Chu Zhongtian didn't stay at home for long, and the next day he flew to Milan, Italy with the team to prepare for the Champions League quarterfinals held at the Meazza Stadium. He got married, mother-in-law and other matters were put aside for the time being, and he had no time to consider it.

When he played in the Champions League for the first time, he entered the knockout stage. Hoffenheim, a "dark horse" chosen by UEFA, was very good. Many people are looking forward to them continuing to move forward and creating a dark horse myth. Especially the German media, they cheered them up.

A season ago, they also said that if Hoffenheim succeeds, it will be a regression for German football. Now they all admit that Hoffenheim is actually the hope of German football.

It is really difficult to rely solely on one team in Bayern Munich to support all the pride of German football. Once Bayern Munich makes mistakes, German football can only watch the show in the highest level of football matches in Europe throughout the season.

When fighting Inter Milan, the media were also full of optimism.

In fact, it is logical that Inter Milan's strength is higher than Hoffenheim, but Inter Milan's performance in the group stage this season is really not satisfactory. He drew three consecutive times at the beginning and lost to Barcelona away. In the end, they qualified as the second in the group, so they almost had to play in the League Cup.

Moreover, Inter Milan is not good at playing the Champions League knockout stage. Before, whether it was Mancini or Mourinho, their team could be powerful in the group stage, but when it was in the knockout stage, they seemed powerless.

After considering various factors, the media believe that Hoffenheim is not without the ability to compete with Inter Milan.

Chu Zhongtian's condition was fluctuating some time ago, which made people worry. Now that he was fighting with Borussia Mönchengladbach, everyone saw the normal Chu Zhongtian, and his confidence in Hoffenheim naturally came back. Gambling companies frequently adjusted their odds, especially after the game between Hoffenheim and Borussia Mönchengladbach, tilted the odds towards Hoffenheim, which demonstrated the importance of Chu Zhongtian to this team.

As soon as he left the Marponsa Airport in Milan, Hoffenheim players met many media outside the airport.

They have been to Manchester in the group stage, so it is not surprising that they come to the big city to play. Faced with these media, Hoffenheim players can handle it with ease.

Chu Zhongtian is naturally the most dazzling star of this team. Hoffenheim has always been regarded as a team lacking superstars. Even if they won the Bundesliga championship last season, they were named "grassroots" by the media. Chu Zhongtian is the only most famous star among these "grassroots".

Although Van Nistruei was once very famous, he was already old and gradually withdrew from the mainstream circle. In addition, he had no relationship with Inter Milan, and lacked hype gimmicks, so the media naturally did not pay much attention. Except for two Dutch media interviewed him, Van Nistruei was very leisurely most of the time.

Chu Zhongtian was surrounded by reporters, from Germany, Italy, England, and of course from his hometown in China. Everyone was very concerned about his status, and another important project was to listen to his evaluation of Mourinho.

"Murinho is a very good coach, and I think the championship trophys he won is enough to prove everything."

Chu Zhongtian’s answer was unsightly.

"How is your relationship with him?" The media was unwilling to give up.

"I'm not familiar with him, and we don't have the opportunity to cooperate. There is no good or bad." Chu Zhongtian said the truth. He has no disgust towards Mourinho. Although Mourinho always doesn't mention him, he seems to look down on him a little. But Chu Zhongtian knows what type of coach Mourinho is, and he is that kind of person.

However, the media regretted that they did not successfully provoke the dispute between Chu Zhongtian and Mourinho.

Both of them are in a harmonious mood. What should we do before the game hype... If you don't spit a little bit of water with each other, what do we journalists write? What are our readers looking at?

※※※When Hoffenheim arrived in Milan, Inter Milan was training in their Pinetina training base.

Mourinho conducted closed training on the team the day before the game, and no media allowed to enter. After the training, the players were not allowed to go home, but the entire team must live in the training base. Doing this before the game will help players concentrate, facilitate coach management, and allow everyone to prepare without distractions and maintain a good state during the game.

Of course, this is not Mourinho attaches great importance to this game, he attaches great importance to every game. However, living in a training base before the game is a tradition of Inter Milan club, and even Italian teams. Inter Milan's city rival AC Milan also has a tradition of living in a training base before the game.

However, the accommodation conditions at the Pinetina training base were very simple and the players were unwilling to live there. Later, Mancini asked the team to stay in a hotel. Morati agreed at first, but later he felt it was too wasteful, so he renovated the room of the training base and let the team return to Pinetina.

Now Pinetina finally doesn't have to let the players run out in the middle of the night, and preparing for such an important game here will not upset the head coach.

Mourinho personally led the players to train on the training ground, and he is asking forward Etoo to actively return to defense.

"Samuel, you have to know that you are not a forward now, you are a defender! A defender!" Mourinho said to Etoo. "Your main task is not attack, but defense!"

