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Fiorentina's first competitive game in '98 was against Sampdoria, who were defeated in this season's Coppa Italia, with Fabio Capello leading the side to a Frankie Stadium against the Apra Ross on 4 January.

With Jurgen Klinsmann and Signoli still out of form, new signing Morales is seen as a parallel commodity after half a season's poor performance. Therefore, only a few reliable Sampdoria in the first team such as Montella, Veron, and Mihajlovic were cut to the ground by the strong Fiorentina in the first league game of the new year.

Batty and Ronaldo scored a goal each in the game to help the Purple Lilies win 2-0 at home to Sampdoria, a victory that kept Fiorentina well ahead of their rivals in the league table.

Then, in the first leg of the Coppa Italia quarter-finals three days later, Fiorentina defeated Bierhoff's Udinese 2-1, with goals from Vieri and Inzaghi helping the Purple Lilies to a comfortable victory.

At the weekend, the fifteenth round of Serie A matches started as scheduled, and Fiorentina, who were playing away, scored with a header from super substitute Cruise in injury time, beating Brescia 2-1, extending the unbeaten streak to 76 games!

After the match against Brescia, Ronaldo, who has not yet picked up the trophy for the European Ballon d'Or, has once again temporarily left the team, and he will go to FIFA's headquarters with Redondo and Inzaghi to attend the award ceremony of the World Footballer of the Year.

In order to expand the influence of the title of "World Footballer of the Year", which has been established for less than ten years, in the international football arena, FIFA specially put the award ceremony of the World Footballer of the Year and the group draw ceremony of the French World Cup on the same day.

According to the comprehensive performance of each team in the past few World Cups, FIFA divided the 32 participating teams into four grades, so as to avoid too many strong teams meeting in advance in the group stage, which will affect the spectacle and attractiveness of the subsequent knockout stage games.

Maldini Sr.'s Italian national team was placed in Pot 1 along with hosts France and defending champions Brazil, as well as Argentina, Germany, Romania and Spain.

In the draw ceremony, the defending champions Brazil were drawn with Scotland, Morocco and Norway, and although none of Brazil's three opponents were very strong, the extremely tough style of play of Scotland and Norway is likely to cause unexpected problems for the Samba Army.

Perhaps because FIFA is interested in taking care of it, the host France has a very good signing, and the Gallic Roosters are in the same group as Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Denmark. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia and South Africa are the two teams that many people think are the boys who give away points; Denmark won Euro '92 but those champions are now old, so the problems that Denmark can cause France are quite limited.

As for Italy, the Apennines were in good luck this time around, having been placed in Group B to avoid the African eagles Nigeria in Pot 2 and the hidden bosses England and Croatia in Pot 3 to be in the same group as Cameroon, Austria and Chile.

The old Maldini is quite satisfied with this group, Italy's group opponents are generally weak, although Cameroon is known as the African Lions, but their results in the World Cup - to be honest, except for 90 years in Italy with Uncle Mira's magical performance once a big success, other times this African team is playing soy sauce, even Russia, which has fallen to the second or third rate of Europe, can pour their five goals into the World Cup, its strength can be imagined.

Not to mention Austria, who finished top of their group in the European qualifiers for the World Cup and qualified for the finals of the World Cup in France, but that doesn't mean how strong the Austrian team is. The reason why they were able to finish first in the group is more because their opponents in the qualifiers are generally not strong. As the second team in the group with the best results, Scotland directly qualified for the World Cup finals can already be counted as one of the strongest teams in that group; The Swedish team, the third-place winner of the World Cup in the United States, has been a little sluggish in recent years, Brolin's form has plummeted after a serious injury, and he is no longer the "Parma variable" of the year, and Dachlin, who has been suffering from minor injuries, has also begun to decline sharply after leaving Borussia Mönchenchen, and has become a third-rate striker. Therefore, Austria was able to qualify, largely because of the advantage of the group.

If it were to be placed in a group with Italy and England, Austria would not have to be beaten to slag......

In Maldini's view, the only thing that can cause some problems for Italy is Chile, which have a strong forward combination of Zamorano and Salas. However, the overall strength of Chile is not very strong, as long as the Italian players are not underestimated and can play normally in the game, there is still a lot of hope for all three points.

According to the usual practice, every World Cup will produce a so-called group of death, and the French World Cup is no exception. So, when the draw was over, Spain coach Clement became the most depressed of the first tier of managers, as his Spain and African eagles Nigeria, South American powerhouse Paraguay led by fantastic goalkeeper Chilavert, and Bulgaria with two dying superstars of Stoichkov and Balakov were in the same group.

After the grouping ceremony, the 1997 World Footballer of the Year award ceremony will be held, in which FIFA will select the winner from among the three candidates, Redondo, Inzaghi and Ronaldo, based on the votes of the managers and captains of each national team.

Although Ronaldo has already won the European Footballer of the Year award and it stands to reason that he has the best chance of winning this time, there is no guarantee that he will be able to win the honour he has now. After all, the selection methods of the two awards are very different, and the results will naturally be quite different.

This time, the World Footballer of the Year award ceremony was presided over by Joseph Blatter, a close confidant of Havelange and the secretary general of FIFA.

"The winner of the World Footballer of the Year is ......" Thinking of this, Blatter paused deliberately, as if he intended to whet everyone's appetite, "Ronaldo who plays for Fiorentina Club in Serie A!" ”

After hearing Blatter say the news himself, the whole venue boiled: because it meant that the alien Ronaldo became the third player to win the title of Mr. Double after Van Basten (1992) and Robert Baggio (1993)!

(Note: There should have been a George Weah, but due to the rise of Florence in this world, Weah's European Ballon d'Or was snatched away by Barty.) ）

The title of Mr. Double marks that Ronaldo is no longer a good first-class striker, but a top star who has begun to move towards superstardom!