Volume I: Chapter 119 Stimulants
After the winter break, Fiorentina, who have won two in a row, face their strongest opponent - Cagliari with Bantam Gianfranco Zola.
Fiorentina don't want to meet such a strong team at this time, they are still in the run-in stage, if they meet a weak team, they still hope to win the game with the individual ability of the players, but a team like Cagliari with excellent overall and individual ability, Fiorentina have very little chance of winning.
Cagliari is the face of the confident and proud Sardinians in football, and although Cagliari's less than 100-year history is a little shorter than that of the big-name clubs, they have also carved their names on the list of honours of the Serie A champions. In the 1969-1970 season, Cagliari shone under the leadership of international Riva, winning the Serie A title, the only top-flight title in Sardinia's history.
Riva has a golden left foot, and he is also a typical Sardinian representative - he loves his hometown deeply, and with his level and status at the time, it was easy to go to a big club to make a lot of money and win more titles, but he chose to stay in Sardinia for life and play for his hometown team.
Thirty-three years later, Cagliari, which had been in the sink of Serie B for many years, once again welcomed a talented player from his hometown, the little magician Zola.
The soon-to-be-37-year-old Zola is known for his level-headedness, delicate technique, and free-kick skills are superb. He came to Napoli in 1989 and won the league title with Maradona. In 1993, he joined Parma and helped the team win the 1995 League Cup as a key player. In 1996, he moved to England to play for Chelsea, winning six trophies.
Gianfranco Zola's departure from Cagliari is not out of concern about the brutal competition in Chelsea's forward line, Gudjohnsson, Hasselbaink and Forcer are all good strikers, the aging Zola does not guarantee a starting position, but he can guarantee him ยฃ2.8 million a year, Zola returns, mainly out of love for his hometown, his sister Silvia said: "Zola has wanted to play for them since he was a child. Gianfranco Zola has twice previously given up the chance to return home after the worst of the game to stay in London for Chelsea.
Zola has become the core and captain of the team since he came to Cagliari, he has scored 7 goals in 22 rounds, but his role for the team is not all in the goal, the delicate Zola has won the true pass of the king of the ball, Maradona, and played the role of threading the needle in the front field, under the catalysis of Zola, the strikers Sozio and Ehiposito broke out collectively, one scored 10 goals, the other scored 9 goals, and became one of the most formidable tridents in Serie B.
Gianfranco Zola has been key to Cagliari's rise this season, but he can't thank manager Arligni for being able to play such a big role in the team.
Fiorentina's Rijna Italia > points out that one of Cagliari's key discoveries this season has been manager Arrigoni. Born in 1958, Arrigoni played for lower and middle league or lower league teams such as Udinese and Siena as a player, but he had a lot of brains. After starting his coaching career in the mid-1990s, he coached the C and D teams for a long time, and successively coached two second division teams in Messina and Palermo, both of which ended in dismissal.
Aligoni was a believer in Sacchi, who was heavily influenced by the revolutionary faction of Italian football in the late 1980s, advocating attacking football. Aligoni insisted on using the "433" formation, even against a team that is good at defending, and can bring visual enjoyment to fans with wonderful cooperation.
Fiorentina also sometimes play a 433 formation, but Arrigoni's 433 is different from Fiorentina, Fiorentina's three strikers are the center of the attack as the axis of attack, while Cagliari does not have a fulcrum, Zola is self-defeating, and the forwards on both sides Ehiposito and Sozio are fast, their movement is flexible and can be adjusted according to the game.
With the right tactical system, the heart and soul of Zola, and strikers like Ehiposito and Sozio, it's no surprise that Cagliari can sit second in the table.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the game, Cagliari Club director Celino said: "It's not easy to keep that position at the end of the season, but the fact is that we've been in second place for three weeks in a row, and if we beat Fiorentina we can keep second and maybe we can really go back to Serie A at the end of the season...... Dreaming is not forbidden. โ
Cagliari club boss Cialino is dreaming of returning to Serie A, while Fiorentina boss Sitravalle is no less hungry for Serie A than Celino, especially now that the team is two points away from sixth place in the play-offs after two consecutive wins, which has whetted the appetite of the Fiorentina even more.
"Cagliari is the second place in Serie B, and their game will verify whether we are worthy of a place in Serie A, the 37-year-old veteran Gianfranco Zolaga at the beginning of the league, many people thought he was returning to his hometown to retire, and now everyone understands that his words are true, he is here to help Cagliari return to Serie A, and we also have our Zola, that is Angelo. Dilivio, Angelo is still unavailable for this game, but he will sit in the stands and cheer us on, and I think for Angelo, for Fiorentina, we all have to win the strong Cagliari. โ
So said the Florentine lord Sildravalle.
The two main players are eager to stab the players and fans of the two teams in Serie A and victory, and before the game has even started, the fans of both sides are engaged in jฤซ battles on the Internet, comparing stars, records, history, assets, and main seats, all clamoring to kill their opponents.
