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

Chapter 208 The Legend
Udinese reversed and defeated Genoa 2:1 away from home, which attracted great attention.Not only is this the 18th time this season that Udinese has defeated its opponent by a goal difference in Serie A, but it is also the 1th time this season that Udinese has come back from behind to win.

In other words, this season Udinese regained 24 points from their opponents even when they were falling behind!
Anyone who really understands football understands that a smooth victory is just an exception. The real test of a team is this kind of fierce, evenly matched, or even behind-the-scenes competition in adversity.

"Gazzetta dello Sport" wrote in the report: "Being able to reverse and defeat Genoa 2:1 at the Ferraris Stadium, in my opinion, this is what truly shows the maturity and tenacity of Udinese. In such an anxious game, they were able to persevere and come back to defeat their opponents. This is the key for a team to stabilize and achieve good results in a long league."

"The Times" also said: "A successful team needs not only to score points steadily in good times, but also needs the ability to win in adversity. The reason why Ferguson's Manchester United can dominate the Premier League is because of this trait. This season Udinese has some of this quality.”

Even Tuttosport, the mouthpiece media of Juventus, Udinese’s direct competitor, said helplessly: “Udinese this season has been so stable that it’s terrifying. No matter what the circumstances, in the end, They seem to be the winners, they seem to be invincible.”

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Udinese's stable performance in Serie A has put huge pressure on Juventus, coupled with their desire for the Champions League, this has led Juventus to make the decision to shift their focus to the Champions League.

Therefore, in the 30th round of Serie A away to Parma, Allegri made extensive rotations.

Of course, Allegri probably also believes that facing Parma, which is facing a bankruptcy crisis, Juventus has a great chance of winning even if it rotates the lineup with substitutes. After all, Parma's performance this season is really very poor.Only 13 points were scored before this game (3 points were deducted for financial reasons). The record in 29 league games was only a pitiful 4 wins, 4 draws and 21 losses. Except for Inter Milan, the remaining Serie A teams have defeated Parma. , a relegation spot has almost been booked in advance.

However, under the strong temptation of staying in Serie A, Parma performed extremely tenaciously and finally scored a goal through a quick counterattack to beat Juventus.

For this game, the headline of "Gazzetta dello Sport" was: "Juventus second team performed badly. Parma celebrated: great feat."

"Gazzetta dello Sport" pointed out that the Bianconeri were distracted by the home game against Monaco in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals three days later, and suffered their third defeat in the league against the bottom team.Extensive rotations and injuries have changed the leader beyond recognition, although these problems were not obvious before.In the end, youngster Mari's wonderful shot made Juventus lose.

The main headline given by "Turin Sports Daily" is as follows: "Juventus is too relaxed." The subtitle is: "A Juventus team on vacation lost at the Tardini Stadium."

"Turin Sports" stated that although this defeat did not have much impact on the situation that was already 10 points behind Udinese, the poor performance of many players was really worrying.Llorente's continued sluggish state is puzzling; Vidal's performance has regressed again; Koeman has completely disappeared from the game, and he was even more mature at the beginning of the season than he is now; Ogbonna is strongly missed Bonucci.

"Turin Sports" believes that first of all, the team's mind is not on the court, but on Monaco three days later; then too many rotations affect the team's performance, and the team has no clue after conceding the goal. Any due reaction finally gave Parma a long-lost victory.

The headline of "Corriere dello Sport" is as follows: "Shocking Tardini Stadium, Parma defeated Juventus." Their views are basically the same as the first two media, believing that the team's thoughts are not on this game at all. Instead, they flew to the Champions League three days later; coupled with the poor performance of many players in the rotation, the entire team seemed to have no passion during the game, which ultimately allowed Parma to get a deserved victory.

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It's not just Juventus players who are eager to perform in the Champions League, a season with great influence around the world, but also their rivals Udinese.

Especially when Juventus made their own mistakes and fell 10 points behind Udinese in one more round, Udinese also had more room for error.

This means that even if Udinese loses against Palermo in the 30th round, they are still 8 points ahead of Juventus with 10 rounds left in the league!
Although Udinese soldiers, including Guidolin, all know that facing the powerful rival Bayern Munich, the possibility of Udinese advancing is very small, they still decided to give it a try at home.

