From the man behind the football king to the football king

After leaving Vanessa's residence, Bruno went directly to Milan Airport. I bought some gifts for my family in the duty-free shop at the airport, and then took a flight directly back to my home in Porto.

This time the family was reunited, and his father Jose Fernandez and eldest brother Ricardo Fernandez also returned to Porto ahead of Bruno.

When the family talked about Bruno's performance in Italy for more than a year, they all had a feeling of disbelief. At the same time, I am also happy for Bruno. The little guy who only had football in his eyes finally realized his dream and became a big star.

Bruno asked his father not to go to Switzerland anymore and to stay in Porto and find something to do. With Bruno's current income, it would be no problem for the two elders to live in retirement. However, considering that they are still in their early forties and still young, it would not be good to just act like rice bugs, so I made this suggestion.

Jose said he would consider it.

Because of his limited academic qualifications, his job in Switzerland was not very valuable and his salary was low. If there are better options, it’s okay not to go.

After staying at home for five days, as soon as Christmas was over, Bruno left home on the morning of the 26th and took a flight back to Italy. The 27th is the day when Udinese players gather and the team begins to prepare for the second half of the season.

During this period, Bruno was on the phone with Vanessa every day, but Vanessa didn't mention coming to Portugal. Apparently she hadn't made a decision yet, so Bruno didn't mention Vanessa's existence to his family.

After all, the relationship between the two is still a bit awkward and has not been officially determined.

………………

The Udinese team was assembled and conducted another 10 days of training. On the afternoon of January 6, they ushered in their first game since entering 2014, facing Verona at the Friuli Stadium.

As a newly promoted team, Verona is the dark horse in Serie A this season. They scored 29 points in 17 league rounds in the first half, ranking seventh in the Serie A standings.

However, this dark horse is a bit biased.

In 9 home games, Verona won 8 games and lost only 1 game. The 24 home points are the most among the 20 Serie A teams, better than Juventus and Udinese who scored 21 points. However, in 8 away games they only got 1 win, 2 draws and 5 losses, ranking 14th among the 20 Serie A teams with 5 points.

In a word, this is a typical team that plays dragon at home and worm on the road.

However, facing such a team, Udinese almost capsized at home.

I don’t know if it was because they haven’t played a game for half a month. Udinese seemed a bit slow after the start of the game, but Verona, who played away from home, got into the state quickly.

In the 8th minute, Toni's low-threatening shot from outside the penalty area was missed by Udinese goalkeeper Brkic. Verona led 1:0 as a guest.

In the 39th minute, Romulo made a wonderful pass with the instep of his outside foot. Tony went into the penalty area and scored twice, rewriting the score to 0:2.

Two goals were scored before the end of the half, which finally woke up the Udinese players. In the last few minutes of the first half, they finally launched some threatening offense and got one back in the 43rd minute.

At that time, Mahrez dribbled the ball from the right and broke through Verona No. 10 Halfredsson, but was kicked from behind by his opponent. The referee gave Verona No. 10 a yellow card and also awarded Udinese a frontcourt free kick.

Bruno took the free-kick and dropped the ball into the penalty area, where Roberto Perret closed the distance and headed the ball into Verona's goal.

1:2!

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After the start of the second half, Udinese continued to attack Verona's city, and captain Di Natale scored in the 51st minute to equalize the score.

Seeing that the situation was not going well, the visiting team made two substitutions just after 60 minutes of the game. Iturbe replaced Jankovic and Taleb replaced Martinho.

Ten minutes later, Iturbe, who came on as a substitute for Verona, stole the ball in the frontcourt and scored the ball before two Udinese defenders closed the door.

3:2, Verona exceeded the score again.

Udinese tenaciously equalized the score in the 79th minute. The goal was still scored by captain Di Natale, and Bruno provided the assist.

3:3!

This is the final score of the game.

