Chapter 309 The best New Year gift!

As the Spring Festival was approaching, the National Olympic Team announced its disbandment after completing the training camp in the UK.

The domestic players followed the members of the Chinese coaching team on a chartered flight back to China – the National Olympic Team came in economy class, and when they left, the Football Association upgraded their treatment and changed it to a chartered flight.

Many players speculated that this might be because the relevant leaders saw that their overseas training results were good, so they decided to invest more resources in it. This is very realistic.

As for the players playing overseas, they could only say goodbye to their teammates at home in tears and buy their own plane tickets to return to their respective teams.

The Lunar New Year is only two days away, but it is obviously impossible for them to find time to return home to celebrate the New Year with their families.

Some particularly unlucky friends even had to play games on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

That’s right, Lin Feng is the unlucky guy!
February 2th is Chinese New Year’s Eve in China.

Inter Milan will face Cagliari at home, and the game will be played at 11 o’clock in the evening.

During the half-time break, it is almost time for the country to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.

Maybe I can use the halftime break to send New Year greetings to my friends and family in the locker room with my phone…

Although Lin Feng was ready to play, Mancini still did not choose to put him in the starting lineup.

Taking into account that Lin Feng had been traveling back and forth and had just finished participating in a national team match, and that the opponent was not strong, Mancini chose to put him on the bench.

This disappointed those domestic fans who gave up watching the Spring Festival Gala and turned to CCTV-5’s live broadcast to watch Lin Feng’s game.

“Mancini really takes good care of Lin Feng. He didn’t let him play the whole game in the last match, and put him on the bench to rest in this one. If it weren’t for the huge difference in their appearance, I would have suspected that Lin Feng was Mancini’s illegitimate son!”

“What do you know? This is called using good steel on the blade. The Champions League knockout round is about to begin. Inter Milan’s lead in the league is already very large. Now of course we should save our energy for the Champions League!”

Inter Milan’s luck this year is not very good, and their first opponent in the Champions League knockout stage is Real Madrid.

Although today’s Real Madrid is no longer the Real Madrid of the Galacticos era, under Capello’s strong leadership, Real Madrid’s top-heavy problem has been solved.

Without the burden of being a superstar, they don’t have to deliberately play flashy football. Although the scenes may not be as good as in previous seasons, their competitiveness has increased.

Facing such a team, Inter Milan cannot be too careful.

In this game, except for Beckham, who cannot play in the Champions League, Mancini intends to reduce the consumption of other important players.

If the situation in this game is good, he will be prepared to make substitutions in the second half to save strength for the Champions League game at the weekend.

However, things went against their wishes. Facing Cagliari, which ranked 13th in the league, Inter Milan was unable to break through for a long time.

In the first half, Inter Milan had over 11% of the ball possession and as many as shots, but failed to score a single goal.

The opponent obviously did not think about defeating Inter Milan, but also did not intend to let Inter Milan take three points from them so easily.

Before meeting Cagliari, Inter Milan had accumulated 15 consecutive wins in the league. Every additional win from now on will create a new record in Serie A or even the top five leagues.

In this situation, no Serie A team wants to be a stepping stone for Inter Milan when they meet them. Everyone wants to be the one to end Inter Milan’s winning streak.

Cagliari was obviously well prepared. They were very successful in marking and restricting several Inter Milan forward players today. Even Beckham, who performed well in the last game, could not escape their clutches.

Since Lin Feng was not on the court, Beckham also took on part of the ball possession. The opposing players, especially the defensive midfielder and full-backs, would immediately rush over to press and interfere with Beckham as soon as they saw him getting the ball on the wing, not giving him the chance to kick the ball calmly.

Beckham is not very fast and does not have strong explosive power. He cannot rely on speed and dribbling to make breakthroughs and create threats like his old teammate Giggs at Manchester United.

Therefore, once he is closely guarded by the opponent, his passing threat will be greatly reduced.

As for Vieira, Cambiasso and Stankovic in the midfield, they are capable of some of the linking and organizing work, but it is a bit difficult for them to use conduction to tear open the opponent’s defense under the opponent’s dense defense.

None of them are professional organizing midfielders and cannot do such delicate work as threading the needle.

During the half-time break, Mancini looked very unhappy.

I didn’t intend to consume too much energy in this game and wanted to conserve my strength.

But unexpectedly, the other party was like a stone in a toilet, so smelly and hard.

