Chapter 312: Formal Assemblies
Last season, Real Madrid achieved impressive results, beating old rivals Barcelona in the league to win their first title in nearly five years and the 33rd La Liga title in the team's history. In the Champions League, they went all the way, and finally defeated their nemesis Juventus in the final, not only won the Big Ears Cup for the third time in nearly four years, but also became the first team to successfully defend the Champions League since the Champions League was restructured. The title of European supremacy for the twelfth time in the club's history has allowed the Galacticos to continue to lead the selection of the best clubs in Europe of the 21st century.
However, just as the team should continue to work hard and strive for more honors in the new season, the club and head coach Zidane have received requests to leave the team from Morata and J Ronaldo, two indispensable players on the bench, and the central defender Pepe has also switched to Turkey's Besiktas because he failed to reach a contract extension (Li Mudi once hoped to get this experienced veteran, but unfortunately he could not meet the requirements of the other party in terms of annual salary, as long as he regretted missing out), the strength of the team has been greatly reduced. In addition, Coentrón and Danilo should not be in the squad either, and cleaning has become one of the key words of the team this summer.
If it is put in previous years, this is naturally not a big deal, a giant like Real Madrid will experience personnel turnover every year, and some people will come. However, Lafayette doesn't know which tendon is wrong, and the names of Hazard and De Gea don't seem to be on his list anymore, and the Real Madrid president has been fascinated by young players since he booked Brazilian Vinicius Júnior, who will not turn 17 until a few days later, for 45 million euros in May. After firing Real Betis midfielder Danny Ceballos, who was born in 1996, for 15 million, he spent another 30 million euros to poach French left-back Theo Hernandez (also translated as Theo) from his rival Atletico Madrid, causing quite a stir.
After recovering Mbappe, Jesus, Vallejo, Marcos Llorente, Borja Mayoral and Mele, who were on loan last season, Moroccan right-back Achraf Hakimi in the Castilla team was promoted to the first team, reducing the average age of the Real Madrid squad by as much as four years at once, making the Champions League winner full of youth.
However, with the exception of Asensio, Kylian Mbappe and Jesus, who excelled in their respective teams last season, none of the younger players have proven themselves in the top flight to help a champion team of Real Madrid's level, and it will take time to see how much they can play against strong opponents. Judging from the current situation alone, Zizou is not optimistic that they can perfectly replace world-class stars such as Alo Morata and Cristiano Ronaldo.
However, the potential of the youngest boys, who have just turned 21, is visible to all, and as long as they can pass the test of this season and play at the level that the outside world believes they can achieve, Real Madrid will firmly occupy the position of the world's top team in the next decade, and the formation of a dynasty is just around the corner.
Faced with his friend's pretending to vomit bitterness, the Torino coach naturally scoffed, and he responded: "Don't scream in front of me, if these players can come to the Torino team, I guess they will wake up laughing at night, it's exciting to think about these names!" For the sake of Mbappe and Asensio, I can give up all the people in the current team, you say, who you can fancie, we will exchange immediately. He was naturally greeted by Qi Zu's seemingly honest but actually cunning smile.
After chatting for an entire afternoon and exchanging views on the use and development of young players, the two friends agreed to meet the two teams in this year's Bernabéu Cup on August 9 in Madrid to see who could emerge victorious in the first match-up between the two sides.
In the evening of the same day, Li Mudi flew back to Turin City with Zheng Xiaoyang and Faosto Salsano, and after settling in for a day, it finally ushered in the day of team reporting.
On the evening of the 4th, the 2017-18 Serie A schedule has been announced by the Italian Football Federation on its official website, and the first round of the league will officially start at 17 o'clock local time on the evening of August 19, with the opening match of the defending champion Juventus facing Cagliari at home. The Red Bulls' first opponent is Bologna, and Li Muddy will lead the team to play away against Donadoni's team.
Overall, Torino's fixture schedule has been one of easy and then difficult, with the exception of a sixth-round trip away to the city derby, with the exception of a sixth-round trip to a local derby, none of which have been played against strong opponents in the first eight league games. However, starting from the 14th round, the Red Bulls will face AC Milan, Atalanta, Lazio and Napoli for four consecutive weekends, and if they are not careful, they will fall into a very unfavorable situation, which is a severe test for the team's head coach and players.
Along with the league fixtures, the Coppa Italia calendar will be released, with the first round of fixtures to be played over three days, 28-30 July. Because the Torino team won the third place in Serie A last season, they got the status of the seeded team and directly entered the round of 16. Given the matchups in the draw, they are likely to face their No.2 rivals Sampdoria in the quarter-finals.
As for the Europa League, the third tournament that the Red Bulls will play, the first qualifying round will be played on these two days, and the third and final play-off round will be completed on August 24. The draw for the group stage has been set for Monaco at one o'clock in the afternoon local time on the 25th at the Grimaldi Convention Center in Monte Carlo, and the first round of matches will be scheduled for Thursday, September 14, exactly in the middle of the third and fourth rounds of Serie A.
After getting the rough schedule for the first two months of the new season, Torino's scouting team began to make targeted work arrangements, and after adding two new scouts, the club finally relieved some of the embarrassment of lack of scouting ability, and could send special personnel to collect information about a certain club, which is very beneficial for the team's preparation.
