Chapter Ninety-Nine: Fame and Fortune
Just when the home fans were still very surprised by the goal they conceded shortly after the game, something even more incredible happened: the Dominican striker scored twice in ten minutes to complete the hat-trick of the game.
In the seventh minute, Castilla completed an impressive team effort up front. After a simple exchange of passes between Febas and Toro, the ball was distributed to the left flank, where Cedres received the ball and dribbled forward, bringing up Abner on the left to attract the attention of the opposition defenders before cutting inside. The rest of the Valacardo defenders saw that the situation was not good, and they could only play a multi-man flank to prevent the visitors' left midfielders from entering the box. However, Cederes crossed the ball to Kutchi, who was following up on the right side of the middle, and the latter went straight forward to the line of the penalty area, which immediately attracted the attention of the opposing centre-back Etcheberia and left-back Pomares, who carelessly ignored the teenager Rashraf Hakimi, who was cutting in at high speed on the right flank. Kuchi took advantage of the change of rhythm at his feet, suddenly flashed open space to make a feint to shoot from distance, and after deceiving the opponent's left-back to lose his center of gravity, he remembered to send a through ball behind him. The Moroccan youngster, who played for Castile for the second time, went straight into the penalty area and crossed the ball five or six meters from the sideline of the small penalty area, giving Mariano, who followed up in the middle, a great opportunity to be five meters from the goal and unguarded. Faced with the opponent's close shot, the home team's goalkeeper Garcia had no choice but to raise his hand in surrender.
Two minutes later, the visitors played a quick counter-attack that closely resembled that of the first team, with Kutche, who had retreated to the vicinity of the halfway circle, after receiving a tackle from Toro, connected with Cedres on the left and dribbled past the opposition midfielder who had stepped forward to steal, and then dribbled forward at high speed. With Mariano's running and coordination, he once again hit the top of the arc of the penalty area, and after also attracting the attention of the opponent's backline, he distributed the ball to the right wing, and Alvaro received the ball and flashed the ball past the unlucky Permares today, and the inverted triangle pass on the line of the penalty area was returned to Kuchi near the penalty spot. The latter's feint-and-shoot sent centre-back Quintanilla aback, who was knocked to the ground with a thigh that was blocked by the opposition. On the penalty kick, the referee on duty awarded the capital penalty very decisively. Mariano's penalty easily fooled the home goalkeeper and flew into the net from the other side of the save to complete one of the fastest hat-tricks in Spanish football this season.
The early three-goal lead was indeed a big surprise to Li Mudi, and the form of the Castilla players in this game was really good, but considering the opponent's tough style of play that is very characteristic of the Basque Country and the excellent results before, this result is really surprising. Fortunately, the away team with a big lead is no longer in a hurry to invest too many troops in the attack, and the wonderful scenes on the field have become less.
With three goals conceded in the opening 10 minutes, the home team of Baracardo had completely lost their morale, and even the home fans who filled the entire Lasesarre stadium for the league title had lost their energy to cheer. In this way, in the next dozens of minutes, the two sides seemed to have a tacit understanding of each other to play the "peace ball", and there were no good chances to break the goal, and the score of 0-3 was maintained until halftime.
In the dressing room, the Castilla coach praised everyone well, and the next thing was to ask everyone to keep a good attitude and not leave opportunities for opponents and so on.
The second half of the game was still a repeat of the lifeless atmosphere, and there were few scenes in the stadium that could lift people's spirits. On the contrary, Li Mudi, who was sitting in the coach's box, kept a little nervous, and before leaving the dressing room at halftime, he asked the team physiotherapist who stayed inside to help him pay attention to the league information of Barcelona's away challenge to Real Sociedad. Just six or seven minutes after the start of the game, team doctor Dani Sanchez came to his ear and informed him in a somewhat strange tone: at Barcelona's Devil's Stadium Anoeta Stadium, just five minutes into the game, the home team was beaten by striker Oyarzabal to give Real Sociedad a 1-0 lead.
