Chapter 210: The Bernabeu before the Great War
Claudio Ranieri here is worried about how to cope with the devil's schedule in November with three strikers, while the city of Madrid, 1,280 kilometres away from Fiorentina, also has a manager worried about tomorrow's game.
For Real Madrid coach Valdano, his goal in charge of Real Madrid this season is only one, and that is to continue to lead the team to the heavyweight championship - last season, breaking Barcelona's four-year lockdown and winning the La Liga title has put the Argentine legend firmly in the coaching bench of Real Madrid, and he naturally hopes to lead Real Madrid to the next level, complete two consecutive La Liga titles or lead the team to regain the Champions League title that has been lost for nearly three decades.
But from the start of the season, Real Madrid's players were in a very bad form, first being humiliated by Deportivo La Coruna in the Spanish Super Cup before the start of the season with an aggregate score of 5-1 (0-3 away, 1-2 at home), and losing the first title of the season that they could strive for.
The big defeat in the Spanish Super Cup made Real Madrid suffer a serious blow at the beginning of the season, after all, under the operation of coach Baldano for a summer, Real Madrid cleaned a lot of veterans in the transfer period, and while rejuvenating the team and reducing the average age, it naturally brought shortcomings such as lack of experience and large fluctuations in player form, and the heavy defeat in the Super Cup obviously hit the self-confidence of these young lads.
At the same time, after last season's main striker Michel Laudrup left the team, although Baldano promoted the young midfielder Guti from the B team, and invested a lot of money to buy Petkovic, Rincón and other players of sufficient weight, from the flow of players, Real Madrid's operation should be able to make up for the vacancy of Laudrup's departure, but in fact, the departure of the Danish superstar brought Real Madrid losses can be compared with the later Figo leaving Barcelona!
Under the combination of these unfavorable factors, Real Madrid, the defending champions of La Liga, has only achieved a poor result of one win, two draws and three defeats after the first six rounds of the league, including the "feat" of losing at home to Oviedo and Athletic Bilbao.
In the Champions Cup, Real Madrid's performance can only be described as average or even bad, in the first round Real Madrid defeated Bucharest Star 1-0 away, although there were fewer goals, but still successfully achieved a good start in the Champions Cup.
However, Real Madrid's performance was not so strong then, and in the second round of the group stage, the white knights were knocked to the ground by a group of strong men from Scotland, 3-0, and Real Madrid was defeated at home.
The next is naturally the aforementioned away draw with Fiorentina, for the result of this game Real Madrid fans said that it is still acceptable, after all, La Liga teams have always been in a weak position in the face of Italian teams with similar styles over the years, as evidenced by Milan's 4-0 in the Champions League final with a remnant in the Champions League final a year ago.
And such a poor result has obviously shaken the position of the head coach Baldano, the fans are forgetful, they don't care if he is the hero of the overthrow of Barcelona's rule last season, their logic is generally very simple, after the team has introduced a lot of new people, it is the manager's fault.
As a result, calls for Baldano to step down began to appear in the Real Madrid fan base, and gradually gained a lot of market, and the Real Madrid hierarchy also put pressure on Baldano at this time, and the new president Sanz did not want to see such a bad situation in the first year of his tenure.
Under tremendous pressure, the Argentine coach didn't even return home, squatting on the side of the training ground every day to train the players fiercely, trying to make the team's state better.
Valdano's efforts have had some effect, as of the second leg of the group stage with Fiorentina, Real Madrid's form has finally recovered, with four wins, three draws and three losses, and three wins and one draw in the last four league rounds to remain unbeaten, so that Real Madrid fans seem to see the team's hope of catching up for the next trophy in the next game, so they let go of their own manager a little.
The fans stopped, but Valdano didn't dare to relax, you must know that less than a month ago, the fans were still circling around the club's training base every day shouting that they would get out of class, and for the first time, the Argentine, who felt the bad behavior of the big manager, hid in the office for several nights after the end of the 10th round of the league against Albacete, watching Fiorentina's game footage, trying to find out the opponent's weaknesses.
After all, after the third round of the group stage of the Champions League, Real Madrid only finished third in the group with one win, one draw and one loss, and if they can't win this match against Fiorentina after the fourth round, Real Madrid is only one point behind the second place (Rangers lost to Bucharest Star); At worst, they face a five-point gap (both Fiorentina and Rangers win).
For Real Madrid, who still need to grab points in the league, they can't waste too much energy in the European competition, so this game with Fiorentina must be won!
And for Ranieri, the fourth round match with Real Madrid must also be won, after all, once defeated or only a draw, Fiorentina will be quite passive in the following games, the tinkerer does not think that a poor and weak Romanian team can stop the footsteps of the Scots, miracles This kind of thing will indeed happen to this shijie, but it will only favor those who are prepared, and the Romanians who have no faith will obviously not be favored by the goddess of luck.
Therefore, once this game is lost, Fiorentina will fall to the third place in the group (with the same points as Real Madrid and at a disadvantage with each other's records), which means that Fiorentina must do their best in the next two rounds of the group stage, which is now the Fiorentina who are understaffed in the front line do not want to see, Ranieri and Zhuang Mingge both hope that the team can win this game and lock a group qualification place in advance, so as to retain the strength to deal with the upcoming devil's schedule, after all, if the Champions League is qualified in advance, and then strategically release water in the Champions League and Coppa Italia matches, with Fiorentina's personnel can still cope with these tough battles.
So, in this game, Fiorentina can't afford to lose either!
In the case that neither side can afford to lose, the battle between Fiorentina and Real Madrid at the Bernabeu on November 2 will be extraordinarily exciting!
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