Descartes' first goal for the national team not only earned him numerous accolades, but also gave him a lot of confidence.

Confidence is very important for a footballer, and there are many times when the difference between a top player and an average player lies in the difference between the two.

Ibrahimovic has scored a lot of incredible shots, such as Scorpio barbs, such as volleys scissor feet, and from these shots, we can appreciate his strong confidence, a player with low confidence would not dare to make such a shot, let alone score with such a move.

And Huntelaar, who is the same famous as Ibrahimovic, was also a very good goalscorer, and his scoring efficiency at Ajax was even higher than Ibrahimovic. However, when he transferred to La Liga giants Real Madrid, the player's lack of confidence was exposed, and his time at Real Madrid can be said to have been extremely bumpy, the first few games because he has not yet adapted to the rhythm of La Liga, as a result, he missed several good opportunities to score, and then he was booed by Real Madrid fans, in these boos, his actions became more and more cautious, and his confidence became more and more lacking, and as a result, he fell into a vicious cycle of not scoring - being booed - nervous - and unable to score.

As a result, he stayed at Real Madrid for only one season, playing 20 games and scoring eight goals, and that's all he gave to the fans.

On the contrary, after arriving at the second-rate team Schalke 04, Huntelaar felt a lot less psychological pressure, and his confidence returned to him, and as a result, with his outstanding performance in Schalke 04, he not only firmly occupied the team's starting position, but also returned to the country to become the main striker.

Sometimes we say that confidence is the most important factor in determining how far a player can go, and that's not for nothing.

And this national team goal brought Descartes more confidence and stronger confidence.

Although he may not be able to justifiably ask Lippi for the main position with this goal, at least when the team is in trouble, Lippi will be the first to think of him, and that is enough.

What's more, when he returned to Arsenal, he was already an important member of the Italian national team, and no longer the former abandoned player who was expelled from the team by the manager.

Don't underestimate this change of identity, for Arsenal, these locker room players who are above the top, the identity of an Italian national team player and the identity of a player who has no national team player, it is absolutely different, there are still people who are not convinced that Descartes can become the second captain of the locker room at a young age, but when he returns with this halo, I believe that the opposition in the locker room will be much weaker.

In the end, Italy won the game thanks to Descartes' 89th-minute winner over Cyprus, and they flew back to Italy overnight as they faced Georgia four days later.

When people think of Georgia, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely Kaladze, the current AC Milan main centre-back who later held the positions of Georgia's deputy prime minister and energy minister, and is arguably one of the best players in the world to retire.

Of course, at this time, Kaladze is taking advantage of Nesta's injury to sit in the position of Milan's main central defender, and also participated in this World Cup qualifier between Georgia and Italy.

Italy have been drawn in Group 8 of the European qualifiers for this World Cup, where they will face Cyprus, Georgia, Montenegro, Ireland and Bulgaria.

In all media analysis, Ireland are seen as Italy's strongest competitors for qualification in this group, and apart from that, perhaps only Bulgaria is still a little bit of a threat to them, and the other three teams are completely vulnerable, which is simply a stepping stone for Italy to qualify for the World Cup.

But by the end of the first game, the tone of the media had changed, and Cyprus, who were considered to be at the bottom of the group, could have forced Italy to be embarrassed at home, so why couldn't Georgia or Montenegro go one step further and give Italy a taste of Waterloo?

It is estimated that the Georgian team also thinks the same, so they looked confident in the interview before the game, and their captain Libya Shvili told reporters with confidence: "We are very familiar with Italy, Kaha (Kaladze) has told us everything he knows about Italy, and we are confident that we can achieve a relatively satisfactory result at the Friuli Stadium (home of Udinese, the home of the Italian national team in this game)." ”

What is a relatively satisfactory outcome? Libyan shvili did not say, but it is believed that no one will think that he means a small defeat is peace, and their goal is to score at least one point in Friuli.

Such an "arrogant" statement naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the Italian media, the so-called "emaciated camel is bigger than a horse", even if Italy's strength has declined in the past two years, it is not something that a weak brigade like you Georgia can lightly handle? When you say this, you are clearly looking for death!

So the Italian media have made suggestions for Lippi, and made a meticulous analysis of the Georgian team in the newspaper, and then instructed Lippi how to arrange the troops and how to beat the Georgians to the ground.

But there is only one Lippi after all, and if he can be swayed by the media, then he will not be called Lippi.

Lippi is not even interested in taking a look at the bad ideas that the media have come up with, what does it mean to "send 3 forwards to focus on the back of the Georgian defense"? Everyone on earth knows that hitting the ball behind the enemy is the most dangerous, but how many can successfully do it? Also 3 strikers, in case of sneak attack by the opponent, is it up to you to be responsible?

And what is the clamor for "let the Georgians see how good the Italian chain defense is, don't give them any chance"? Is chain defense something that can be played? How long has it been since the retirement of the likes of Baresi, Costacuta, Bergomi and others in Italy that there has been no authentic chain defence? As I told you a long time ago, the key to the chain method is the "free man" who cruising behind his teammates, but with the current lineup of the national team, who is qualified to be the "free man", Cannavaro?

Hehe.

In short, the media is very lively these days, the fans are very lively, and the barbed wire fence of the national team training base is also very lively.

Surrounded by barbed wire are the Italian players, who gather outside the training base every day to cheer on the players who are training, and if you listen closely, you will notice that the name they call the most is Descartes.

That's right, really Descartes.

Is Descartes Italy's current number one player? Of course not! Whether it's Pirlo or Buffon, fame will definitely throw him a few streets away, but it can't stop Descartes from being young. Pirlo and Buffon are both old men in their 30s, and powerful players such as Tony and De Rossi are not outstanding, in this Italian national team, the most handsome and the most pleasing to the audience, of course, is only Descartes, not to mention that he is also a superstar who was once a household name in Italy.

