Chapter 876: Barcelona (1)
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While Fiorentina's poor record of just one win, three draws and two defeats in their last six Serie A games has significantly reduced their lead in the league, striker Cristiano Ronaldo's season reimbursement has made the team's dire situation worse. However, at this time, the Fiorentina fans did not criticize Heynckes's work leading the team during this time, but gathered outside the team's training base and expressed their support for the Germans with encouraging slogans and banners!
The fans are not blind, let alone stupid, they can certainly see that Heynckes is indeed very capable, and he is no worse than his predecessor Capello in terms of tactical level and on-the-spot command, and he is also very tireless in coaching the team. Some fans who live nearby can often see the lights in Heynckes' offices being the last to go out throughout the training complex, except for the security guards who are on night duty......
Heynckes' efforts were naturally well received by the fans, so despite Fiorentina's sluggish performance in recent league games, the fans did not heist in the media cheers with the good things, but firmly expressed their support for the German's work, hoping that he could lead the team through the current difficulties and fight for the final title. There are even a large number of fans who say that even if the team fails to lift the championship trophy in the end, they will support Heynckes to stay in office!
Seeing the Fiorentina fans so supportive of their work at this difficult stage, Heynckes was naturally very moved. After all, the scene encountered by the German coach when he was in charge of Real Madrid was completely different from now, when Real Madrid made a big breakthrough in the Champions Cup, but its record in the league did not meet the expectations of fans and clubs, and only won the fourth place in the league, so Heynckes, as the head coach of the team, became a natural candidate for the black pot, and was directly dismissed by Real Madrid's senior management as soon as the season ended.
In contrast, the upright Heynckes naturally felt that the atmosphere in Fiorentina was better, at least the fans here were more patient and would not start to condemn the manager's incompetence because the team had a poor performance at a certain time.
Therefore, in order to repay the Fiorentina fans for their trust and support, Heynckes began to work twice harder to reverse the team's current decline, repel Lazio and Juventus, who were chasing after them, and complete the sixth consecutive league championship that has never been seen before in the history of Italian football, and probably will be the first!
However, before taking out Lazio and Juventus, the two big pursuers, and regaining the lead in the standings, Heynckes will have to lead his players to deal with another difficult opponent, which is Barcelona, who are competing with them for a ticket to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Although Fiorentina took away a 2-2 draw from the Camp Nou in the first leg, Heynckes will not let this relax, after all, these Barcelona frontcourt players all have the ability to decide the trend of the game in an instant, and if you take it lightly, you will definitely kill yourself!
On April 12, the Frankie Stadium was full, and more than 40,000 Fiorentina fans surrounded more than 1,000 Barcelona fans from afar in a corner of the stands.
With a draw in the first leg and two away goals, Heynckes can take his starting line-up more calmly. You don't have to be like Louis van Gaal, who is trying to figure out how to break down the Fiorentina goal, but also take care of the safety of his own goal, lest conceding a goal in the game make it more difficult for the team to qualify for the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Let's take a look at the starting line-ups of the two teams, Barcelona side, goalkeeper Hesper, the four defenders are Reziger, Puyol, Frank De Boer and Sergi Baljuan, Filipe Cocu and Pep Guardiola are two in the back, and Kluivert is one in front. Rivaldo, Figo and Zenden were hidden behind the Dutch centre-forward, who were tasked with delivering shells and also had a certain amount of attacking back-to-back to keep Kluivert from being surrounded by opponents, and they could also play to the Dutchman's knack for the ball. As for the captain of the team, Luis Enrique, he had to miss the game due to some pre-match injuries.
Obviously, after studying it for a long time, Van Gaal finally decided to adapt to the changes and use the tactics that Barcelona is most familiar with against Fiorentina. Although this will make it possible for his own backline to be penetrated by the opponent with a quick counter-attack, or even a repeat of the scene in the 94 Champions League final, Van Gaal, who is like a life in attack, is more reluctant to choose a more conservative style of play for the sake of victory, because it is greatly contrary to his football philosophy.
Looking at the Fiorentina side, due to the obvious shortage of strikers after Ronaldo's injury, Heynckes lined up a set of four-five formation in this game: goalkeeper Toldo, fullbacks are Robert Carlos and Di Livio on the left and right, and Nesta and Stam partner in the central defender; In midfield, Claude Makelele and Redondo play as a double midfielder, Effenberg sits in the middle to lead the overall situation, Gattuso plays the role of a midfielder, and Ljungberg on the right side of midfield will be responsible for Fiorentina's right attack and defense with Di Livio behind him to defend against the huge threat brought by Rivaldo; Up front, Christian Vieri plays as a lone arrow, and the sturdy Italian tank is the type of striker that most La Liga teams are most reluctant to encounter, because they lack a systematic defense and it is difficult to stop this kind of power-flow center to crush it.
The most important thing is that Vieri is tall and mighty, at a glance he is a standard power flow center template, but his speed is not slow at all, and the 100-meter sprint can even reach about 11.50 seconds! Moreover, in many Fiorentina games, fans can often see Vieri following in the footsteps of Ronaldo and Shevchenko in counter-attacking battles to form scoring opportunities.
It can be seen that although this game did not have the assistance of Ronaldo and Shevchenko, considering the accurate passes of Redondo and Effenborg, as well as the impactful side breakthroughs of Ljungberg and Carlos, Fiorentina has enough ability to pose a huge threat to Barcelona's goal even if Vieri is the only one in the front line!
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