PS1: I wish you all book friends a happy Chinese New Year...... This is yesterday's update, there is no network in the elders' homes during the Spring Festival, and the activity space is really small, I hope you will understand, and today's update will be made up in the evening.

PS2: Let's talk about the book friend group here, the group number is three, seven, zero, five, four, nine, nine, one, nine, nine, verifies that the answer is NTR knight, well, that's it.

PS3: Here, I would like to thank the book friends for the tips of "Call Me ~ Official" and "The Fantasy of the Snow Moon Fox".

After Fiorentina defeated Vicenza 3-0 in the 11th round of Serie A to lead the league standings with an extremely strong attitude, the time officially entered December 2003.

This month's schedule can be said to be extremely bad for Fiorentina. Not to mention the last round of the Champions Cup group stage against Real Sociedad and the first round of the Coppa Italia to worry about, the Toyota Cup match that required the entire Fiorentina team to travel to Japan was enough to give Heynckes a headache.

You must know that due to the relatively tight schedule of the various competitions that Fiorentina participated in this season, the final of this Toyota Cup is scheduled for December 3!

This means that Fiorentina will have to fly to Tokyo, Japan, immediately after playing the 11th round of Serie A on November 30, to prepare for the Toyota Cup final, which will be held three days later. At the same time, they also have to cooperate with the tournament organizers and sponsors to participate in a series of commercial activities - after all, Japan is one of the few relatively mature and economically developed football markets in Asia, and Florence, which has always attached great importance to market development and commercial promotion, cannot afford to do anything foolish at this time.

If Fiorentina really found a reason to push off these commercial activities, maybe the Japanese Football Association and local companies would not say anything, but in private, they will definitely not work as hard to promote Fiorentina as they did before, and it is likely that they will turn their attention to other big clubs, and Japanese fans are also very likely. Then Fiorentina will face the disadvantage of having their market share in Japan being eroded by other clubs.

Don't overestimate the amount of energy that an island nation can have, maybe they are humble enough in the face of the strong, desperately learning from each other's strengths and strengths, and in the process, people can't even have a trace of vigilance. But in the same way, once they have some ability, they will try to find ways to learn or even defeat the "teacher", and even look for helpers to increase the likelihood of success. This can be seen from the attitude of Japan in a series of major events such as the Russo-Japanese War and the two world wars.

Therefore, with Japanese football improving significantly over the years, Fiorentina will have to show something different from other European teams if they want to continue to dominate this market. For example, try to give the other side in the arrangement of some activities, so that the Japanese side feels that cooperation with Florence can be more respected, rather than just being raised by these powerful people as a chicken that can lay golden eggs.

If Fiorentina only need to play two high-level matches in a week, thousands of miles apart in Japan and Italy, Heynckes can still arrange it with the depth of Fiorentina's current squad. But the worst thing is that after the final of the Toyota Cup, the whole Fiorentina team will fly back to Italy immediately to participate in the 12th round of the league at the weekend, and play a real game against AC Milan, which is strong and in good shape!

And, three days after this round, Real Sociedad will be visiting the Frankie Stadium to fight for the last qualifying spot!

Now that the first five rounds of the Champions Cup group stage have ended, the ranking situation of Group B is like this: Fiorentina is at the top of the group with three wins, one draw and one loss, and has completely locked a place in the round of 16; Ajax and Real Sociedad are tied on seven points from the first five games, but Ajax is second in the table thanks to goal difference between the two sides. Dynamo Kyiv, who have just four points, are already out of the Champions League rematch at the bottom of the table, but a big win over Ajax in the final round and Fiorentina beating Real Sociedad at home could still be a place in the UEFA Cup.

For Fiorentina, it is clear that it is not enough to secure a place in the last 16 of the Champions League in advance. Putting aside the fame and sense of honor of the so-called giants, from a practical point of view, a position at the top of the group can allow the Purple Lily to avoid most of the strong teams in the subsequent round of 16 draw, so as to better retain their strength and facilitate them to compete for honor on three fronts at the same time.

Therefore, for these four teams in Group B, there is absolutely no room for any carelessness in the final round of the group stage. Because if one of them doesn't get it right, these teams will fall into a situation where they will be extremely cheating, which will have a detrimental impact on their journey in the second half of the season.

Now, when the Fiorentina squad arrived at Tokyo Airport on the evening of 1 December, the players' faces were full of exhaustion. Obviously, they haven't recovered from the previous day's game against Vicenza and need plenty of time to rest in order to recuperate from that enormous energy draw. At the same time, they also need to adjust to the jet lag as soon as possible to avoid inattention during the game.

Boca Juniors coach Carlos Bianchi was beaming with a smile on his face. The Argentine coach, who made a name for himself as a player and was known as the "King of the Copa Libertadores" after becoming the head coach, is no stranger to Fiorentina.

After all, during his time in charge of Sarsfield, Bianchi had dealt with Serie A side (AC Milan at the time) in the Toyota Cup. Moreover, even in the distant Argentina, he is extremely attentive to the trends in European football, and naturally does not ignore Fiorentina, the team that is now in the limelight in Europe, and can be said to be quite familiar with the tactical play of the purple lily and the technical characteristics of the players in its team.

As the saying goes, knowing oneself and knowing the other side can survive a hundred battles, Bianchi may not know Sun Wu's words, but his meticulous intelligence gathering and preparation before the game really proves this old saying well.

That's why Bianchi was so excited to learn that the Fiorentina players were generally quite tired, because the worse the opponent's form and fitness reserves, the better their chances of winning!

You know, since the Boseman era, it has become extremely difficult for South American teams to overcome these deep-pocketed European teams. Because of the huge difference in personal treatment and living environment, South American clubs have lost a lot of excellent stars, making the gap between the strength of the two sides become bigger and bigger, and the victory or defeat of the Toyota Cup has begun to lose suspense.

Therefore, the news about Fiorentina that is now coming out can be described as a surprise for Bianchi and his Boca Juniors!

In this way, Fiorentina welcomed their first match since entering December at the Yokohama International Arena, and it also kicked off the Purple Lily's arduous journey.