Chapter 991: 4-Line Battle
With the match between Manchester United and Manchester City coming to an end, the top four teams of this season's Champions League have all been decided.
Just two minutes before the Manchester derby ended, the second leg of another Champions League quarter-final had already ended at Anfield. With Liverpool sending out most of their substitutes, although Benfica showed strong fighting spirit on the road and broke Liverpool's goal three times, they ultimately failed to achieve a reversal on the road. The two sides drew 3:3, and Liverpool eliminated Benfica with a total score of 6:4 in two rounds, advancing to the semi-finals of this season's Champions League.
One day earlier, the other two matches of the Champions League quarter-finals had already been decided. Villarreal drew with the powerful Bayern Munich away from home, and with a 1-0 win at home in the first leg, the Yellow Submarine unexpectedly eliminated the Bundesliga South King with a total score of 2-1 in two rounds, becoming the first team to advance to the semi-finals of this season's Champions League.
In the strong confrontation between Chelsea and Real Madrid, Chelsea lost 1:3 to Real Madrid at home in the first leg and was generally believed to have been eliminated early. But who would have thought that the Blues had a big outbreak when they arrived at the Bernabeu Stadium, tying the score 3:1, so that the total score of the two legs became 4:4, and the two sides entered overtime.
In fact, if it weren't for Modric's outstanding performance and his wonderful pass to assist Rodrigo to score in the 79th minute of the game, Real Madrid would have been eliminated in the home court with white handkerchiefs all over the place.
However, in front of tens of thousands of home fans at the Bernabeu Stadium, Real Madrid showed their strength as a super giant in the Champions League. With Benzema's goal in the 95th minute, although Real Madrid lost 2:3 at home, they still eliminated Chelsea with a total score of 5:4, avenging their elimination from the Champions League semi-finals by Chelsea last season.
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Real Madrid had the last laugh in the match against Chelsea and successfully advanced to the semi-finals. This is also the second consecutive year that Real Madrid has advanced to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
In the post-C Ronaldo era, after experiencing two years of slump in the Champions League, the Galacticos finally did not repeat the mistakes of ten years ago and once again became the Champions League "Dream Eight" team.
Now, with Manchester United winning the Manchester derby, the top four teams in the Champions League have all been decided.
After the Italian Serie A team failed to reach the quarterfinals, the Bundesliga team was also completely defeated in the quarterfinals. The Premier League and La Liga will compete for the final crown, which is also a competition for the first league.
In the current UEFA standings, the Premier League and La Liga are in the top two. Although La Liga is 15 points behind the Premier League, it is the only league that can threaten the Premier League's position in the short term. Serie A and Bundesliga are more than 30 points behind the Premier League. Even if the Premier League does not participate in European competitions for a season, these two leagues will not be able to shake the Premier League's position.
Since the upper and lower halves of this season's Champions League knockout rounds were determined by drawing lots in the quarter-finals, there was no need to draw lots again for the matchups between the four teams.
The semi-finals in the upper half are between Manchester United and Real Madrid, and in the lower half are between Liverpool and Villarreal. Both are matchups between Premier League teams and La Liga teams.
However, in this season's European competition points, the Premier League is quite far ahead of La Liga.
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This season, Premier League teams have also performed very well in European competitions.
In the Champions League, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea have all advanced to the quarterfinals, and now two teams have advanced to the semi-finals, which is the best record in the four major leagues.
Because Villarreal won the Europa League last season, there are as many as five La Liga teams participating in the Champions League group stage this season. However, due to poor performances of Barcelona and Sevilla in the group stage and their elimination to the Europa League, this has lowered the score of La Liga to a certain extent.
In the Europa League, where two Premier League teams competed, although Leicester City was eliminated to the UEFA Europa League in the group stage, the remaining West Ham United was very competitive. In the quarter-finals, it eliminated the Europa League champion Sevilla, and in the quarter-finals, it eliminated the former French Ligue 1 overlord Lyon and advanced to the semi-finals.
In the newly-formed UEFA Europa League, the Premier League teams also performed brilliantly.
As the first-time favorite to win the tournament, Tottenham, led by Cristiano Ronaldo, has been performing very stably and reached the semi-finals without any surprises.
Leicester City, who were eliminated in the Europa League group stage, began to focus on the UEFA Champions League, hoping to get a place in the European Cup next season by taking a roundabout way. They defeated Randers, Rennes and PSV Eindhoven along the way and also advanced to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League.
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As April approaches, European competitions have entered the semi-final stage. In this season's three European competitions, Premier League teams have occupied 5 seats in the semi-finals, almost half of the seats.
