Chapter 823 The Restored Golden Globe Award

In the past year, Manchester United's record is still extremely impressive. It has won five championships including the Premier League, League Cup, Community Shield, Champions League and European Super Cup, and also reached the final of the FA Cup. It is definitely the best performing team in Europe. Even Bayern Munich, which won the Bundesliga treble, is far inferior in comparison.

After all, in the most crucial Champions League final, Bayern Munich lost to Manchester United.

Among them, Bruno is undoubtedly the biggest favorite to win the award. Although he lost the battle for the Champions League top scorer by 13 goals to Lewandowski who scored 15 goals, he led Manchester United to win the Champions League again with a perfect record, which won him a lot of support.

Moreover, in terms of league performance, Bruno's personal performance is even better. He scored 43 goals in the season, not only setting a new Premier League single-season goal record, but also winning the European Golden Boot for the second time.

In the UEFA Best Player selection at the beginning of the season, Bruno defeated Lewandowski and was elected UEFA Best Player for the third consecutive year. In the following European Golden Ball and World Footballer of the Year selection, he is likely to win again.

However, it will take more than a month for the final award to be decided.

On the evening of December 12th, local time in Europe, France Football will announce the final selection results in Paris.

This year's European Golden Ball selection is different from that in another time and space. Because some European leagues were cut short due to the epidemic, "France Football" announced the cancellation of the 2020 European Golden Ball selection.

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At the same time as UEFA announced the shortlist of candidates for this year's European Golden Ball Award, the entire Manchester United team has boarded a special plane to Italy for the third round of the Champions League group stage match against Atalanta.

Mourinho continued to rotate players in the midfield and frontcourt, with McTominay, Greenwood and Mahrez partnering up in the front line, while Bruno formed a midfield three with Mata and Bellingham.

Players from both teams came to the player tunnel. French referee Bastien was conducting the final check before the players from both teams came on the field. When he saw Bruno, he obviously stayed a little longer and nodded slightly.

He has long admired this world's number one football player, and many people say that he has ushered in an era of his own.

If the decade before 2017 belonged to the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Yosi, then starting from the 2017-2018 season, world football has entered a new era, an era that belongs exclusively to Bruno!

After Ronaldo and Yosi got older, it has become difficult to find a superstar who can compete with Bruno for a long time!

Whether it is the older generation such as Lewandowski, Benzema, etc., or Neymar, Hazard, Salah, Harry Kane, etc. who can barely be considered to be of the same generation as Bruno, none of them can fully compete with Bruno, the king of football.

Atlanta smiled back politely.

Atlanta is a relatively mature team with an average age of 27 or 28, which is the golden age of their professional career.

As for the situation of this Atlanta team, Bruno had already known it clearly from the information provided by the coaching staff before the game.

Gasperini's team's persistence in attack makes it hard to believe that the coach is an Italian. He is basically the new Zeman of Serie A.

Basically, Atlanta's high goal concesion is due to the team's pursuit of offense and excessive pressure, resulting in too few players in the backcourt, thus creating large open areas.

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Less than six minutes into the game, he seized an opportunity in the frontcourt, quickly ran out of the gap and got a chance to counterattack.

Compared with other sports, there are eleven players on each side of a soccer match, and there are a total of twenty-three people on the field, including the referee. Among them, except for the two goalkeepers whose activity area is fixed in the penalty area, the rest of the players are basically in high-speed movement, running in and out of each other, and if you are not careful, it will be like a cursory glance and you will miss it.

For any competitive game, concentration is the most important basic quality for players.

This is especially true in football matches where there are many players and frequent running.

In football matches, the most obvious problem of lack of concentration is the inability to catch the path of the ball.

When Manchester United intercepted the ball in the backcourt, Cancelo got the ball on the left side of the center line. When he looked ahead, Atalanta's left-back Toloy obviously did not catch the crisis because he thought the ball was still on Manchester United's left side.

But in the next step, when Cancelo made a long diagonal pass and sent the ball almost behind Atlanta's left back and left center back, he hurriedly realized the danger.

Just as he turned around to chase the ball, Bruno had already passed by him at the fastest speed, like a gust of wind, quickly caught up with the football, and easily stopped the ball with his chest.

