Chapter 325: Sudden Trouble (Part 3)

In this game, facing Sassuolo, led by Green Bebe Berardi, Li Mudi reverted to the usual 4-3-3 formation last season. In the starting line-up, the goalkeeper is still Casillas, the back four from right to left are Silvestri, Ranocchia, Gordaniga and Dimarco, the three midfielders Las Diarra, Benassi and Franco Musis, the wingers are Farke and Lucas Boyer, and Belotti is at the front of the team.

Compared to the previous league game, Torino surprised everyone by changing seven starters in one go. This arrangement, which is widely regarded as looking down on the visiting team, naturally caused the displeasure of the opposing coach Butch, who always had a gloomy face in the pre-match press conference, but fortunately he did not express any special emotions against the Torino manager when answering questions, so that the smell of gunpowder between the two sides was not further strengthened. However, the young Spanish right-back Liroira, who is on loan from Juventus for the second consecutive season, told reporters that Sassuolo should educate the arrogant home team in today's game, so that the latter knows that even the old lady of Serie A does not dare to relax against the Nerazzurri.

In the opening ten minutes, the visiting Sassuolo really played with amazing momentum, and the front trident composed of Falcinelli, Berardi and Politano continued to create a certain threat to the goal guarded by Cassie, and the three completed a total of four shots, but unfortunately none of them hit the range of the goal, two of which were grazed by the post and missed the bottom line, which made their supporters feel unlucky.

After withstanding the onslaught of the opponent's opening attack, the Torino players began to control the ball, although the two central midfielders Russ and Musis are both known for their defensive ability, their passing ability is also good, combined with Benassi in the middle of the game, and the rest of his teammates, through the continuous transmission of the ball to completely consume the opponent's momentum. Since the away team's defense was also very solid today and did not show any flaws, the home team was not too anxious, attacking when they had the opportunity, passing back to the back to reorganize when they didn't have the opportunity, and the time was unconsciously consumed before half-time.

In the 44th minute, taking advantage of an oversight by the Sassuolo players, the Red Bull suddenly exerted force and gave the opponent a heavy blow. Musis sparked a through ball down the right flank and Silvestri accelerated to sprint past the visiting left-back Gazzola to the bottom and cross the ball into a beautiful high arc towards the far post. Belotti, who was outflanked in place, jumped high ten meters in front of the goal and volleyed a domineering side hook, and the ball thundered into the net in the far corner, Sassuolo goalkeeper Consili only subconsciously waved his lower arm, and all he touched was the air. 1-0, Torino took a temporary lead thanks to this kick from Red Bebe, which could be named the best goal of the week.

The goal, which was destined to be repeated on football shows the following week, seemed to be like Tyson's punch at the peak, directly blinding the visiting team, even after a full quarter of an hour of halftime, they could not calm down, and the emotions of the second half were never mobilized. From the 63rd minute onwards, Butch made three personnel changes in succession in 10 minutes, but still could not get Sassuolo back to the momentum they had in the opening game, and everyone could see that they were probably more than lucky today.

Naturally, Li Mudi would not be satisfied with the uncertain advantage of a one-goal lead, but he was still very bold to replace the goal-scorer Belotti with teenager Pellegri in the 60th minute, and then replaced Boyer and Las Diarra with two youngsters, Fambas and Balic, changing the team's formation to 4-3-1-2, with Benassi as the central midfielder and Falke acting behind the center forward as a shadow striker. This change also worked wonders, directly pressing the away team, which had been demoralized, to the ground and rubbing it hard.

In the 84th minute, Pellegri had a flash of inspiration and sent a delicate through stopper, Falke formed a single knife and chose a selfless cross in the face of the half-attacking goalkeeper, and the follow-up Benassi pushed the empty goal to win, expanding the score on the field to 2-0; Four minutes later, Balic showed an impressive display of individual skill as he beat three defenders and slid into the left side of the box, then crossed back into the middle, where Febas met the ball and fired a right-footed shot into the top right corner of the net, where Consili was unable to make a save and only watched the ball crash into the net behind him. 3-0, the Spanish youngster also sealed today's victory after scoring his maiden goal for the Torino team.

In the end, the Red Bulls, who had 65% possession and shot 6-of-9 from 18, led the Red Bulls in the second round of the league by three goals at home to Sassuolo, and managed to dominate all the Italian media on the second day with a large number of rotation players. For a while, the news of "Torino team revealing the championship appearance" began to be hyped on the Internet and the media, but fortunately, several other championship teams also continued to play triumphant songs, which did not make Li Mudi, who easily won two consecutive victories, the object of reporters' siege.

In the rest of the Serie A round, defending champions Juventus relied on Dybala's hat-trick to complete a 4-2 comeback after falling behind by two goals in the opening seven minutes of the away game. AC Milan won a somewhat hard-fought 2-1 win at home to Cagliari; Napoli won 3-1 at home to Atalanta, whose two-game losing streak at the start of the new season, combined with poor Europa League signings, showed that Gasperini's luck has been bad lately; He was joined by Fiorentina coach Stefano Pioli, who was beaten 2-1 by Sampdoria and suffered two defeats in a row, and it seems that Pi Shuai still has not shaken off his bad luck at Inter at the end of last season.

In the focus of this round, Spalletti led Inter Milan back to the Stadio Olimpico in Rome to challenge his old club Red Wolves, and as a result, Icardi scored twice after the first round in a wonderful offensive battle, helping the team to defeat the strong opponent 3-1 and complete a strong comeback for his new coach.

