Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

On July 2006, 7, with four days to go before the World Cup final, tickets for the German World Cup final were already hard to come by. Currently, the black market price of final tickets has risen tenfold to 6 euros per ticket; and tickets with good seats are no longer a matter of money, and you may not be able to get one even if you pay ten times more.

Don't ask how Ricardo knew this... He woke up early in the morning and was busy communicating with Pimenta to arrange tickets. Sarafina must have a VVVIP ticket, and there were also dozens of other necessary connections, leaders and friends at home...

As for his other two girlfriends, Chiara and Julian, Ricardo secretly told them the truth that he couldn't get tickets, so he told them to just watch the TV broadcast and reward them after the World Cup final. After all, he probably wouldn't be able to play, so there was no need to cheer for those stupid teammates...

Of course, the main reason is that the number one goddess Sarafina is on the scene. Ricardo doesn't want to repeat the embarrassing scene when the Netherlands won the World Youth Championship last year. Three women came together and he couldn't even drink the soup when he was too busy!

Through Pimenta, Ricardo, who was bleeding a lot, barely managed to collect most of the necessary tickets, and could do nothing about the rest. However, Pimenta told Ricardo a good news: according to reports and estimates by the British media, Ricardo's value has skyrocketed after his outstanding performance in this World Cup, from an unknown and invaluable young player to a value of over 1000 million euros.

This will be a very positive factor for Ricciardo's future negotiations with the club and sponsors.

As the most watched competition, the World Cup is a barometer of the value of football stars. A few simple games can cause the value of stars to rise or fall sharply.

The player whose value has depreciated the most in this World Cup is none other than Ricardo's club teammate Ronaldinho. The Premier League giants Chelsea, which originally planned to buy the Brazilian star Ronaldinho for 1 million euros, have now reduced their psychological price for Ronaldinho to around 4500 million euros.

Brazil's team returned home early, and his individual performance disappointed the fans, which directly led to a sharp drop in Ronaldinho's value. However, there are many players in the Brazilian team whose values ​​have dropped. The original market value of striker Adriano, who was worth 5400 million euros, has now dropped to 4000 million euros, and Ronaldo's value has also shrunk by about one-third.

However, as some players' values ​​fall, others rise. Currently, the player whose value has increased the most is the 19-year-old Spanish midfielder Cesc Fabregas. The Spanish central midfielder, who performed well in this World Cup, has seen his value rise from 800 million euros to 2800 million euros.

In addition, due to the Calciopoli scandal, the value of Italy's stars had plummeted before the World Cup. However, with Italy's excellent performance in this World Cup and reaching the final, the value of many players has rebounded, among which Fiorentina striker Toni's value has soared 1.5 times, from about 1000 million euros to about 2500 million euros.

In addition to the performance and value of the Italian players, the head coach Lippi, who led the team to ruthlessly end Germany's 71-year unbeaten record at home in Westfalen, has also been enthusiastically sought after by the media.

If Lippi can lead the Italian team to win the trophy in this World Cup final, he will create an unprecedented record: winning the Serie A championship, the UEFA Champions League championship and the World Cup championship as a head coach, becoming the first Grand Slam coach!

However, even if he failed to win the championship, Lippi had already achieved success before the final; Lippi, who successfully led the Italian team to the World Cup final for the sixth time, has set a new record for Italian coaches.

Lippi has coached more games in the World Cup than Sacchi. Including the World Cup qualifiers, Lippi has 16 games and Sacchi has 15. In addition, in these 16 games, Lippi's record is 12 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss, while Sacchi only has 9 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses.

In fact, it's not just Sacchi. If we only compare the winning rate, except for Pozzo in the 30s, among all the post-war Italian national team coaches, no one has a higher winning rate than Lippi. Lippi's winning rate is as high as 75%.

Whether in the (Juventus) club or the (Italy) national team, Lippi is known for his varied tactics, rational style of play, and emphasis on balance. In the 28 games he coached the Italian national team, Lippi used 27 different starting lineups, testing players in qualifiers and warm-up matches, and rotating players in the World Cup.