Although the opponent’s attack could not pose a threat to Inter Milan, it was difficult for Inter Milan to lose.

But this game is a home game and their goal is to get all three points.

Therefore, we can only find a way to pry open the other party’s door.

Thinking of this, Mancini overturned the offensive tactics he had formulated before the game and planned to adopt new tactics in the second half.

This was a tactic he prepared specifically to deal with Real Madrid, and he would try it out against Cagliari in the second half.

“Lin, get ready, it’s your turn in the second half!”

Lin Feng nodded when he heard this. If he only played half a game, the consumption of his physical energy would be not a big deal.

And before the big competition, you really need to go on the court to find the feeling.

After all, playing in a club is completely different from playing for the national team.

After spending a few minutes explaining the tactics, Mancini left some time for the players to have a good rest.

Normally, Lin Feng would take a nap with his eyes closed.

But this time, he rarely took out a cell phone from his backpack.

I glanced at the time and it was only one minute left until midnight.

So he quickly copied and pasted the greetings he had edited in advance and sent them to his relatives and friends one by one.

Time was tight and the task was heavy. Lin Feng seemed to have turned into an octopus, holding his phone in both hands and tapping away.

The teammates nearby heard the noise and came over curiously.

“Lin, what are you doing and why are you sending so many text messages?”

Torres looked confused. The text messages sent by Lin Feng were all in Chinese characters, which he could not understand at all. But these days everyone’s mobile phones are similar, all Nokia, so he could still tell that Lin Feng was sending a text message.

But he didn’t know why he had to copy and paste the same text message over and over again to send it to different people?

Is there any special significance in doing this?
“Happy New Year! Today is the Lunar New Year. I am sending New Year greetings to my relatives and friends!”

As soon as he finished speaking, Torres’s phone received a text message alert.

He took out his mobile phone and took a look with some confusion, and sure enough, it was what Lin Feng had just been copying and pasting.

“Uh, what’s written here?” Torres was confused looking at the large number of Chinese characters.

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot to switch to the English version. Anyway, it’s just some blessings, no special meaning. Oh, by the way, I need a goal in the second half, so I may not be able to give you an assist!”

Torres was stunned for a moment before he realized what Lin Feng was going to do!
He patted his chest and promised:
“Don’t worry, I will help you score a goal. Even if it’s a penalty, I will give it to you!”

Lin Feng was very moved when he heard this…bullshit!

You are not the first penalty taker in the team, so is it your turn to take a penalty?
But Lin Feng was still quite satisfied with Torres’ attitude.

It’s worth it that I give you so many assists every day!

The noise of their conversation alarmed other teammates. After learning that today was Chinese New Year, many people began to send their blessings to Lin Feng. Some even held up their jerseys and insisted on pulling Lin Feng to show him the cool Chinese character tattoos on their bodies…

……

After the second half of the game started, Lin Feng was not seen in the entire first half. The fans who were hesitating whether to switch back to watch the Spring Festival Gala finally saw Lin Feng!

“Here we go, brothers, Lin Feng is finally here!”

“At least we didn’t wait in vain. Mancini still has some conscience!”

Lin Feng’s appearance instantly refreshed the lifeless atmosphere in the live text broadcast room.

After all, except for a very small number of Inter Milan’s die-hard fans, the vast majority of people choose to stay up late to watch the live broadcast, isn’t it just for Lin Feng?
Lin Feng’s outstanding performance in the National Olympic Team’s match against Chelsea attracted a lot of new fans. These people were even more fanatical than the old fans. They were very curious and wanted to see how Lin Feng played in Serie A.

For domestic fans, especially Serie A fans.

These few years have really been a good time!

After Lin Feng joined Inter Milan, the attention to Serie A in China began to rise again.

The ratings and audience groups, which had been gradually declining in the past few years, have not only fully recovered, but are even showing a trend of continuous expansion.

After noticing this trend, the Italian Serie A was overjoyed and immediately increased its cooperation with China. Not only did it take better care of Chinese fans in terms of schedule and game times, it also increased its efforts in publicity and promotion, for example, allowing CCTV to split and sell the broadcasting rights after purchasing them.

Now, in addition to CCTV Sports Channel and ESPN Asia which have the broadcasting rights for Serie A, many local sports channels can also broadcast Serie A games.

This has greatly lowered the threshold for watching Serie A in China, making it easier for fans to watch Serie A.

