Chapter 85 Strong Team Killer

Before you know it, Udinese's devilish schedule is about to pass halfway, and the team's performance is not bad. In addition to strategically giving up the Europa League with Freiburg, Udinese successfully won the two Serie A games against strong rivals Fiorentina and Juventus. Instead of collapsing, Udinese bucked the trend and rose to second place in the standings.

But Udinese also paid a heavy price for this.

The continuous battles have made captain Di Natale a little overwhelmed. During midweek training, Di Natale felt unwell. After examination, it was found that it was muscle fatigue.

For insurance reasons, Guidolin immediately asked Di Natale to end the training and go home to have a good rest.

Another forward, Muriel, was injured in the match against Fiorentina. According to inspections, the Colombian forward may not be able to return until after the winter break.

As a result, the only forward who remains healthy in Udinese's lineup is the young Uruguayan forward Nico Lopez, who was introduced from Roma in the summer.

In addition, Widmon and Zelinsky, who are currently playing in the youth team, were also assigned first-team jerseys in the summer. For emergencies, Guidolin also temporarily transferred them from the youth team to the first team.

Of course, there is also good news for Udinese, that is, veteran Nardo has returned from injury.

In this way, Guidolin led a team that lacked its main shooter and went south to Naples on Saturday. In the evening, they will challenge Napoli at the Maradona Stadium.

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Naples' current situation is about the same as Udinese's. Central defender Britos is suspended, and Hamsik, Zuniga, and Mesto are recovering from injuries.

Moreover, Naples, fighting on two fronts, will also face a life-or-death battle in the middle of next week.

This season, Naples was assigned to the Group of Death in the Champions League, and was assigned to Group F with Arsenal, Dortmund and Marseille.

After 5 rounds of group matches, the situation in Group F is still in chaos.

Arsenal ranks first in the group with 4 wins and 1 loss. Naples and Dortmund both have 3 wins and 2 losses. Dortmund is temporarily ranked second with a goal difference advantage, while Naples is ranked third. Only Marseille has lost five games in a row and has been eliminated early.

In the final round of matches, Udinese will face Arsenal at home, while Dortmund will challenge Marseille away.

In extreme cases, there will be three teams in this group with 12 points, which means that some teams will still be eliminated from the Europa League even with 12 points.

According to Bruno's memory, Naples happens to be the unlucky guy!

Naples is the first team in the history of the Champions League to score 12 points in the group stage but fail to advance to the Champions League knockout rounds.

Spanish coach Benitez is remembered by football for the Miracle in Istanbul, but who would have thought that eight years later, he would lead his team to set another embarrassing record in the Champions League?

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At the Maradona Stadium, Udinese and Naples started a battle.

In the 7th minute of the game, Bruno pressed Naples defender Federico Fernandez in the frontcourt, forcing the Argentinian central defender with the same surname to pass back to the goalkeeper.

At this time, an unexpected pass occurred. The 23-year-old former Santos goalkeeper Rafael, perhaps too nervous, actually made a mistake in stopping the ball and almost missed the ball into the goal.

Rafael Benitez's face was ugly on the sidelines. He was very dissatisfied with the performance of his namesake Brazilian goalkeeper.

After overcoming Udinese's opening attack, Naples gradually took control of the situation on the field.

In the 38th minute, Insigne took a corner kick and Federico Fernandez headed the ball over. Pandev stopped the ball 4 meters in front of the goal and shot it into the net with his left foot.

2 minutes later, Higuain broke through the bottom line on the right side of the penalty area and knocked back. Pandev scored twice with his left foot from the far corner 8 meters in front of the goal, rewriting the score to 2:0.

Conceding two goals in two minutes made the Udinese players a little confused.

At this time, Bruno stood up. He first cheered for his teammates and quickly created a corner kick for Udinese.

In the 45th minute, Bruno's long-range shot was powerful, but it was saved by Rafael who was well positioned.

