After visiting the teachers and students at the Confucius Institute, Li Zhao and his friends returned home in the evening. They happened to be eating New Year’s Eve dinner and watching the Spring Festival Gala, so everyone joined in.

In the midst of this celebration.

Until the clock struck 12 o'clock at midnight, and the new Year of the Dog was approaching, everyone went outside the house to set off fireworks to celebrate the arrival of the new year. And because Li Zhao's villa happened to be by the canal, plus

The visibility in the air today is also high, so we can clearly see the UniCredit Bank Building, the tallest landmark building in Milan in the distance, which is also currently the tallest building in Italy.

"Brother Zhao, look over there!" Wang Zi pointed his prosthetic finger into the distance and said, and then Li Zhao looked in the direction he pointed and found that he had just seen the tallest landmark building.

As the headquarters building of Italy's UniCredit Bank, the UniCredit Bank Building was completed in 2011. It was designed by the famous Argentinian-American architect Cesar Pelli. It has a slightly spiral appearance and the entire exterior wall decoration is covered with glass. If the light is mapped onto

On the siding, it will guide light into the interior of the building, helping the building reduce lighting and heating costs.

The building sometimes lights up with different lights in conjunction with special festivals. In order to pay tribute to Country C's Lunar New Year, on this evening, the tower of this skyscraper is lit up with "C Country Red" for a week for the Year of Country C.

At this time, it does look really beautiful when viewed from a distance. Coupled with the support and cooperation of family and friends around it, it really feels like a strong New Year atmosphere in my hometown.

The group of people struggled for a while before going back to their rooms to rest. Fortunately, the villa of Li Zhao's family was big enough. They could still accommodate so many people if they squeezed in. It also saved the friends from having to rush back to the club in the middle of the night.

Went to the dormitory. After everyone had breakfast together the next day, they returned to the club and got back into normal preparations for the season.

Happiness is short-lived after all. Atlanta Club's schedule after the New Year is not easy at all, and it will soon face the first relatively intensive schedule. After a day of adjusting to the state, the team will have to compete on the second day of the new year.

Going out again, this time they will play in the Europa League round of 32 knockout rounds, and the first leg is an away game, and their opponent is the Bundesliga powerhouse Borussia Dortmund.

Perhaps it was because of the craziness of New Year's Eve that many team members did not have a good rest that night, so a short day of adaptive recovery training could not allow them to fully adjust, so that their performance was relatively sluggish throughout the first half, until the middle

At the end of the game, they were already three goals behind. Fortunately, the players still knew how to learn from humiliation and be brave. After a short intermission, they finally adjusted their condition. In the second half, they launched a tenacious counterattack and successfully recovered two goals.

The home fans at the Westfalenstadion understood why Atalanta became the leader of Serie A this season. Although Atalanta ended up losing 2-3 to their opponents, it was not a bad performance, at least they were next.

The home game in this round still retains great hope for a comeback.

However, after playing this game, Atlanta, which had just returned home, immediately encountered back-to-back league tests. The day after returning home, they faced a challenge from Fiorentina. In order to allow the players to get enough

Due to the rest adjustment, coach Gasperini's starting lineup for this game is still slightly conservative, and even temporarily put Li Zhao and other main players on the substitute list, and he also believes that even with this lineup, it will still be the same

Can win at home.

However, despite the fact that the Viola was playing away from home, the Viola Legion, which was carrying the lingering power of the last draw with the Old Lady, did not lose momentum at all after the opening. In the 16th minute of the game, midfielder Baddeley took the lead.

After scoring a goal, it was likely to overturn the leader's momentum. Fortunately, before the end of the first half, Atalanta got an assist from Gomez to Petagna to equalize the score, allowing the home team to regain its momentum.

After changing sides and fighting again in the second half, Gasperini still made substitution adjustments, substituting Li Zhao and Wang Ziyi one after another. This move finally made the balance of the situation on the field gradually tilt towards the home team.

In the 73rd minute, Wang Ziyi volleyed a powerful shot from the outside of the penalty area and the opponent's goalkeeper saved the ball. Li Zhao hit the ball in time and succeeded in making up the shot, helping Atlanta reverse the score.

After that, although the two sides continued to attack each other, no new goals were scored. When the referee blew the final whistle, the final score was fixed at 2-1. Although Atlanta was tied in this game.

It didn’t look good, and it was a bit difficult to win, but it still continued their new winning streak. But more importantly, most of the main players got enough rest time, which also prepared them for the tough battle they will face next.

A relatively solid physical foundation.

After another three days of rest, Atlanta ushered in the second leg of the Europa League round of 32 on February 22. Since they lost 2-3 to their opponents in the first leg of the away game, they

The players have been sharpening their knives and preparing to avenge this attack at home, and this battle must not only be won, but also won beautifully.

Coach Gasperini deployed an aggressive 4231 formation, obviously very confident in winning this game, and Dortmund actually adopted the same formation. In this way, the game started in a big way

Most people expected it to be an open battle, but the actual situation was beyond most people's expectations.

