Chapter 674 Tasteless

When Manchester United finished their semi-final with Kashima Antlers, Al Ain had already arrived in Abu Dhabi and checked into a hotel that had been booked in advance. The wealthy UAE giants had booked the entire hotel.

After the team checked into the hotel, head coach Mamic immediately convened a team meeting.

Mamic, 47, is a Croatian who was born in Croatian football giant Dinamo Zagreb. He was once a teammate of Modric. Modric's joining Tottenham was arranged by Mamic and his brother. After retiring, he also coached Dinamo Zagreb. It was not until 2016 that he left Croatia to coach Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates. Two years later, he brought Al Ain to the stage of the Club World Cup final.

This is a grand event for UAE football. From President Khalifa to ordinary UAE fans, everyone is looking forward to it.

But this time, Al Ain's opponent is the Champions League champion Manchester United, a super giant that has created a 57-game unbeaten record in the Premier League and is currently still unbeaten!

Mamic also attached great importance to this game. Although Al Ain is less than 200 kilometers away from Abu Dhabi, he still led the team to Abu Dhabi for training early in order to better adapt to the venue.

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"The biggest advantage for us in this game is our physical fitness."

Mamic analyzed the situation between the enemy and us in front of the players.

"As a Premier League team, Manchester United has been experiencing an extremely busy schedule since the start of the season. Four days ago, they were fighting Liverpool at Anfield, so they came to Abu Dhabi after a tough battle."

The players of Al Ain all nodded in unison, obviously understanding what the head coach meant.

After the tough battle against Manchester United, Manchester United immediately flew to the UAE, a long journey of nearly 6,000 kilometers. Coupled with the climate change from cold England to hot UAE, it is conceivable that Manchester United's opponent in the final will not only be Al Ain.

"The first 45 minutes will be crucial. I can tell you with certainty that Manchester United will attack and they will try every possible way to break our goal in the first 45 minutes."

Physically at a disadvantage, they had to finish the fight when they still had enough physical strength. It can be said that Manchester United had no other choice but to press forward from the start.

As the team's head coach, Mamic is very clear that Al Ain's overall strength is far inferior to that of Manchester United. If they really want to go head-to-head with Manchester United, they will definitely not end up well.

"In the first half our task was to defend well and not give Manchester United any chances to score. At the same time, the second half would be our chance."

As long as the game entered the second half, Al Ain had the advantage in physical strength, and Manchester United could only surrender due to lack of physical strength, but this was also under ideal conditions.

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After arranging the team's tactics, Mamic changed the subject and said, "There is one person everyone must pay attention to."

As soon as Mamic said this, a photo of the player immediately switched to the big screen at the back.

"His name is Bruno Fernandez."

In the conference room, all the players of Al Ain nodded. Everyone knew him.

"Everyone should be familiar with him. He is the winner of this year's World Footballer of the Year and European Ballon d'Or. He broke the dominance of Messi and Ronaldo in world football. Just four days ago, he received the European Golden Boot Award for the 2017-2018 season. He is the player with the most goals in the past two seasons. He has been in very good form recently and is getting stronger with each passing day."

Although the UAE in the Middle East is far away from the UK, in the information age, the transmission of information is too fast and convenient, and Bruno has long been a well-known star among these Al Ain players.

Last season, he led Manchester United to an unbeaten season and won all the possible championships, setting a single-season points record for the world's top leagues and ending the dominance of another super giant, Real Madrid, in the Champions League.

Later, he led Portugal to defeat France in the World Cup and won the first World Cup championship in Portugal's history. He also became the second youngest World Cup best player, second only to Ronaldo.

The most important thing is that Ronaldo won the World Cup Best Player in 1998, but the Brazilian team he played for did not win the championship, which made Ronaldo's election controversial and even regarded as a consolation prize. In the minds of many people, the real best player of the World Cup that year was Zidane, because Zidane won the more authoritative European Golden Ball Award and World Footballer of the Year that year.

Bruno's selection as the best player of the World Cup this year was not controversial, because he was not only the top scorer in the World Cup in Russia, but also the assist leader. His selection was meaningless even to the Portuguese national team captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who was crowned the best player this year.

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As the most popular superstar in world football today, or the fourth recognized king of world football, the people of the United Arab Emirates have long heard of his name.

