"I am willing to do anything for Italy’s victory!" Candreva spoke, his eyes filled with unwavering conviction.
For this reason, even if he’s not favored, he wouldn’t refuse to play for Italy, even if he knew people would curse him like a dog.
This is also why players like C Luo and Messi would be very dissatisfied when their team is trailing and they are substituted.
They are willing to take the blame, no matter how little people expect from them, they still give their all for their team’s victory.
And they know, no one can help the team more than them, so they don’t accept being substituted off when trailing.
But if one day... a player truly more effective than C Luo and Messi appears when the team is trailing, will they accept being substituted by them?
This question remains unknown.
Because a player who can comprehensively surpass the two stars hardly exists, and the pride of ruling the football world for over a decade doesn’t allow them to bow down.
But for Candreva, he might accept.
Because he doesn’t have the pride of the two stars, and he himself is a substitute player for the Italy National Team.
...
On the afternoon of November 24th, the fifth round of the UEFA Europa League group stage kicked off first.
San Remo vs. Red Bull.
For San Remo, Matias provided the assist, and Canyes scored a stunning long-range goal with his right foot.
Red Bull, on the other hand, had all players firing, each of the front tridents scoring a goal, and even the center-back scored a header, winning 4-1 and kicking San Remo back to square one.
San Remo suffered a heavy defeat to Red Bull, still having only ten points.
But the result was equally unsurprising.
The league’s form had already explained San Remo’s problem.
And this loss was also San Remo’s first defeat across all competitions this season!
Similarly, in the other match of this group, Ness unexpectedly stumbled.
Zenit, forced into seclusion by San Remo, surprisingly achieved a last-minute victory against Ness!
Ness has seven points, still ranking second in the group.
Red Bull has six points, closely following.
Zenit, with four points, is hopeless in advancing but at least regained their dignity!
This also proves that the strength of this group is relatively balanced.
Based on past results, it can be seen that Ness, Red Bull, Zenit, and San Remo are basically on the same level of strength.
And the outstanding performances of Lu Yang and Morici, along with Lu Yang’s crucial goals, gave San Remo an advantage in the results.
Red Bull and Zenit are understandable.
One is the dominant force in the Belgian First Division A, and the other is a giant in the Russian Super League, both capable of winning championships in their leagues.
Such teams, when strong, are even capable of competing with teams at the Champions League knockout level.
Ness, of course, needs no further explanation, the fifth of the world’s fifth league!
In comparison, for San Remo to outshine them is indeed impressive!
This all implies that San Remo, whether it possesses the capability to compete in top leagues?
It inevitably fills San Remo fans with fantasies about this season.
Less than two hours after the bad news spread.
The ultimate showdown of Italy officially began.
The Italy National Team played at home against Sweden Team.
After losing the first match zero to one, the current match was extremely passive.
They need to score two goals to win, and the prerequisite is preventing the opponent from scoring.
Otherwise... even if the opponent scores one goal, Italy would need three goals to overtake them.
Based on the current strength and form of both teams, Italy seems unlikely to score three goals in a single game. The only time this happened was during the European Cup qualifiers more than three years ago.
Italy pummeled the universal number one country, Andorra, and scored five goals like crazy.
Andorra might not even know they are dubbed the universal number one country.
On multiple chat software in the East, many people chose Andorra as their location, which also once topped the trending searches in several countries.
That goal-scoring spree probably used up all of Italy’s luck.
For more than three years thereafter, they hadn’t scored more than two goals in a single match.
Similarly, Sweden has been strong in this European Cup qualifier.
Though they were third in their group, their group was notoriously known as the group of death, with the top two being powerful Spain and France.
The probability of these two nations winning the European Cup next year is ranked within the top five according to public predictions.
Even so, Sweden hadn’t lost by more than three goals in any of the qualifying matches!
On the field, Morici was ready to warm up with Lu Yang.
But Lu Yang refused Morici and said, "Go to Perrotta and Ancelotti, I’ll go to Pellegrini and the others."
With one sentence, Morici understood Lu Yang’s intent.
Lu Yang wants to play!
Morici doesn’t know where Lu Yang’s confidence comes from, but he believes in Lu Yang.
It’s fine if Vincent doesn’t substitute Lu Yang in. But when Lu Yang requests to play and Vincent refuses, Lu Yang will surely regret Vincent’s existence in this world.
Lu Yang’s eyes had already told Morici that in this match, he must play!
He must!
Therefore, Lu Yang needs to warm up with the starting midfielders of the national team, practice passing, to familiarize himself.
During the passing warm-up, it’s also an opportunity to feel the other’s footwork and playing style.
It may not be very useful, but... it’s better than nothing.
Similarly, Morici warming up with Perrotta and Ancelotti was also for... just in case Morici gets a chance to play.
But Ancelotti refused Morici’s request.
It’s not because Ancelotti has anything against Morici, it’s because Ancelotti doesn’t want to warm up with Perrotta; they indeed have some conflict.
Perrotta, as a fulcrum, had plenty of attacking opportunities and passed most of them to Ancelotti, but Ancelotti hadn’t seized them in recent matches.
The less he scored, the more irritable Ancelotti became, to the point where he criticized Perrotta when Perrotta chose to shoot.
Is the Wolf King not a person without a temper?
If it wasn’t for Perrotta’s role as someone who shares ball rights with his striker teammates, his shot attempts could be two or three times higher!
If players responsible for creating chances were any selfish, even with C Luo, you wouldn’t get the ball, believe it?
Italy’s two leading forwards, hence, have become estranged.
A whistle sounded.
The match officially began!
In the first half, the match ended zero to zero.
At the sixtieth minute, Italy’s nightmare descended.
Sweden’s central forward made a spectacular personal dribble in the penalty area, causing Chiavich to commit a foul.
The main referee gifted a yellow card and a penalty!
Sweden’s central forward completed it in one go, scoring the penalty he himself earned.
One to zero!
Sweden is in the lead!
In terms of aggregate score, they lead two to zero over two legs!
And since this game is Italy’s home game, Sweden scored, so Sweden has a precious away goal in their two-zero lead.
This implies that even if Italy scores two consecutive goals afterward, with an aggregate score of two to two, they will still lose on the disadvantage of the opponent’s away goal.
Italy!
Pushed completely off the cliff.
All Italy fans and players are slowly dying in endless despair.
Until... ten minutes later.
At the seventy-second minute of the game, Italy’s all-round midfielder Pellegrini fell in a clash with the opponent, he wasn’t performing well.
Vincent ordered Drake and two other players to start warming up.
However, Drake suddenly pushed away the assistant coach, directly walked towards Vincent, grabbing his suit collar angrily, "Are you damn even capable of making substitutions?"
"You let me, a defensive player, come in?"
"You damn better let him play!"
"Him!"
"Do you understand?"
Drake’s trembling hand pointed at the young figure on the substitutes’ bench.
Countless cameras focused over.
At this moment, that young Eastern face on the bench became the center of attention.