Chapter 210: The league reopens
The people who eat melons in the Celestial Empire always have an indefinite tolerance for the so-called stars in the entertainment industry, whether it is scolding, fighting, fraudulent donations, or scooping seasons. Rail, suction. powdered, in the end, you can always get forgiveness from many people, and after repenting like a dog, you can start working again to make money.
Combined with a kind of "admiring foreign and flattering foreigners" values since the reform and opening up, I think that I will be very happy if I can marry a foreign daughter-in-law or marry a foreign husband (there are not a few people who have this idea, especially the older generation), so even if the relationship between the two countries is so tense now, the Chinese people rarely interfere with the celebrity love and even marriage between the two sides. Although there will be "angry youths" on the Internet who have always been radical in their remarks, they will be angry at female stars like Qi Wei, Tang Wei, and Liu Yifei who are married or will marry men in Kimchi Country, but the vast majority of netizens are still very tolerant of them and do not carry out vicious attacks like some Korean online book friends.
Since those "spilled water" can be blessed, it is naturally more enjoyable to see the matter of turning the beauties of other countries into "their own people", and Li Mudi's current status in the sports world and the identity of Spanish nationality have also played a lot of positive impacts, which led to the exposure of this scandal, but won the support of many compatriots.
Lin Yuner's growing popularity on the side of the Celestial Empire has skyrocketed in a very short period of time, and with the blessing of the identity of "Celestial Empire's daughter-in-law", she has also become a first-line artist, and the notice invitation has also become much more blowout, the company's original plan. And the popularity of the man has also increased dramatically, unexpectedly because of the "seduction. The act of abducting the goddess of the neighboring country has opened up its popularity among the middle-aged and elderly people, and has dominated the screen in the recent period through four endorsement advertisements, almost achieving the realm of "no one in the world who watches TV and pays attention to cultural and sports news".
In addition, Li Mudi's response in the Kimchi Country is even more exaggerated, and her popularity is close to that of the Iron Lady who has just been exposed to various diseases, and in addition to receiving the curses of many men, she has been recognized and supported by more people. In an interview with the media, many Kimchi country football players said that they were overwhelmed by the tactical style of the Torino coach and hoped to have the opportunity to play under the opponent's command, to which Li Mudi only replied with two words: "Hehe"!
Knowing that he was more popular in East Asia, the Torino coach felt that the madness of the world was completely incomprehensible to him for the first time in his life, and after shaking his somewhat dizzy head, he put all his energy into the Serie A league that was about to start the next day. At this time, the Red Bull and others have arrived in Sassuolo, a small city located in the Emilia-Romagna district of north-central Italy, in the evening, and they will challenge the Sassuolo club with the same name as the city at 12 noon local time on the 8th. Sassuolo)。
Founded in 1920, the club played in a semi-professional league for more than half a decade before officially entering the lower professional league in the late 70s and reaching its first second division in 2008. In 2013-14, Sassuolo, nicknamed the Neroverdi, were promoted to the top flight as the first Serie B title in the club's history, and went on to finish 17th and 12th respectively in the next two seasons.
However, last season, under the leadership of the local coach and former Italy international Eusebio Di Francesco, who led the team to promotion, they beat AC Milan and Lazio to finish sixth in the league, and because the Coppa Italia was also won by the Old Lady, he was lucky to qualify for the first time in the team's history to participate in European competition, shocking the entire Apennine Peninsula glasses to the ground.
Born in 1969, he also has a well-known name in his playing career, once a regular in Roma's midfield, and has scored one goal in 13 appearances for the national team. Instead of becoming a coach immediately after retiring as a player, he spent two years as an official at AS Roma and then as director of football for an amateur club until 2008.
After managing three other teams including Pescara and Lecce, he joined Sassuolo in the summer of 2012 and led the team to Serie A two years later. However, his first year in the first division was a bit of a poor one, as he was sacked by the club during the winter break due to consecutive defeats, but the team's results did not improve after the new manager took over, and finally brought in Di Francesco in early March 2014, and the thrilling relegation at the end of the season and the subsequent big improvement were the latter's reward for the trust of the club and the fans.
Sassuolo's Emilia-Romagna region is a large area with a high level of football, with Bologna, Parma, Modena, Cesena, Piacenza and Carpi all current or former Serie A teams, so the youth system is among the best in the country.
The current core of the team, Domenico Berardi, who is popular all over Europe and is known as the "Green Bebe", is an outstanding product of the club's academy. Berardi, who plays as a right winger and can play in other positions up front, only made his first senior appearance in the year the team won the Serie B title, but his stunning debut earned him a place in the team, and his final performance of scoring 11 goals in 37 appearances instantly spread his name across the continent at the age of 18.
In the following three Serie A seasons, he made 90 league appearances for Sassuolo, scoring a total of 38 goals, and the second-youngest player to score a hat-trick in Serie A, the first man in history to score a quadruple against AC Milan, and many other accolades are a testament to how brilliant this player's talent is.
Such an Italian talent could not be ignored by the old lady, and on the last day of the 2013 transfer window, Juventus traded half ownership of Marrone for half of the ownership of the green babe, and both players will play for the Nerazzurri for the following season. In the summer of 2015, Berardi, who had the final option, was a surprise when he turned down a move to the Serie A giants between the two clubs and decided to stay with his parent club, something Sassuolo owner Gilgio Squinz could not have imagined before.
