The squad list for Inter Milan's home match against Genoa in Round 11 of Serie A was announced.
As usual.
Far away in China.
Some die-hard Inter Milan fans saw the list too.
No one noticed Tang Long's name at the bottom of the 21-man squad list.
Everyone's eyes were fixed on the names of key players like Guarin, Icardi, and Kovacic.
Fans who had watched football for a long time knew the drill.
You only needed to pay attention to the first dozen or so names on the squad list.
The rest were substitutes, and many were just there to make up the numbers, with no chance of getting on the pitch.
Still, a few people noticed a strange name at the bottom of the list.
[Tunn]
"Who's this Tunn, number 99?"
On the Inter Milan forum of Dongqiudi, a famous football app in China.
Someone posted a curious question about the surname.
"Tunn? How do you even pronounce that..."
"No idea. Maybe he's from one of the youth teams. Never heard of him."
"Just look at the number. He's a youth player there to make up the numbers. I don't know him!"
Inter Milan's first-team office.
Head coach Mancini, his hair graying at the temples, was feeling a little frustrated.
He kept replaying the previous match on his computer—their Round 10 Serie A game, in which Inter Milan had lost 0–3 away to Sampdoria!
Mancini had watched it so many times that the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had deepened!
"My God, how can they play this badly? How are players at this level fit to play for Inter Milan?"
A hint of bewilderment colored Mancini's sigh.
He had been away from Inter for too long.
The Inter Milan of today was no longer the team he knew!
From 2004 to 2008.
In his four years coaching Inter Milan, Mancini had won three Serie A titles!
In the 2006–07 season, he had also led the team to a club-record 97 points in a single Serie A season, making him one of Inter Milan's most distinguished managers.
But after years of dismal performances in the UEFA Champions League.
That summer, in 2008, Moratti sacked him.
The Italian coach then headed north to Manchester City in the Premier League!
Under him, the Blue Moon pulled off the 93:20 miracle in 2012, scoring a stoppage-time winner against Queens Park Rangers on the final day!
They edged out their city rivals, Manchester United, to win the first Premier League title in their history.
And in those years.
Inter Milan first reached the pinnacle of their history under Mourinho, winning the treble.
But after that, Benitez, Leonardo, Gasperini, Stramaccioni, Mazzarri...
Those coaches came and went, leaving only faint traces in Inter Milan's list of managers.
In short, the results were dismal!
In fact, since 2012.
Inter Milan had not qualified for the Champions League once.
Before Mancini took over.
After the first nine matches of the 2014–15 season under Mazzarri, Inter Milan were languishing in ninth place.
Forget challenging for the title—even securing a Champions League spot for the following season looked precarious!
Watching the former Serie A powerhouse gradually sink into a mid-table team.
Inter Milan owner Thohir had promptly terminated Mazzarri's contract and chosen to bring back a former manager, Mancini.
As the saying went, a good horse never ate the grass behind it.
But Mancini was more than happy to accept the invitation to return for a second spell.
After all, his stint at Galatasaray in the Turkish Super Lig the previous year had not gone smoothly, and his relationship with the club's management had been rather tense.
At the prime age of 50, Mancini needed a prestigious coaching job to prove his worth all over again.
So, after six years away, he returned to the Serie A he knew so well.
Mancini had inherited the mess Mazzarri left behind.
Taking over midway through the season, he was full of ambition.
He wanted to take Inter Milan back to where they had been six years earlier: a dominant force in Serie A that he had led to victory after victory!
But in his very first match after signing on as coach, he was hit with a brutal reality check!
Inter Milan were thrashed 0–3 away by Sampdoria.
The result had driven him to pick up the cigars he had given up two years ago.
Though the smoke did little to ease his frustration, it offered a distraction, a way to vent. The haze before him even helped hide his embarrassment.
The match had been completely one-sided, with the Nerazzurri thoroughly dominated by the Sailors.
And that wasn't even the worst of it~
Worse still, Inter Milan had lost two key players to injury—starting forwards Osvaldo and Icardi had both gone down.
That left just two other forwards in the squad.
One was the 33-year-old Argentine veteran Palacio.
The other was the 17-year-old striker Bonazzoli.
Looking at the two cards in his hand, one old and one young, Mancini felt a headache coming on!
Could this lineup go back home and take all three points from Genoa?
Forget three points—it would probably be hard to get even one...
At six o'clock that evening, local time in Milan.
Inter Milan's bus slowly made its way toward Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
The match was still an hour and forty-five minutes away, and the players had arrived early to warm up.
Tang Long sat at the back of the bus, excitedly looking out the window at the crowds of Inter Milan fans lining both sides of the road, dressed in blue and black.
Tang Long had just started to wave to the fans through the window when—smack!—a rotten egg splattered against it.
"Smack! Smack! Smack!"
A few more eggs came flying.
"Is this how you repay us? Is this how you repay the fans?"
"We're already ninth in Serie A! Do you have to finish nineteenth and get relegated by the end of the season?"
"Have some shame! If you can't beat Genoa today, the club might as well fold!"
"You can't score up front and you keep conceding at the back. Is this what you call football? It's an eyesore, and a waste of my ticket money!"
"Thohir, get lost! Old Moratti, please come back and take charge of Inter!"
The fans' abuse came like a tidal wave.
Berni, Inter Milan's third-choice goalkeeper, sitting beside Tang Long, gave an awkward cough.
He leaned over Tang Long and reached out to pull the curtains shut.
"Kid, don't mind them. None of that has anything to do with you. Just watch the game from beside the bench.
"Here, try my headphones. Listen to some of the latest rock from the USA, hehe..."
Uncle Bei had been pretty considerate of Tang Long, telling him all sorts of things about the first team along the way.
After all, one was the team's third-choice goalkeeper, unlikely to get a single minute of playing time all season.
The other was a youth-team player brought along to make up the numbers, enjoying a free ticket to watch the match in person.
Naturally, the two had gravitated toward each other.
"Uncle Bei, how do you think we'll play today? It's a home game, so we'll probably focus on attacking, right?"
Tang Long asked Berni tentatively.
But Uncle Bei gave him a look that said otherwise.
"Attack? What attack? Don't make me laugh!"
Berni glanced at the back of head coach Mancini's head at the front of the bus, then lowered his voice.
"I've been around the block, kid. Let me tell you, Mancini's biggest headache right now is the team's awful defense.
"It's like the team's been cursed. The injuries have been piling up since the start of the season.
"Guarin, Hernanes, M'Vila, Juan—they've all been injured on and off. It's infuriating!
"We've played ten league matches—just ten. Do you know how many goals we've conceded?"
Tang Long answered right away:
"Fifteen. I checked the stats."
"Exactly, fifteen!" Berni slapped his thigh, visibly worked up.
"In Serie A, where teams build on their defense, there's no way we'll achieve our preseason goal of qualifying for the Champions League if we keep conceding at this rate.
"Keep in mind, because of how terribly Italian teams have performed in European competitions in recent years, Serie A has only three Champions League places this season~"
Berni took the headphones off Tang Long's head, put them on his own, and narrowed his eyes.
"Man, the top three! The top three!
"Juventus, AC Milan, Napoli, Atalanta, Lazio, Fiorentina—which of those teams can we beat?
"I've played professional football for over a decade, and I've seen it all. In Serie A, if you want to win, you've got to sit deep and grind it out. If you can't hold on, you won't get any points."
Before you continue