If others hear this, they will be shocked. The demand for the forward is not attack, but defense. But looking at Etoo's expression, he was not scared at all, but nodded and accepted it!

The other players did not object to the head coach's arrangements.

This is the "magic weapon" used by Mourinho to deal with Hoffenheim - defense.

The away game against Barcelona made Mourinho realize that he would not talk about the ball possession rate when playing against such a team. If he followed Barcelona's arrangement, he would lose his own characteristics and be brought to their rhythm by Barcelona. In the end, he lost the game and lost a lot, making Barcelona the most gorgeous team in the universe.

This is not the result Mourinho wants to see. What he wants is to win, especially for a team like Barcelona who is good at controlling the scene and rhythm. Mourinho summarized the method is to give up the ball. Then defend the 30-meter area to keep the formation compact and complete, and not give any loopholes to the opponent.

The game between offense and defense is to put it bluntly that the offensive party tries every means to find or create loopholes in the defensive party, and the defensive party must try his best not to let the offensive party succeed.

Mourinho's guiding ideology is that the defense must not have any loopholes in the game. If there are no loopholes to exploit, the offense will be helpless.

The game against Hoffenheim is an opportunity, an opportunity to test his tactical concept. Hoffenheim obviously cannot reach the level of Barcelona, ​​but there is also a talent in their team who is good at controlling the scenes and rhythm, that is Chu Zhongtian. Hoffenheim is not as good as Barcelona in all aspects, but it also allows Inter Milan to conduct experiments under less pressure.

Mourinho didn't know whether it was UEFA's intention to make arrangements or whether he had a numerology with Barcelona. Anyway, he had a very destined relationship with this team. He first worked as a translator for Robson in this team, and then Van Gaal came, and became an assistant coach who was not named. Later, he left Barcelona and slowly became the head coach. He also played against Barcelona many times. Every time he played against Barcelona, ​​he could have a lot of exciting off-field scenes. For example, when the game between Chelsea and Barcelona, ​​Mourinho revealed that Barcelona's club officials entered the locker room of Swedish referee Frisk during the halftime break, which eventually led to Frisk ending his referee career early, which pushed Mourinho to the forefront.

Although he comes from Barcelona, ​​he is a Barcelona rival and supports all the opposites of Barcelona. For example, Barcelona emphasizes "magnificent football", while Mourinho's team coached by them all follows the purpose of "results are more important than the scene". In order to win the game, he does not care about the ugly scene.

Hoffenheim and Barcelona have some similar football concepts, both pay attention to offense and the scenes are relatively beautiful. Of course, Hoffenheim's football is far less gorgeous than Barcelona. A team that is even more gorgeous than Barcelona in the world may not be found... For Mourinho, Hoffenheim can be regarded as a "copycat version of Barcelona" with shrinking data. It is just right to use it to test his new tactics.

In order to consolidate his defense, he sacrificed Etoo and asked him to frequently retreat to the defense. Many times he did not look like a front, but more like a full-back.

Of course, defense is not all. If you only defend but not attack, the team will not win the game. After all, this is the first leg of the knockout stage, and it is at its home court. If you don’t attack, you will not score. Even if Mourinho’s team can keep Hoffenheim from a goal, it will not be a wonderful journey to go away with a score of 0:0.

So defensive counterattack is Mourinho's tactic. This is not surprising at all, so no one thinks there is anything clever. But this is the most suitable tactic. It is stupid to deal with offensive teams and their attacks. Although defensive counterattack is despised, it is the most suitable tactic.

Etoo retreated deeply, looking like a defender, but he could fully utilize his speed and dribbling advantages, creating possibilities for Inter Milan's counterattack. In addition, Sneider is the team's midfield brain, and his passing and ball control will ensure that the team can still send football to the front under high-intensity defensive pressure.

Sneider in Real Madrid seems a little frizzy, and he can often be seen stopping the football far away. But when he arrived in Inter Milan, frizz disappeared and became a loyal executor of Mourinho's tactics. No matter what tactics it is, he performed meticulously. Perhaps his footwork was not gorgeous enough, perhaps his style was not elegant, but his tireless running and active frontcourt pressing always helped the team create a lot of murderous intent. Such a front midfielder is special, but it is the most important piece in Mourinho's team.

With him, Mourinho doesn't even look down on Chu Zhongtian.

Beside Sneider, there are Mota who is good at controlling the rhythm and Cambiaso, who is both offensive and defensive. These two midfielders provide Sneider with enough protection so that he can play his best.

In addition to Etoo, Sneider, Mota and Cambiaso, Inter Milan also has the world's number one right-back Macon. The Brazilian's outstanding assist ability is a magic weapon for Inter Milan. His breakthroughs and crosses on the wing are very threatening. Not only that, Macon's ability is also good in defense. He is not the kind of full-back who shines on offense but likes a sieve in defense. It's very difficult, he has both offense and defense.

