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

Chapter 138 Missing the World Cup in Brazil

As the major leagues in Europe are coming to an end, the start of the World Cup is getting closer and closer.

After entering May, the top 5 players of the World Cup successively announced the final 32-man roster.

On May 5th, local time in Europe, the day after the curtain fell on Serie A, Portugal coach Paulo Bento announced the team’s final 19-man roster for the World Cup, consisting of stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe, and Nani. Leading the way, Quaresma, who was previously selected for the 23-man roster, and Udinese midfielder Bruno Fernandez were unfortunately not selected.

Although many Portuguese fans had expected such a result, when the final result came out, it still caused an uproar in Portugal.

In early March, the Portuguese national team held a warm-up match against the Cameroon national team, known as the "African Lions."

The roster that time was also considered to be the last time Bento released the national team roster before announcing the 23-man World Cup roster.

In that big list, Paul Bento did not recruit Bruno even though he recruited two new players in the Portuguese U21 team.

A week ago, on May 5, the Portuguese Football Association announced the 13-man roster for the World Cup.

This time Bruno was selected, but everyone knows that this is just the result of the primary election, and 7 people will have to be eliminated from this list later.

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However, Portuguese fans still naively believe that based on Bruno's performance in Udinese this season, there should be no problem in being selected for the final 23-man roster.

Especially one day later, Bruno went all out in the Europa League final, scoring twice, and was crowned the Europa League top scorer, assist leader and final MVP. He also helped Udinese win the 2013-2014 season. Europa League champion, reaching the top of Europe.

Portuguese fans feel that Bruno's outstanding performance should be enough to convince Paul Bento to put aside his 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 Paul Bento. It's just that the head coach of Bruno's club has grudges with Paul Bento. Bruno has never made any dissatisfaction with Paul Bento.

As we all know, how many club coaches and national team coaches have never had any disagreements?

The most important thing is that in the previously announced 30-man roster, the other seven midfielders are Andre Gomez, Joao Mario, Moutinho, Veloso, Meireles, Amorim and William Carvalho performed far worse than Bruno Fernandez.

If personal performance is considered, whoever is eliminated among these 8 people should not be Bruno Fernandez!

But when the final results were announced, the Portuguese discovered that they still underestimated Paul Bento's stubbornness.

For a time, Portuguese domestic media commented one after another, expressing their incomprehension about Paul Bento’s decision.

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With his performance at Udinese in the past year, Bruno's reputation in Portugal has soared, and his influence has also skyrocketed.

This is all accumulated by Bruno through game after game, goals and assists one by one.

In the 2013-2014 season, Bruno represented Udinese in a total of 56 games in Serie A, Europa League and Coppa Italia, scoring 32 goals and 35 assists in a double "30+" report card. He was directly created by one person. 67 goals, which is the most in Europe, even surpassing Ronaldo and Messi.

在过去的2013-2014赛季，C罗代表皇家马德里在西甲、欧冠、西班牙国王杯等赛事中共出战47场打进52球助攻13次，直接制造了65个球。而梅西则是代表巴塞罗那在各项赛事中出场46场打进41球助攻14次，直接制造了55个球。

In Serie A, Bruno played 36 games, scoring 18 goals and assisting 23 times, ranking fifth in Serie A's scorer list and first in assists.

Moreover, Bruno assisted 23 times in a single season, setting a single-season assist record in Serie A history, and leaving the original record far behind.

This record originally belonged to the football king Maradona. In the 1987-1988 season, the Argentine football king contributed 16 assists in the game, setting a Serie A single-season assist record and holding it for 24 years. It was only now that Bruno Fernandez breaks.

In the European war, Bruno performed equally well. He played a total of 16 games in the Europa League play-offs, group stages and knockout rounds, scoring 13 goals and assisting 9 times, winning the Europa League Golden Boot and assists title this season.

Such a comprehensive and excellent performance makes Bruno one of the best attacking midfielders in European football.

It is also Bruno's extraordinary assist ability that makes countless Portuguese fans begin to imagine how dreamy the "Bruno + Cristiano Ronaldo" attacking combination would be. They even began to look forward to this combination killing everyone in the World Cup and realizing the success of generations of Portuguese players. The dream that never came true.

But now, this dream has been shattered before the World Cup begins.

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However, Bruno had already expected this result because he knew Paul Bento relatively well.

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.

<divclass="contentadv"> 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 9 games in about 56 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 does not 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.