In the face of the enthusiasm of the fans, the core of Cagliari and the captain Zola said: "The competition in Serie B this season is extremely fierce, 46 games are unprecedented, a win in one game cannot allow us to advance, but a loss in one game can make us lose hope of qualifying, we must take every game seriously, Fiorentina has gone through two team formations and a change of coach, but their fighting power is very strong, Rigano and Chen can break the door of any team, especially Chen, He has now scored 19 goals, tops the scorers' charts, and scored two hat-tricks, raising questions about whether the Chinese have some secret recipe for their state.
Zola was actually unintentional, because Chinese football was so bad, he couldn't believe that a Chinese player would be so good, and he also heard that Chinese medicine has a lot of magical skills, so when he said this, he didn't know that Chen Yu's miraculous rise and uninhibited personality had made a lot of enemies in the xenophobic Italian football world, and his words immediately caused an uproar.
Originally, Chen Yu was in such a good state and scored so many goals, which made people suspicious, because he was just a player who came up from C2, and it was unbelievable that he could perform like this in Serie B, and Chen Yu was very sluggish on the training ground, and he broke out when he came to the official arena, and his physical fitness was super good, which has made some people suspect that Chen Yu was taking a stimulant drug, and now as soon as a superstar like Zola said, the Italian media immediately added fuel to the fire, saying that Zora suspected Chen Yu of taking the stimulant.
Good things don't go out, bad things spread thousands of miles, and after the news came out, the entire Italian football world was shocked. Major media outlets have written articles commenting on Zola's suspicion that Chen Yu is taking Xing Xin Pills.
The > of Milan Sports said: "Zora suspects that Chen is in such a good state that he may be taking Xing Quan Drugs, but taking Xing Drugs is very harmful to his career and health, and we don't think Chen will consciously take Xing Quan drugs." โ
Torino Sport > said: "The top scorer in Serie B Chen was suspected by his opponent of taking a stimulant, perhaps this is just a means to disrupt the morale of the army before the match between the two sides." โ
The "Evening and Serama" > said that Chen Yu should not have taken Xing Qi Fen Drug, and when he was C2, Chen Yu won the best shooter, and if he took Xing Qi Fen Medicine, he should be found out in drought.
These big media still have a bit of conscience and bottom line, but they are only skeptical about whether Chen Yu has taken Xing Stimulants, while some small media such as "leggo" and "Libero" directly said that Chen Yu scored so many goals because of taking Xing Fen Drugs, and suggested that Chen Yu be tested for Xing Fen after the game. Cromai, the famous gossip reporter of Leggo, put it bluntly: "The Italian players train hard. Great sacrifices were made for victory. Competing with players who are on the drug makes players and fans feel cheated alike. I'm sorry, I don't want to believe it, but Chen is probably such a coward who takes Xing Fen medicine, and the Chinese people are not trustworthy. โ
Just like Belรฉm stripped last season, the innocent Chen Yu became the focus of the Italian media and fans almost overnight.
Unlike last time, this time it had a great impact on Chen Yu, and on the second day, there were already fans hostile to Chen Yu and the Chinese who hung a large number of banners about protesting against Chen Yu near the training base. If you take the Stimulant Elixir, the entire world will spit on you for it! โ
The slogan hanging outside the training ground seriously affected Chen Yu's training, and Chen Yu understood that if he could not wash away the slander against himself, his career would be hit the hardest. So at the first time, Chen Yu angrily held a press conference, stating that he had never taken any stimulants, and was welcome to check himself after the game, and asked Zola and Cromai, a reporter from "LEGGO", to publicly apologize and admit his mistake and save the impact on his reputation, otherwise he would resort to judicial proceedings.
Fiorentina's former head coach Cavasin also supported Chen Yu at this time, criticizing Zola by name: "I am surprised that a superstar like Zola said such irresponsible things, I believe that Chen Yu is innocent, I know him well, he is an honest and hardworking person, I don't want him to be ruined by media rumors." โ
Zora knew that he had made a mistake, and immediately publicly apologized to Chen Yu in the media, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that my words caused so much harm to Chen, I didn't mean that Chen Yu took Xing Xin Fen Medicine, I think that the miraculous medical skills of the Chinese People's Republic of China, such as acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, etc., have made Chen Yu have a good state, and these are not prohibited." โ
Superstars like Zola apologized, but Cromeer, a reporter for "Leggo", insisted that Chen Yu had taken the Stimulus and refused to apologize unless Chen Yu proved that he had not taken the Stimulator.
Chen Yu made a resolute response to the rumors of the Italian media, he said in an interview with "Milan Sports News> in the evening: I will score at least 1 goal in the game with Cagliari, and invite the agency to test me, I will sue Cromai after the game, since he is not willing to apologize, then I will let him apologize to me in court, Chinese people are not easy to bully.