Chapter 1274: Counterattack Strike
PS1: This is Saturday's update.,It's a little late.,I hope you don't care too much about the update time.,I promise not to stop talking......
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.
At nine o'clock in the evening on April 21, the Fiorentina fans left the Frankie Stadium disappointed. Because in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals, the Purple Lilies were not as easy as expected to win against a financially troubled Chelsea, but instead played to a 0-0 draw with the Blues led by Claudio Ranieri over the course of 90 minutes!
For this result, Heynckes is also quite helpless. Although he had imagined before the game that Chelsea would focus on defensive counterattacks in this game, and also designed a corresponding way to crack this, he did not expect Ranieri to be so shameless, and directly dropped the word counterattack, from the beginning of the game, he put a bus in front of the goal, and took away a draw at Frankie Stadium with an iron bucket!
Fiorentina have plenty of weapons at their disposal, such as Andrea Pirlo's set-pieces, Ballack and De Rossi's long-range shots, and Vieri's destructive power against opposition defences, all of which could help the Purple Lily deal effectively against Chelsea's bus tactics. Sadly, Fiorentina were unlucky today, with most of their set-pieces and long-range shots either out of target or broken down the way by Chelsea players, making it difficult to pose an effective threat to the Blues' goal.
The most important thing is that the Fiorentina players were also very unlucky to meet a very in-form Cudicini in this game. The goalkeeper, who didn't make much of a name for himself in Italy, quickly became Chelsea's first-choice goalkeeper after arriving on the island of Great Britain across the English Channel, and his outstanding performances even forced De Haye, who was then the second international in the Netherlands. In this Champions League semi-final, Cudicini's performance was key to Chelsea's escape from the road. The Italian goalkeeper not only showed his generality on the pitch and made his team's defence more airtight, but he also kept out all the balls that his teammates leaked.
Even Inzaghi's close-range shot in front of goal was blocked by him with one hand, so you can imagine how good Cudicini's form was today.
Of course, if Chelsea were to be judged to have played the biggest role in Fiorentina's draw away from home, it would be Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri. If it weren't for the tinkerer who developed a set of highly targeted defensive systems before the game to contain Fiorentina's attack, it would have been impossible for the individual Chelsea players to resist the Purple Lily's fierce attack.
While this game made people reacquainted with Cudicini and Ranieri, it also made many people realize the fact that Vieri, who is Fiorentina's ace in attack, has begun to slip from the top and no longer has the terrifying dominance he once had in attack.
If this is not the case, then when Fiorentina can't open up the situation with set-pieces and long-range tactics, the Purple Lily can still use Vieri's individual ability to deal with the opponent. After all, Vieri at his peak was terrifying at the backline, and almost no defenders could successfully defend the Italian tank in one-on-one situations, and even two or three defenders of a poor level could stop him.
Now, Chelsea have managed to keep Vieri at bay with just a young John Terry and an aging Desailly, which says a lot about that.
It is foreseeable that how to solve the lack of Fiorentina's ability to attack after Vieri is old will become a difficult problem that Heynckes will have to solve this summer.
Before that, though, the first thing Heynckes has to deal with is Chelsea, Fiorentina's way in the way of defending the Champions League.
Half a month later, the second leg of the match between the two sides kicked off on time at Chelsea's home stadium, Stamford Bridge. Fiorentina players from afar are gearing up to teach the home side a lesson here and let them know that the last draw was nothing more than an accident.
Fiorentina will need to score first in order to progress to the Champions League final if they are to qualify for the Champions League final in order to be able to dominate the way to the final.
At this time, Fiorentina has already won the Serie A title this season ahead of schedule and does not need to be distracted by the league battle. Therefore, Heynckes' purpose in sending all the main players in this game is very clear, that is, to make the team reach the final again and win the fourth Champions Cup in his coaching career!
In the eyes of most people, there is no suspense about the winner of this game. After all, Ranieri's Chelsea side does look a bit shabby compared to the powerful and star-studded Fiorentina. You must know that the most famous stars in the Blues at this time are still the two veterans who are already in the twilight of their careers, Gianfranco Zola and Desailly, and then Hasselbaink, Frank Lampard and Terry. It can be said that the current Blues are old and young, and they are still playing with a glass man. So no matter how you look at it, Fiorentina have a much bigger chance of winning than Chelsea.
Sure enough, after the start of the game, Fiorentina quickly took the initiative on the field with its superior strength and technical advantages, and Chelsea, which had the advantage of playing at home, was losing one after another, and could only retreat in their own half, looking like they were going to lose a goal at any time.
However, just when it was thought that it was only a matter of time before Fiorentina breached Chelsea's goal, the pitch was full of turmoil: in the 25th minute, Zambrotta's cross was cleared by John Terry to the retreating Frank Lampard, who immediately received the ball and distributed it to Glen Charles on the right, and the Danish winger dribbled the ball past Fiorentina's left defence as fast as he could.
Hasselbaink's scramble from 10 yards in front of goal was brilliantly blocked by Buffon, but the world number one goalkeeper was powerless to stop Zola's follow-up shot and could only watch the ball fly into the door behind him!
1 to 0! Chelsea breached Fiorentina with a very standard quick counter-attack to gain the upper hand in this semi-final contest for the first time!
Although after the restart of the game, the Fiorentina players who were behind the score launched an extremely fierce attack, suppressing the home team in the half, but in the face of Ranieri's elaborate bus tactics, the Purple Lily's offensive has always been fruitless, creating many scoring opportunities, but they just can't get the goals they want.
In the end, the defending champion Fiorentina suffered a Waterloo at Stamford Bridge, and was beaten back by Ranieri's Chelsea, bidding farewell to the Champions Cup stage with great regret, and breaking the biggest upset in this season's Champions League!