Especially in the Champions League and the UEFA Europa League, Premier League teams have the possibility of winning all the places in the finals. As long as Manchester United can eliminate Real Madrid again in the Champions League semi-finals, Liverpool also beats Villarreal, Ronaldo's Tottenham beats Feyenoord of the Eredivisie, and Vardy's Leicester City beats Roma, the Premier League can win all the places in the two European finals at the same time and reproduce the glory of three years ago.
Even if West Ham United can eliminate Bundesliga's Frankfurt in the semi-finals of the Europa League, there will be a grand occasion of five Premier League teams competing in the European finals!
According to the schedule, the semi-finals of the three European competitions will be held in the middle of the week at the end of April and the middle of the week at the beginning of May, which is only two to three weeks away.
However, Manchester United currently has no energy to think about the Champions League semi-finals, because before that, they still have three very important games, namely the FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace, the Red Derby with Liverpool, and the dialogue with Arsenal.
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On the afternoon of April 4, the first semi-final of this season's FA Cup was played. Manchester City, who had just been eliminated from the semi-finals of the Champions League, faced Liverpool at the new Wembley Stadium.
Although Manchester City wanted to win the FA Cup, which had the greatest hope of winning the title this season, their elimination by Manchester United in the Champions League in the middle of the week still had a huge impact on Manchester City.
Their opponents Liverpool had a chance to recuperate in the middle of the week. As a result, Liverpool, who was well rested, took a huge advantage of 3:0 in the first half, almost securing qualification for the FA Cup final in advance.
Although Manchester City took advantage of Liverpool's desire to save their strength for the Manchester derby next week and launched a frantic counterattack in the second half, at one point narrowing the score to 2:3, the hole they dug for themselves in the first half was too big and they ultimately failed to make a comeback.
As a result, in just three days, Manchester City was eliminated from the Champions League and FA Cup, its dream of winning the treble was shattered, and even the Premier League, the only league with a glimmer of hope of winning the championship, became shaky.
For a time, there were a lot of voices in the media calling for Guardiola to be fired, and many fans even flocked to Manchester City's official website and left messages asking Guardiola to resign.
However, Manchester City's management immediately expressed their trust and support for Guardiola. On the one hand, Guardiola's performance this season is not bad, and on the other hand, it is difficult for the Abu Dhabi consortium to find a new head coach who is more trustworthy than Guardiola.
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A day later, another FA Cup semi-final continued at the new Wembley Stadium, with Manchester United facing Crystal Palace.
Crystal Palace is currently ranked 13th in the Premier League standings, 17 points behind the top flight, leaving them with only a theoretical hope of qualifying for the European Cup through league points.
Under such circumstances, they also put their main focus on the FA Cup. If they can defeat Manchester United first and then Liverpool in the final, they can not only win the first major championship in the team's 160-year history, but also qualify for the Europa League next season.
This made them perform very tenaciously in the match against Manchester United.
However, the gap in strength between them and Manchester United was still too big. Although they maintained the score of 0:0 until halftime through their iron-clad defense in the first half, as Manchester United exerted their strength in the second half, they finally could not hold on and were scored two goals in a row by Manchester United, eventually losing with a score of 0:2.
At this point, this season's FA Cup final has become a Red Derby between Manchester United and Liverpool.
This is also the seventh consecutive year that Manchester United has advanced to the FA Cup final, creating new history.
In the previous six FA Cup finals, Manchester United became the final winner five times, only losing to Arsenal on penalties in the 2019-2020 FA Cup final.
That was also the first time in Bruno's career that he lost the championship trophy in the final.
In the FA Cup final, after facing Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City in succession, and even having to go through the second round again, Manchester United finally encountered another strong rival of theirs in the Premier League, Liverpool, in the FA Cup final.
With Manchester United and Liverpool meeting in the FA Cup final, it also means that the two teams will continue to compete for the championship in the Premier League, the Premier League and the Champions League this season.
In the current Premier League standings, Manchester United and Liverpool are also the top two teams. Manchester United has 31 points in 78 rounds and ranks first, while Liverpool is 8 points behind.
In fact, including the League Cup final at the end of February, the two red teams are competing for the championship on four fronts!
Of course, before that, the two teams still have to go through the test of two La Liga teams in the Champions League.
In comparison, Liverpool's hope of advancing to the Champions League final is much greater than Manchester United's.
After all, as the most successful team in the history of the Champions League, Real Madrid's strength is not comparable to Villarreal.
Following the head-on confrontation in the League Cup final, the two sides faced off again at Anfield on the evening of April 4.
This will be Liverpool's last chance to win the first Premier League title in team history this season!
