Chapter 199 Udinese’s goal

On January 2015, 1, at 18 pm local time in Italy, a focus battle began at the Friuli Stadium.

This is the 19th round of Serie A. Udinese faces the relegation team Cagliari at home.

This is Bruno's first game after being named to the FIFA Best Team.

As the first player in the history of Udinese to be selected into the FIFA Best Team, Udinese held an unveiling ceremony for Bruno at home.

Before the game started, Bruno entered the room holding the trophy representing the best team and accepted the applause and cheers of more than 40,000 fans at the Friuli Stadium.

After the game started, Bruno was very active on the court.As a player selected into last year's FIFA best team, Bruno doesn't want to be said to be a parallel import.

Cagliari only achieved 18 wins, 3 draws and 6 losses in the previous 9 rounds of the league, scoring 15 points and falling deeply into the relegation zone. Naturally, one can imagine their strength. Facing Udinese, who are all elite and determined to win, they have almost no resistance.

In the first half of the game, Bruno, who had just been selected into the FIFA best team, took advantage of a set kick opportunity to help Udinese take a 1:0 lead.

In the second half of the game, captain Di Natale, who had just recovered from the flu, scored in front of the goal and helped rewrite the score 2:0!

Then in stoppage time, Udinese took advantage of a corner kick to score another goal. Bruno's corner kick accurately found Di Natale in the penalty area. The Udinese captain finally settled the score. 3:0!

………………

So far, 19 rounds of Serie A have been completed, and Udinese has achieved an excellent record of 16 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, leading the Serie A standings alone with 50 points.

Scoring 50 points at half-time is enough to rank among the top three in the entire Serie A history. Only Juventus in the 2005-2006 season and Inter Milan in the 2006-2007 season had better records than Udinese in the same period.

In the 2005-2006 season, just before Calciopoli broke out, Juventus was invincible in Serie A, scoring 19 points after 52 league rounds.

A year later, Serie A entered the era of Inter Milan as Juventus was relegated due to the Calciopoli scandal. After the halfway period, the Nerazzurri achieved an unbeaten record of 16 wins and 3 draws, and scored 51 points.

This is the team in the history of Serie A that has more points than Udinese this season after half-way.

Even Juventus, which set a points record in the five major leagues last season, only had 16 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses, and 49 points after the halfway period.

Regarding Udinese's outstanding performance, Lorenzo, a reporter for Udine's local newspaper "Daily Udine", praised Udinese in his column: "It can be said that Udinese is these. This is one of the strongest teams in Serie A in recent years. This is a team built by coach Guidolin. It is an admirable and admirable youth army. This is a team with the deep imprint of coach Guidolin. The team has 19 wins, 16 draws and 2 loss in 1 rounds, accumulating 50 points. Such a result is worthy of any praise. I can’t help but worship Coach Guidolin. This is all the credit of Coach Guidolin!”

It is normal for the local media in Udine to praise Udinese, but even Tuttosport, the mouthpiece of Udinese’s rival Juventus, praised Guidolin and Udinese without hesitation: “19 In the first round of the league, 16 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, totaling 50 points. In the entire history of the Italian top league, this score can rank in the top three during the same period. For Udinese, this is already a dream-like result. Got it!

………………

The media praised Udinese, but everyone in Udinese seemed relatively calm when being interviewed by the media.

For example, on January 1st, local time in Italy, Guidolin received interviews from Udine local media "Udine Japan" reporter John, Milan media "Gazzetta dello Sport" reporter Roddick and British reporters in his office at the training base. In a joint interview with "Times" columnist Smith, he refused to talk about Udinese being the favorite to win the Serie A title this season.

"Coach Fang Guidolin, congratulations on your good results in Udinese, can you talk about the team's goals for this season?" John, a reporter from the "Udine Daily" as the host local media, first asked.

Guidolin mused: "We are always working hard towards the set goal, because it is not easy to achieve this goal. It requires the efforts of me and my coaching team, the players, and all the staff of the club. So far, We did pretty well and I want to thank the club staff, but also the players for their hard work and hard work, I’m proud of them.”

<divclass="contentadv">"Coach Guidolin, what is your goal?" "Gazzetta dello Sport" reporter Roddick's eyes lit up and he asked immediately.

"Our goal is to get a Champions League spot!" Guidolin said with a serious expression.

