Chapter 275: Team Destiny: England!

On November 2007, 11, after the penultimate round of the European Cup qualifying group stage, a total of 17 teams have secured tickets to the finals. Together with the two hosts Austria and Switzerland, 10 teams have been confirmed in the top 2008 of the 16 European Cup finals.

In four days, the final match of the European Cup qualifiers will see nine teams competing for the remaining four tickets to the finals. The most complicated group is Group A, where Portugal and Finland will face off. Portugal can qualify as long as they draw. If they lose, Finland will overwhelm Scolari's team with the win-loss record. Serbia may also qualify.

The competition for the other three tickets will be between Turkey and Norway, England and Russia, and Sweden and Northern Ireland. They will not confront each other head-on. Turkey, England and Sweden, who currently have the points advantage, take the initiative and their destiny is in their own hands, while Norway, Russia and Northern Ireland can only look at the faces of others.

At present, most of the traditional European giants have already advanced to the finals, and only England and Portugal need to decide their fate after the final battle.

In this round, there are 16 teams that have obtained tickets to the top 6 of the finals next summer, namely Poland, Italy, France, Croatia, Spain and the Netherlands. The luckiest among them are France and Croatia.

The French team had a bye in this round. After a draw with Morocco in the warm-up match yesterday morning, they sat in front of the TV and waited for their chance to qualify. Italy beat Scotland 3-1 in a life-and-death battle. Since Scotland had already played all the qualifying matches in advance, the French team, which was one point ahead of its opponent, was sure to qualify regardless of the result of the final match.

Croatia was even luckier than the French. They unexpectedly lost to the underdog North Macedonia in this round. The situation was originally very unfavorable: a win or a draw with Russia would force Croatia, which had been leading the group stage, to fight England in the final round. But the results are often unexpected...

This key match of Group E of the 08 European Cup qualifiers, which is related to the qualifying situation of Croatia, England and Russia, also kicked off at the Ramat Gan Stadium in Tel Aviv, Israel on the evening of the 17th.

In the 10th minute, Izzahi made a straight pass and Balda shot into the net from 14 yards.

The Russians equalized in the 61st minute. Arshavin passed the ball and Biryaledinov shot into the net with his left foot from 10 yards.

In the following 30 minutes, the Israelis stubbornly resisted the powerful offensive of the visiting team. Although the Russians almost overtook the score in the last minute of regular time, Sergeyev, who received a pass from Arshavin, hit the outside of the goal post with a low shot from the edge of the penalty area...

Then, even more miraculously, the Israelis launched a quick counterattack in the second minute of injury time. Balda made a straight pass and Golan shot into the goal from the left side of the penalty area, locking the score of the game!

In the end, the Russian team led by the magical coach Hiddink lost 1-2 to Israel, which had no hope of qualifying!

This means Croatia is 5 points ahead of Russia, the third place in the group, and will get a ticket to the finals no matter what the result is in the final match against England.

This result not only allowed Croatia to qualify ahead of schedule, but also allowed England to regain the initiative in qualifying.

England's final qualifying situation was a roller coaster ride. The England team, which had lost to Russia away from home last month, was almost in despair, because in the final match not only did they have to fight hard against Croatia, but they also had to look at the attitudes of other teams.

But now, the Three Lions can be said to have a lucky turn of events leading to revival and a ray of hope!

Because all they need to do is not lose to Croatia, a team that has no ambition and is just going through the motions, at home in the last round to get a ticket to the finals that football fans and fans all over the world hope the Three Lions can get, or that everyone thinks the Three Lions should have gotten it long ago!

This situation is very unfavorable for Russia, as their fate is no longer in their own hands. Having already defeated their main rivals, the Russians only need to defeat two hopeless teams, Israel and Andorra, in the last two rounds to secure a place in the knockout rounds.

But after one round, Croatia, which had qualified in advance, did not have to fight the Three Lions. It just did a favor and blocked Russia from entering the European Cup, which also made the dreams of football fans and fans all over the world come true...

Suddenly, I felt like the whole world was helping England advance! Maybe this was the team of destiny?!

However, although Russia's unexpected defeat in this round gave the English people a good prospect of qualifying, the Three Lions suffered a lot of blows before the final match against Croatia.

The biggest problem facing England coach McClaren now is the incomplete lineup. Four main players will definitely not be able to participate in the life-and-death battle with Croatia: Rooney is injured, Terry is injured, Owen was injured again during the warm-up against Austria on Friday, and with Ferdinand suspended for a yellow card, England's central defender and forward positions are left empty.

