Chapter 133 Europa League Final

5 month 11 day.

Bruno, who got up early for morning exercise, bought a few newspapers from the newsstand and read them casually.

In this morning's newspapers, in addition to the report about Juventus setting a new Serie A single-season points record, Udinese's basically locking in a Champions League spot for next season is also the focus of the news.

Of course, the focus of several newspapers is still the Europa League final that will come in three days.

For this game, the Italian media naturally sided with Udinese, after all, the opponent was a Spanish team. Therefore, the news reports published by these Italian newspapers are relatively optimistic about Udinese.

Of course, this also has something to do with the fact that Udinese is slightly stronger than Sevilla.

Udinese's performance has been good this season.In Serie A, they have always been at the top of the standings and have basically locked in the third position. Their 73 points have created the highest scoring record in Serie A in team history.

In the Italian Cup, Udinese has already won the championship, winning the first major championship in the club's century-old history.

In the Europa League, Udinese eliminated Eredivisie powerhouse AZ Alkmaar, Russian Super League Anzhi, last season's Europa League runner-up, Portuguese Super League giant Benfica, and top giant Juventus, and finally reached the final.

Relatively speaking, Sevilla's performance was inferior. It was a surprise for them to qualify for the Europa League this season. The opponents encountered in the knockout rounds were much weaker than Udinese, except for the likes of Maribor, Real Betis and the outdated Valencia, which was the Portuguese Super League Porto encountered in the quarter-finals. Stronger.

In La Liga, they have only scored 60 points for the time being, ranking fifth in La Liga.

What's even more interesting is that the final venue will be held at Juventus' doorstep, which is considered Udinese's home court.

Under these conditions, even major gambling companies in Europe are optimistic about Udinese.

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Bruno just paid a little attention to how the game was viewed in the media, and then quickly returned to training.

Udinese did not rush to Turin in advance. Instead, the training ended on the morning of May 5. After lunch, the whole team took a chartered flight to Turin.

After arriving in Turin, the Udinese team rushed to the Allianz Stadium non-stop for adaptive training, and then returned to the reserved hotel for dinner.

Since the game did not start until 8:45 pm, the players went back to their rooms to rest for a while after dinner. It was not until : pm that the players boarded the team bus again and headed to the Allianz Arena to prepare for the game.

However, fans from both sides began to gather at the Allianz Arena in the afternoon.

Many fans came to the scene to support Udinese. According to statistics, the number of fans who came from Udine exceeded 50,000.

You know, the population of Udine as a whole is less than 500,000, and the population of Udine urban area is only about 100,000.

In fact, many families are leaving their homes in droves. The team finally made it to the European finals, and fans naturally want to come to the scene to cheer for the team.

This has a lot to do with the convenient transportation from Udine to Turin. The high-speed railway across northern Italy directly connects the two cities. The direct train between the two cities only takes five hours. can be reached.

In addition to railways, many passengers arrive by road and air.

In addition to local Udinese fans, there are Udinese fans from other parts of Italy and even abroad, with a total number of nearly 100,000.

With so many fans, it is naturally impossible for them all to enter the Allianz Stadium in Turin to watch the game. After all, the entire stadium can only accommodate 41,000 people, and the tickets allocated to Udinese and Sevilla for this game are only 12,000 each. The remaining 17,000 tickets have been allocated by UEFA to sponsors and partners, and some are also publicly sold to neutral audiences.

At 7:45 in the evening, when the Udinese team bus arrived at the Allianz Stadium in Turin, the entire stadium was already crowded.

This day and this game means too much to Udinese fans, who have been waiting for too long.

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At the beginning of the game, Udinese showed a strong desire to attack. Their first attack was very threatening. Di Natale passed the header, Mahrez made a pass, and Bruno made a pass in Sevilla. Under the close pressure of player Pareja, his shot missed slightly.

Sevilla head coach Emery is staring at the court. He is observing the opponent's tactics: attack as soon as they come up. Is this an initiative to attack?

If this is the case, Emery welcomes it. Sevilla also has two tools to counterattack. Rakitic, Vitolo, Reyes and Bacca on the front line, this combination of midfield and frontcourt Still very threatening.

Udinese is very aggressive, and Sevilla is about the same. They did not retreat on defense just because Udinese took the initiative to attack.

This also has a lot to do with Emery, the head coach of Sevilla. This Spanish coach has always been known for being good at coaching offense. His team pays great attention to pressure and impact in the frontcourt, and pays more attention to the midfield and backcourt. Control and pull.