The expressions of the three reporters instantly became very exciting.

"Oh my God!" John, a reporter from "Daily Udine", exclaimed with a slightly exaggerated expression. "Mr. Guidolin, if I heard correctly, you are talking about the Champions League seats! Are you sure you are talking about the Champions League seats? "

"Yes!" Guidolin showed a surprised expression, as if he was surprised by the other party's surprise, "Udinese is just a small team, with an annual budget of no more than 5000 million euros. For such a team, the goal The Champions League is already very high, right?"

………………

"Times" reporter Smith couldn't stand it anymore, and he immediately said: "So, Coach Guidolin, although Udinese had 16 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss after the half, with 50 points, 6 points ahead of Juventus. Ranked first, is your goal still just to compete for the Champions League, rather than compete for the league title?"

Guidolin smiled and nodded: "Yes."

"However, I think Udinese is fully qualified to win the league championship. The goal should change with the situation." "Gazzetta dello Sport" reporter Roddick asked in confusion.

It would be understandable if, at the beginning of the season, a small team like Udinese set its goal for the season as competing for a European spot, but after 19 rounds of the league, Udinese’s current record and excellent form , fully qualified to expect higher goals.

Guidolin laughed and said: "Thank you for your recognition of Udinese, but competing for the league championship is too difficult for Udinese. We are just a small team with limited strength. The current good results cannot be achieved." What does it mean? For example, last season, before the end of the winter break, we and Juventus were only 1 point apart. Even at the end of the half, the point difference was only 6 points, but the situation at the end of the season was different for everyone. Clearly, Juventus has 102 points, while Udinese only has 76 points!"

Finally, Guidolin said: "The season is long. For Udinese with a thin lineup, any problem with any main player will affect the team's performance and thus the final results. Especially when we are still facing Fighting on two fronts, the Champions League knockout rounds are also factors we have to consider.”

The three reporters were speechless.

………………

On January 1, "Gazzetta dello Sport" reporter Roddick published a report. He described to readers this exclusive interview with Udinese head coach Guidolin. The famous Italian reporter finally wrote in the report : "To be honest, I don't think Udinese's goal can only be to compete for the Champions League. After all, whether it is from the history of Serie A, Udinese's performance this season, or from the outside world's opinion of Udinese In Si’s opinion, they are both strong contenders for the league title this season.”

One day later, reporter Smith of the famous British newspaper "The Times" published a report in his column, "In 19 rounds of the league, it achieved 16 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, accumulating 50 points. It is considered to be the strongest Serie A league in recent years. Coach Guidolin, the head coach of Udinese, one of the teams, told us that Udinese’s current goal is still to compete for a place in the European Cup. We were all surprised. I carefully observed his expression and what he said It's obviously from the bottom of his heart, it's sincere, he really thinks Udinese's goal is to compete for a European spot. God, I've seen a lot of arrogant guys talk a lot, but at this moment, I have to admit , I met a low-key and humble guy who always kept a clear head in the face of outstanding results, although in my opinion, this was a bit too cautious.”

"However, I also understand Coach Guidolin's thoughts, because their opponent is Juventus. For other teams in Italy, the Bianconeri are really too strong. They have won the Serie A championship for three consecutive years. , and last season they won the championship with 102 points, which created the history of the five major leagues in a single season. At that time, they scored 19 points in 53 games in the second half of Serie A."

"However, in my personal opinion, Juventus' performance last season cannot be replicated. In fact, Juventus' performance this season has been far worse than last season. The Bianconeri have only scored 44 points, which is less than last season. The same period of the season was 5 points less. Coach Guidolin said that Udinese would face a two-line battle in the second half, but he forgot that Juventus would face a more difficult situation. They would face a three-line battle. Because they also advanced to the quarterfinals in the Coppa Italia, but Udinese strategically gave up the Coppa Italia."

On the same day, "Daily Udine" also published a joint report about this exclusive interview on its front page. In the report of this Udine local media, which can even be regarded as the mouthpiece of Udinese, Guidolin was described as a low-key coach. He said that Udinese is not the favorite to win the league, but just Just too modest. And this newspaper vowed that Udinese's goal this season is definitely the Serie A championship, and Guidolin is just setting off a smoke bomb.

Seeing such reports, Bruno was silent for a long time before uttering a sentence: "What a fucking pig teammate!"