@

So Ricardo, who finally found out the latest situation, was a little confused: Could it be that Rooney really needs to be out for a month because of a sprained ankle? This shouldn't be the case... I always feel that something is wrong. Is this a lure before the last hand? The dealer's old routine...

However, Ricardo did not delve into it any further, after all, the result would be known in 4 days. And no matter what the result was, it was not something that a small shrimp like him could influence now. Anyway, Italy had successfully qualified for the next round, and as for himself, he had a short break of more than a week due to a minor injury. After seeing the report issued by the Italian national team's medical team, Sir Alex Ferguson approved Ricardo's application to return to the team after the next round of the Premier League.

So it was only natural for Ricardo to deal with his non-football business and life...

After returning to Milan with the team, Ricciardo first confirmed and completed the block trade of Google shares under his name with UBS. The cost of Google shares in exchange for the sale of YouTube last year was about $10 per share, and according to the latest price returned by UBS, Google's stock has risen to more than $18. Of course, if the average transaction price of the past 60 days is used, the par value is about $16 per share, and the book premium is still close to 60%!

However, according to the transaction rules agreed upon by all parties, after deducting taxes and UBS's commission, Ricardo's Google stock originally worth 2.65 million US dollars will be converted into more than 3.7 million US dollars in cash!

Compared with the original 3000 million US dollars that Ricardo injected into the UBS Trust Fund, this has increased by more than 12 times, not to mention the valuable shares held in several other unicorn companies...

Ricardo naturally asked his uncle to hire professional financial industry lawyers and consultants to review the process and documents of these large transactions. After confirming that there were no problems with the details, Ricardo readily confirmed all the transactions, and then he seemed to hear the sound of coins falling and the clear and pleasant female voice: Zhifubao received 3 dollars...

Coupled with the U.S. stocks that the offshore company is gradually reducing, Ricardo's net worth has already reached 1B US dollars: Well, the scumbag Li finally achieved 10 small goals and became a man with a B! The abbreviation was also promoted from scumbag Li to B man Li.

My cousin, UBS and many people who know part of Ricardo's wealth are asking Ricardo why he keeps so much cash in his account? Invest in something! Don't wait for the currency to depreciate...

Ricardo basically sneered: Go away, you are so ignorant, why are you so anxious? Let's wait for a year or two and see, I just like to see countless numbers on the account? I have money now, I can play whatever I want, I can type whatever I want, hehe...

However, Ricardo still has legitimate official reasons: 1. Initiating the acquisition of a sports science and big data analysis company, and 2. Preparing to acquire a high-level sports rehabilitation medical research center.

First, Ricardo had already arranged for UBS, who had completely transformed into a young master's house to do it. After collecting tens of millions of commissions and management fees, UBS was no longer limited to preparing a substitute for Chiara for Ricardo, but set up a special service team. The team consists of three highly educated young ladies with different temperaments and beautiful looks, with all kinds of styles, fully satisfying B man Li's various fantasies and requirements...

If I hadn't already made an appointment with Julian's classmate Liana to discuss the second point, B-man Li would have turned into a great sage, captured these three little goblins, and let them eat my stick each! Oh, the goblins are quite powerful at first glance, and they are very experienced, so I need to use a lot of sticks! [Just a joke, paying tribute to Black Myth: Wukong Biography! The light of domestic production, awesome! ]

As for the acquisition target of the sports science and big data analysis company, Ricardo has actually already thought about it. He has plenty of money now. Although buying all of them would be a big mistake, there is no problem in buying two companies at once to form a more complete team. So the targets are Wyscout, an Italian company founded in 04, SportVU, an American company founded in 05, or Hudl, an American company founded last year.

You have to choose one of the latter two, and the former is the first choice.

Originally, Ricardo was thinking about whether to fix a bug and complete the acquisition next summer to save more money; but when he saw the B in the account... Damn! Hurry up and pay the full amount! I don't need these small things, it's just a few million dollars at most.

Oh, just leave equity incentives to the founding team and core members, and get an absolute controlling stake of 60% to 70%.

As for what happened next, B-boy Li went to have a meeting with classmate Liyana...

It was indeed a meeting at the beginning, but as time went on, it began to move closer to the meeting pattern that old Li Qi was familiar with.

Of course, B man Li originally didn't fancy Liana, who was only above average in qualifications, but he couldn't resist her initiative, especially since B man Li had just been seduced by the UBS beauty service team. As the saying goes, if a man chases a woman, he will be attracted by the mountains, but if a woman chases a man, she will be attracted by the gauze...

Today, Liana was wearing a very gauze dress for the meeting. The room was heated, and after taking off her coat, she was basically translucent and a bit inappropriate. B-man Li once again remembered an old saying, you can't judge a person by appearance. Although Liana's figure under her clothes is not as explosive as Julian's, she looks petite and tall. Under the law of true fragrance, she is still very attractive...