In addition to Macon, forward Milito is also a low-key shooter who is not showing off but can always kill you. Currently, he ranks ahead of the Serie A scorer list, and is not as famous as Eto O's, but he is better than his Cheetah teammates in terms of goals.

The partners of Lucio and Samuel on the back line are very stable. Samuel is originally a world-class central defender, but his partner is not very satisfactory in the past few seasons. This season Inter Milan poached Lucio from Bayern. The two top central defenders in South America were paired together, and Inter Milan's defense was immediately impregnable.

In the goalkeeper, Julio Cesar is even known as the top three goalkeepers in the world. His popularity in Italy even surpassed Buffon.

※※※"... These are the threatening figures of Inter Milan." On the night of arriving in Milan, at the tactical meeting, Rangnick analyzed the players of Inter Milan's threatening players. After his analysis, everyone found that Inter Milan basically had no threatening players, almost all of them were threatening.

"Don't Mourinho also said that everyone in our team is full of threatening characters?" Some players joked, causing everyone to laugh.

"Sneider is their midfield key. No matter what, you have to limit his performance. This person will be left to you, Lorik." Rangnick pointed at Sana.

Sana nodded and took it.

"Our defenders should pay attention to defending Etoo and Milito. Etoo is fast and Milito has a strong ability to seize opportunities. Their characteristics are different, so you must adjust your coping strategies."

"As for offense... Macon likes assists, and the gap behind him may be used. Zanetti is old and is not as good as before in terms of speed and physical fitness. We are the main attacks on these two wings!"

Rangnick seemed full of confidence. Hoffenheim's characteristic is the attack on the flank. In the Bundesliga, Salihovic, Eduardo and Weiss' attacks on the flank were very smooth. Now with Hazardvag, his strength on the flank is even stronger.

Rangnick was confident that he could find the gap from the wing and open the door to victory.

"Inter Milan's first leg was at home and away in the second leg, and the schedule was not good for them. In case, they had to score as many goals as possible in the first leg, win, and also prevent us from scoring, so their game was more difficult. This is our opportunity, remember to be patient." Rangnick analyzed the situation of the game for the players. "They will push out the attack, and Macon's assists will be very frequent, so that their defense line cannot be kept intact. We must seize this offensive opportunity."

"Chu, Sneider is not a simple midfielder. He also undertakes defensive tasks in the game. You must be careful not to get caught in the encirclement of a few people on the other side."

Chu Zhongtian nodded: "I understand."

In terms of midfield ability alone, Inter Milan may be the strongest among all the giant teams he has encountered so far. Manchester United and Bayern Munich are slightly weak in midfield. The strength of Inter Milan lies in its reasonable staffing and very balanced.

Such teams often have few loopholes, and it is probably not easy to find loopholes in Inter Milan...※※※On the day of the game, Emily flew from Germany to Milan, and she had to watch the game on the spot. Compared to watching TV, she prefers the atmosphere on the spot. There is no way to do it in the United States. Now in Europe, she has such conditions, and it is very convenient to watch the game even by plane.

This time, she did not hide her whereabouts. She has been very high-profile since she boarded the plane in Munich. She did not dress up in disguise her identity, and appeared in front of many media outlets in a noble manner.

So when she arrived in Milan, Italy, she was not surprised at seeing many reporters from entertainment media appear at the airport.

The reporters came up and asked, "Emily, aren't you cultivating in the United States?"

"I only talk about cultivation, but I didn't say where I wanted to be."

"What did you attend in Milan..."

"No, I came to Milan just to watch the game." Emily smiled, and then showed the reporters the tickets in her hands, which were the tickets for Hoffenheim away from Inter Milan.

Now everyone knows that she flew to Milan to watch her boyfriend's game.

I don’t know what my mother’s attitude is, Emily can only help her build momentum through these media.

She wants to be high-profile and high-profile.

"So what do you expect from this game?"

"Of course Chu's team won." After that, Emily waved to everyone and got into the car that had been prepared long ago.

Emily did not go to the hotel, but went directly to the Meacha Stadium. When she got off the plane, it was already six o'clock in the afternoon, and there was more than two hours before the game started. She didn't need to go to the hotel for another round, so she went directly to the competition field.

When she arrived outside the field, there were already crowds of people. About 5,000 Hoffenheim fans came, not conspicuous in this sea of ​​people. Looking around, they were all Inter Milan fans wearing blue and black sword shirts.

Inter Milan fans lined up to enter the venue while singing Inter Milan's team songs, cheering for the team in advance.

She whistled, it seemed that today's home team fans would not make Hoffenheim better.
Chapter completed!