Chapter 24: Accident

On August 14, the day before the Torino team was about to go to the Italian Cup, Torino's official website torinofc.it announced the 21-man roster that the team played according to convention. In this list, the most eye-catching thing is not the absence of captain Bianchi and core player Gasbarroni due to injury, nor is it the two young rookies Comi and Miello promoted from the youth team, but the unexpected appearance of a name that made all Bulls fans extremely unfamiliar, Chu Jiang!

On the Bulls fan forum, everyone was asking who the strange goalkeeper was. Someone who was particularly concerned about the official news finally found a news about Chu Jiang from the news on the official website a few days ago: "After three days of negotiations, we reached an agreement with the Chevo Club to introduce the Chevo young talented goalkeeper Chu Jiang, both sides each occupy half of the ownership of the player. Chu Jiang from China welcomes to Turin and wish him a wonderful career." Apart from this, there is no more news about Chu Jiang.

Young genius? Fans have seen many such words. These days, they are players who play football nowadays. As long as they are young, they will be called "genius", and even more so, they will be called "xx II". Fans have long been numb to this false name.

"Chu Jiang? Chinese goalkeeper? Maybe it's just a spectator."

Most fans have this view on this news. If you have no qualifications, no reputation, no reputation, what is it? If you have no audience, fans in Turin have heard of many players like this. So, after a while of lively and satisfying the freshness, everyone lost interest in the strange Chinese goalkeeper.

At the same time, in China, some editors familiar with Italian football also noticed Chu Jiang's name. However, like the last time they signed with the Chevo Youth Team, the media only reported that a Chinese teenager entered the Turin team in a few short sentences.

Turin has never been the focus of Chinese media attention; in the Italian Cup qualifiers, the media was even less interested; Chu Jiang is unknown, probably just a passerby. Based on various considerations, the media lacks interest in the news on the Turin official website. If it weren't for the Turin official website news that Chu Jiang came from China, there would probably be no press conference at all.

Having said that, those simple news made reporters lack interest, but Chu Jiang's parents were very happy. They even called Chu Jiang to travel abroad and told Chu Jiang to cheer and perform well.

Chu Jiang naturally agreed to his parents' advice. He did not tell his parents that although the coach recruited him on the roster, it did not mean that Chu Jiang would have the chance to make his career debut.

In fact, Coach Lerda has been hesitant about how to use Chu Jiang. Although he wrote Chu Jiang on the roster, he also recruited two other goalkeepers Morelo and Bashi to the team together. In this game, which goalkeeper was the main player and which goalkeeper lost the last 18-man roster, the coach was still a little confused.

According to his own ideas, dealing with a weak team like Cosenza in the C-level league is a great opportunity to test the ability of new players and integrate into the team's speed. However, as the previous game that officially started in the league, he wanted the main players to get in touch, better adapt to his tactical style, and lay a solid foundation for the upcoming second-level league.

As for the team goalkeeper, although Lerda strongly requires the team to buy Rubinho, as a professional coach, he must also be prepared to fail the transfer. If Rubinho cannot come, Lerda must select the most suitable candidate among the three existing goalkeepers and serve as the main force of the team.

The other two goalkeepers, Lyerda, have a certain understanding. They are suitable substitutes in the second division, but as the main players of the team, they lack abilities. However, Lyerda does not know much about Chu Jiang. In terms of training alone, this player has a positive attitude, good ability, and has considerable potential. The coaching staff still recognize him quite. But training is just training after all, which is quite different from formal competitions.

Therefore, from Lerda's own ideas, he wanted to take this opportunity to play weak teams and examine Chu Jiang's ability to play professional games. However, if Chu Jiang, a newcomer who has just arrived, is likely to cause dissatisfaction among the old players and even conflicts in the locker room.

This is what Lerda has been struggling with.

After the last training before the game, Lerda finally made an ambiguous decision: the starting goalkeeper was determined to be the 32-year-old Italian Morelo, Chu Jiang went with the team as his substitute, while Bashi was out of the roster. In order to calm Bashi's mood, Lerda specifically talked to him and promised him that Bashi was still in the first substitute in the Serie B League and should be given priority over Chu Jiang when choosing a goalkeeper.

