The Era of Emerald

Having finished talking about Leverkusen's starting lineup, now let's look at Fiorentina.

Due to being assigned to a crisis-ridden death group by UEFA, Capello's plan is to win as much as possible on the two teams of Liverpool and Leverkusen, so as to ensure that Fiorentina will be tied with the two teams in the group standings. Real Madrid took the lead in the contest.

In Capello's eyes, the La Liga champion Real Madrid, which has been trained by Ranieri for a whole year, is the most difficult opponent in this group.

After the defensive system created by Ranieri, the Italian coach, and the offensive system that was tinkered to save the essence, plus top players such as Raul, Dave Suker, Seedorf, and Hierro, now this team The strength of Real Madrid is much stronger than that of two years ago.

Therefore, in this game, Capello did not hold back at all, and sent a full main lineup, making it clear that he wanted to take all three points at Leverkusen's home court.

Goalkeepers Toldo, Roberto Carlos and Zambrotta split the wings, and Stam, who has improved rapidly over the past year, is paired with Nesta at centre-back, with the former marking his Dutch compatriot Meyer and the latter playing His versatility in defense fills any gaps in the backline at any time.

In terms of midfield, as the best German player abroad, Effenberg undoubtedly appeared on the starting list. The Argentine prince Redondo and Tiger formed a duo, and Davis and Tomasi were in charge of the midfield sweeping work.

On the forward line, in response to the weakness of Leverkusen's two central defenders, Warnes and Nowotny, who turned slowly, Capello sent Ronaldo and Philippe Inzaghi, the former's speed and the latter's grabbing points Enough to give Leverkusen's defense a headache.

After the game started, Leverkusen, who won the kick-off, took the lead in attacking the goal of Fiorentina by taking advantage of the home momentum.

After receiving the return pass from his teammate in the frontcourt, Emerson turned around and resisted Tomasi who ran over to grab the ball. Being strong, he was not afraid of the opponent's pressure at all. With a push of his arch, he passed the ball to the Heinze cut in from the left, and the latter immediately dribbled the ball straight along the sideline and rushed to Fiorentina's half.

Zambrotta, who was in charge of defending on the right, did not rush to defend Heinze rashly, because Neuville was lurking beside him, and if he was not careful, he might be hit by the opponent with a two-for-one to form a breakthrough.

Seeing that Zambrotta's defense was a bit difficult, Tomasi, who had just returned to his own half, gave full play to his characteristic of being immortal, and ran to the defensive position in time to help Zambrotta resist Leverkusen's attack Offensive from the left.

The experienced Heinze observed Tomasi's action and immediately transferred the ball to the foot of Niko Kovac in the middle. After the Croatian midfielder got the ball, he did not wait for the Fiorentina players to rush over to defend and immediately went straight to the middle!

The ball passed by Redondo and rolled to Meyer's feet. However, the Dutch center was stared at by Stam and couldn't turn around to make a shot. He had to return the ball to Lamelo who was involved in the attack. .The latter was about to take a long shot, but the ball was intercepted by Redondo who arrived in time!

The Argentine prince immediately passed the ball to Effenberg and did not give Ramelo a chance to counter-robber on the spot. He did not want to make the mistake he made in the game against Udinese again.

Effenberg looked up to observe the situation ahead, and sent a long pass over the top at the back of the middle circle of the court!

Because Leverkusen's whole team pressed forward before and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of the visiting team's unstable foothold to launch a strong attack, when Fiorentina launched a counterattack, Leverkusen's players had not yet recovered from their offensive state.

In the competition of speed, the two central defenders, Warnes and Nowotny, are not opponents of aliens at all, so Ronaldo easily grabbed the ball before the two, and he only took the ball without slowing down at all. The ball rushed towards Leverkusen's gate!

The next thing is very simple, forming a single-handedly Ronaldo rushed into Leverkusen's penalty area, then used a feint to shake Henin, and then sent the ball into Leverkusen's gate.

One to zero!Florence leads!

The Leverkusen players who stole the chicken without losing the rice did not give up easily, and launched a fierce counterattack after the re-kick-off!

But the result of their doing so was that when the first half ended, Leverkusen was in the embarrassing situation of three goals behind. Ronaldo and Inzaghi scored a goal each in the ensuing time, helping Fiorentina to three goals. A score of zero to end the first half of the game.

It seems that Fiorentina, with a three-goal lead, can already announce the victory of this game in advance. After the start of the second half, Leverkusen's helpless performance against Fiorentina's concrete defense made people believe that the visiting team will easily win this game. .

However, when the game progressed to the last 10 minutes, unexpected changes occurred on the court.

No.80 In the second minute, Heinze made a high pass from the left at a 45-degree angle, and Mayer struggled to head the ball towards the goal under the interference of Stam.Facing this difficult shot, Toldo did not put the ball in his arms steadily, but let the ball bounce from his arms back into the penalty area!

Toldo is gone!

At this moment, Neuville appeared in the position where he should appear the most. He had no wonderful performance in the whole game and got this chance ball!I saw the German striker easily pushed the far corner of the goal with his right foot and succeeded, helping Leverkusen to regain a victory, one to three!

Five minutes later, Leverkusen made a comeback. It was still Heinze's cross from the left, and it was still a Leverkusen player's shot in the penalty area, but this time the shot was replaced by veteran Kirsten.

Facing Kirsten's powerful shot, Toldo was beyond his reach, and the score became two to three!

At the end of the game, Leverkusen chased the score gap to only one goal left!

Seeing hope, Leverkusen launched a tidal offensive towards Fiorentina's gate in the last few minutes. In order to stabilize the team's defense and avoid being equalized by the opponent, Capello replaced Inzaghi with Di Biagio Strengthen the defense and hope to hold the lead.

Time passed minute by minute in the tug-of-war between the two sides, and soon came the last minute of stoppage time, Leverkusen's corner kick.

In fact, the game time has passed at this time, but the referee still decided to let the home team take the corner kick, and then declare the end of the game.

Capello is naturally very dissatisfied with this. In his opinion, it is difficult to say whether Leverkusen, who has already gained momentum, will score a buzzer goal at this time. For this unstable factor, he is naturally Hope to be able to nip it in the bud.However, the referee's decision cannot be changed, so after a few protests to the fourth official, Capello complained and sat back on the coach's bench.

At this time, Niko Kovac took a corner kick, and Kirsten volleyed with his right foot directly facing the ball!Toldo has no reaction to his shot!

It's a pity that Kirsten's ball shot at the last moment hit the goal post and bounced off the baseline!

The referee did not give the Leverkusen players another chance to equalize the score. After the ball flew out of the baseline, he blew the final whistle!

In this way, with the goals of Ronaldo and Inzaghi, Fiorentina finally narrowly beat Leverkusen [-]-[-] in the away game, and won their first victory in the Champions League group stage this season!