In addition, Lazio relied on Savic's stunner in the 89th minute to win a thrilling away victory over Chievo and get the first three points of the new season; Promoted Maspahr also picked up their first win of the new season at home, beating the unlucky Udinese 3-2 through Rizzo in stoppage time. The other two promoted teams were happy and worried, Verona drew 0-0 away at Crotone and got their first Serie A points of the year; Benevento, on the other hand, are still on zero points after a narrow goal defeat at home to Bologna, and it looks like they will have to wait for their first Serie A point.

In the standings, there are six teams that have won two in a row, in order of goal difference and most goals, Juventus, Inter, Torino, Napoli, AC Milan and Sampdoria in seventh place, with one win and one draw in the promotion Maspahr, which surprised everyone. Atalanta are third from the bottom and Fiorentina are tied for second from the bottom, which has also become the big upset of the new season. In the scorers' list, Icardi and Dybala have scored four goals together, forming a situation where the top four strikers in the list last season are all far away.

In the next half month, it belongs to the national team, and the World Cup qualifiers on all continents will enter the final and even final stages, and the Torino team will have a three-day holiday for everyone to relax their spirits according to the custom. In addition to the Italian local players, among the 11 foreign players in the first team, only midfielder Nikola Vukočevic has been selected for the new Montenegro national team, plus six members of the national youth team such as Savic, Li Mudi needs to pray that there will not be an unexpected injury.

Because Lin Yuna is still busy promoting the new album in Kimchi Country and does not have much personal time, the Turin coach did not take advantage of this holiday to return to Asia, anyway, his girlfriend will rest and fly to Europe to visit him around the middle of next month. So this rare vacation was handed over to Gines and Zhang Zeming, an assistant who rushed from the Celestial Empire, after their previous arrangement, Li Mudi didn't have much time to stay at home in the past three days, and there was still a lot of work to deal with.

The first is the signing of a new endorsement, Gines has helped the Torino coach negotiate endorsement contracts for four world-class brands, including Armani and Omega, all for one year, which can bring a total of 6 million euros to Li Mudi. These luxury giants are very optimistic about the current popularity of the Celestial Spaniard in the Far East, but they are not sure whether they can maintain this popularity, so they only offer a one-year contract, and the price offered is not too high, which is much worse than Mourinho's level. But Gines was confident in the future of his collaborator, and after retaining the initiative to renew his contract, he agreed to those offers, convinced that if they wanted to continue working together next year, the bid would have to be significantly higher.

After the signing ceremony, Li Mudi returned to the farm in Mallorca, where he spent two days with his parents enjoying his daily life, and devoted his daytime to the shooting of the advertisement. Most of the new endorsements signed in the Celestial Empire need to make up some print ads, and there is also a 30-second video ad that also needs to be rushed out in these two days, which is really busy with the Turin coach with very average acting skills. Fortunately, the content of the shooting did not have too many requirements for him as the actor, and Zhang Zeming's previous process arrangement with the film crew was also very reasonable, which greatly reduced the waste of time, so that the task could be completed very satisfactorily in the end. For Baozi's cousin, Li Mudi felt that it was quite reliable, and decided to have the opportunity to discuss with Lin Zixu again to see if he could turn him into an official agent.

On the last day of August, when the players of the Torino first team who were not selected for the national team and some of the young men who were temporarily transferred from the youth team arrived at the training ground, the day began with relaxation and adjustment, but everyone immediately found that the head coach of the team did not show up, and the assistant coach Sumfield who managed the whole team became Sumfield. Most people thought that the big boss delayed his return to the team because of some personal matter, but the members of the coaching staff and several players knew that Li Mudi was disrupted by a sudden incident and had to go to the marketing department to deal with it.

With 24 hours left before the summer transfer window closes, Torino FC received a fax from reigning Premier League champions Chelsea, who offered to buy the Italian international, right-back/wing-back Zampacosta for €28 million plus a floating clause. After receiving the news of the possible departure of the main right wing-back on the last day of the transfer period, Li Mudi naturally could no longer stay on the training ground safely, so he could only rush to the office building to discuss with several club executives how to deal with the late offer.

There was nothing to negotiate, with the Blues stating that this was the final offer, and Zampa's agent had already contacted director Rongo as soon as he received the fax from the Turin club, expressing his client's desire to get the opportunity to join a world-class giant. And in terms of the price of 28 million euros alone, it is also difficult for the team to refuse, although Zampa is an Italian international, but not Ventura's first choice, let alone a first-class player in the world, it is already a lot of money to sell this price. Therefore, there is no suspense, from the president of Torino to several directors, to ordinary staff, they all think that they should agree immediately, only Valentino Cairo is noncommittal, and it is up to the coach of the team to make the final decision.

To be honest, when he learned that Conte was interested in bringing in the right wing-back, Li Mudi was ready to lose him, and even the successor who was prepared for him pulled out a list of reinforcements after Zampa was poached. However, after the Blues did not make an offer for a long time, and even turned the main target to Arsenal's right winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the Torino coach thought that the deal would not be reached, so he did not pay attention to it anymore, and put away the list of candidates, who knew that Chelsea would propose to buy at this time!

After checking the latest developments in the transfer market, it turned out that Oxlade-Chamberlain joined Anfield Stadium this morning for 35 million pounds in cash and 5 million pounds of floating fees, taking over the No. 8 shirt left by Gerrard. But this move has caused great trouble to Li Mudi and his team, once they lose this main player, they have only two ways to go. One is to maintain stability and let other players in the team fill the gaps, and the other is to take advantage of the last less than 24 hours to poach replacements from other teams with this huge amount of money and pass on their troubles to other teams.

But no matter which path you choose, it will greatly affect the combat effectiveness of the Turin team, which has sold the main force in the team. Buying new signings not to mention their strength, at least it takes a lot of time to integrate into the team, Li Mudi faced this sudden difficulty, but fell silent when other people's eyes were on him.