Fortunately, not all of Atlanta's defenders were distracted like Toloy. Jimsiti reacted immediately, quickly returned to defense, and blocked Bruno.

The two were one on one. Bruno stopped the ball with his chest and started quickly, trying to shake off the opponent, but Jimsiti decisively committed a foul and tripped Bruno to the ground.

The referee gave a yellow card without hesitation.

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Atlanta won a chance to catch its breath and quickly retreated to its own penalty area to organize defense.

Bruno's cross from the right found McTominay accurately, but the Manchester United center's header just barely hit the crossbar.

Although they failed to score a goal, Manchester United gave the opponent's central defender a yellow card just six minutes into the game. Mourinho's opening tactics worked and Bruno's start was very eye-catching.

Old coach Gasperini was very angry on the sidelines and kept complaining to the fourth official, obviously thinking that the punishment was too severe.

As a defender, especially a central defender, if you get a yellow card, you will be restricted and unable to move freely.

Of course, in comparison, if there was no foul, Bruno would have directly passed him and entered the penalty area, and it would have been difficult for Sportiello to stop him. At that time, conceding a goal would have only made him more passive, so Jimsiti's choice was understandable.

Mourinho stood on the sidelines and seemed relaxed from the beginning of the game.

When he saw Bruno giving Jimsiti a yellow card, he just laughed.

Although we failed to score a goal from the set piece in the frontcourt, this result was already quite good.

"This kid's short-range explosiveness is getting better and better, especially when he breaks away from the opponent," Mourinho praised.

"Yes." Faria nodded. "Just now, the two defenders of Atlanta failed to stop him. Fortunately, Jimsiti committed a decisive foul, otherwise the goal would have been secured."

When they saw Bruno constantly retreating on the field and at the same time calling on his teammates to try to attack to the right, Faria and Mourinho looked at each other and smiled again.

What a smart boy!

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Jimsiti had a yellow card and was already restricted in his play, and Bruno signaled his teammates to play more on the right, which felt a bit like adding insult to injury and taking advantage of his weakness.

This is definitely a very commendable choice in a football match.

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On the field, with Bruno's call, Manchester United's attack quickly tilted to the right.

Mahrez and Dalot, this new combination on the right is known for their offensive ability. With the addition of Bruno, Manchester United's right-wing attacks suddenly became more frequent, putting huge pressure on Atalanta's left.

In the 21st minute, Greenwood made a diagonal pass to the front of the penalty area from the left, and McTominay passed it to Mahrez on the right.

Mahrez had no chance and pushed the ball back to the midfield without stopping it, giving it to Bruno.

Bruno quickly passed the ball to the right, Dalot made a run-in, received the ball, and took it directly to the right side of the penalty area. After pulling out Toloy, he suddenly passed the ball into the penalty area.

At this time, Bruno had already run to the open space. After receiving Dalot's cross pass in the penalty area, facing Jimsiti, he pulled to the left and swung his left foot to shoot directly!

"Bruno!!!"

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!"

"In the 21st minute, Manchester United took the lead in breaking Atalanta's goal!"

"What a clean and neat attack!"

"Manchester United attacked from the left, McTominay headed the ball, Mahrez passed it to Bruno, who then passed it to Dalot on the right. Dalot and Bruno worked very well together, pulling out the defenders and passing the ball to the middle."

"It was a one-on-one frontal defense in the penalty area. Atalanta's central defender Jimsiti seemed very restrained because he already had a yellow card. He could only watch Bruno break into the gap and score directly!"

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After scoring the goal, Bruno rushed out of the field with his arms open and rushed to the corner flag area to celebrate his goal.

The goal was an easy one, mainly because the position he ran out of embarrassed Jimsiti.

Of course, this is also thanks to Dalot's cross pass assist.

So, when his teammates rushed over, Bruno excitedly hugged Dalot and celebrated with him.

The young Portuguese right-back was also very excited.

He now does morning exercises with Bruno every morning, and then does strength training together. After the training session, he will also accompany Bruno to do ball-stopping training. These have enabled him to quickly make up for his original shortcomings in physical confrontation and defense.

The strength increased, the defense improved, and due to Luke Shaw's injury, Cancelo switched to play as a left back, which directly allowed Dalot to get the starting position.

And he had Bruno to thank for all this.