Soon, Bruno's corner kick went directly into the Naples penalty area and accurately found defender Erto at the front point. Erto chose to fly the ball with a header. Federico Fernandez, the central defender in front of the Naples goal, could not react in time and knocked the ball into his own goal.

The Sky Italia commentator laughed: "Fernandez took a corner kick and Fernandez scored!"

In the end, the two sides entered the intermission with a score of 2:1.

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<divclass="contentadv">After the second half of the game, Udinese turned away at the Maradona Stadium and launched an offensive towards Naples' goal.

But until the 68th minute of the game, the score was still 2:1, with the home team leading.

Guidolin made personnel adjustments. He replaced defender Erto with attacking midfielder Mike Suel. However, Udinese's formation still maintained four backs because Guidolin replaced captain Basta on the field. Withdrew to the back line, and Maxuel appeared in the front line after his appearance, partnering with Pereira and Lopez.

Udinese's formation changed from the previous 4312 to 433.

Udinese stepped up their attack and scored quickly.

In the 70th minute of the game, Naples defender Revier's passing intention was too obvious. Kanter saw through it and intercepted the ball. Udinese launched a quick counterattack.

Bruno dribbled the ball forward in the midfield. Just after passing the center circle, he found that Naples goalkeeper Rafael had some problems with his positioning, and he lobbed the ball without hesitation.

The Brazilian goalkeeper was obviously not prepared for Udinese's quick counterattack. When he discovered that Bruno was taking a long shot, he panicked and ran towards the goal from near the penalty area line, and waited until he reached the small penalty area line. When he was about to hit the ball, he saw the football passing over his head and flying into the goal ahead of him.

2: 2!

Udinese equalizes the score!

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However, before Udinese could be happy for long, they conceded the goal again.

Shortly after Naples kicked off, Naples midfielder Pandev, who performed extremely well today, sent a scalpel-like through ball that penetrated the joint between Kante and Alan.

Higuain succeeded in countering offside, but his shot was saved by the brave Brkic. But in the face of Zemayli's supplementary shot, Brkic was powerless.

3:2, Naples exceeded the score again.

But Udinese was also very resilient. They continued to attack the home team's goal and evened the score again in the 77th minute of the game.

This was still a corner kick attack. This time Bruno's pass accurately found Basta in the penalty area, and the Udinese captain made a wonderful volley.

3: 3!

The noisy Maradona Stadium fell into dead silence for a while.

Naples players looked very frustrated after being equalized by Udinese's consecutive goals.

Naples fans are also finding it difficult to accept this situation.

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Benitez also couldn't accept such an ending. He immediately made substitution adjustments and successively replaced the three major attackers Mertens, Behrami and Almelo.

Guidolin was also not satisfied with a draw, but his substitutions were not as radical as Benitez's. He first replaced Silva with the veteran Naldo, and after building his own fence, he replaced the exhausted Pereira with the young player Zilinski.

In the last ten minutes of the game, the pace suddenly accelerated. Both sides no longer organized through the slow midfield, and started attacking more with long passes across the midfield.

The main reason is that after more than 80 minutes of fierce battle between the midfielders of both sides, the physical energy of the players was almost exhausted, resulting in a bit of a disconnect in the midfield.

Under this rapid transition between offense and defense, the home team was the first to make a mistake.

In the 87th minute, Udinese launched a quick counterattack. Maxuel countered offside and made a single shot. He entered the penalty area and made a cross. Bruno stepped in and shot the ball to win, changing the score to 4:3!

This was also the final score of the game. Udinese finally reversed Naples after falling two goals behind in the away game.

The victory against Naples was also the last match between Udinese and the top six teams in the first half of the standings. They achieved 4 wins and 1 loss, only losing to Inter Milan, but winning against Roma, Fiorentina, Juventus and Napoli.

For a time, Udinese, who was originally suspected by the media of being a bully, turned into a killer of strong teams and became the team with the best mutual record among the top six teams.