Chapter 138 Missing the World Cup in Brazil
As major European leagues are coming to an end, the time for the World Cup is getting closer and closer.
After entering May, the 32 teams of the World Cup have successively announced the final 23-man roster.
On May 19, local time in Europe, the second day after the Serie A curtain fell, Portugal coach Paulo Bento announced the team's final 23-man roster for the World Cup, led by stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe, and Nani. Quaresma, who was previously selected for the 30-man roster, and Udinese midfielder Bruno Fernandes were unfortunately not selected.
Although many Portuguese fans expected such a result, when the final result came out, it still caused an uproar in Portugal.
In early March, the Portuguese national team played a warm-up match against the Cameroon national team, known as the "African Lion".
And that roster was also considered the last time Bento released the national team roster before announcing the 23-man roster for the World Cup.
In that list, Paulo Bento did not recruit Bruno even though he recruited two new players from the Portuguese U21 team.
On May 13, a week ago, the Portuguese Football Association announced a 30-man list for the World Cup.
This time Bruno was selected, but everyone knows that this is only the preliminary result, and 7 people will have to be eliminated from this list later.
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However, Portuguese fans still naively believe that with Bruno's performance in Udinese this season, it should be no problem to be selected in the final 23-man list.
Especially one day later, Bruno killed all four sides in the Europa League final, scored twice, and was crowned the Europa League top scorer, assist king and final MVP. At the same time, he also helped Udinese win the 2013-2014 Europa League championship and reach the top of Europe.
Portuguese fans all feel that Bruno's outstanding performance should be enough to convince Paulo Bento to put aside personal grudges and recruit Bruno for the benefit of the national team.
What's more, Bruno can't say that he has any grudges with Paulo Bento, but the head coach of Bruno's club has grudges with Paulo Bento, and Bruno has never expressed any dissatisfaction with Paulo Bento.
As we all know, how many club coaches and national team coaches have never had conflicts?
The most important thing is that in the previously announced 30-man roster, the other 7 midfielders Andre Gomes, Joao Mario, Moutinho, Veloso, Meireles, Amorim and William Carvalho all performed far worse than Bruno Fernandes.
If personal performance is considered, Bruno Fernandes should not be the one who is eliminated among these 8 people!
But when the final result was announced, the Portuguese found that they still underestimated Paulo Bento's stubbornness.
For a time, the Portuguese domestic media made comments one after another, expressing their incomprehension of Paulo Bento's decision.
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Bruin's fame and influence in Portugal have soared with his performance in Udinese over the past year.
This is all accumulated by Bruno through one game after another, one goal after another and one assist after another.
In the 2013-2014 season, Bruno played a total of 56 games in Serie A, Europa League and Italian Cup for Udinese, and scored 32 goals and 35 assists in the double "30+" score sheet. He directly created 67 goals, which is the most in Europe, even more than Ronaldo and Messi.
In the past 2013-2014 season, Ronaldo played 47 games on behalf of Real Madrid in La Liga, Champions League, Spanish King's Cup and other competitions, scored 52 goals and assisted 13 times, and directly created 65 goals. Messi played 46 games on behalf of Barcelona in various competitions, scored 41 goals and assisted 14 times, and directly created 55 goals.
In Serie A, Bruno played 36 games, scored 18 goals and assisted 23 times, ranking fifth in the Serie A scorer list and first in the assist list.
Moreover, Bruno assisted 23 times in a single season, setting a single-season assist record in Serie A history, and leaving the previous record far behind.
This record originally belonged to the King of Football Maradona. In the 1987-1988 season, the Argentine King of Football contributed 16 assists in the game, setting a single-season assist record in Serie A, and maintained it for 24 years until it was broken by Bruno Fernandez.
In the European war, Bruno's performance was also outstanding. He played a total of 16 games in the Europa League play-offs, group matches and knockout matches, scored 13 goals and assisted 9 times, and won the Europa League Golden Boot and Assist King this season.
Such a comprehensive and excellent performance makes Bruno one of the best attacking midfielders in European football.
It is Bruno's extraordinary assist ability that makes countless Portuguese fans begin to imagine how fantastic the attacking combination of "Bruno + Ronaldo" would be, and even begin to expect this combination to kill all four sides in the World Cup and realize the dream that generations of Portuguese people have failed to realize.
But now, this dream has been declared disillusioned before the World Cup even started.