After learning the good news, Li Mudi's heart blossomed, you must know that the odds of the home team winning this game reached 6.00, which is an absolute big profit! After the previous national derby test and missed the big upset of Real Madrid's loss, I believe that Baozi will definitely seize the opportunity to make a fortune this time, which is really worth looking forward to! Of course, a one-goal lead is still far from insurance for a super team like Barcelona, so Li Muddy has been quietly cheering for Real Sociedad, hoping that they can make persistent efforts to further widen the score gap.
Unfortunately, until the end of the match between Baracaldo and Castilla, there was no news that the score had been rewritten. In the end, the home team saved some face with a goal in the 72nd minute of the second half, and the score of 1-3 was the final result of the meeting between the top two in the table.
After the game, the Castilla lads were still a little worried, after all, they were unable to keep a clean sheet against their opponents, and it was when the manager suggested that it be highlighted. However, Lee's hair dryer didn't start as expected, Li Muddy just let everyone take a shower after a brief summary of the game, and then on the way back to the hotel by bus, he also looked absent-minded, and the guys with good things were already beginning to guess whether their 10,000-year-old single boss had met the muse of his life. It wasn't until the group returned to the hotel room that the members who were closer to the team coach's room seemed to stop cheering Li Mudi, and everyone was confused.
The answer, of course, was that Real Sociedad maintained the name of the Barsac star in recent years, and finally kept the score 1-0 until the end of the game, so that the advantage of the league leaders was reduced to just three points, and the Madrid duo were already chasing behind them.
Regardless of the fact that it was still early in the morning on the side of the Celestial Empire, Li Mudi still made a long-distance call to his dead friend in an excited mood, and after the other party vented his double anger of being woken up and rashly mentioning sensitive events on the phone, he still inquired about the amount of gambling purchased this time: Li 800,000 euros, Qiao 500,000 euros, both of them did make a lot of money. According to Baozi's estimates, if everything goes well and all the money is now recovered, the amount on the account of the coach of Castilla will change from the previous 1.4 million euros to about 3.4 million euros, more than doubled. This good news directly stimulated Li Mudi so much that he couldn't sleep, and he had to use the Internet to pass the time all night, but he was still in good spirits early the next morning, like he was super happy. Fen. agent the same.
On the bus back to Madrid, the entire Castilla team was very happy, because the Marca newspaper was once again given a considerable report that morning. Simon Harrison, a columnist who has been close to the club before, wrote: "After the away win over Baracardo, the league's strongest opponent this season, we can simply check the league giants' upcoming schedule, a mercenary who lost 0-4 at home, a desireless person who is 13th in the table, a vice-president of the league, and a league sixth in the promotion play-offs are somewhat competitive opponents, but unfortunately Castilla is still playing at home. The last two opponents are 14th and 8th in the league, and they don't look too difficult. In other words, if the final promotion play-off can be successfully completed, Li Mudi's team will most likely complete the feat of being unbeaten all season, which is definitely the most amazing report card in the last decade, even if it is only a team competing in the third tier. ”
As a result, following the racial discrimination incident that ended not long ago, Li Mudi, a rookie in the Celestial Empire who only started his coaching career for less than a full season, was once again talked about on a large scale on the European continent, and his fame, which had declined sharply, has stabilized. Compared to his almost innocent resume, the popularity of close to three stars has barely met the requirements of coaching some second- and third-tier teams, coupled with the huge amount of money that is very likely to be obtained through football betting secretly, the words of spring breeze and fame and fortune are very appropriate for the Castilian coach at this time.
The Fed Cup final in midweek was already destined to be a superficial formality, with no one believing that the ninth-placed B3 finishers could pull off a four-goal comeback at the hellish Alfredo Di Stefano Stadium, with all soccer bookmakers closing bets on the Federacy Cup winners in the bits of the first leg two weeks ago. In the eyes of football professionals around the world, Castilla is only 90 minutes away from the final championship celebration.
