Chapter 854: Unforeseen Defeat

February 2021, 2, Parc des Princes, Paris, France.

Referee Laos blew the whistle to end the game. The camera swept across the field. Manchester United players seemed to have their souls sucked out of them. Some players lay on the ground, while others knelt there with their hands covering their faces.

Manchester United was originally prepared for this game, and even made a large-scale rotation in the Premier League last weekend, with the aim of saving strength for this game.

However, before the game started, Manchester United encountered an accident.

Just before the entire Manchester United team was about to board a special plane to Paris, Bruno suddenly received news that Vanessa was about to give birth!

This news forced Bruno to take temporary leave from the team and stay in a private hospital in Manchester, waiting for Vanessa to give birth.

Bruno's temporary absence caused a huge crisis in Manchester United's preparations. After all, Manchester United has been playing around Bruno for several years.

Bruno's strong body and almost unlimited physical energy make him rarely miss games. This is the guarantee of Manchester United's excellent performance in recent years, but it also buries some concerns for Manchester United, that is, how will Manchester United play in the absence of Bruno?

However, Bruno's almost non-stop performance in the past few years has made Manchester United rarely encounter such a situation. Including Mourinho, almost no one has considered such a situation.

Especially when Manchester United encounters a strong opponent, Mourinho almost always prepares in advance so that Bruno will not miss such a crucial battle.

However, Vanessa's sudden clinical appearance disrupted Mourinho and Manchester United's preparations.

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Because of Bruno's temporary absence, Mourinho fielded a double defensive midfielder lineup of Kante and Fred in this game, and let Gundogan play as an attacking midfielder.

This is a slightly conservative lineup, but it is also the most appropriate tactic.

Although Manchester United is strong and has been the team with the best performance in the Premier League and even in Europe in the past few years; but Paris Saint-Germain is not a weak team either. They are the overlord of Ligue 1 and have also performed well in the European arena.

Once upon a time, Manchester United was the European team that invested the most in the transfer market, but if this time dimension is expanded to the past five years, the team that invested the most in the transfer market is Paris Saint-Germain.

It is said that you get what you pay for. The almost unlimited transfer investment has given Paris Saint-Germain a strong lineup, which is even the best in Europe.

With Bruno on the field, Manchester United might not be weaker than Paris Saint-Germain, and might even be slightly better; but now that Bruno is unexpectedly absent, if Manchester United wants to attack Paris Saint-Germain away from home again, they will be a little confused.

Mourinho's tactics were successful, at least until the 71st minute of the game.

They defended the goal and prevented Paris Saint-Germain from scoring, and at the beginning of the second half, they took advantage of a counterattack opportunity with Mbappe assisting Harry Kane to score.

However, in the 71st minute of the game, Paris Saint-Germain attacked. Verratti passed the ball, Icardi broke through the penalty area and his shot was blocked by De Gea. Former Manchester United player Martial shot low from the edge of the penalty area and the ball went into the lower left corner of the net, helping Paris Saint-Germain equalize the score.

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Martial's goal also sounded the horn for Paris Saint-Germain. Five minutes later, Paredes made a long pass from midfield, Florenzi made a cross, Maguire cleared the ball but did not kick it far, Martial pushed the ball into the goal, Manchester United 1:2 Paris Saint-Germain!

In the 3th minute, Paredes took the free kick and Keane, who was unmarked, headed the ball into the net, 1:, and the home team extended their lead to two goals.

In the 84th minute, Paris had a counterattack opportunity. Draxler drove straight to the left and Martial shot straight into the dead corner of the net. Manchester United 1:4 German!

The former European Golden Boy Award winner poked three transparent holes in his former club and pushed it to the brink of elimination from the Champions League.

This was also the final score of the game. Manchester United played well for 71 minutes and could be said to have tried their best at the Parc des Princes. However, facing the sudden outbreak of the French Ligue 1 giants, their defense was like a city gate that was hit continuously by a battering ram. It finally collapsed and was penetrated four times in a row!

"This is Paris Saint-Germain! This is the strength of the powerful Paris Saint-Germain!" The local commentator in Paris said excitedly, "Even a team as strong as Manchester United collapsed in the face of the continuous attacks of the Paris Saint-Germain stars! This is our Paris Saint-Germain! The great Paris Saint-Germain! We can now say that we have entered the quarterfinals!"

The commentator of Paris Saint-Germain is not worried about losing his reputation at all. After a 4:1 victory, can Manchester United still make a comeback?

At this time, the commentator completely forgot that just five years ago, in the Champions League quarter-finals, their team defeated Barcelona at home with a bigger score, but lost the second leg away from home, creating the biggest reversal in the history of the Champions League.