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However, Bruno had already expected this result, because he knew Paulo Bento better.
Among the golden generation of Figo, Rui Costa, Baia and Pauleta, Paul Bento, who was born in 1969, is also slightly involved, but his fame and strength are obviously not comparable to the above-mentioned greats.
Bento represented Portugal in the 2002 World Cup as a player and took charge of the national team after the 2010 World Cup. Bento, who was only 41 years old at the time, had only 4 years of coaching experience in Sporting Lisbon and was not favored by others.
Bento implemented an iron-fist policy. In 2011, Carvalho became angry because he was dissatisfied with the substitute. Bento directly angered Carvalho, and the latter announced his withdrawal from the National Du. In November of the same year, Chelsea general Bosingwa also broke with Bento. Bosingwa declared that as long as Bento is still the national team coach, he will never play for Portugal again.
However, Bento's iron-fisted management of the army has achieved results. Although they eliminated Bosnia and Herzegovina through the play-offs in the European Cup qualifiers, Bento's team impressed the world. Not only did it break through the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. In the group of death, they also eliminated the Czech Republic and advanced to the top four. In the end, they only lost to the later champion Spain in a penalty shootout.
After the European Cup, the Portuguese Football Association decisively renewed Bento's contract until 2014. The young coach will continue to lead the team to compete in the World Cup in Brazil.
Although Portugal's performance in the European qualifiers for the World Cup in Brazil was hardly outstanding, in any case, it stumbled into the finals, which made Bento's position relatively stable.
Because of the lessons learned by Carvalho and Bosingwa, after Bruno bombarded him because of Guidolin, Bruno knew that it would be difficult for him to get ahead during his tenure.
In fact, even without Guidolin's bombardment, it would be difficult for Bruno to be reused by Bento.
Because in recent years, Bento's lineup has been relatively fixed. As a newcomer, he did not get many opportunities in the qualifiers and warm-up matches, let alone the World Cup.
There is no way Bento will use the World Cup in Brazil as a training ground!
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It's just that being mentally prepared is one thing. When things really happened, Bruno was still very unhappy, but he wouldn't blame anyone for it.
Bruno also knows why Guidolin did that in the first place. On the one hand, he was really aggrieved for his experience in the Portuguese national team. On the other hand, he also wanted to anger Paulo Bento and cut off Bruno's path to the national team.
After all, Paul Bento's character is well known.
And Bruno is too important to Udinese. Instead of letting him go back and forth between the national team and the club to do useless work, it is better to let him have a good rest at the club during the national team match days.
As it turns out, his plan worked. Bruno was not called up by the Portuguese national team in the following international matches, which allowed Bruno to get a sufficient rest and laid the foundation for Udinese's successful season.
Since he doesn't have to go to Brazil to play in the World Cup, Bruno began to plan how to spend this holiday.
It has been almost two years since he traveled to this time and space, and he hasn't had a good vacation yet.
Last summer, he played for the Portuguese National Youth Team in the Toulon Cup and the World Youth Championship, and did not get a rest throughout the summer.
Then moved to Udinese and it was another busy season.
Playing 56 games in about 9 months is still very intense.
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But just when Bruno was looking forward to a wonderful vacation, he was poured cold water on Guidolin.
At Udinese's team celebration dinner, Guidolin found Bruno.
"Hi Bruno, do you have any plans for your vacation?"
"I plan to go home."
"Well, you should indeed go home." Guidolin nodded, and then changed the subject, "But can you postpone your plan to go home any longer?"
Bruno looked at him in surprise, not understanding what Guidolin meant by that.
"Well, the coaching staff has formulated a special training plan for you, which will take time to complete. This training is used to improve your physical fitness, including physical fitness and strength. We plan to use the vacation time to train you... …”
"But my physical fitness is already very good. You see, I have almost no rest throughout the season, and I am not very tired..." Bruno spread his hands and said.
"Yes, your physical fitness is indeed very good, but it doesn't mean that you have no room for improvement. Moreover, I don't know if you have discovered it, but your physical confrontation is still not very good. Don't you want to make yourself stronger? asked Guidolin.
Facing Guidolin's question, Bruno didn't know how to answer.
"Next season, we will participate in the Champions League. It is a completely different competition from the league and the Europa League. Do you want to perform well in the Champions League?" Guidolin used his trump card.