At half past seven the next morning, Chivu was the first to arrive at the training ground.
He didn't go to Mancini's office, the meeting room, or the training pitch.
Instead, he rummaged through everything in the video analysis room!
After a busy spell at the computer, Chivu sat down and scratched his head.
"I've been looking for ages and only found a clip that's a little over ten minutes long. Where am I supposed to find more than ten hours of footage for Tang?"
Ten o'clock the night before.
Chivu had been lying in bed, reading a book about UEFA A-license coaching. He'd nearly fallen asleep over it.
Who could have guessed that Tang Long would call and ask for a collection of Icardi's footage?
Chivu had been pretty surprised at first!
Collections of footage featuring a particular player were only used by coaches when studying tactics.
What did Tang Long want one for?
Then he heard that Tang wanted more than ten hours' worth, and Chivu's head started to ache.
Tang Long said he wanted to study Icardi's runs and his habits when receiving the ball, so he could feed him the ball more effectively.
Chivu had praised Tang Long over the phone, saying he was ambitious, and told him to look in the video analysis room at the training ground the next day.
But after searching everywhere today, Chivu had only found a clip that was a little over ten minutes long.
And it was a collection of Icardi's mistakes in his runs!
It had been made back when Mazzarri was the head coach, and was buried deep in the hard drive as a collection of mistakes.
When Chivu right-clicked the file and checked its properties, the last time it had been opened was listed as December 2013.
Back then, Icardi had only been at Inter Milan for six months, playing as a backup to Milito and Palacio.
At that point, Icardi hadn't yet risen to the level of a top Serie A striker.
Like many young players, he had the common problem of being immature and not yet ready to become a regular starter for Inter Milan.
So Inter Milan's tactical analysts had taken Icardi's ten-odd appearances and put together a collection of his mistakes, analyzing his shortcomings in his runs and his decisions on the ball. They'd shown it to Icardi.
After that, for more than a year, the Inter Milan coaching staff had never made another official video analysis focused specifically on Icardi.
When Tang Long arrived full of anticipation, Chivu told him the news.
He couldn't help feeling a little disappointed!
It seemed the Inter Milan coaching staff weren't nearly as thorough as he'd imagined.
Why did Tang Long want a collection of Icardi's footage?
His plan was to study Icardi's runs through a collection of clips and use AI big-data analysis to automatically identify the passing routes and timing best suited to Icardi during matches.
Tang Long knew that as the league went on,
Icardi would become an increasingly indispensable player for Mancini.
If he wanted to come out on top in the competition with Guarin for a starting spot, the key was to forge a solid connection with Icardi!
After all, as someone who'd traveled back in time, Tang Long knew that next season the Argentine striker would be promoted by Mancini to captain of the first team, taking Ranocchia's place.
Generally speaking, if you wanted to latch onto a powerful ally, you had to get close to the strongest person on the team—or the one who would become the strongest.
For now, Tang Long was still feeding match footage into his AI System.
He also often watched matches between the world's great teams.
But those matches weren't entirely suited to Icardi!
Even though they were both excellent at making runs, Inzaghi and Icardi had different habits.
Even though they were both masters of one-touch play, Van Nistelrooy preferred different passing angles from Icardi.
Even when to start building power and when to strike were part of each player's unique footballing language.
For instance, in the match against Bologna, Tang Long and Icardi had failed to connect on a golden opportunity!
It had happened in the 66th minute, during an Inter Milan counterattack.
Tang Long drove forward with the ball. Just then, the AI System indicated a great opening on the right. If he passed it, there was a strong chance of playing a through ball that would send someone clear on goal!
Tang Long had indeed made the pass, but Icardi had made a run down the left, and the ball went straight out of bounds.
In fact, there had been nothing wrong with the Argentine striker cutting diagonally to the left. There was an opening there too, and he had managed to get into space.
The Argentine striker had even looked back and applauded Tang Long, signaling that his idea had been fine too.
But their different understandings of football had caused a breakdown in their passing combination!
Every player in the world was unique.
It proved the saying: contradictions were universal, but they were also particular.
After watching more than a thousand complicated match recordings,
Tang Long's AI big-data system was still a generalized system.
To combine the universality and particularity of contradictions and get closer to Icardi, Tang Long had to watch more of Icardi's matches.
Watching them one by one would take too long!
He had to rely on a collection of clips.
After all, in a single match, Icardi, as a poacher, usually touched the ball only a little over thirty times, made just over twenty passes, and took three or four shots.
Tang Long clearly wasn't satisfied with getting only a collection of Icardi's mistakes from a year earlier from Chivu.
He decided to ask Icardi himself whether he had collected any relevant material.
But Icardi's answer left Tang Long even more disappointed.
"Hey! The coaching staff don't even have one. How would I have more than ten hours of footage? I'm not Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Who'd make a video that long to study me? Tang, you're overthinking it!"
However.
Fortunately, hard work paid off!
A few days later, Icardi sent Tang Long a video link on his phone.
When Tang Long opened it, he found a collection of Icardi's match footage.
A full fifteen hours!
Icardi was only twenty-two, and had played just seventy or eighty professional matches over the course of his career, scoring fewer than thirty goals. Where had fifteen hours of match footage come from?
Icardi replied to Tang Long in a message:
"Tang, after you mentioned it, I started keeping an eye out. Today I stumbled across this on a video-sharing site. An Argentine fan of mine edited recordings of every match I've ever played into this compilation.
"I was stunned at first! I couldn't believe someone in the world would edit more than ten hours of video about me. There's even footage of me playing in the U19 league for Sampdoria!
"Some of it's pretty blurry, so bear with it. This is definitely the most comprehensive collection of footage of me anywhere in the world. I hope it helps."
The video had only been played a little over ninety times on YouTube, not even a hundred.
Clearly, most people who came across it had been put off by its runtime of more than ten hours!
But for Tang Long, it was the quickest way to understand his attacking partner.
That weekend, Serie A's first high-profile showdown took place at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
Inter Milan hosted Juventus.
It was also known as Italy's Derby d'Italia!
The intensity was every bit as fierce as the Derby della Madonnina.
Over the past two years, Juventus had made a strong comeback and repeatedly dominated Inter Milan in the Derby d'Italia.
At this point, Juventus sat at the top of the league, leading by a clear margin, and had the best odds to win the title!
Inter Milan, meanwhile, were sixth in the league and outside the Champions League places.
This enormous gap made it the most lopsided Derby d'Italia in recent years.
At the pre-match press conference, Mancini conveyed his confidence in victory with a sharp gaze and a firm voice.
"If Inter Milan want to surpass ourselves, we have to beat teams like Juventus. I'm not putting pressure on the players. On the contrary, I'm giving them confidence!"
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