In addition, the Italian Football Association has also promoted the Italian Super Cup to be held in China, allowing Chinese fans to watch the games of the top Serie A teams at their doorstep.

Last year’s Shanghai Super Cup was very successful. It not only made money, but also attracted the attention of a large number of Chinese fans and greatly promoted the Serie A.

Serie A and even the entire five major leagues have long coveted the huge Chinese market.

But because of Lin Feng’s presence, Serie A has firmly taken the lead and is far ahead of others!

With the fans spreading the news, the news of Lin Feng’s appearance quickly spread among the fans.

Many fans who were originally watching the Spring Festival Gala pressed their remote controls, switched to the sports channel, and watched the live broadcast of Serie A with great interest.

After Lin Feng came on the field, Inter Milan’s formation changed from 433 to 442.
The characteristic of the 442 formation is that it is balanced in offense and defense. It can be flexibly adjusted according to the situation on the field and the strength of the opponent, so it has a very high upper limit.

Cagliari is obviously not a strong team, so after changing its formation, Inter immediately began to use the pressure and control of the 442 formation, actively taking the initiative in the game and continuously launching pressure attacks on their opponents.

Cagliari didn’t pay much attention to the opponent’s attack at the beginning. They had experienced the same attack for 45 minutes in the first half and didn’t think it was anything special.

Crespo and Torres, weren’t they all defended tightly by them?
However, they soon realized that something seemed to be wrong.

Inter Milan’s attack in the second half was not only more ferocious, but also more persistent, like a tide, one wave higher than the other.

Inter Milan’s two forwards stood in the opponent’s penalty area, and the full-backs on both sides dribbled the ball forward aggressively and continuously launched attacks from both sides.

Both Maicon and Grosso are good at attacking.

If we ignore them, the flanks on both sides will be beaten into sieves by Inter Milan sooner or later.

But if someone is assigned to take care of them, the two wingers who did not participate in the forward run will immediately cut inside and create a new threat to the attacking midfielder.

For a while, Inter Milan continued to launch small offensive climaxes.

Not only did Crespo and Torres frequently get shooting opportunities in the penalty area, but several Inter Milan midfielders outside the penalty area also kept taking long shots, threatening the opponent’s goal.

Under Inter Milan’s high-pressure attack, Cagliari couldn’t pass the ball at all. The ball was intercepted as soon as they got it, and they were almost always beaten by Inter Milan at home.

In this offensive state, Inter Milan’s formation has actually changed from 442 to 244 with a larger front coverage area.

It’s like putting a hat on the other person’s head, leaving no room for the other person to breathe.

The forward movement of the two full-backs provides the team with greater width when in possession of the ball, making the defense of the opponent exponentially more difficult. Under the pull of the attacking side, the loopholes in the defense line of the defensive side are constantly exposed.

If this loophole is exposed to top teams, it will inevitably be punished.

In the 73rd minute of the second half, Lin Feng saw Maicon rushing up and immediately sent a straight pass near the opponent’s baseline.

Maicon dodged the tackle from the opposing full-back and rushed into the penalty area with the ball.

Cagliari’s central defender had to come over to block him, and the restricted Torres immediately found space to move around, and after running out of the open space, he immediately reached out for the ball.

Seeing the opportunity, Maicon immediately kicked the ball as if to pass the ball.

Seeing this, the opponent’s right back and another central defender immediately ran to restrict Inter Milan’s two forwards in the penalty area and denied them any chance to shoot.

However, what they didn’t expect was that Maicon did not pass the ball to his teammates in the penalty area, but suddenly made a reverse triangle pass and passed the ball to the front of the penalty area.

A figure rushed forward at high speed, dribbled into the penalty area along the gap in the opponent’s defense, and then raised his foot to shoot.

Although the goalkeeper stretched out his foot to block the ball immediately, it was still a little short, and the defensive player standing near the far post also failed to touch the ball.

The ball passed through the gap between the two players and rolled into the net along the grass.

The score became 1:0. The goal was scored by Inter Milan’s No. 8 – Lin Feng!
The moment the goal was scored, Lin Feng took off his jersey and ran to the sidelines, showing the camera the big words on it – Happy New Year to all fellow countrymen!

When the fans saw this scene, they all expressed that they were moved.

“Lin Feng is thoughtful to use a goal as a holiday blessing!”

“This is the best gift I’ve received this year, funny JPG!”

“That’s true. After all, this year has only just begun for less than an hour.”

(End of this chapter)