In this way, Coach Lerda finally set the list of Torino's first match in the new season.

The Olympic Stadium in Turin is home stadium, which can accommodate 27,500 fans to enter the stadium at the same time. Since another stadium in Turin, Del, the Alp Stadium is being rebuilt, Juventus will share this stadium with Turin in the new season. On August 6, the famous Dublin band U2 rented Olympic scouts to hold their Italian concert, so Juventus' first game of the new season, the UEFA Cup qualifier, had to temporarily change to the neutral venue to Modena.

However, Turin is much luckier than Juventus. Due to the cooperation of the city government and related companies, the Olympic Stadium quickly resumes the game conditions in a very short time. Therefore, Turin has to sit in the Olympic Stadium in the first game of the new season without having to work hard like Juventus.

This game was the first appearance of Torino in the new season, and it was also the first appearance of coach Lerda since he switched from Crotone to the Bulls. Although his opponent was very weak and was just an Italian qualifying match, it still attracted nearly 5,000 fans to buy tickets and cheer for his beloved team.

Although Cosenza is only a League C team, the team still has a great star, that is, the Italian front midfielder Fiore, nicknamed "Flower". Fiore is one of the few technical midfielders produced in Italy. He was once famous in the Apennines, played for many Serie A powerhouses, and has won many honors such as the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup championship, and other honors. However, the years have passed, and no matter how powerful a player is, he cannot stand the erosion of time. Now he is 35 years old and is at the end of his football career.

Before the game, the official website of Turin optimism declared: "It is difficult to find another team like Cosenza. All he brings to the Bulls is joy, because Turin has never lost to his opponent." However, the real game was not as smooth as the Bulls imagined.

Cosenza, who played away, had already made plans to "stop the bus in front of the goal" and put on an iron barrel formation at the beginning. For them, the away game is far stronger than their Bulls, and it is not embarrassing to lose, but it would be even more pleasant if they scored one or two goals through counterattacks. Therefore, the whole team only left Fiore and a forward in the frontcourt, and the others were always ready to stand by in their own penalty area.

Although the Bulls took the initiative on the field, they were unable to open the door to victory. Instead, they were in danger repeatedly in the opponent's counterattack. After 45 minutes of fierce battle at halftime, the score was still a 0:0 draw. On the sidelines, Lerda had already vaguely heard boos from Bulls fans.

This game is much more difficult than the Turin people imagined before the game.

In the second half, Torino made a good start. In the 54th minute, Ogbonna, who was the captain of this game, was knocked down in the opponent's penalty area, and the referee indeed awarded a penalty kick. Ivanko scored a penalty in one go, and Torino successfully broke the opponent's goal, 1:0!

Generally speaking, when a strong team is the first to break the deadlock on the court, the game will be in the direction of a favorable strong team. Because this game is a single-round knockout match, and there is no difference between losing one goal and losing ten goals in the results. This means that Cosenza has to give up the "stop bus" tactic and has to attack with a strong opponent who has never won the ball. Such an open situation is often more powerful against a strong team. They usually take this opportunity to score the second goal, or even the third or fourth goal, thus performing a massacre amid the cheers of the home team fans.

However, what the Bulls never expected was that after just thirteen minutes, the opponent equalized the score!

In the 68th minute, Cosenza's right wing player Dibari kicked a soft and weak cross. The ball was flying high and floating, and it looked unthreatening. However, it was this poor cross that made the Bulls' goalkeeper Morelo make a fatal mistake!

Morelo's attack not only did not receive the ball, but instead hit the ball in front of the opponent's forward in the penalty area. Facing the empty goal, Cosenza's center Bian Corino immediately knocked the ball into the goal. Although he did not take the right part and did not fully exert his strength, the football still rolled towards the empty goal.

1:1, the weak Cosenza tied the powerful Bulls away! Such a score made everyone unexpected. Cosenza's players and coach celebrated in front of the home fans in Turin, as if they had won the game!

The Olympic Stadium suddenly sounded booing, and some radical fans even began to shout the slogan "Leirda gets out."

Faced with such a conceding goal, Lerda's face turned pale. He glared at Morello, who was sighing on the court, and quickly turned around and walked back to the bench.
Chapter completed!