Chapter 618: The Final Before the Final
Immediately after the meeting, Beckenbauer rushed to the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, where he was to meet with Johansson to discuss and adjust the next course of action; Zhuang Mingge, on the other hand, remained in Amsterdam and waited quietly for the Champions Cup final to arrive.
And Galliani, who lost his official membership in the G14, also left in a hurry, and the bald man knew very well that no matter what, his own boss would not be able to accept that his AC Milan was excluded from the G14 as a "giant league"!
So, now Galliani's task is to inform Berlusconi of this unfortunate news, and then use the dollars he asked for from Lao Bei to rebuild an invincible Rossoneri in the upcoming summer transfer market!
Since the whole meeting lasted all day, when Zhuang Mingge returned to the hotel where they were staying with Karin, he found that the final whistle had been blown for the Coppa Italia final with Vicenza.
With Fiorentina and Vicenza both having a more crucial game to play in the coming week, the two managers Capello and Guidolin did not send their main line-up to the Coppa Italia final, but invariably used players who had been on the bench for a long time.
With the tournament approaching, neither Capello nor Guidolin wanted to compromise their vital fighting power at this juncture.
However, although the strength of Vicenza's main squad is not too much inferior to Fiorentina, if you want to talk about bench depth, Vicenza, a small club with no money and no power, is naturally not Fiorentina's opponent.
As a result, the originally interesting Coppa Italia final became no suspense.
Ze Roberto and Cruz, who finally got their chance to start, scored a goal each in the game, and the aging Wiljovod inadvertently sent the ball into his own net while defending, and the Vicenza side only pulled one back at the start of the second half through a Lucarelli header.
In the end, Fiorentina defeated Vicenza 3-1 and won the second championship trophy on the road to the treble!
Now, Fiorentina only need to win the Champions League final for the second time in the club's history in two years!
After the Coppa Italia medal ceremony, neither Fiorentina, who won the championship, nor Vicenza, who finished second, did not stop in Rome for too long, and set off overnight to return to their respective hometowns to prepare for the upcoming Champions Cup and Cup Winners' Cup finals.
According to UEFA's schedule, the Cup Winners' Cup final was played three days before the Champions Cup final, so in the period leading up to the Champions Cup final, Zhuang Mingge and Karin sat in front of the TV to watch the Cup Winners' Cup final between Vicenza and Chelsea.
Due to the appearance of Zhuang Mingge, the current Vicenza is much stronger than in history. Perhaps because of this change, Vicenza did not stop at the semi-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup as it has done in history, nor did it meet the strongest Chelsea, but met Stuttgart, whose results plummeted after losing Elber!
After a hard-fought two-legged battle home and away, Vicenza eliminated the German powerhouse 2-1 on aggregate to reach the Cup Winners' Cup final for the first time and create a new chapter in the club's history!
This time, in the face of Chelsea with football stars such as Zola, Le Sox, Poyet, etc., Vicenza coach Guidolin showed his true colors again, he took advantage of Chelsea coach Vialli's contempt for Vicenza, and firmly believed that this "weak team" from Italy will find ways to drag the game to a penalty shootout in the final, unexpectedly sent a very attacking starting lineup, and in this Cup Winners' Cup final with the Blues fierce attack!
Balotta, Koko, Verjovod, Repka, Otto, Ambrosini, Ballack, Pirlo, Ambrosetti, Toney and Larsson, that's how Guidolin started in the Cup Winners' Cup final!
It was also relying on these players that Vicenza beat the confident Vialli hard after the game began!
Just three minutes into the opening game, Ambrosetti and Koko played a one-two in a row on the left side, and after breaking through the defense of Petroscu and Steve Clarke, Ambrosetti sent a cross, and Toney, who followed up in the middle, shook his head to attack the goal, 1-0!
Chelsea players did not panic when they were down at the start of the game, and they were generally over 30 years old, so they were much more experienced than Vicenza, who was in his early twenties
However, Vicenza did not give the Chelsea man a chance to slowly adjust his form. With the young man's drive and physical advantage, he continued to press ferociously up front, constantly pressing Chelsea's backfield, forcing Chelsea players to make mistakes when transferring the ball, thus creating opportunities to score.
In the face of Guidolin's move, the Chelsea side was unfortunate again: in the eleventh minute of the game, Wise had to pass the ball back to Leboeuf behind him under the pressure of Ballack, but he did not prevent Pirlo from suddenly rushing out from the side and stealing the pass in the middle!
Pirlo, who intercepted the ball, immediately drove the ball to the left front, and after attracting Leboeuf and Wise to come forward to defend, Pirlo first used a gorgeous Marseille slalom to get out of the grip between the two, and before the other central defender Duberry, he directly kicked the goal from the left side of the penalty area!
The ball arced through the air, went around De Hooye's palm, hit the far post and bounced into the back of the net!
2-0, with this goal from Andrea Pirlo, Vicenza extended its lead!
However, despite knocking out Chelsea twice in quick succession in the early stages of the game, Vicenza's slightly aggressive style of play has made them extremely vulnerable defensively, and the Chelsea forward line, which has Gianfranco Zola and Flo, will not miss those opportunities.
So, in the ensuing game, the two sides jointly presented a wonderful goal battle for the fans: first, Flo received a free-kick from Zola in the penalty area and scored with a header to help Chelsea pull one back, and then Pirlo also returned Chelsea with a direct free-kick; The Blues, who did not dare to concede defeat, stubbornly leveled the score at 3-3 in the second half thanks to goals from Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Di Matteo!
Just when Chelsea fans saw a glimmer of hope for the title, their captain Dennis Wise brought down Larsson in his own box in the final stages of the game, and the referee decisively awarded a penalty, and Pirlo, who was in charge of the penalty, made it 4-3 in one fell swoop!
When the referee blew the full-time whistle, the Chelsea fans covered their mouths with their hands and their eyes widened in disbelief at what they were seeing.
Italy's Vicenza won the European Cup Winners' Cup with a surprise victory over Chelsea in the final!