However, Li Mudi has been working hard with the members of the coaching staff to avoid the arrogance of the players. Fortunately, in the contact of this group of young men in the Real Madrid reserve team for nearly a season, they are still very afraid that the always kind and friendly boss will use a hair dryer mode that is not inferior to Lord Fu back then, and everyone honestly calms down and strives to complete the great season unbeaten record with a more positive mental outlook.
Due to the large lead in the first leg, Li Mudi still gave the team a day off on Monday, and he went to the welfare home for another whole day, and when he returned to the apartment in the evening, he had less than 40 hours left on his social service time card, and the progress exceeded his previous expectations.
It was April 14 and the Alfredo Di Stefano stadium was decorated by the club's staff, with a large number of home fans entering the stadium more than an hour early, happily discussing the team's upcoming first Spanish Federal Cup, while singing songs on the radio. Around half an hour before the start of the game, a new group of people in the main stand caused the crowd to cheer, and it was the Real Madrid first-team players and coach Zinedine Zinedine Zidane, who had just beaten Wolfsburg by three goals at the Bernabeu yesterday to advance to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
The game that started as scheduled was nothing spectacular on the field, and it was impossible for the away Balearic Athletic to make up for the shortcomings of the team's overall coordination in such a short period of time.
The Balearic Athletic players, who had a bit of fighting spirit in the first leg, had completely lost their momentum in this game, and only tried their best to recover into their own side to try to keep a draw in order to look better. It's a pity that the young men of Castile, who have been stimulated a little too excited by the championship trophy placed on the sidelines, do not want to play tacit understanding at all, and still use all their strength to attack the opponent's goal. Fortunately, most of the players in the starting lineup rotated the lineup, and in the face of a very experienced away defence, they still can't reach the level of comprehensive suppression in terms of ability. In the end, with Rivero's goalmouth grab, Castilla, who was playing at home, defeated the opponent by one goal, and finally won the 15-16 Spanish Federal Cup with an absolute advantage of 5-0 over two legs.
At the same time, news came from another venue not far away that surprised all Real Madrid supporters present: Atletico Madrid defeated Barcelona 2-0 at home Calderón, knocking the latter out of the Champions League semi-finals with an aggregate score of 3-2.
Next is the medal ceremony, not to mention the scale compared to the World Cup, the Champions Cup, and the Copa del Rey are more than two or three notches behind. The final of the Copa del Rey is attended by members of the Spanish royal family, usually His Majesty the King himself, but what about this Federal Cup? It was disappointing enough that several beautiful princesses did not come, and even Angel María Villar, president of the Spanish Football Federation, did not come to the scene, and it was the vice president of the Football Association López who presented trophies and medals to the champions and runners-up.
Fortunately, the players are immersed in the joy of winning the first cup in the team's history, and no one thinks too much about the treatment, that is, the boring manager will be so weird and cranky there.
The simple victory ceremony was followed by a simple celebration, with no salutes, just streamers and confetti, the eternal Hala Madrid, as the lads excitedly carried trophies around the pitch, during which several of the first team's big brothers jumped from the stands to join them. Li Mudi chatted with his friend Qi Zu, who came over, and talked about various topics such as congratulations, the progress of the players in the reserve team, and the recent good form of the first team. Just as the two of them were talking about Barcelona's recent slump, the team's first two captains, Yáñez and Febas, came to them with the trophy, and after greeting the boss of the same first team, they handed the championship trophy to the hands of the current mentor.
Li Mudi raised his hands in front of his eyes, carefully looked at this trophy that was very small in size and looked a little like the King's Cup but also had a silver appearance, raised his eyebrows slightly and said, "I can't see it, it's quite weighty." Here, take a picture of me. Then he threw the cup back to Yáñez and sent them away. This title is just the starting point of his long coaching career, and I believe that there will be more, bigger and better trophies in the future......