simone Padoin (Simone Padoin) from Juventus, which is close to the relationship, and the veteran Borriello has been added in the forward line, and the overall ability should not be underestimated. Li Mudi believes that this is a more formidable opponent than Udinese, and if he can't play 100 per cent, maybe the record of consecutive winless streaks will be difficult to break, even if he loses at home.
However, reality proved once again how outrageous the Torino manager's anticipation ability was at this stage, and the home team took the lead after just two minutes, Barceli, who was stimulated by Zampacosta's selection for the national team, sent a clever pass, his cross from 20 meters out went over the entire back line of Cagliari, Berotti burst into the box like a small tank and carried the defender with his right foot to hit the goal, the ball was blocked by the 39-year-old visiting goalkeeper Marco Storari. However, Red Babe followed up with another furious shot with his left foot, and Storari's death-throbbing struggle could not stop the heavy artillery. Torino's number one striker's twelfth goal of the season came so quickly, something that most people could not have anticipated before the game.
Eight minutes later, Belottti, who had been in great form since the start of the season, sent a diagonal pass past Isla on the counter-attack, and Rajjadzic pulled the ball horizontally in front of defender Luca Ceppitelli and fired a right-footed shot from about a meter outside the penalty area. 2-0, this game was so smooth, which made Li Mudi on the sidelines very happy.