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As the PSG players celebrated, Mourinho strode onto the field and comforted his players one by one. He patted their shoulders, applauded, and shouted, telling them: You did a great job! You are great! I am very satisfied!

Mbappe, Rashford, Harry Kane, Gundogan... Mourinho comforted them one by one.

It was a rainy night. In the cold rain of the romantic city of Paris, Manchester United players fled in frustration and disappointment. Harry Kane, who scored a wonderful goal at the Parc des Princes, sat in the team bus, looking back at the brightly lit stadium and hearing the cheers of Paris Saint-Germain fans. Tears flowed from his eyes.

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In their post-match reports on the game, the French media praised Paris Saint-Germain's performance, but they did not praise the team too much. After all, their team just beat a Manchester United team that was missing its core players, and this is not a result worth boasting about.

If they can beat Manchester United led by Bruno with such a big score, it would be something really worth being happy about.

After all, the whole world knows that Manchester United with Bruno and Manchester United without Bruno are two completely different teams!

In fact, Paris Saint-Germain's performance this season is not good, it can even be said to be very bad.

At the beginning of the season, Paris Saint-Germain lost two games in a row and failed to score a goal due to the infection of seven main players including Neymar, Martial, Di Maria and Icardi with the new coronavirus. After that, the team recovered and won eight consecutive games and regained the lead in the standings.

In the middle of the season, due to poor relations with sports director Leonardo and conflicts with players, German coach Tuchel, who had coached the team for two and a half years, resigned and was replaced by Mauricio Pochettino, who jumped from Premier League team Tottenham.

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

At the beginning of the coaching change, Paris Saint-Germain encountered some turmoil, which caused them to lose the top spot in the Ligue 1 standings and fall to third in the league.

But Pochettino is, after all, a famous coach who has led Tottenham to fight against strong rivals such as Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League for many years. He is experienced and quickly led Paris Saint-Germain to reverse the decline. First, they defeated Marseille 2:1 in the French Super Cup final to achieve eight consecutive championships in the event, and then defeated the traditional powerhouse Marseille 2:0 in Ligue 4. Now he is facing Manchester United led by his old rival Mourinho in the Champions League, and beat Manchester United 1: at home in the first leg.

We are making great progress in the league, constantly chasing points, in good form, and we beat the Premier League leader at home in the Champions League knockout round. This is really great!

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After returning to Manchester from Paris, Mourinho not only refused to accept any media interviews, but also banned the players from talking about and mentioning the game with Paris Saint-Germain. He told everyone not to think about the Champions League until the second round of the game with Paris Saint-Germain.

"Now, our goal is the league!"

Mourinho's behavior was also interpreted by some media as being depressed after suffering a blow. Mundo Deportivo gloated by reminding that Paris Saint-Germain used such a victory to make the Portuguese coach, who had previously performed well and was even deified by some ignorant people, face the reality that his excellent performance as a coach was not because he was strong, but because his opponents were weak.

This report by Mundo Deportivo almost stirred up a hornet's nest, causing strong dissatisfaction among other teams in the Premier League. Manchester United is the leader of the Premier League. What do you mean by saying this? Are you saying that Manchester United is a weak team and we are even worse than weak teams?

Mourinho was not at all tolerant of Mundo Deportivo. In an interview with The Guardian, he responded sarcastically: "It's very uncomfortable to lose 1:4, but at least we didn't lose 2:8."

In last season's Champions League quarter-finals, Barcelona was slaughtered 8:2 by Bayern Munich in a game, so Mourinho said this.

There is a reason why Mourinho asked Manchester United players not to think about the disastrous defeat in the Champions League for the time being. That is because at the weekend, Manchester United will face another strong opponent, that is Mourinho’s old club, the Blues Chelsea.

Chelsea is not a weak team. They are currently ranked fifth in the standings and are in a critical period of competing for a place in the Champions League. Naturally, they hope to beat Manchester United at home and lay a solid foundation for reaching the top four.

Although Mourinho has tried various ways to downplay the team's defeat in the Champions League, people are not machines after all. In the weekend's game at Stamford Bridge, Manchester United's players were still in a slump. Even Bruno's emergency return to the team did not bring about significant changes.

Fortunately, Chelsea's recent form is not very good. In the last round of the league, they were tied 1:1 by the average Southampton. Although they defeated Atletico Madrid 1:0 away in the first round of the Champions League, their overall form is somewhat weak.

After a dull battle, the two teams drew 0:0.

But no matter what, it is actually a very lucky result for Manchester United to draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.