As the visiting team, Dortmund originally thought they had made a correct assessment of Atlanta's true strength based on the head-to-head data from the previous game. However, when they actually arrived at the Castle Stadium, they suddenly discovered that they still greatly underestimated the difficulty of defeating their opponents.

degree.

In the first ten minutes after the game officially started, the two sides did play back and forth. But after a while, Atlanta, playing at home, gradually began to take advantage of the field, and then even more on the sidelines.

They completely suppressed their opponents through road offense and short passing penetration, and controlled the situation on the field. Facing Atlanta's increasingly aggressive style of play, Dortmund clearly felt the strong pressure from their opponents and had to change formations.

For the defensive counterattack style that they are not very good at.

Although Dortmund goalkeeper Burki performed conscientiously for most of the game and made many excellent saves to keep his own goal intact, he made a fatal mistake near the end of the first half. Faced with

Leonard broke into the penalty area and hit the ball horizontally. Burki was right to choose to attack at this time, and he also accurately intercepted the ball. Just when he thought he could hold the ball firmly

Suddenly, an accident occurred. The ball actually fell from his armpit and rolled towards the goal behind him. After all, his turning back to save the ball was a beat too slow. When he touched the ball again, it had already

Crossed the goal line first.

1-0, Atlanta took the lead before the end of the first half with this somewhat lucky goal, and the score remained until the midfield whistle.

After returning from the second half, Atlanta strengthened its defense in a timely manner, and the Dortmund coach made substitution adjustments in order to recover from the unfavorable situation of falling behind. Schmelzer and Reus replaced Torian, who performed poorly in the first half.

With Pulisic, this move did have a good effect in the subsequent period.

In the 56th minute of the game, Dortmund had an excellent opportunity to equalize the score. Schmelzer, who came on as a substitute, successfully broke through the block of defense general Masiello and advanced into the opposite penalty area, and his

At this time, only Dana, the home team's goalkeeper, was left in front of him. However, Schmelzer, who was extremely confident in his shooting ability, did not move forward further. Instead, he glanced at the direction of the goal with the corner of his eye and then stopped.

He hesitated and lobbed, but the same magical scene happened right after.

The moment before Schmelzer took off, Dana was already alert and realized what the other party wanted to do. But at this time, he did not advance but retreated, and then jumped up in a backwards style.

Thanks to the fact that all his physical skills have become very mature, and his height and wingspan have reached the benchmark of an excellent goalkeeper, he was able to finally lift the football out before it fell into the upper right corner of the goal.

Dortmund had a better chance to score two minutes later. Although Gotze's shot from outside the penalty area was also saved by Dyna, the subsequent ball was snatched by Dortmund captain Schürrer immediately.

For a moment, he faced an empty goal, but in a hurry, he accidentally shot the shot high.

As the saying goes, if you don't take what God gives you, you will be punished. Dortmund, who missed many good opportunities, was soon punished.

In the 73rd minute of the game, they were unable to attack for a long time and there was chaos in the defense. The midfielders and backfielders made mistakes when cooperating with each other and mistakenly passed the ball to the opponent's players. Atlanta would not miss such a good opportunity.

Cristante, who unexpectedly gained the ball, immediately transferred the ball to Li Zhao not far away. The latter was originally thinking about how to organize an attack, but when he observed the opponent's goalkeeper's position, he instantly had concerns in his mind.

Then he also chose to lob the goal. The football flew high over the opponent's goalkeeper's head and then quickly ran behind him, and finally flew into the net against the lower edge of the goal.

Li Zhao's goal was the final word. Compared with Schmelzer's previous shot, Li Zhao's lob shot not only scored, but its technical content was obviously much higher.

Although Dortmund still did not give up in the remaining game time, perhaps their ability to seize opportunities was indeed inferior to that of Atlanta, the home team. In the end, they still failed to gain anything, and the home team did not expand further.

The score gap was so high that the final score was fixed at 2-0. Combined with the score of the previous game, Atlanta finally won the opponent with a total score of 4-3 and successfully advanced to the top 16 of the Europa League.

After this game, Atlanta finally ended its first intensive schedule after the new year. Although there will still be battles in some important events after that, even as the end of the season approaches, such intensive schedules will become more frequent.

, but at least this situation will not happen again in the short term, and they must take advantage of this rare breathing opportunity to make adjustments and plans to prepare for more complex battles in the future.

As for the first leg of the Europa League round of 16, it will not start until March 8. This is also Atlanta's first game in March, and before that they have the last game in February to play.

It is the second leg of the Italian Cup semi-finals on the last day of the month. Although this is an away game, with the advantage of defeating the opponent 3-1 at home, the whole team is still very confident in the final advancement.

But what was originally thought to be another difficult battle did not appear. Perhaps because Juventus wanted to prepare for a higher-level Champions League, they did not seem to do their best in this game, and even most of the main players did not

was sent to play, so the final result is not difficult to guess. Although the visiting team failed to score in this game, and the two teams ended up with a goalless draw 0-0, Atlanta still successfully advanced to the finals by virtue of its advantage in the first round.
Chapter completed!