Chapter 814: Champions Cup Grouping
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Fiorentina's easy win over Parma came as a surprise to many, because in their opinion, Fiorentina, who have undergone a change of manager and blood and two main players who are unavailable, have a clear chance of winning as they did last season.
Anyone who watched Fiorentina last season knows that the two Brazilians, Robert Carlos and Ronaldo, occupy a significant role in the Purple Lily's tactical system. Therefore, when the two of them missed the game because of their participation in the Copa America, many pundits felt that Parma could make a big fuss about this, as it was difficult for Kaladze and Shevchenko, who started as stand-ins, to replace Carlos and Ronaldo on the pitch, as Fortunato and Di Natale did last season.
However, just when these experts agreed that Florence would face a tough battle tonight, reality gave these people a resounding slap in the face!
The Purple Lily, who had the upper hand on the field, won the Milk Army 2-0 without blood, and both Kaladze and Shevchenko were quite good in the game. The former's courageous scramble on the defensive end and his excellent assist awareness on offense made people see the shadow of Carlos in him; The latter threatened Parma's goal on several occasions during the game and scored the winning goal for the team.
Such an unexpected result not only made the pre-match predictions of these professionals completely disappointed, but also made Parma, as the losing side, feel like they lost and lost on this night.
While Makelele did trip Ortega on that defense, his actions were at best a normal defensive foul and not much of a problem; The nature of Ortega's boxing of Makelle is completely different, especially since this kind of thing also happened in the final of the Italian Super Cup, in the eyes of the Italian Football Association, which is bent on developing the Asian market, Ortega's approach has obviously caused a certain negative impact on Italian football, so it must be heavily punished!
Therefore, after the game, the Italian Football Federation quickly issued an additional three-game ban and a heavy fine of $50,000 for Ortega's violent behavior in the Italian Super Cup; Parma also imposed an internal penalty on Ortega shortly thereafter, and although the details are not known, the Argentine is obviously quite dissatisfied with the team's move by looking at the little donkey's subsequent absence from the team's training and hinting in interviews that he regrets joining Parma.
After all, in Ortega's view, although he came to the team as a stand-in for Veron, he is still the core of Parma's organization on the field, and the club does not stand up to defend itself at such a time, but punishes him together with the Football Association, which is a sign of disrespect for him.
Ortega obviously forgot about jì, if you want to be recognized by the club and fans, you need to come up with something commendable, it took Veron half a season to completely conquer everyone in Parma, how can it be like Ortega now, without any contribution, and began to ask the club for this and that?
Therefore, Ortega's unprofessional appearance attracted the disgust of many people in Parma, and the little donkey, who had been highly praised since his debut, began to decline from this day.
As for how Parma FC should communicate with the stubborn Ortega and get him back on the pitch to play for the team, so as to avoid the huge amount of money they have invested in the Argentine, this is a story for another time, so I will not mention it here.
After returning to Italy from Japan, the Fiorentina players finally got a short break after a long journey. However, it won't be long before they continue to devote themselves to the intense preparation for the new season.
Having ended in the semi-finals of the Champions Cup last season, the Fiorentina players no longer have to prepare for the UEFA Super Cup during this time, as they have done in previous seasons. Instead, you can watch the Super Cup final from the perspective of a spectator, which will take place on the last weekend of August.
Before that, though, Fiorentina will need to send someone to the Champions Cup grouping ceremony the day before the Super Cup final.
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, it's August 28th. On this day, Zhuang Mingge took Karin and head coach Heynckes to attend the Champions Cup group draw ceremony in Monaco.
With a strong performance on the European stage over the past five seasons, Fiorentina are rightfully placed in Pot 1, joining seven teams including Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Arsenal, Parma and Monaco to form the first tier of the Champions League group stage.
The eight teams in the first tier of this season are all from the G14, an organization that represents the common interests of European giants (note: Dynamo Kyiv became another new member of the G14 organization this summer), which shows that after the arrival of the Bosman era, the major European giants have mastered more and more star resources, and the Champions Cup, which represents the highest level of European football clubs, has gradually evolved into an arena between major giants!
Therefore, it is unlikely that we would have seen the kind of 20 years ago when small and medium-sized clubs such as Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa fought back all the way to win the Champions Cup.
In the end, when the grouping ceremony was over, Fiorentina were placed in Group B along with Dynamo Kyiv, Galatasaray and AIK Solna from Sweden. It seems that after the Purple Lilies stopped in the semi-finals of the Champions League last season and reverted to the Champions League suspense, UEFA will no longer have to find any way to create problems for Fiorentina from the group stage.
Zhuang Mingge was not surprised by the result of this draw, because this situation had been expected on his way to Monaco.
After all, Fiorentina have just poached Kaladze and Shevchenko from Dynamo Kyiv this summer, and the two teams also played each other in the knockout stages of last season's Champions League.
The most important thing is that Fiorentina's three group opponents have quite obvious geographical advantages in their home stadiums, not to mention Sweden and Ukraine, which are freezing in the cold, even Turkey, which is relatively warm in climate, Galatasaray's home stadium also has the title of "hell's home" in European football.
Therefore, although in the eyes of many, it should not be a problem to win the group with Fiorentina's strength, in fact, Fiorentina's Group B can be said to be a hidden mystery, and if you are not careful, you will capsize in the gutter in the group stage.