Descartes was flattered by the enthusiasm of the fans, and after training every day he would be surrounded by hundreds of fans asking for autographs, and it was only at this time that Descartes realized that his reputation in Italy was very different, in the past he was just a "superstar", but now he gradually has the trend of "the most popular player" in the national team, I believe that when he really takes the bus to South Africa, his fame will soar further, and he will truly become a domestic first-line star.

And at that time, he will have the qualifications to be on an equal footing with Pirlo and others, and only then will he have the confidence to be the second leader of Arsenal.

Of course, this is not all that Descartes is pursuing, his goal has always been to become a football king like Rossi, to become the best player of the era, and this has never changed in his heart.

On September 10, Italy welcomed their second opponent of the group stage, Georgia, at the Stadio Friuli, which was attended by more than 45,000 Italian fans, which exceeded the maximum capacity of the Stadio Friuli and made the relatively small stadium complex look very crowded.

However, the shouts of the fans quickly infected the Italian players, who appeared to be very active after the game, and gave the Georgians a blow from the start.

Lippi continued his idea of using underdogs to train in this game, and their starting line-up was significantly changed compared to the previous game against Cyprus, with Giorgio Chiellini, who had tackled Cannavaro before the start of the European Championship, becoming his new partner, and replacing new player Cristo from Genoa on the left flank, with Grosso left out of the squad.

Midfielders Marchioni and Palombo replaced De Rossi and Di Natale in the previous game, and in addition to Pirlo's unshakable position, Camoranesi was also allowed to continue to start the game due to the lack of qualified substitutes.

The biggest change in the forward line was the biggest one, with Iaquinta being recalled to the national team and appearing in the starting position as soon as he returned, and Rossi also getting a chance to perform.

Italy's forward line has always been a hot spot for fans across the country, although the national team currently has 7 strikers including Tony and others, but there are not many who can be big roles, if nothing else, Toni will definitely appear in the squad for South Africa as long as there are no injuries, but others?

Gilardino has been gradually excluded from the main squad in Milan's forward line, Iaquinta, Di Natale, Quagliarella and others have performed well in second-rate teams, but whether it is a subsequent transfer to Juventus or Napoli, they have never been completely convinced, as for Rossi, he is at Manchester United, like another Chinese player Dong Fangzhuo, he has not had many opportunities to play, and when he has the opportunity, he can't grasp it, and finally can only leave the country.

It now looks like the youngest Descartes has the best chance as he is getting better at Arsenal and scoring such an important goal in his last game that he deserves a ticket to South Africa if he can maintain a consistent performance.

We won't go into too much detail about the Georgian line-up, we just need to know that it was enough that Karadze and the pre-match captain Libyan Shvili, who had been confident before the game, were both present in this game.

Incidentally, there are four players in the Georgian squad called Shvili, and they were all in the starting line-up for this game, just like Russia's Skiski or Southern Europe's, and it's usually hard to identify them as soon as you hear them.

And people thought that Georgia would bring great difficulties to Italy in this game after releasing big words, but they did not expect the Georgians to be cowardly from the beginning.

Just 4 minutes into the game, Rossi was violated in front, Marchioni crossed from a free kick, and Crishitto's header in the chaos was blocked by Georgian defender Lobianidze on the goal line!

It is a pity that because there were too many people in the penalty area, the referee could not see the handball of Lobianidze, allowing the Georgians to escape luckily.

Georgia then entered the mode of defensive counterattack, but unfortunately their defense was in place, but the counterattack did not see anywhere, Italy quickly grasped the initiative on the field, and launched a foolish action around the Georgian goal.

Italy's siege did not come to fruition until the 57th minute of the second half, when Palombo fired a long-range shot from 35 yards out, and Milan centre-back Kaladze headed it off, only to change direction and shake off their own goalkeeper to mortgage Shvili, Italy was able to rely on this lucky own goal to take a 1-0 lead.

After conceding the goal, Georgia found that they could not hold on, so they replaced midfielder Annanidze with Vachaze, ready to press out and wrestle with the Italian team.

As a result, the Georgians had just stretched out their [***] when they were hit again, and it was Karadze again, and he struggled to put Krishitto's cross into his own goal, and the goalkeeper could only look at him dumbfounded, the light in his eyes flashing with deep doubt.

Even the Italian fans on the sidelines were happy, laughing and singing the ready-made song: "We have a powerful undercover agent, his name is Karadze, Lala, Lala, Kaladze, his heart has turned red and black......"

It is rare for a centre-back to score two own goals in a row, and it is even more unheard of for a world-class centre-back to score twice in a game, and Kaladze's performance is indeed enough reason for fans to ridicule him as having "defected": in his eight-year career as a red and black, he is more familiar with the players of the Italian national team than with his own national team, and perhaps he has hallucinated on the field and mistaken his own goal for the enemy's goal.

Kaladze looked up to the sky and sighed, a very embarrassed look on his face, and it was not his teammate who reached out to him, but his "old acquaintance", Iaquinta from Juventus.

With a smile on her face, Iaquinta pulled Kaladze up from the ground, and then patted him on the shoulder to comfort him, and at this moment, a huge cheer suddenly erupted on the court, and when you listened closely, it turned out that the fans were shouting:

"Karadze, one more! Karadze, one more! ”

Karazek buried his face deep in his hands, if there was another one, he would probably even want to kill himself.

"How could I be so unlucky!" Kaladze lamented bitterly in his heart, with such a performance, where would he still have the face to see his teammates after returning to Milan? (To be continued.) )