And I don't know where Liana got the information from, but basically all of it hits the recent sore spots of man B Li, dark green, lace, short hair, black-framed glasses, etc.

Forget it, it’s a meeting anyway, it doesn’t matter where it’s held, under the table, on the table, on the sofa, on the bed. After all, B-man Li is injured and has difficulty walking…

As for business, we can chat during the sage time between meetings. To build a good medical center with excellent research and medical care is not something that can be done with a few million dollars; but if the budget starts with a small goal, or several small goals, then it might as well wait.

It's a good opportunity to have more meetings with Liana...

@

2007年11月21日，08年欧洲杯预选赛上演大结局，决赛阶段的最后4张门票将在今夜决定他们的归属。

However, Ricardo did not return to London to report to Sarafina first. Instead, he took advantage of the brand endorsement event to go to New York first, and then went to Chicago to secretly meet Julian. After all, after being accidentally taken away by Liana, the scumbag Li Ziran felt a little guilty and thought of the Ice Princess whom he had not seen for a long time. One should never forget the well digger when drinking from the well...

Communication with Professor Connolly is very simple. It is also a medical center that focuses on both research and medical treatment. Of course, it is best to be in a large East Coast city like New York or Boston, or Chicago is also fine, but Ricardo finds it a bit inconvenient to go west or south.

But time is of the essence, so we can slowly select contacts. After all, the goal is next summer.

After that it was Julian's turn to have a meeting. I got the inspiration from Liana. We could have a meeting and watch the game at the same time. It wasn't a serious meeting anyway.

Ricardo naturally focused on England's home game against Croatia. After all, Italy had already qualified, and facing the Faroe Islands team composed of amateur players at home in Modena was not much different from a warm-up match, and the atmosphere was very relaxed.

Italy coach Donadoni also basically fielded a full substitute lineup in the last match of the European Cup qualifiers, mainly to observe more marginal players who had played less games before. Compared with the starting lineup against Scotland, Donadoni changed 8 players at once. However, captain Cannavaro still had to play, because this was his record-breaking game: he played 113 games for the country, breaking the record held by Zoff.

There really wasn't much suspense in this game. With the cheers of the home fans, Italy controlled the game from start to finish.

In the tenth minute of the game, De Rossi made a straight pass, Oddo made a cross, and Luca Toni's interception in the middle forced the visiting team to score an own goal. Benjaminson accidentally blocked the ball into his own goal while struggling with Toni, and Italy took the lead 1-0!

In the 36th minute, Grosso made a cross from the left, Luca Toni stopped the ball and volleyed it into the goal, giving Italy an easy two-goal lead.

In the 40th minute, Chiellini got the ball 25 meters in front of the goal and shot into the far corner with his left foot, scoring his first goal in an official national team match and helping Italy secure a 3-0 victory in the first half.

In the second half, Donadoni let the record-breaking player of Cádiz come off the court to rest, Bonera came on the bench, Perrotta wore the captain's armband, and then Quagliarella replaced Ambrosini, and Paladino replaced Luca Toni.

However, Italy, which played almost entirely with substitutes in the second half, did not expand its lead again. Instead, they were very worldly-wise and made a mistake in the 84th minute, allowing the visiting team to score a goal. It was a pass from Danielson, and striker Jakobsen headed the ball in from 8 meters in front of the goal. The latter also scored in the first leg of the two teams' confrontation.

In the end, Italy won with a score of 3-1, officially ending its journey in the European Cup qualifiers and can now fully prepare for the finals next summer.

As for the other qualifying team in the same group as Italy, France drew with Ukraine 2-2 away from home. It is worth mentioning that Henry scored in the 20th minute after receiving a long pass from Makelele, increasing his record of goals for the French team to 44 goals.

In the 46th minute, Shevchenko, the Ukrainian nuclear warhead, took advantage of the mistake of goalkeeper Frey, who was playing for the French team for the first time, and scored his 36th goal for the national team with a header.

In addition, Portugal, who qualified without losing, had captain Cristiano Ronaldo and Pepe, who made his national team debut after recovering from injury, lead a group of young players to beat Finland at home, with six main players including Deco absent due to injuries. However, Finnish goalkeeper Jaskelainen performed well and ensured a draw.

Therefore, Portugal also successfully qualified as the second in Group A...

Then, everyone knows that the highlights of these two chapters are coming!

England, who also qualified by refusing to lose, played a final match at home against Croatia in a match that was unbelievable to football fans and fans of the game all over the world. It was truly the highlight of the European Cup qualifiers!

……