From the man behind the football king to the football king

After 19 rounds of league games, Udinese has fought all the other 19 teams in Serie A and achieved 14 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses. This is a very good record.

But those who are paying attention to Udinese have discovered that in the latter part of the first half of the season, Udinese's results were somewhat unable to continue.

Especially after the winter break, Udinese was winless in two rounds and their performance was disappointing, as if their rhythm was also taken away by the winter break.

However, this is within the expectations of most people.

After all, Udinese's strength is limited. As the season progresses and their lineup is not thick enough, it will be difficult for them to continue to maintain the state of rapid progress in the first half of the season.

As if to confirm this view, Udinese suffered successive setbacks in the 20th and 21st rounds of the next league.

In the first game of the second half of the season, Udinese faced Lazio at home. After a goal battle, Udinese was tied by Hernanes in the 90th minute despite having one more player.

The final score is 3:3!

On January 26, Udinese, who visited Parma, drew 1:1 with their opponent.

Encountering Udinese, who have been winless in four rounds, the league ranking has dropped to third, and the point difference with Juventus at the top has widened to 8 points.

During this period, Udinese defeated AC Milan 2:1 at the San Siro Stadium in the quarter-finals of the Italian Cup and broke into the semi-finals of this year's Italian Cup.

According to the draw, their semi-final opponent is Fiorentina.

If they can defeat Fiorentina in the two-leg semi-finals, their opponent in the final will be the winner between Roma and Napoli.

………………

With the arrival of February, the winter transfer window has also been announced to be closed.

In this winter window, Udinese only transferred three people, namely 20-year-old Cameroon forward Steve Bilek and 19-year-old Brazilian defender Santos. The other one is 29-year-old Algerian midfielder Hassan. Yebuda.

Santos and Yebuda were both acquired by Udinese from its satellite club Granada.

In addition, Udinese also eliminated five redundant players who could not play in the team, sold the 23-year-old Brazilian defender Newton to Novara, and dealt with midfielder Merkel and forward Raniki. At Watford in the English Championship, Polish goalkeeper Borowski was loaned to Wroclaw in Poland, and defender Daniel Mori was transferred to Brescia in Serie B.

The three introduced players, except for Yebuda, the other two little demons are basically of no use to the current Udinese. Guidolin directly placed them in the youth team.

Udinese's situation is becoming more and more embarrassing, because the European knockout rounds are about to begin, and Udinese has to face a three-tier battle situation in Serie A, Europa League and Italian Cup.

According to the schedule, Udinese will play 8 consecutive games in February, including 4 Serie A games, 2 Coppa Italia semi-finals and 2 Europa League quarter-finals.

In other words, Udinese will face a double match situation every week throughout February.

With Udinese's current situation, if they don't want to give up on every front, they will never be able to survive.

………………

Udinese boss Mr. Pozzo summoned the team's head coach Guidolin, general manager Giaretta, captain Di Natale and team core Bruno to hold a small-scale team strategy meeting to discuss what the team should do. Where to go.

According to Pozzo, he hopes the team can specialize in Serie A. He believes that the team is hopeful of winning the Serie A championship this season.

The team performed very well in the first half of the season and was only 1 point behind Juventus in the first 17 rounds. Although they suffered four games without a win after the winter break, causing Juventus to widen the point difference to 8 points, as long as Udinese adjusts its strategy immediately, there is hope that the point difference can be recovered.

Since Serie A expanded to 20 teams, except for Inter Milan who won the championship with an invincible 97 points in the 2006-2007 season just past the Calciopoli, the final score of the Serie A champions in the past six seasons has been 80+.

Udinese has now scored 45 points in 21 league rounds, averaging 2.14 points per game. With this scoring rate, we should be able to score around 81 points this season.

In the past 6 seasons, this has definitely been the performance of a championship contending team!

If Udinese strategically abandons the Italian Cup and Europa League and concentrates on the league, this score should be improved.

For example, in the remaining 17 rounds of the league, if you show your performance before the winter break, that is, if you score 42 points in 17 rounds, your points for the season will reach 87 points. This is already the score that Juventus won last season. , also the single-season points record in Serie A in the past six years.

………………

Neither Giaretta nor Di Natale objected to Mr. Pozzo's remarks. In particular, Di Natale even seemed a little moved.

As an almost 37-year-old veteran, Di Natale really wants to win a Serie A championship.

Guidolin also fell silent.

Regarding the team's situation, Guidolin is very clear that it is basically impossible to achieve what Mr. Pozzo said.

The team's previous performance was absolutely extraordinary, thanks to the explosion of Bruno and Di Natale.

In the past 21 rounds of the league, Bruno, who has been full-time, has produced double-ten statistics: scoring 13 goals and assisting 15 times, ranking third in the goal list, and ranking first in the assist list.

The team captain Di Natale also broke out again due to the arrival of Bruno, scoring 15 goals and ranking first in the scorer list.

For these two team heroes, it is difficult to expect them to maintain this state in the coming seasons.

Especially Di Natale, he is about to turn 37 after all.

However, Guidolin could not refute Mr. Pozzo's interest. After all, last summer, he made up his mind to sign Bruno with the goal of winning the championship.

Although it was not stated clearly what championship the team was aiming for at the time, if it could win the Serie A championship, who would care about the Italian Cup or the Europa League?

Unless it is possible to win the Champions League, it depends on whether Mr. Pozzo is willing to give up the Serie A championship.

………………

Seeing everyone's silence, Bruno knew he had to stand up.

If we really follow Mr. Pozzo's wishes and give up the Italian Cup and Europa League and focus on Serie A, then Udinese will definitely have nothing to gain this season.

Because in my memory, Juventus was really invincible this season, and the final score for winning the championship seemed to exceed 100 points!

Bruno said: "Mr. Pozzo, I think it is basically impossible for us to win the Serie A championship this season."

"Huh?" Mr. Pozzo looked at Bruno unexpectedly.

Others also cast their eyes over.

Bruno didn't care and continued: "Everyone may have underestimated Juventus this season. I don't know if you have noticed that since Juventus returned to Serie A, the points scored every season have almost been on an upward trend. of."

After Juventus was upgraded in the summer of 2007, they scored 72 and 74 points respectively in the first two seasons, ranking third and second in Serie A.

In the following two seasons, Juventus went through the pain of reconstruction, scoring only more than 50 points for two consecutive seasons, ranking seventh in the league.

But after completing their reconstruction in the summer of 2011, Juventus quickly got back on track. They won the Serie A championship with 84 points that season, and then defended the title again last season with 87 points.

This season, Juventus has made rapid progress since the start of the season, scoring 53 points in 21 rounds, averaging 2.52 points per game.

With this scoring rate, after 38 league rounds, Juventus will score 96 points, which is similar to the original invincible Inter Milan.

In fact, Bruno knows that Juventus will go one step further and win three consecutive Serie A championships with 102 points in Creative A history.

Bruno's words made Mr. Pozzo look a little ugly, but he couldn't say anything to refute.

He knows better than anyone here how stable Juventus is in Serie A. It is really a slippery Serie A and a solid Juventus.

The reason why he wanted to give it a try was just because he was unwilling to do so.

Bruno looked at the somewhat dejected boss and said: "If Mr. Pozzo definitely wants to compete in the league, I will not object. But rationally speaking, I think the Italian Cup is the most realistic. Whether it is Florence, Naples and Roma, we have a greater chance of winning, especially with only three games left, even in the Europa League, because our opponents are limited in strength, we can’t give it a try.”