The calendar flipped to September 4, 1994, and the 1994-95 Serie A season finally kicked off.

As a promoted team in Serie A this season, Fiorentina's first game of the new season is at home against Cagliari, who came all the way from Sardinia and almost created a miracle last season.

After more than a year of running-in, the Fiorentina team led by Ranieri made its debut in Serie A, which made many fans shine: the fast and concise midfield cooperation, in the Frankie Stadium with a strong home atmosphere, let the away team see the "enthusiasm" of the Florentina people - not long after the opening, Fiorentina, which has the home advantage, caught Cagliari off guard with the goal of the "God of War" Batistuta.

Last season's fierce and steady style of play of the Sardinian team, with the departure of the team's meritorious coach Carlo Mazzoni, seems to have lost the calm and fearless momentum of last season, and also lost their soul - the visiting fans who came to watch the game were somewhat depressed to find that the Cagliari team in their eyes was completely suppressed by the opponent in the first game of the new season.

After the fierce battle with Milan a week ago, the Fiorentina team's understanding of tactics and the application of jishu obviously reached a new level, unlike in the second division, which can be used to use the strength far beyond the opponent to crush, that Italian Super Cup game, the Fiorentina players are completely aware of the importance of teamwork.

And this match against Cagliari is the best opportunity for this group of lads to combine the theory instilled by the coach with the actual battle!

As a result, Fiorentina dominated the game and their aggressive attack continued almost until the end of the game, with several other players such as Philippe Inzaghi and Djokaeff also fighting to score after Batistuta opened the scoring.

When the referee announced the break, the Cagliari players walked into the tunnel with a dead face, because the score on the big screen above the stadium had become 4-0, and the home team was in front.

In the second half of the game, Ranieri also wanted to save a little face for his old club, after all, if he forced people to be anxious and injured several of his generals ruthlessly, he would want to cry without tears.

But what Ranieri didn't expect was that Vieri and Montella, who came on as substitutes Batty and Inzaghi, were more active, making the most of their impact to stir up Cagliari's defence.

In the end, when the final whistle blew, the score was fixed at 7-0, with Batistuta and Montella scoring twice, Inzaghi, Djokaeff and Vieri scoring one goal each, and Cagliari suffered a heavy defeat away from home.

Win the first battle! At the same time, with this big win, Fiorentina is at the top of the Serie A standings with a goal difference.

In response, the local media in Florence published an extremely tempting headline the next day: "The Return of the Purple Lily King!" 》

Fiorentina fans are naturally very excited about the team's big win at home, although the league has just started, and Fiorentina only rely on goal difference to take the first place, but this does not prevent Fiorentina fans from celebrating, you know, they have not seen Fiorentina's name appear in the first place position for a long time.

In the next two games, in order to get as many players as possible and get into the groove early, head coach Ranieri arranged for more players to rotate into the field.

In the first leg of the first round of the Coppa Italia, Fiorentina played away to Lecce in the second division, which was the stage for the substitutes to perform, and to Zhuang Mingge's delight, the new players of the season scored in this game - veteran Pietro Viljovod, and the other scorer was midfielder Collini, and Fiorentina won 2-0.

A week later, Fiorentina played their first away game of the new season - the second round of the league**! This is a game with the significance of a weather vane, the opponents in the first two games are too weak, and the midstream team of ** strength and stability can test what kind of competitive state Fiorentina has at the beginning of the season.

The 1990 Shijie Cup Silver Boot winner Skuhlavi's team is unable to compete for a European place every season, but with the excellent performance of the Czech giants, league relegation is not a problem, so some people think that the Czechs will cause a lot of problems for Fiorentina's defense.

Although some people were optimistic about Fiorentina before the game, the final result of the game was somewhat surprising - 4:0, Fiorentina, who went to the Ferraris Stadium (Sampdoria and ** two teams share the same stadium), won a hearty victory at the beginning of the season, and the arrow figure of the ** team, Skuhlavi almost completely disappeared from the field, ** local commentator even sarcastically said in the game: "Even my grandmother's header is better than Thomas (Skuhlavi)." ”

In the face of some doubts about "bricks calling beasts", head coach Ranieri vowed at the post-match press conference: "I'm not afraid of the players' form early, because we will go all out to win every game!" ”

Three battles and three victories! Fiorentina got off to a perfect start to the new season. Next, the team will move on to another battleground - the first European Cup Winners' Cup match of the new season, which will be played in three days' time.

Ranieri also kept his promise to the players and did not hesitate to put players who had performed well in the previous games into the starting line-up for the Cup Winners' Cup.

Especially Effenberg, who scored a hat-trick of assists in the first game, was naturally entrusted with the important role of midfield playmaker by Ranieri.

Unknowingly, the German "Tiger", who has been in Serie A for two years, has entered the golden period of his career, and at the age of 26, he will represent Fiorentina and return to his home country to fight, which is an opponent he is very familiar with - Werder Bremen.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Werder Bremen was a Bundesliga powerhouse, and between 1988 and 1995 Bremen was second only to Bayern Munich in terms of record among any German team: in 1987-88, Bremen won the Bundesliga for the second time with the fewest goals conceded in Bundesliga history (22 goals conceded in the whole season). In 1989-91, Bremen reached three consecutive German Cup finals, won the German Cup twice in 1991 and 1994, won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1991-92 and won the Bundesliga silver plate for the third time in 1992-93.

The current Bremen has "Super Mario" Basler on the offensive line, Dieter Eltz on the defensive line (who won the European Championship with the German national team in 1996), and the head coach of the team is "Otto the Great" Rehhagel, who has been in charge of Bremen for 13 years (the manager who later created the Kaiserslautern miracle and Greek mythology).

Therefore, the unexpected meeting between Werder Bremen and Fiorentina in the first round of the European Cup Winners' Cup has attracted a lot of attention from the professional media.

PS: The fourth chapter of "Jihua".