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Mon. August 1, 2022
Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Fiorentina (Italy Serie A)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK
Fiorentina are three time Serie A champions but went 46 years between titles when they finally won again in 2015. They finished in third last season on the table. During this dynasty, they also picked up the Europa League championship in 2014. They picked up a crazy good Argentinian midfielder on a free from Real Madrid in Raul Ale, who is worth an estimated £12.75 million.
Only a few of our better players are still unfit and I'll start two of them today: Gianluca Bolis and Mancini. Zoltan Bardi is also struggling to regain fitness but I'll bring him off the bench at some point. Shanon Andrea and Chiquinho will start up front. Said Henni is at left midfield today.
Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - M. Perez
D - R. Gaucho, C. Contreras, R. Hamon, K. Zagos
M - S. Henni, N. Cairney, Mancini, G. Bolis
S - S. Andrea, Chiquinho
Dover 4 - 1 Fiorentina
Goals - Chiquinho 2 (8.8), Gianluca Bolis (7.7), Zoltan Bardi (7.3)
Assists - Mancini (6.9), Neil Cairney (7.6), Said Henni (7.0)
Man of the Match - Chiquinho
Other Dover Notables - Manuel Perez (7.5), Claudio Contreras (7.1), Emmanuel Agbo (7.1)
Attendance - 9,540
A solid, professional win. We didn't look great and in fact, my assistant thought we looked overconfident and cocky but Chiquinho continues to run wild with two more goals and we beat a good opponent. We only held 43% of possession but outshot them 19-11 (7-4 on target).
-- We have our first injury and it's swingman Kostas Zagos suffering a fractured arm and he will miss 3-4 weeks. He's an injury-prone player from what I understand and now I'm going to likely need to find another player to come in on the cheap, as we don't really have a backup for right fullback now.
Transfer News
-- So Man City sell Enrique for £70 million then spend £56 million on Portuguese attacking mid Mario Brito. Brito is not the player that Enrique is so that's a good tradeoff for us. That said, he's still a world-class player.
-- Olympique Lyonnais keep bidding on Arsene Bamba and Chelsea are hot after Salim Loucif. Neither are going anywhere.
Next Up
-- We host Sampdoria at Crabble Athletic Ground in our third last preseason friendly.
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