In terms of defense, Emery is not very good at it. This season, Sevilla, whom he coaches, has frequently scored big scores against its opponents, whether in La Liga or the Europa League.

In this regard, it is somewhat similar to Udinese.

………………

<divclass="contentadv">From the very beginning, the game entered a fast-paced state.

Facing Udinese's tough defense, Sevilla played very hard. It was difficult for them to have more than three offensive passes.

This time, Rakitic wanted to pass the ball to Reyes, but Kante's prediction was accurate. He grabbed the ball in advance, successfully intercepted the pass, and then quickly released the ball to find Bruno in front.

"Counterattack! Udinese's chance to counterattack!"

The excited shouts of Udinese fans suddenly sounded in the stands.

Udinese showed everyone what counterattack speed is. Bruno directly passed the ball diagonally to find Mahrez. The Algerian dribbled the ball forward at high speed. He dunked past Pareja beautifully, and then pushed laterally. Bruno followed up. The ball swept to the left, and Maxuel made a pass. Di Natale jumped high from the middle and headed the ball towards the goal. The ball was saved by Sevilla goalkeeper Beto, and Bruno followed up with a follow-up shot. The Sevilla defender used his body to block it on the goal line.

Udinese players raised their hands, signaling a handball from Sevilla players.

However, the German Brüsch, the referee on duty for this game, did not say anything. He signaled that this was a corner kick.

Bruno took the corner kick. Sevilla's defense line was not lacking in height. The defender cleared the ball and then kicked it out with a big kick to survive the dangerous situation in front of the goal.

"Let's take a look at what happened in the penalty area," Sky Sports commentator Martin Taylor said.

Slow-motion replay showed that when Bruno made a supplementary shot, the football hit the upper arm of Sevilla defender Moreno.

It's just that Moreno's arm was close to his body. Regarding the standards for handball penalties, leagues in various countries are not uniform. This kind of obstruction may be whistled for handball in some games. It mainly depends on the referee.

But in a game like the Europa League final, it is impossible for the referee to award a penalty kick.

However, Guidolin didn't care so much. In his opinion, this was a penalty kick that the referee had wiped out from Udinese.

The Udinese head coach protested loudly on the sidelines, which prompted a stern warning from the fourth official before he returned to the coaching bench angrily.

Ten minutes later, Udinese pressed forward to counterattack again, but this time their pass was cut off, and Sevilla instead counterattacked Udinese.

Former Arsenal player Reyes made a beautiful dribble past Cancelo and then continued to dribble while watching the movement of his teammates.

At this moment, he suddenly felt a pressure coming towards him.

Reyes reacted quickly and was about to pass the football out in advance, but it was already too late.

"Kante!"

"Steal the ball!"

Reyes was intercepted, which immediately put Sevilla into a dangerous situation. They just wanted to counterattack Udinese. null.

Kanter, who intercepted the ball, didn't let the football stay at his feet for a second before passing it to McSuell, who had already stepped in.

Facing Cork who rushed up to intercept, McSuell used his speed to directly attack the opponent.

Koke was shocked and was about to take action, but he saw McSuell accelerate out of his defensive range. He stretched out his right hand to pull the jersey and only caught the air.

While dribbling the ball, McSuell played a wall-to-wall cooperation with Bruno who came to respond. Then he tried to pass the ball to Silva at the bottom, but instead buckled the football back and then made a curved kick.

In the penalty area, Di Natale held Pareja, stretched out his foot and rubbed the football, and the football flew to the back point.

Bruno appears on camera with no one around him to defend him.

"Bruno Fernandez! Chance!"

Guidolin clenched his fists and stared at the door.

Bruno's shooting skills are considered the best in Udinese's formation. Even Di Natale, who has always been known for his superb shooting skills, admires Bruno's shooting skills.

However, it does not mean that your shooting skills are good, and you can score every time. Sometimes when the opponent's goalkeeper performs superbly, or is slightly unlucky, no matter how good your shooting skills are, there is nothing you can do.

Just like Bruno's follow-up shot in front of the goal, the opponent's player blocked the hole.

But this time, Bruno lived up to everyone's expectations, and luck was not on his side. He stopped the ball with his left foot, and at the same time used his body to block Carrizo's counterattack behind him, and then decisively kicked off with his right foot. , the football suddenly jumped up and flew into the net from the left hand of Sevilla goalkeeper Beto!