Italy also relied on excellent rotation to accumulate a clear physical advantage in the second half of this World Cup. In the 120-minute match against Germany, the Italians' physical reserves made Klinsmann's players a little exhausted. When the Germans, who are known for their physical strength and willpower, were out of shape in overtime, Lippi's players were still running all over the field.

Therefore, the media is constantly considering Italy's advantages when comparing it with its final opponent, France.

The French team is almost the oldest team in this World Cup. The leaders of the three lines all participated in the World Cup in France 8 years ago. Although the 8-year-old French team is still strong, its passion and physical strength cannot be burst out at any time.

The media generally believes that Italy is more likely to win the championship because Italy has one more day of rest than the French team and is younger than the French team, so the Italian team has a physical advantage; another thing is that Italy's lineup is more balanced.

Italy has scored 12 goals in this World Cup, and they were scored by 11 players, which makes Italy surpass the record of total number of goals scored by France in 1982.

Therefore, bookmakers are slightly inclined towards Italy. William Hill's latest odds show that Italy is slightly ahead of France at 1.80, which is 2.00. However, Italy's advantage is not obvious, and both teams have a chance to win the World Cup.

(Voiceover: The competition for the top scorer has lost its suspense. Since Kroos' biggest competitor Henry failed to score in the semi-finals, Kroos's odds of winning the top scorer have dropped to 5, which is almost an odds without any suspense.)

On July 7, the Italian team conducted their last field training before the final at their base in Iserlohn. Tomorrow the whole team will set off for Berlin to prepare for the final battle.

This training session was also an open training session. About 3000 fans rushed to the Italian team's training ground. They blew horns and waved Italian flags on the sidelines to cheer for the team. They also watched head coach Lippi lead the Azzurri to focus on practicing the offensive and defensive combinations of set pieces and penalty kicks in the final field training.

After the training, Lippi and the coaching staff held a closed-door tactical meeting with the entire team to analyze the tactical details of the French team.

The tactical details of dealing with the French team can be summarized in one point: freezing the core of the French team, Zidane.

Qi Xuanzong often moves in the left half of the field, which happens to be Gattuso's area. There are also Zambrotta and Cannavaro, two veterans who participated in defending Qi Xuanzong in the past, in charge. In theory, this just fits Lippi's idea. What needs to be strengthened is Camoranesi's defensive support.

(Materazzi, who will start the game, joked with his teammates: "In the area where Zidane is active, there is the most suitable person to stop him: Gattuso, my eldest son.")

In addition, the Italian coaching staff continues to work on several data surrounding Zidane.

France's center of gravity is two and a half meters forward of Italy's, and its overall pressure on opponents is also three meters ahead of Italy. This shows the positional characteristics of Zidane and Pirlo.

France uses the flanks more than Italy, 35% versus 28% per game. This is easy to understand, as Italy relies on the central axis of Totti and Pirlo, while France relies on the flanks of Zidane, so Italy's central area accounts for 41%, while France's is 31%.

Other figures also emphasize the technical content of France, of course, the technology mainly comes from Zidane. Italy's long pass accounts for 39% of each game, while France only has 29%; France has 28 dribbles per game, while Italy only has 23, and the success rate of French dribbles is 53%, while Italy only has 44%. Zidane's success rate of dribbles ranks first among the two teams, with 67%, and Pirlo ranks second, with 63%.

In addition to the data related to Emperor Xuanzong of Qi, some overall statistics of the two teams are also within the research scope of the Italian national team coaching staff.

Italy concedes 4 shots per game, while France only concedes 2.2. Italy shoots 45 times per 6.8 minutes, while France only concedes 4.5. Italy creates 3.5 chances per game, while France only concedes 2.3. Buffon concedes a goal every 24 saves, while Barthes concedes a goal every 6 saves...

These numbers show that France is more mediocre. Although they don't give their opponents many opportunities, they also have few opportunities themselves, and their offense and defense are not as distinctive as Italy. So in this case, freezing the core Zidane is more meaningful.

However, after the tactical analysis meeting, Italy carried out a final pre-war mobilization.

There is only one World Cup champion, but the meaning is different!

