Chapter 202: The First Battle of the Champions Cup (Part II)
The score was still 1-0 in the second half, with Fiorentina leading Rangers on the road.
For the remainder of the first half, although Rangers continued to attack Fiorentina's defense under the leadership of Gascoigne, they did not create any scoring opportunities, but were taken advantage of by Fiorentina to play several wonderful counterattacks, if it were not for the help of the goalpost, I am afraid that the score would have been rewritten to 3-0 at the end of the first half.
Firicano and McCoist are entangled in the box, and he has quite a knack for keeping an eye on this tall centre-forward, and he has been playing against Batistuta and Vieri, who calls himself Barty's apprentice, in the team's training matches, and he is quite experienced in dealing with such a tall centre-forward after being devastated by two centre-forwards. In particular, McCoyst, who is now 33 years old, has begun to decline sharply in terms of physical fitness, and this traditional center relies most on his own physical fitness, so the 28-year-old Firicano seems to be very good when marking him.
At this point, Laudrup Jr. barely broke through Lanna's defence on the flank and crossed with his feet, and Firicano immediately tangled up with McCoyster before scrambling the ball out of the way.
Gascoigne rushed up to intercept the ball, but the faster Di Biagio got ahead of him, the two men were about the same height, but Di Biagio was much stronger than Gascoigne, who was an alcoholic on a daily basis.
Gascoigne is indeed a rare talent in English football for a decade, one of the most creative midfielders in Europe, but the indulgent attitude to life made him leave the mainstream league early, and his body has begun to have some problems at this time, but it has not fully exploded, and when he reaches the age of thirty, long-term bad habits will completely destroy the talented midfielder.
Di Biagio did not advance with the ball after receiving the ball, but quickly passed the ball to Effenberg in front of him.
The German Tiger took the ball and spun around, dodged Ian Ferguson's defence before slotting the ball to Rui Costa on the left flank.
The Portuguese midfielder looked up for a moment, raised his foot and sent a long pass across the entire pitch, directly from the left side of his own half to the right side of the opponent's half, and it was Ronaldo, who opened the scoring for the team in the first half, who was rushing to the point where the ball landed!
Costa's long passes are quite accurate, and as Rangers pressed the attack, his backfield was full of space to accelerate the sprint, and although it seemed that Costa's passing force was relatively large, it was just the right time for Ronaldo to use his sprinting speed.
One of the Rangers' defenders on the left immediately rushed towards the ball, but Ronaldo was sprinting straight in the direction of the goal, and he needed to turn and chase after it.
The speed of the alien, who has not suffered a serious knee injury, is terrifying, and at his peak he said that he used his physical fitness to force overtaking many times, and it was natural to deal with the Rangers defenders who turned slowly.
Seeing that his teammates could not clear in front of Ronaldo, Boly immediately chose to run directly in the direction of his own goal, after all, even if Ronaldo ran happily on the side, Zuihou's shot still had to return to the middle to complete, that is, the real threat of Fiorentina was Robert Baggio who followed up in the middle.
But the Baggio Boehly has to deal with is not easy to deal with, and Baggio at this time is not the team organizer who later played in Brescia, but a striker who is known for his agility, and his speed at his peak is also quite fast, and Boehrie, who is desperately chasing back, is stunned that he has not caught him......
Ronaldo finally caught up with Costa's long ball as he approached the corner of the box, and when he looked up, he saw that Baggio had followed down the middle.
But he didn't have time to slow down immediately, after all, if he slowed down and stopped the ball, a few seconds would be enough time for the Rangers defenders behind him to entangle him, and then this rare attacking opportunity would be wasted.
So, without slowing down at all, the Brazilian raised his right foot and sent a cross pass without waiting for the ball to hit the ground!
Baggio, on the other hand, saw Ronaldo's pass at this time and raised his speed by a gear again, and Boehly, who was chasing behind him, failed to touch Baggio with a risky flying tackle. Baggio, who burst into the box, stretched out his foot to stop Ronaldo's ball, then leaned over and curled the ball with his right foot in front of the onrushing Rangers goalkeeper......
The opposing goalkeeper couldn't make a save, so he could only watch the ball fly over his head, and then fell diagonally into the goal behind him......
Two to zero! Fiorentina once again breached the Rangers door with a quick counter-attack!
After conceding the goal, the Rangers did not stop the rhythm of attack, and the manager Smith's response was to make the attack more fierce - he may not have seen that Fiorentina played a defensive counter-attacking tactic in this game, but the current situation of the game makes it difficult for him to ride the tiger, and if he cannot gain an advantage against Fiorentina, then Rangers are likely to be sent to the UEFA Cup after the group stage.
As a result, the frenzied Rangers were dealt another heavy blow ten minutes later.
In the 60th minute, Gascoigne dribbled the ball and tried to make a bloody way in the middle, but the ball at his feet was cut off by the chasing Kripa.
After the tackle, Kripa swept his right foot and passed the ball to the feet of Costa, who also retreated, and the Portuguese raised his foot to make a long pass, directly behind the Rangers defenders!
At this time, a purple figure rushed out diagonally and received the ball at the edge of the penalty area!
It's Ronaldo! A standard direct pass diagonal insertion!
Ronaldo grabbed the ball in front of the attacking opponent's goalkeeper, did not slow down, went directly to the left hand side of the goalkeeper, and rushed over easily, when the goalkeeper of the Rangers team turned around and looked at the ball in embarrassment, all he could see was the number printed on the back of Ronaldo's shirt!
Three to zero! The die is cast!
After taking a three-goal lead, the morale of the Rangers players has fallen to the extreme, and if they have any hope of equalising when they are two goals down, then three goals behind and less than half an hour from the end of the game, I am afraid that no player thinks his team can still do miracles.
However, Fiorentina's players did not take advantage of the situation, but instead began to attack on the home of Rangers, intending to vent their frustration at the team's defeat to Vicenza three days ago......
As a result, the players of the Rangers team, whose morale was greatly reduced, were clearly unable to keep up with the attacking rhythm of Fiorentina and were led by the nose by the high-morale Fiorentina players.
In the 85th minute, the two substitute Fiorentina players completed a wonderful combination, Djokaeff burst into the penalty area after playing Alex Cleland on the side, and then dodged Boehly, who came up to make up for the defense, and cleverly sent the ball to the feet of Philippe Inzaghi, who was also a substitute!
Facing the goalkeeper of the Rangers, Inzaghi showed his style of "fox in the penalty area", a small but unusually accurate push, let the ball pass under the armpit of the opponent's goalkeeper and fly directly into the far corner of the goal, 4-0!
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