Chapter 452: The Red Wolf Who Changed Commanders
Seeing Fiorentina secure the league title seven rounds ahead of schedule and completing the feat of winning the league three times in a row, Juventus was unhappy with this, but no matter how unhappy they were, they could not change this situation, and they could only try to find a place in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals.
However, the Bianconeri will face more than just the second leg of their Champions League semi-final tie with Fiorentina at this point, as they will now have to work hard for a place in the league. Because after an unexpected loss to Udinese at home, Carlo Ancelotti's Parma completed the overtaking of Juventus in the standings and finished second in the standings by a narrow one-point advantage!
Such a result made Juventus completely panicked, because according to the UEFA Champions Cup expansion plan announced last month, although the number of places in Serie A, which ranks first in the total points in Europe, to participate in the Champions Cup has been increased to four, only the top two in the league have the direct qualification for next season's Champions League, and the third and fourth places have to start from the qualifying round. This is simply unacceptable for Juventus, who have always regarded themselves as Serie A giants.
Mo Lao Fox did not consider using the influence of the Agnelli family to influence the referee to make profits, but UEFA's recent referee rectification campaign made almost all referees dare not act rashly, for fear of being used as a typical case to set an example for the monkey.
As a result, Mo Lao Fox, who couldn't play tricks on the referee, had to tell the head coach Lippi and let him work hard to get back to the second place in the standings, otherwise he would not be able to convince the other senior executives of the club to keep the silver fox's job.
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After winning the league ahead of schedule, Fiorentina are left with only one trophy left to win the UEFA Champions League this season. Although there are still two league records waiting to be broken by Fiorentina, Capello doesn't really care about these things.
Whoever made the original records was created by himself, and whether or not he could break these records, his name will be written on the history of Serie A.
And Capello's relaxed mentality has also unconsciously affected the Fiorentina players, allowing them to face the upcoming league with a relatively relaxed mentality.
On April 20, Fiorentina welcomed Roma, the Red Wolves, who had just undergone a pre-match manager change, at home. Old Sensi's choice is still so unexpected, after dismissing the Argentine coach Carlos Bianchi, who has a huge conflict with Giannini and Totti, both the Roman princes, he actually hired the Czech Zeman, who was still coaching in the same city in the first half of the season, to be the head coach of the Roma team!
On the other hand, due to the big boss Craniotti's unauthorized intervention in the team's transfer work last summer, so that the cards in his hand could not realize his tactical ideas at all, resulting in a sharp decline in the team's record, and was driven out of Lazio, after receiving an invitation from the old Sensi, he only hesitated for a while to sign his name on the contract.
The Czechs wanted to tell the former owner Kragnotti that it was a complete mistake to get rid of him!
After Zeman arrived in Roma, he immediately made certain changes to the Red Wolves' lineup, starting with Francesco Totti, who was not reused under Bianchi.
The Czechs identified Totti as the heart of Roma's attack, putting him in the role of a number nine and a half, while also stuffing him into the South American striker line of Balbo and Fonseca, which had been established for several years, to form a new trident that would allow him to lead the Roma trident attack and shoulder the responsibility of attacking Roma in the next game.
Zuihou, the Czechs even handed the captain's armband of the Roma team to the young man who was only twenty years old, which shows the importance that Zeman has for Totti.
Totti, who was given high hopes by the Czechs, was also quite competitive, wearing the captain's armband, with the support of Aldair, Zeman and Roma fans, he unified the team's dressing room as quickly as possible, ready to lead Roma out of the four-game winless league situation.
In the face of the menacing Red Wolves, Capello calmly sent a mix and match lineup of main and substitutes.
On the starting list of Fiorentina, the configuration of the goalkeeper and backline is exactly the same as in the last game, and no changes have been made, on the one hand, because Roma's attacking speed is sharp enough, so Capello does not dare to let Stam and Virjoward, who turn slowly, play; On the other hand, because Fiorentina has another Champions League match with Juventus in three days, sending too many main players will inevitably affect this crucial game.
The biggest change was in midfield, where the three homegrown midfielders of Tomasi, Zanetti and Di Biagio set up a defence in front of their defenders. In order to disrupt the offensive rhythm of the Roma team, Capello sent the same young Tomasi to implement a 360-degree all-round close defense against Totti, and the reason why he did not send the stronger Davis is mainly because Capello believes that with Totti's current strength, it is enough to send Tomasi to deal with it, and letting Davis play will affect his next arrangement, which is a bit more than worth the loss. In front of the three defensive midfielders, Rui Costa became the only playmaker on Fiorentina's field, and Capello was effectively bullying Roma for not having a top midfielder who could defend the Portuguese on the pitch, otherwise he would have preferred to send Effenberg and Redondo in the further positions.
Up front, Barty and Inzaghi started the line-up, with Cruise and Glen Charles on the bench on standby, while Ronaldo and Vieri, who have skyrocketed this season, were not in the squad, with Capello clearly saving for the Champions League in midweek.
There's not much to say about the game, and although it's been less than a week since he became Roma manager, Zeman has already begun to imprint his coaching style onto the Red Wolves.
The new trident of Totti, Fonseca and Balbo was indeed very strong in attack, and even Capello's extremely defensive formation with a back three could not stop the Roma from scoring: in the 17th minute, Toldo's goal was broken by Totti with a curling ball from the edge of the penalty area, and Roma led Fiorentina 1-0 away.
Despite their improvement in attack, Zeman's side were as bad as ever defensively, and the Fiorentina players proved it to Zeman shortly after conceding a goal.
In the 22nd minute, Costa took control of the ball and got rid of the Roma player who had stepped up, and then sent a through ball that slipped past Aldair and into the feet of Inzaghi, who had successfully countered offside.
In the seventy-third minute, the Roma players became a little impatient in the case of a long attack, but once again Costa seized the opportunity, he and substitute Inzaghi played a classic through pass diagonal insertion, the Dane who won the single goal gave full play to his speed advantage, and sprinted all the way with the ball to "bring" the ball into the door of the Roma team, rewriting the game to 2-1!
In the end, with goals from Inzaghi and Glen Char, Fiorentina successfully reversed Roma at home and got a victory!