The Era of Emerald

After the game against Bologna, the Fiorentina players did not get a chance to take a break this time, because they will have a very painful schedule next.

On March [-]th, in the second round of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, Fiorentina will face the menacing Manchester United at home. The two sides will start a fierce battle for a seat in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals.

After the match against Manchester United, Fiorentina's opponents in the next three consecutive league games will be a headache-No.20 four rounds away challenge Milan coached by the enemy Sacchi, No.20 five rounds at home against talented goalkeeper Buffon Parma, and No.20 in the sixth round, Fiorentina will face another team from Milan City, that is the Nerazzurri Inter Milan led by Hodgson.

Moreover, if Fiorentina eliminates Manchester United and successfully advances to the semi-finals of the Champions League, then in the middle of the week after the end of the No. round game...

Facing five strong enemies in a row in less than a month, Florence is really lucky.

However, blindly complaining is obviously helpful to solve these problems. Capello, who is deeply aware of this, is only talking about this situation. More often, he still spends his time on team training and studying opponents. .

On the evening of the [-]th, the Frankie Stadium ushered in the second round of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals between Fiorentina and Manchester United as scheduled.

In order to avoid overturning the ship in the gutter, although the team is in the leading position with a total score of [-] to [-], Capello still dare not take it lightly. Some minor tweaks were made - Filippo Inzaghi, who started the first leg, was benched this time, replaced by Fiorentina captain Batistuta.

After all, Inzaghi played the entire 10 minutes in the game against Bologna three days ago. It is really hard to estimate his physical fitness and competitive state. If he happens to be at a low point, Capello will be about to cry. [

On the other side, Ferguson also made some adjustments to Manchester United's starting lineup for this game.

The first is the forward line. Since Andy Cole's old injury relapsed after the first round and he needed a truce for a month, Ferguson put Solskjaer on the starting list. After all, Manchester United's first team is now reliable. There are not many forwards.

In the midfield, Ferguson did not play the golden midfielder that Manchester United fans talk about, but replaced Scholes in the midfielder position with Nicky Butt. Cantona took on more offensive tasks in the middle.Of course, the main purpose of Ferguson's doing this is to let Manchester United's offense bypass Fiorentina's toughest central defense, and attack more from Giggs and Beckham.

In this game, Fiorentina has many favorable conditions. For example, the second round of the game is played at their home court. The strong home atmosphere of the Frankie Stadium often allows Fiorentina players to perform at a super level; The second victory and the advantages on the scene also gave the Fiorentina players more initiative and psychological advantages in this game.

However, Florence, which is playing at home, also faces a disadvantage, that is, God doesn't seem to deal with them very well.Since the night before the game, Florence has experienced continuous light rain. This situation really caught Capello by surprise. After all, when the field is too slippery, many of Florence's ground offensive tactics The law was successfully implemented.

Therefore, Capello had to temporarily modify the team's tactics for this game. The players were required to reduce some ground offensive tactics and add some long balls. Combined with the physical condition and Ronaldo's speed, coupled with the precise long pass of Redondo and others, if Fiorentina really played a long pass, it would be enough to make the opponent drink a pot.

Capello is also rejoicing at this moment. Fortunately, he put Batty as a high center forward when submitting the starting list. Otherwise, it would be unrealistic for Fiorentina to play long passes.

The development of the game was as Capello expected. The muddy field made it difficult for the two sides to play a beautiful pass and cut cooperation, which greatly restricted the ground attack of the two teams and forced the players on both sides to quickly pass the ball to the front. The field, and then create scoring opportunities through the personal abilities of the strikers.

Since the two teams both used the long pass tactics in unison, the rhythm of the game was raised to a fairly fast level from the very beginning.

On the muddy lawn, players from both sides were actively fighting, and then quickly attacked the opponent's goal.In the first minute, Solskjaer was still flying in Florence's penalty area to grab a point, and in the second minute, the ball fell on Batistuta's head and turned into a header.

However, during this period of time, the shots of the two teams did not pose any threat to the goal. The wet and slippery field and the continuous light rain greatly affected the accuracy of the shots. Therefore, the players on both sides used a lot of running and Positive game attitude, to adapt to the field under his feet as soon as possible.

After all, whoever can adapt to such a venue first will be able to take the initiative on the court first.

In the end, Fiorentina, who still played at home, took the lead in adapting to the venue. In any case, Frankie Stadium is also their home stadium. Fiorentina players are naturally more familiar with this stadium than Manchester United, who may not come here for a few years. Much more, even if the conditions of the venue were different from usual due to the rain, the feeling in most places was still the same, so after 10 minutes of the game, Florence, who gradually found the feeling of the game, took the initiative on the field!

Batistuta is very active on the field-he is the captain of Fiorentina. At this time, he thinks he must stand up and lead the team to victory!

No.205 minutes, Redondo made a long pass from the backcourt. Ronaldo in the frontcourt unloaded the ball and started to counterattack. To Batistuta who ran into the penalty area! [

After receiving the pass, Batty made a slight adjustment in the penalty area and volleyed directly on the spot. Unfortunately, his shot was blocked by Schmeichel from the bottom line, and Florence's corner kick.

Immediately afterwards, Effenberg took a tactical corner kick. After several passes, the ball reached the feet of Batistuta who was pulled outside the penalty area.

Batty did not choose to stop the ball, but faced the direction of the ball flying, turned around and volleyed vigorously with his right foot the moment the ball reached him!

Batty's shot was very decisive. Almost all Manchester United players did not expect that the Argentine striker would turn around and hit the goal without stopping the ball!

Fortunately, Schmeichel's attention was concentrated enough. Although he was blocked by his teammates, the Manchester United goalkeeper relied on his own prediction and threw a sideways attack to the left, pressing the ball firmly under him!

In this way, with the wonderful performance of Schmeichel, Manchester United was lucky to escape in the first half.