Mamic was obviously very afraid of Bruno. He knocked hard on the podium and raised his voice, "Please remember, he is the most dangerous player in Manchester United and the most terrible killer. Don't give him any chances and don't expect him to make mistakes."

In the conference room, Al Ain's players were all facing a formidable enemy and did not dare to be careless at all.

How could a player who led his team to win the World Cup at the age of 24 and ended the era of the two greatest players be simple?

"In theory, Bruno is a front midfielder, but in reality, his position is becoming more and more erratic. He will appear in any area that is threatening and can create threats, on the right, in the middle, on the left. In short, he is very dangerous."

"No matter where he appears, our defensive players must immediately restrict him, not let him get the ball, not let him shoot, not give him the slightest chance."

Whether in the previous training or in today's tactical meeting, Mamic has given the players enough reminders to let them know the danger of Bruno, hoping to attract the players' attention.

With the big battle imminent, Mamic did not want to encourage his opponent's morale and destroy his own prestige. He then told the players: "This is not a final with a huge gap between the two teams as we have fixed the impression. Manchester United has traveled thousands of miles to the Middle East and must be very tired. We are not lambs to be slaughtered by our opponents. This is a decisive battle between two evenly matched teams."

"Our fans are waiting for us to send back the news of our victory!"

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For top teams, especially top teams like Manchester United, the Club World Cup is somewhat useless.

Before the start of the Club World Cup, The Guardian clearly stated that it would be a loss for Manchester United to participate in the Club World Cup. Because even if Manchester United won the Club World Cup, the prize money would only be 500 million euros. If they failed to win the championship, the runner-up would only get 400 million euros.

However, if Manchester United participates in the Champions League and wins a group match, they can get a bonus of 270 million euros, and if they win the Champions League final, they can get a bonus of 1900 million euros.

Even in the Premier League, based on last season's situation, the 20 Premier League teams all received more than 1.4 million pounds, and Manchester United, as the champion, received 1.53 million pounds, earning around 400 million pounds in almost every game.

According to The Guardian, Manchester United's biggest goal in participating in the Club World Cup is to become the seven-time champion in 2018, and the first team in football history to win seven titles in a year.

This is the most tempting thing for Manchester United!

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However, for Al Ain of the UAE Premier League, the Club World Cup is still very attractive, especially since their opponents are super giants like Manchester United.

You know, if it were any other occasion, Al Ain would hardly have the opportunity to play against Manchester United.

So when they learned that Al Ain would meet Manchester United in the Club World Cup final, it attracted great attention from UAE fans.

Abu Dhabi's Zayed Sports City Stadium can accommodate more than 43600 fans, but tickets were sold out long before the final.

The biggest problem of the Club World Cup is that it is difficult to attract the attention of fans. You know, there are eight games in this Club World Cup. Most of the previous games had only a few thousand players watching the game. In the previous match between Kashima Antlers and Guadalajara, there were only 3000 fans watching on site.

Of the eight games in the Club World Cup, the only two that had full stadiums were the two games in which Manchester United participated.

The UAE is also paying close attention to this event, because a local team from the UAE unexpectedly made it to the final. The UAE government has paid great attention to it, and the president and a group of political dignitaries will be present at the event.

However, in addition to some senior executives of Manchester United, the team owner Prince Jassim did not come. This is because Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar last year due to some special relations.

In order to ensure the safety of the final, the UAE deployed 600 police officers and 300 security personnel just to maintain the scene.

The gathering of so many political and business celebrities undoubtedly greatly enhanced the significance of this final.

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Al Ain wore their home blue shirts and white pants and lined up in a 4321 Christmas tree formation.

The goalkeeper is Khalid, the four defenders are Ahmad, Ahmed, Fayez, and Shiotani Tsukasa, the three defensive midfielders are Yeslem, Abdulrahman, and Doumbia, the two attacking midfielders are El Shehat and Kaio, and the lone striker Borg is forward.

Manchester United also sent out all their main players in this game. De Gea was arranged as the goalkeeper, Luke Shaw, Van Dijk, Maguire and Cancelo were the combination of the defense line, Gundogan and Kante were arranged as the double defensive midfielders in the midfield, Bruno was the forward, and Rashford, Harry Kane and Mbappe formed the front trident.

This is also the strongest lineup Manchester United can currently field.