From the man behind the football king to the football king.

Chapter 244 Challenge from Depay

On the evening of September 9th, local time in Italy, Udinese ushered in its first Champions League game of the season and faced the Premier League giant Manchester United at home.

This is a strong dialogue between the top team in Serie A and the third team in the Premier League.

Compared with Udinese, who are making rapid progress in Serie A, winning three games and not conceding a goal, Manchester United has a very ordinary start to this season. After 5 rounds of Premier League games, they only achieved 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, temporarily ranking third in the standings. , but there is already a 5-point gap behind the top city rivals Blue Moon Manchester City.

The captains of both sides are unable to play in this game.

Di Natale will be 38 years old next month, and his physical fitness is increasingly unable to cope with double matches a week.

No, the season has just started, but he failed to pass the team's inspection in Udinese's pre-match inspection.

To be safe, Guidolin did not let Di Natale start the game.

Manchester United captain Rooney felt leg discomfort before the game and was not included in the squad for this game.

This is the first meeting in the history of Udinese and Manchester United. It is also the first time that Bruno faces Manchester United as an opponent and as the captain on the field.

Compared with last weekend's league match, Manchester United's defense has not changed, but the midfield and frontcourt have changed a lot. Martial serves as the center, Ashley Young and Depay are on the wings, Mata is in the midfield, Herrera is retreating and Schwein Insteiger partners with the defensive midfielder.

For Udinese, except for Iraqi midfielder Adnan, who started in place of Di Natale, the other ten players were the same as in last weekend's Serie A match.

………………

After the opening, Manchester United launched a wave of offensive attacks. In the third minute, Blind made a pass from the left, and Depay surpassed Adnan at speed and broke into the penalty area before passing Cancelo's left rib for 7 yards. Chu hit the far corner with his left foot and scored.

1:0, Manchester United took the lead.

Depay's crazy celebration after scoring the goal was not without the intention of provoking Bruno.

Born in 1994, Bruno can be said to have stolen all the glory from his peers. While many other peers were still struggling for a chance to play, he had already served as the absolute core, leading Udinese to win the Champions League, Europa League and Serie A. He can be called a winner in life.

Depay is considered successful among his peers. He got his debut in PSV as early as 2011 and quickly grew into PSV's main force and offensive core.

Last season, Depay played 40 games for PSV, scored 28 goals, led the team to win the Eredivisie championship, and became the top scorer in the Eredivisie with 22 goals. He is also a hot new star in Europe. Then he transferred to the Eredivisie in the summer. He was recruited to Manchester United by Louis van Gaal during the meeting window.

But compared to Bruno's results last season, Depay's results are somewhat insignificant.

After all, Bruno won the Serie A Golden Boot and assists last season, and also won the Golden Boots and assists in the Champions League. He is the most popular superstar in Europe.

However, the proud Depay was not convinced by Bruno at all. When the Champions League draw results came out, Depay challenged Bruno during an interview with reporters.

After today's game started, Depay also seemed very excited, like a cockfight.

Now, he scored a goal against two peers and helped Manchester United take the lead in front of Bruno. Naturally, he was so excited that he didn't know why.

………………

Adnan and Cancelo are both Depay's peers.

Adnan, who was born in December 1993, is currently only 12 years old, and he is also one of the core players of the Iraqi team in the 21 World Youth Championship in Turkey. He is one of the contributors to the Iraqi National Youth Team reaching the semi-finals of the World Youth Championship in Turkey. .

Not to mention Cancelo, he is the main left back for the Portuguese National Youth Team that won the World Youth Championship in Turkey.

However, Depay did not participate in the World Youth Championship in Turkey because the Dutch National Youth Team did not qualify for that World Youth Championship.

However, he participated in the U21 European Youth Championship held in Israel during the same period and entered the semi-finals with the team.

Seeing the arrogant Depay, Bruno, who was standing near the center circle, felt angry in his heart.

He knew that Depay's provocation before the game worked!

In normal times, the combination of Adnan and Cancelo would not have such obvious omissions, and Udinese was also mentally prepared for Manchester United's opening attack, but Cancelo still fell into the trap.

Bruno didn't blame Cancelo, because he knew that the boy must be extremely guilty now.

Psychology is something that cannot be understood, and even Cancelo himself cannot fully control it.

If it is normal, this is not a big deal, but if Udinese loses to Manchester United tonight, then it will be a disaster, and Cancelo will be confirmed because of this game. Depay's remarks will never be raised from now on, and may even remain in the doldrums until the transfer leaves.

What's even more terrible is that this kind of thing cannot be clarified unless Cancelo defeats Depay head-on.

