After Gao Zheng returned to Italy, he did not play in the game against Lazio at home.

This is DiFrancisco, considering that Gao Zheng returned to China to play two games, and the second game was only 90 minutes long, and his physical energy was consumed relatively much, so he arranged this way.

And after playing Lazio, the next step is to challenge the Celtics away in the Champions League group stage, the most important game against Sampdoria.

The outcome of this game is related to whether Sampdoria can qualify from this group.

In order to prepare for this game, it is normal to give up the previous league against Lazio.

Gao Zheng came on as a substitute in the last ten minutes of the game, while Sampdoria tied 1:1 at home with Lazio.

Although they did not win, Sampdoria's ranking in the league was actually up. They improved by one place than before and are now ninth.

Relying on the advantage of goal difference, he beat Atlanta, Udinese and Parma, the three teams with the same sixteen points as them.

After the Chinese team won the right to qualify for the Asian Cup, Sampdoria Club immediately negotiated with the Chinese Football Association. They hoped that Gao Zheng would go back without recruiting the last Asian Cup qualifier.

Because this game has lost its meaning, letting Gao Zheng run back from a long distance to play a meaningless game is a burden for Gao Zheng, and for Sampdoria too.

Because the next Asian Cup qualifier will be March 5 next year. If Sampdoria can qualify from the Champions League group, it will be during the Champions League quarter-finals that letting Gao Zheng return to China to participate will not help the Chinese team's performance, but will have a huge impact on Sampdoria.

So Sampdoria Club hopes that Gao Zheng can stay in the club by then.

They are also very happy that the Chinese team can qualify for the Asian Cup in advance. Otherwise, the basis for this negotiation will not exist. At that time, no matter whether they are willing or not, according to FIFA's rules, they must let Gao Zheng go back to participate in the game.

In principle, the Chinese Football Association has agreed to Sampdoria's proposal, promising that Gao Zheng will not be recruited at that time, so that Gao Zheng can stay in the club, play the Champions League with peace of mind, and continue to win glory for the country in another arena.

Next, Sampdoria doesn't have to worry about Gao Zheng's physical fitness rhythm or taking the risk of injury because he returns to China to participate in the competition.

Until the end of the season, the Chinese team had no games.

This is really great news for Sampdoria to come to the book.

After playing against Lazio, Sampdoria went to Glasgow, Scotland two days in advance to prepare for the match against the Celtics.

Their training place in Glasgow was solved by the Glasgow Rangers. As the Celtics' mortal enemy, the Glasgow Rangers are very happy to be able to help the Celtics' Champions League opponents and look forward to the Celtics being eliminated in the group stage.

Similarly, if Sampdoria's opponent this time is Glasgow Rangers, the Celtics would be happy to provide this kind of help.

I went to Glasgow two days in advance to allow the team to adapt to the local climate as much as possible.

Winter in Glasgow and winter in Genoa are completely different.

Although the temperature is not very low, the body-sensing temperature will be lower than the actual temperature when the wind blows every day.

Compared with the warm and dry winters in Genoa, the winter in Glasgow is simply "abhorrent".

As soon as he got off the plane, Masi muttered, "I hate winter in Britain." In front of him was the airport that had just rained. There was water on the ground, and the water reflected the plane and terminal of the airport. A gust of wind blew, and he couldn't help but shrink his neck.

"Be careful, Alberto." Teammate Michael Fornasier reminded him, "Don't let the Scots hear you."

"What's wrong? Are they not allowed to say this bad weather?" Maxi frowned.

"No, no. If you just complain about the weather with them, they will be very happy and complain better than you. But you can't say it's British weather, you know that the Scots probably don't think they belong to Britain," Fonasier explained.

As a young player who once served as captain at Manchester United U23 and won the Youth FA Cup championship with the team at U18 for many years. Although he has not played for Manchester United's first team, he is obviously the person who knows the customs and customs of the Sampdoria team the best.

The Scots have always had resentment about their incorporation into Britain, which is a resentment from history. Scotland used to be an independent country, but later it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Great Britain by England. The Scots were very dissatisfied with this, and they fought for independence many times and launched two large-scale wars of independence.

The famous movie "Brave Heart" tells the story of the Scots resisting the English.

Now, Scotland is actively promoting a referendum on leaving the UK. If the referendum is passed by then and the Scots vote to leave the UK, it may become the most sensational event in the world...

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Sampdoria trained in Glasgow for two days. The weather was always gloomy during these two days. Is it still raining? This made Sampdoria players from Genoa, Italy very uncomfortable.

After every day, the coaches will urge the players to take a shower quickly, change out the wet training suits covered with mud, maintain body temperature and avoid colds.

Di Francesco was extremely glad that he let the team come two days in advance. If he had arrived in Glasgow the day before the game, the wet and cold weather alone would be enough to give Sampdoria a warning.

On the day of the competition, the weather still did not improve at all.

The game will kick off at 7:45 pm, when the temperature will be lower than during the day, which will give people a worse feeling.

When the team arrived at the Celtic Park Stadium and went out to warm up, the team's assistant coach loudly reminded every player: "Warm up fully! Don't be lazy! If you are injured, you are unlucky, but you are not me! After the warm-up, go back to the locker room immediately! Don't stay outside!"

The players were wearing long-sleeved jerseys and gloves. Some players were afraid of the cold and pulled the socks above their knees, had a neck cover around their necks, and hats on their heads.

Every time I breathed out, there was a white mist in front of my face.

But there were shirtless Celtic fans in the stands cheering for their team. They were uniform and incredibly powerful, and seemed to have no idea what the cold was.

This is the away game that Sampdoria wants to conquer.

Because even if Ajax is at home, it should be no suspense to lose to Barcelona, ​​so after this round of group stage, Ajax's points should be frozen in four points. As long as Sampdoria can beat the Celtics away, she will become the second in the group with eight points. With only one round left in the group stage, Ajax can no longer threaten Sampdoria's position, and Sampdoria will get the right to qualify in the group one round in advance.

But if Sampdoria loses to the Celtics away, then the Celtics, who are originally ranked at the bottom, can use these three points to accumulate points to six points, thus surpassing Sampdoria and Ajax and becoming the second in the group.

In the last round, Sampdoria had to fight Ajax to the death. That game was not easy to play against the Celtics in the last round of away loss to Barcelona, ​​so the confrontation between Sampdoria and Ajax became a life-and-death battle between whoever wins and who qualifies.

Ajax defeated Sampdoria and scored seven points, surpassing Sampdoria with five points and Celtics with six points.

Sampdoria defeated Ajax and scored eight points, surpassing Ajax with four points and Celtics with six points.

In fact, before participating in the Champions League group stage this season, everyone did not have such high requirements for Sampdoria. At that time, Sampdoria had not even played the Champions League qualifiers. Considering that they were eliminated from the Champions League last time, they were already very happy to be able to participate in the group stage.

But Sampdoria's performance in the Champions League gave everyone a surprise, and at the same time, Sampdoria's fans raised their expectations for the team and their requirements for results.
Chapter completed!