The bribery scandal in football is the biggest shadow of the current Italian national team. According to the current progress, 13 players in the Italian national team belong to the four clubs that are about to be relegated.

Lippi made an impassioned speech: "It is the chaos in football over the past two months that has motivated us to perform well. Our team has become a whole because of this. Our only goal is to win the championship and let everyone know what real Italian football is!"

Compared with Italy's unity, the French team seems to be fighting for Zidane alone.

Astrologer Domenech said he wanted to bid farewell to Zidane and strive to bring glory to France after 8 years: "Now we have one last game to play, our goal is to win the final. I used to say that our goal is to go to Berlin on July 7, but now I can tell you that we still want to celebrate the victory there. This will be Zidane's last game, and this is exactly how he wanted to say goodbye."

One is fighting for honor, the other is fighting for farewell, but only the winner will make the game meaningful. No matter what, this will be a fateful confrontation.

Since 1978, Italy has never defeated France; in two consecutive major tournaments, the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship, France put the heaviest end to the Italians' tragic journey in penalty shootouts and overtime respectively.

In addition, in this cup, France eliminated Spain and Portugal successively and met Italy in the final. The process was exactly the same as the 2000 European Championship. Does this indicate that the result will be repeated six years ago?

The two teams face their fate. France hopes to continue their winning streak, while Italy hopes to end their 28-year history of not beating France. However, the French obviously have a psychological advantage.

……

Italy arrived in Berlin on July 2006, 7, and their last training session was scheduled the night before the final, using the Berlin Olympic Stadium, the venue for the final.

On that evening, the third place battle of the 18th World Cup kicked off at the Gottlieb-Daimler Stadium in Stuttgart, with host Germany facing Portugal.

This was the fourth time that the German team participated in the third and fourth place finals. Metzelder was the only main player left in the back line. Kahn replaced Lehmann and wore the captain's armband. This was his last time playing for the country. Ballack sat on the bench in casual clothes. Frings, who had just finished his suspension, and Kehl formed a double defensive midfielder.

Portugal captain Figo also did not start, his position was replaced by Simao.

This is the first time the two teams have met in the World Cup finals. In the previous 14 encounters in various competitions, Germany had the upper hand with 6 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses, but the Portuguese team won the most recent encounter. In the 2000 European Cup, Conceicao's hat trick helped Portugal win 3-0. In 1985, Portugal defeated Germany 1-0 away and became the first team to win in Germany in the World Cup qualifiers. The venue of that game happened to be Stuttgart.

However, in this game, it is obvious that the German team playing at home is more motivated. Although most of them played as substitutes, with the cheers of local fans, the substitutes burst out with stronger fighting power than the main lineup. After all, their performance, increase in value and salary depend on this game!

Although Germany did not score against Portugal in the first half, they had far more ball possession and shots than their opponents; Portugal could only threaten Germany's goal with sporadic counterattacks.

In the second half, Germany quickly scored with a long-range shot by Schweinsteiger in the 56th minute.

After scoring the first goal, the German team attacked more vigorously. Five minutes later, Schweinsteiger's free kick hit Petit's calf and deflected into the net. The German team led 5-2.

However, this was not the end. In the 79th minute of the game, Schweinsteiger repeated his old trick and scored again with a long shot, which completely secured the victory for the German team and also took out all the anger that was defeated by Italy in the semi-final on Portugal.

Before the end of the game, Portugal scored a consolation goal with Figo assisting Gomez, making the score 1-3; avoiding the embarrassing record of ending this World Cup with three consecutive games without scoring (excluding penalty shootouts).

Germany eventually defeated Portugal with a score of 3-1 and won the third World Cup third place medal in the team's history.

After the game, German Chancellor Angela Merkel presented the third place medals to Klinsmann and other players.

Ricardo still watched this game with Sarafina in the hotel room, but the hotel was changed to Berlin, and De Rossi was abandoned again. However, after staying alone in the empty room for ten consecutive days, De Rossi seemed to have completely let himself go (the specific details are omitted for thousands of words)...

However, as the third place battle in the final warm-up match is over, there is only one last game left in this World Cup, the final!

……