Chapter 746: Defeat

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Although the duo of Zhuang Mingge and Capello has been a little inseparable, both of them are very wise not to disclose this negative news to others in the club, one is because the idea of family ugliness should not be publicized, in any case, if the fight between the president of the team and the head coach is known to outsiders, then the two will feel shameless no matter who is in charge; Second, because the season is not over yet, the former needs the team to maintain stability to compete for various honors, and the latter also needs to win more championship trophies in order to have the confidence to fight for better work treatment when changing jobs in the future.

It is precisely for this reason that after the door to the winter transfer season slowly closed, Fiorentina entered February and handed over a decent report card to all those who cared about it.

On 6 February, in the 20th round of Serie A, Capello led Fiorentina to face his old club, AC Milan, coached by Zaccheroni, in the warm-up match that was played early on Saturday.

After more than half a year of running-in, AC Milan's players finally began to gradually integrate into the crazy attacking tactical play, and achieved five wins and three draws in the previous eight league games, and won the last three league games, gradually recovering some of the kings of the time when Capello led the team.

Maldini and Hellweig's wide corridors have been fully developed, Leonardo and Weah's skills have been given plenty of space to play under the cover of Bierhoff in the middle, and the attacking midfielders such as Boban and Albertini have gradually begun to show their power and give the Rossoneri players a lot of confidence and support!

Coupled with the previous three consecutive league wins, the AC Milan players firmly believe that even at the Frankie Stadium, which is considered the most difficult to conquer in all of Italy, they will definitely be able to get out of the way, or even take all three points!

However, compared to Fiorentina, who have been recuperating for a whole week and the main force is exhausted, these momentum of AC Milan people are really a bit insufficient.

Toldo, Robert Carlos, Nesta, Stam, Zambrotta, Redondo, Effenberg, Makelele, Ljungberg, Ronaldo and Vieri – these are Fiorentina's starting eleven.

By the way, a small pre-match episode is that Ferrara, who spent eight months in his hospital bed and in the recovery room of the physiotherapy center, finally announced his comeback before this match and appeared on the bench in Fiorentina!

When the Italy international centre-back walked out of the tunnel, he was greeted by cheers from more than 40,000 Fiorentina fans in the stands at the Stadio Frankie!

Ferrara's eyes turned red when he heard the fans cheering him on, and the mid-back waved to the fans with tears in his eyes before slowly walking to the bench.

As mentioned earlier, Ferrara's comeback was only a small episode of the game, and all it did was to make the atmosphere a little warmer. However, when the referee blew the opening whistle, the warm atmosphere was gone, and people quickly forgot about Ferrara, who was sitting on the bench, and cheered for the Fiorentina players on the field wholeheartedly!

There was nothing to say about the game, and although AC Milan tried to fight back against the main players, their leading scorer Bierhoff took the lead in the 16th minute, Fiorentina, who had been in possession for a long time, also fell into a cycle of no points. But when Capello sent another ace in his hand, Philippe Inzaghi, to the pitch, Fiorentina finally found the direction of attack!

In the 68th minute, Super Pippo, who had just appeared on the field for less than a minute, received a free kick from Redondo in front of the field and scored a single shot, helping Fiorentina to tie the score to 1-1!

Four minutes later, Fiorentina made a comeback, with Robert Carlos and Redondo playing a delicate one-two on the left side of the pitch, breaking through Hellwig's defence, and Carlos drove the ball straight in, and sent a cross before the rest of the Milan players could make up for it.

Two to one! Fiorentina overtook the score!

Conceding two goals in less than five minutes was a sudden turn of events that left the otherwise confident AC Milan players a little panicked. Although the Rossoneri have a lot of experienced players in the tournament, and the likes of Maldini and Albertini have played in more than one World Cup final, this does not mean that they can remain calm in the face of adverse situations and resolutely carry out the tactics assigned by the manager. At least, until Zaccheroni proves himself with a solid title, the Rossoneri bosses will still have a trace of doubt and scrutiny of the manager in their hearts.

It is precisely because of this skeptical attitude that AC Milan completely lost the possibility of a comeback at the Frankie Stadium at the last point after being overtaken by the opponent!

In the 81st minute, AC Milan, who were under the pressure of falling behind, made a low-level mistake in the attack: Helwig, who was going to pass the ball to Boban in the middle, softened his foot when he performed this action and kicked the ball under Effenberg's feet!

Of course, the German tiger will not let go of this great opportunity, and in this way, under the planning of Effenberg, Fiorentina staged a textbook defensive counterattack, and Inzaghi, who had already scored twice, completed the final blow to seal the victory of the game!

In the end, thanks to a hat-trick from the in-form Philippe Inzaghi after coming off the bench, Fiorentina defeated the Rossoneri who suddenly came on after the winter break 3-1, taking all three points and ending the opponent's three-game league winning streak.

The home win over AC Milan allowed the Fiorentina players to have a good weekend in a good mood, but after just one week, the Fiorentina players at the Stadio Friuli also tasted defeat.

Martin Jorgensen, who became the new core of Udinese after Bierhoff's departure, played at the level of a world-class superstar in the game, breaking through the playmaking and shooting almost anything, first setting up team-mate Amoruso to open the scoring in the 11th minute, and then deflecting Toldo's 10-finger goal with a volley from outside the box in the 55th minute, making Vieri's equaliser in the 44th minute useless.

The Dane, who was on the rise, even stole Redondo's ball in front of the game in the 64th minute, leaving the Argentine midfielder feeling rather disgraced.

In this way, with Jorgensen's god-like performance in this game, Fiorentina, who were playing away, finally lost 1-2 and suffered their third defeat in the league this season!