There is still a dream, what if it comes true?

Just like this season's Serie A, if it weren't for the hard work of Udinese soldiers all the way, how could we have the current situation?
If you don't even dare to have a dream, what's the difference between it and a salted fish?
Therefore, in the 4th round of Serie A at noon on April 12, local time in Italy, when Udinese faced Palermo at home, Guidolin made the same choice as Allegri, which was to play Rotate extensively and play as a substitute lineup.

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Guidolin's thoughts are similar to Allegri's, because their opponent Palermo has been winless in Serie A for 6 rounds and is in very bad shape.

Facing such a team, if they can win with a substitute lineup, the main players can recharge their batteries and prepare for the upcoming first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals at home against Bayern Munich.

Even if they lose, Udinese can afford to lose with their huge advantage in the standings.

Guidolin faced a similar situation to Allegri, even because Udinese's bench was much thicker than Juventus. This made Udinese, who played as a substitute, just after an hour of the game. , already trailing Palermo 0:3.

In the 15th minute, Dybala sent a wonderful pass, and Lazar hit the upper right corner with a long shot. Palermo led Udinese 1:0.In the 21st minute, Dybala once again contributed an assist. Rigoni shot the ball into the lower right corner of the goal. Palermo expanded its lead 2:0.

In the 66th minute, Rispoli made a pass and Chochev headed the ball into the upper left corner. Palermo led Udinese 3:0.

At this time, Guidolin woke up from a dream and made continuous substitution adjustments, sending in defensive core Kante, midfield playmaker Bruno Fernandez and frontcourt offensive core Di Natale.

Guidolin knew very well that Udinese could lose this game, but it must not suffer a crushing defeat.

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The appearance of the three Bruno players quickly helped Udinese stop its decline, avoid a complete collapse of the team, and began to launch a counterattack on the field.

In the 81st minute of the game, Bruno made a direct pass, and Di Natale hit the upper right corner from the right wing of the penalty area, Udinese regained a point.

This is Di Natale's 20th goal this season, which means that the meritorious captain of Udinese has scored 6 or more goals in Serie A for 20 consecutive seasons.

At the same time, this is also Di Natale's 225th Serie A goal in his career, tying Nordahl to become the third-highest scorer in Serie A history.

Although Di Natale did not celebrate after scoring the goal, he got into the net and ran towards the center line with the ball. After all, Udinese was still two goals behind at this time, but the more than 4 fans at the Friuli Stadium still Everyone stood up and applauded this great shooter.

Even the more than 2000 Palermo fans who came to the Friuli Stadium were like this.

After all, this grassroots veteran is indeed a player worthy of respect.

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Although Udinese launched a crazy attack in the last ten minutes of the game, hoping to equalize the score and avoid a defeat in the milestone game of the team's veteran captain, Udinese's substitute lineup was limited in strength. At this time, Palermo also returned to defense and used a steel barrel formation to deal with Udinese, but Udinese was unable to score again.

When the game ended after five minutes of injury time, the score was still 5:1.

Obviously, the referee is also taking care of the home team and Di Natale, the Serie A legend, as much as possible. However, the hole Udinese dug for themselves was too deep before, and now it is impossible to fill it.

At the end of the game, when Di Natale led all the players around the field to thank the fans, the Udinese fans in the stands refused to leave and congratulated Di Natale with continuous applause. .

The only imperfection was that Udinese suffered a defeat on such an important day.

At this point, only Totti, the "Eternal Prince of Rome" who scored 241 goals, and Silvio Piola, who scored 274 goals, are left in front of Di Natale.

However, it will be very difficult for Di Natale to surpass these two legends.

Although Totti is only 16 goals ahead of Di Natale, the Wolf King is still galloping on the court and in good form. He has scored 6 goals in Serie A this season. No one knows where this old demon will end up. Where.

Piola is still 49 goals ahead of Di Natale.Even if Di Natale maintains his current scoring efficiency, it will still take at least 2 seasons before he can hope to surpass his opponent.

However, any normal person knows that this is almost impossible.

After all, Di Natale, who was born in October 1977, is about to turn 10.

If you want to still maintain a scoring efficiency of 40 goals per year in Serie A at the age of 20, this is already beyond human limits!
(End of this chapter)