Verona has thus become the only team to draw with Udinese in Serie A this season. In the remaining 17 league games, Udinese all won or lost with their opponents.

Since Juventus defeated Roma 3-0 at the Allianz Stadium in Turin a day ago, Udinese, who failed to win, retained the second position, and the point difference with Roma and Napoli behind them widened to 5 point. But at the same time, they were also widened to 3 points by Juventus.

………………

Three days later, on January 9, Udinese welcomed their rival Inter Milan at the Stadio Friuli.

This is the fifth round of the Coppa Italia this season and also Udinese’s first Coppa Italia match of the season.

After the first four rounds of competition, the teams in Serie A, except last season’s Coppa Italia champions and the teams participating in the European war, plus Serie B, will compete with the better performing teams in Serie C and Serie D. There will be 8 winners and the 8 seeded teams will form a new top 16.

Therefore, Udinese became one of the eight seeded teams in the Europa League. In the previous draw, their opponent was Inter Milan, who defeated them 3:0 in the first half.

Both sides have made extensive rotations in their lineups.

In Inter Milan, only Kuzmanovic, Nagatomo Yuto and Guarin, who will be suspended from the weekend league, continue to start. Milito made his first start since February 14 last year, with Kovacic as the attacking midfielder and Guarin in the deeper position.

For Udinese, seven players, including captain Di Natale, were also rested. Only Bruno, Erto, Domic and Kante, four players who played in the weekend league, continued to start.

Udinese took the lead in the 32nd minute!

Bruno made a direct pass to the right side of the penalty area. Nico Lopez turned offside and passed low in front of the goal. McSuell jumped in front of Zanetti and pushed into the empty goal.

This was the only goal of the game.

After defeating Inter Milan, Udinese has also entered the quarter-finals of this season's Italian Cup. Their opponent will be the winner between AC Milan and Spezia.

However, the outcome of this game will not be decided until next weekend.

………………

On the evening of January 13, Udinese went to Genoa to challenge Sampdoria at the Ferraris Stadium. After a chaotic game, Udinese suffered a 1:3 defeat on the road.

In this game, substitute goalkeeper Clava continued to start. Brkic, who made a low-level mistake in the match against Verona, was sidelined by Guidolin.

However, Klava's performance is not much better than Brkic. In the 16th minute of the game, the Udinese goalkeeper sent a penalty kick. He knocked down Sampdoria forward Eder who broke into the penalty area. Ed then made a free throw and the home team led 1:0.

20 minutes later, Udinese suffered a fatal blow. Alan got 2 yellows and 1 red because he tackled Ed for the second time. Udinese had to fight with 10 men for nearly an hour.

Fortunately, in the last 10 minutes of the first half, Udinese did not lose any more goals and entered the halftime break only one goal behind.

At the beginning of the second half, Udinese made personnel adjustments. Badu replaced McSuell, which was a substitution to strengthen defense.

However, this adjustment did not bring any effect. Instead, Udinese quickly lost the second goal.

In the 47th minute, Gabbiadini made a heel pass, and Ed stepped into the penalty area for offside and scored another victory.

Originally, Udinese once saw the hope of scoring points in the away game. In the 61st minute of the game, Sampdoria midfielder Soriano received a second yellow card for a foul after being broken through by Bruno.

After the numbers returned to balance, Udinese stepped up their attack, and in the 67th minute, Bruno assisted Di Natale to score a goal, rewriting the score to 1:2.

But just when Udinese was gaining momentum, the team's Brazilian defender Gabriel Silva retaliated by elbowing Sampdoria defender De Silvestri and was sent off with a direct red card by the referee.

Udinese once again faced the situation of playing one less player.

Not only that, the morale of Udinese players has also become very low.

In this situation, Bruno was helpless.

In the end, Sampdoria scored another goal in the 88th minute, locking the score at 3:1.

After the winter break, Udinese suffered two league games without a win, and the players seemed to have not woken up from the winter break.