To get back to the point, at half past nine on the morning of the 5th, the staff who arrived at the club's office building before the players arrived in the conference room on time, ready to start the first collective exchange of the new season. Not to mention other departments, this summer, the members of the coaching staff have undergone a lot of changes, in addition to Salsano replacing Frank de Boer as the attacking coach and Zheng Xiaoyang joining, the Torino coach has been applying to the top management has finally been approved, the addition of three new coaches makes the team in the attack, defense, technology, physical and goalkeeper positions have two staff configurations. This will greatly reduce everyone's workload, and at the same time, it will also help to refine the work, and it can also play a great role in improving the ability of players.
Philippe Lambert, the team's new strength and conditioning coach, French, born in 1962, was the head coach of the Ligue 1 Lille reserve team in the 1997-98 season, and like Salsano, he found that he was not up to the job and switched to becoming a professional strength and conditioning coach. From 1998 to the present day, he has played for three clubs: Lille, the French national team and Paris Saint-Germain, and last summer, with the end of his old partner Blanco's contract, Lambert also lost his job, and finally found a new contract in Italy after a full year of rest.
Paul McGuinness), the team's new defensive coach, is an Englishman born in 1966 and a United academy graduate, but has only made 20 appearances in senior football during his 10-year career, making him a very amateur professional. Coaching Manchester United's Under-18s since 1988, Beckham and Paul Scholes' 92-year-old generation was mentored by him, and was promoted to Under-18 manager in 2006 before the Reds had to leave home when Jose Mourinho took over at Old Trafford last summer. McGoinness in tune. He is very good at teaching players defensive and technical ability, and was introduced by Scholes to join the Torino coaching staff.
The last newcomer is a familiar old face, and through the tireless invitation of Li Mudi and Valentino Cairo, Italian goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca (Gianluca Pagliuca) finally agreed to take over the position of goalkeeper coach of the first team of Turin. The main goalkeeper of the Italian team in the 94 and 98 World Cups, an iconic figure in Italian football in the 90s, he took over the gloves left by Zenga together with Peruzzi, helping the Azzurri to remain among the top teams in the world in this decade. After Buffon and Toldo grew up, they quietly retreated behind them and continued to shine in the league.
On February 18, 2007, the handsome veteran goalkeeper, who has always been loved by fans, completed the last official game of his professional career at the age of 40 years and 62 days, and then announced his retirement at the end of the season. His total of 592 Serie A appearances surpassed the legendary Dino Zoff to become the goalkeeper in the most appearances in Italy's top flight, until he was surpassed by the greater Gianluigi Buffon last season.
In the summer of 2014, Pagliuca was invited back to his parent club Bologna to become the goalkeeper coach of the Under-20s, and during those three years he has been working on developing new talented goalkeepers. Unfortunately, due to the club's lack of strength and luck, only Federico Lavalglia, who played for the Italian U15 team, was barely promoted to the first team, and failed to dig up more and better seedlings. In the academy of Turin, there are not only Andrea Zaccaño, the main goalkeeper of the current Italian U20 team, but also Dominic Coppola, a young player who has emerged in the U18 team, plus the upcoming Savic, it can be said that there are many talents. It is precisely because of the presence of these young rookies that Li Mudi and others have the opportunity to invite Pagliuca over and become the last piece of the puzzle for the coaching staff.
Since they were in contact through email and phone before, although several of the people in the group were meeting for the first time, they were not too strangers to each other, and a few words of chat formed a basic river crab atmosphere. After a brief agreement on the first phase of the training program, everyone set off to the training ground, and the players have changed into training clothes in the locker room and started to warm up.
Although the stipulated time has not yet arrived, when the staff led by Li Mudi came to the edge of the venue, all the people who should be there at this moment have already appeared here. There are no big-name stars, no reckless and ignorant recruits, everything is so beautiful.
After Moretti, who took over as the first captain after the departure of Vivis last winter, commanded the players to stand in a horizontal row, the team's boss first briefly introduced the new staff, and then turned his attention to the faces of several new signings who came to the training ground on the first day, and asked them to introduce themselves by name.
The first to stand up was the veteran Iker Casillas, the legendary goalkeeper with the most honors and the highest historical status in the team, first greeted everyone in a sentence of Italian that he had learned first, and then expressed his joy at joining the Red Bulls in his decent English, and his ambition to perform well in the new season. With him proofing, Savic, Goldaniga, Diego Llorente, Canneman and Dimarco also made short speeches and appeared in front of their new teammates. However, several of them do not yet know Italian, so it is a bit difficult to communicate, and the club needs to arrange full-time personnel to help them master the language as soon as possible.
One of the club's most important signings of the summer, Immobile was the last to speak, saying he was delighted to be joining Torino for the third time and that returning to the training ground would be like coming back to home. He is also excited about the opportunity to learn from Li Mudi, a coach who is too young but has already resounded on the European continent, and hopes to work with the whole team in the next four years to reach new heights and restore his former glory.
Regarding this sycophant, Xiao Li said in his heart: "You have vision", but he still only had a smile on his face all the time, and he didn't make any big reaction. While it's unclear if the current Italian national team member is as impressed as he says he is, the FM system shows that Immobile is happy to move to Torino. With his friend Belotti here, a number of young talents at the age of 23 or 4 who are about to reach the peak of his ability, and the high salary offered by the new club to get him to nod and agree to join (more on that later), he will be in a wonderful mood in terms of personal feelings, the team's future results and treatment all better than staying at Lazio.
And not only Immobile, almost all the new signings are both happy and a little excited to be able to join the red bulls, Li Mudi believes that he has been the head coach of the Torino team for a year, not to mention the results, and has done a good job in improving the status of the club and creating a team of river crabs, which is worthy of praise.