PS1: Chapter 26 of "Add More Supplemental Jihua".

PS2: Today's third update...... It seems that I have a little fever again, and I have to recuperate again at night......

After progressing from the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup, Fiorentina will face defending champions Arsenal of the Premier League in the semi-finals.

One of the interesting things about the Cup Winners' Cup is that no team has ever managed to defend its title.

In the Cup Winners' Cup, the previous champions have appeared in the final the following year five times, but they have all failed to defend their titles. The most recent was with Parma from Serie A, who won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1993 and reached the final again in the 93-94 season, only to be beaten 1-0 by Arsenal in the final and missing out on the chance to break the reigning curse.

And this time facing this curse, it is Arsenal who have just defeated Portuguese powerhouse Porto to advance to the semi-finals......

With a long way to go until the Cup Winners' Cup semi-finals, let's turn the conversation back to Italy first:

The Fiorentina players who returned from Moscow had no time to regret their surprise defeat away from home, as they were about to face Inter Milan at home.

After all, Moratti officially took over Inter Milan in January this year, and it was past the pre-season summer transfer period, although the boss made some moves during the winter break, but in a hurry, he could not fully show all the thoughts and intentions of the new owner. For example, the purge of Ruben Sousa and Bergkamp, because the whole season has just been halfway through, and the foreign players of each team are generally saturated, so it is natural that there will be no thoughts about these two players.

Therefore, throughout the winter transfer period, Moratti has only made some changes to the composition of the team's homegrown players.

However, what can be said is that Boss Mo, who likes to burn money, and Inter Milan, which he is in charge of, are estimated to be a role to accompany the prince to study this season, and next season is when they really start to exert their strength.

In this game, Ranieri rotated some of the main players in order to prepare for the second leg of the Cup Winners' Cup, and was also mentally prepared to be at the top of the table Juventus to pull a large gap in points, but Zuihou's result was beyond his expectations: 2-1, Fiorentina, who rotated half of the main lineup, defeated Inter Milan at home.

In fact, this is mainly because Inter Milan's backline has just undergone a major operation during the winter break, and the new Festa has not yet formed a tacit understanding with the team, facing the combined impact of Montella and Inzaghi, two point-grabbing strikers, Festa's two leaks led to the Nerazzurri's away defeat.

Fiorentina's rival Juventus also won the A-Blue led by Mancini away from home, and under the toss of the new owner Mantovani Jr., the hearts of the old Samp people who had risen up to try to save the team slowly began to cool.

As a result, after 21 rounds of Serie A, Juventus still led Fiorentina by two points.

Before Zhuang Mingge returned to Italy, Fiorentina, who ended the second leg of the meeting with Spartak, played another Serie A match. This time, however, Ranieri, who had rotated a number of key players, was not as lucky as he had last time: the Purple Lilies suffered a 2-6 defeat to Zeman's Lazio side at the Stadio Olimpic.

Lazio's players went completely crazy in this game, and Di Matteo, who replaced Gascoigne as the heart of the midfield, put his attacking talents to good use, and a hat-trick of assists made him the best player of the game.

Fiorentina goalkeeper Toldo was very sad to get the ball out of the goal six times in 90 minutes, he has tried his best in this game, but these Lazio strikers are too smooth today, as long as they shoot, they all go directly to the corner, such a result makes the young Toldo feel very helpless.

After returning to Fiorentina, the Purple Lilies players who suffered a heavy defeat at home finally heard the good news that the league leaders Juventus did not have a win in this round of the league, and they were stubbornly held to a draw by Inter Milan in the "Italian derby".

I'll you, Lippi, you did it on purpose, right? Why do you win when we win, and you come to a draw when we lose? Could it be that he was deliberately making fun of Florence?

This is Zhuang Mingge's first reaction after seeing the results of the 22nd round, but then he understands that Juventus is also affected by the European competition, after all, there are many strong teams participating in the UEFA Cup at this time, and it is normal for the Bianconeri to fluctuate in the current state of the third-line battle.

It would be great if Fiorentina could take advantage of Juve's ups and downs in form to overtake them in the standings, Zhuang Mingge thought.

However, what Zhuang Mingge did not expect was that the first to collapse was not Fiorentina, Juventus and Parma in the championship group, nor a few teams in the quagmire of relegation, but the Sea Blue Army-Sampdoria.

This season's Sampdoria, although it was tossed by Mantovani Jr. before the start of the season, the strength of the team is undoubted. After the twenty-second round of Serie A, the fifth-ranked league ranking should be considered a good result.

But such a result that had been earned through the hard work of the players seemed so insignificant in the face of Mantovani Jr.'s terrifying desire - Sampdoria lost to Parma in the 23rd round of the game, and then the team was beaten by Juventus in the Coppa Italia.

Two consecutive defeats, cup exits, and nothing in the season...... A series of "blows" that should have been within the scope of their own bearing, but let little Mantovani, who had accumulated dissatisfaction for a long time, completely explode.

At a press conference held after the match with Juventus, the young Mantovani classmate, who had lost his mind, publicly threatened that if the team could not defeat the opponent AC Milan in the next game, he would immediately dismiss the head coach Eriksen and carry out a large-scale change of the team at the end of the season!

As a result, the players of the older generation of Sampdoria who were already dissatisfied with the new owner felt that they had been severely humiliated by this unbelievable boss this time, and in extreme anger, the collective volcano erupted: Evani said in an interview that he would definitely leave next season; Ruud Ruud, who has just returned to Sampdoria this season, was put on the injury list for publicly scolding Mantovani Jr. in a press conference; Even the Swedish head coach Eriksen, who has always been gentle and sleek, quietly contacted his next family through his agent......

The reason why Mantovani Jr. dared to publicly say such a bold statement as "large-scale blood exchange" was that he thought that Sampdoria's current family was enough for him to squander like this, but this was not the case.

Although Sampdoria has been under the painstaking management of the previous owner for more than ten years, the club's financial situation is indeed richer than that of most teams, and it does have the confidence to buy a group of quality players again. However, Zhuang Mingge knew that little Mantovani, who was about the same age as him, made the most stupid mistake because of his ignorance and arrogance: he should not treat the team as an emotionless toy, play as he wants, and complain that the toy is not good if he doesn't play well......

The biggest failure is not the successive defeats, but the ignorance of refusing to face defeat and thus destroying the Great Wall.