But once Cancelo falls into a one-on-one with Depay, it will be very dangerous for Udinese's defense.

………………

Thinking of this, Bruno immediately reached out and pulled the captain's armband on his left arm.

With Di Natale unable to play, Bruno, as the team's second captain, naturally wore the captain's armband.

<divclass="contentadv">While the Manchester United players were celebrating, Bruno walked back quickly and came to Cancelo.

As Bruno expected, when Cancelo saw him, he immediately lowered his head, looking regretful.

"I was just..."

"I understand!" Bruno interrupted him directly before he could finish speaking, preventing him from continuing.

It's not necessary. If you lose the ball, you lose the ball. It's enough to figure out how and why you lost it. Everything else is unnecessary. The key is to concentrate on playing the next game.

"Look at that kid."

Following Bruno's gesture, Cancelo looked far away at the Manchester United players who were celebrating the goal. Depay was dancing with excitement, not to mention how happy he looked.

"Now I really have the urge to rush up and kick him over." Bruno chuckled.

Bruno is naturally no stranger to this Dutchman who joined Manchester United as the successor of Cristiano Ronaldo and put on Manchester United's No. 7 jersey as soon as he arrived.

It's just that Depay's career at Manchester United started high and low, and was very unsuccessful. He was even later called the most popular No. 7 in Manchester United's history.

For such a person, Bruno, as a die-hard Manchester United fan, naturally has no favorable impression.

After hearing Bruno's words, Cancelo couldn't help but smile and said, "I think so too."

"We can't kick him, then beat him!" Bruno encouraged, "I really want to see how useless he looks when he loses."

Cancelo didn't answer, but nodded vigorously. He obviously thought so too.

Bruno said nothing, just patted Cancelo on the shoulder and nodded towards Adnan, who also nodded silently, everything was understood tacitly.

Depay targeted Cancelo, and Cancelo was indeed affected, and even Adnan was affected, but in this game Udinese's left wing is the partner of these two people, and they need to face it all of these.

………………

"Okay, everyone, if you lose it, lose it. Let's try to get a few more and come back. Come on!" Bruno clapped hard and shouted hard.

He is now the captain of the team and he should stand up and encourage his teammates.

"Okay, come on, cheer up!" Badu also shouted. In the Udinese formation, he is also considered a veteran.

"It doesn't matter, it's just one ball, we can get it back!" forward Taylor responded.

"From now on, Manchester United will never pass through the midfield again!" Wiedmon even yelled through gritted teeth.

Bruno raised his right fist towards his teammates. After nodding in greeting, he turned and walked back to the center circle, indicating that the referee should quickly pull back the celebrating players of Manchester United. How could they let them celebrate for so long?

It’s just a goal, is it worth being so happy?

This is the Friuli Stadium!

………………

"Van Gaal made a big gamble in this game."

In front of the home team's coaching bench, Guidolin saw Bruno boosting the team's morale and fulfilling his duties as a captain. He originally wanted to speak out, but thought about it and let it go. He felt Bruno had done enough.

"Manchester United adopted a 4231 formation, with Martial in the center, Depay and Ashley Young playing on the wings. It was obvious that they wanted to suppress our two full-backs, but in this way, their midfield was bound to be affected. "Portolucci analyzed.

"Carrick did not play, only Schweinsteiger played, partnering with Herrera and Mata. This obviously still controlled the midfield, but neither Herrera nor Mata contributed much in defense. big."

Herrera is a midfielder between Xavi and Xiaobai. He has a sense of following the ball and good short passing skills similar to Xavi. He also has Xiaobai's astute turning and breakaway skills and outstanding ball control rhythm. But his small stature destined him to have problems in confrontation.

As for Mata, he is not a defensive player to begin with, and his defensive ability is almost zero. This is also the key reason why he, Chelsea's original offensive core, quickly fell out of favor after Mourinho took charge of Stamford Bridge for the second time, and was sold to Manchester United in the winter window of 2014.

The reason why Van Gaal is taking a big gamble is because the Manchester United coach is betting that the Udinese midfielder's defensive ability will decline significantly after losing Kante and Guillerme in succession.

Although Udinese has achieved zero seals in the first three rounds of Serie A, this does not mean that their midfield defense does not have problems. In fact, Udinese's suppression ability in the midfield has dropped significantly.

As long as the Udinese midfielder cannot provide enough pressure, Manchester United will get more opportunities and even control the entire game.

And this was originally Udinese's advantage.

Of course, on the other hand, if Udinese controls the midfield and even effectively suppresses Manchester United, the Red Devils will be in danger, because they may not be able to defend Udinese's offense.