However, apart from Berardi, there is nothing worth paying attention to in the current squad of the Nerazzurri, and most of the players who can become the main team are mature players brought in from the outside, which is not much better than Torino, but they can still come up with at least four descendants who can establish themselves in the first team. It is also worth noting that Sassuolo have been the most localized of all Serie A teams in the past two years, with no more than seven foreign signings, and only five players without Italian nationality this year (not counting dual nationality).
Sassuolo, who had the best record in their history last season, made little move in the summer transfer window, selling their second star and main right-back Croatia international Sime Vrsaljko to Atletico Madrid for 16 million euros, in addition to letting go of two of last season's substitutes, keeping the rest of the players. In terms of recruitment, in order to make up for the position left by the Croatian, the team loaned Juventus' 18-year-old Spanish teenager Pol Lirola, then bought out Ghanaian midfielder Alfred Duncan and striker Matteo Politano, who played well on loan last season, and finally brought in young central defender Timo Letschert from Utrecht in the Eredivisie. In terms of strength, it is basically the same as last season, and the stability and tacit understanding of the lineup are very good.
However, the difference between the name of a dark horse and a strong team lies in the continuity, generally speaking, it is difficult for a dark horse to perform well in the next one or more seasons after achieving an excellent result. Sassuolo, without a significant drop in strength, has been far worse off this season than it was at the same time last year. Before the winter break, it was only ranked 15th in the standings with a record of 6 wins, 2 draws, 10 losses and 20 points, and basically announced that it had not qualified for Europe. Failure to meet pre-season expectations on both ends of the pitch was the main reason why the team was in such a situation.
The Nerazzurri scored 49 goals in Serie A last season, ranking eighth in the league in terms of attacking power, while conceding 40 goals would rank among the top four in the league. However, with the overall number of goals scored in the league this year significantly improved, only 25 goals were scored and 31 goals conceded in 18 games, which is obviously not enough to see. The main reason for this situation is injuries and aging, the team's midfield core Berardi missed all the remaining games due to injury after helping Sassuolo win two consecutive games in the early part of the season, and Cannavaro Jr., the core of the defense in previous seasons, is out of form at the age of 35, and injuries are also increasing.
However, to the great disappointment of the Toriones, Green Babe has largely recovered after a four-and-a-half-month recuperation injury, and the local media predicted before the game that he would be able to start. In the end, though, Di Francesco put him on the bench, but even so, the visitors felt a strong deterrent, but there was nothing they could do but complain about their own bad luck.
Prior to the start of this game, this round of league games had already been played two games last night, and Empoli beat relegation rivals Palermo by a narrow goal at home, extending the gap to the bottom three to six points, and it looked like they had basically escaped the relegation zone. The most regrettable for Li Mudi was the second game, Napoli also played at home, with central defender Tonelli scoring in the 95th minute to defeat Sampdoria, creating an insurmountable gap between the top three in the table and the pursuers behind them, and the remaining teams seemed to be desperate for a ticket to the Europa League.
Torino's starting XI was not much different from previous games, with both new signings not qualifying, and compared to Ranocchia, who was still sitting in the stands, Cerci, who had only been reported for a day and had not even experienced a joint training session, was left directly in the club's training room, where he will be guided by a fitness coach and team doctor to adjust his condition and prepare for future games. Li Mudi's list is a regular 4-3-3: goalkeeper Joe Hart, back four Zampacosta, Kastan, Rosettini and Avilar, three midfielders Benasi, Akwa and Baseli, and fronts Rajadzic and Iago Farke with Belotti.
When it comes to form, I have to say that although this holiday has restored the players' physical fitness to a great extent, the excitement of the game has basically disappeared. The home team's midfield, led by Aquilani, who has just been loaned from Pescara, has not yet formed a tacit understanding, so after the opening, it was the visitors who took the lead in mastering the ball, led by two midfielders who were capable of organising the attack, and constantly mobilized the home team's defensive position through passing.
However, the 33-year-old veteran centre-back Federico Peluso, who played for Juventus, also filled up his fitness slot during the winter break, and his entire backline, combined with the experienced goalkeeper Andrea Consigli, kept Torino without a single target in the opening 20 minutes. Among them, the 192-centimeter-tall local central defender Francesco Acerbi (Francesco Acerbi) has good header ability, and the speed is not very slow, and under his close interference, Belotti, who leads the scorer list, has not been able to find the crosshairs, and has failed to form a threat in several grabbing points.
Seeing that his own strong center was a little miserably limited, Li Mudi waved his hand to signal him to retreat appropriately, pull the opponent's defense out and create space for the two wingers to cut in. However, Rajadzic, who is good at small skills, failed to take any advantage in the confrontation with the young player Lirola today, his state seems to be on vacation, and he has tried many times without success, and was almost hit by the opponent after a backcourt steal and then a dragon into the front court to finally break the goal, fortunately, the young man's shooting skills are not too strong, and he kicked out an anti-aircraft gun.
And Torino right winger Falke's situation is not much better, in the face of the old fritter Peluso who played at left back today, he can only use a small advantage in speed to occasionally succeed once, the opponent's prediction and card position can really be regarded as top-notch, so that the Spanish winger can only go down to the bottom cross, and there is no way to cut inside.
The home team's three midfielders have not yet shown much power in attack, but they are still very conscientious about defensive work, and even the veteran Laquilani, who is known for his technical flow, has repeatedly appeared at the front of the penalty area to help the opponent, which has led to the failure of Torino's midfielders to strengthen their long-range shots. Seeing that the mentality of the players gradually became impatient, and the transmission between each other also appeared sluggish, Li Mudi had to stand up again to make on-the-spot adjustments.