Chapter 75 Before the Battle of Chelsea

Riccardo and Chiara were busy on Sunday morning. Those who understand will understand, and those who don’t understand... Anyway, they are busy...

Ricardo sent Chiara to the airport in the afternoon... After watching her long legs in black stockings and high heels pass through security, Ricardo turned around and put on his sunglasses, then started calling Sarafina to make porridge and congratulate the little princess on her 18th birthday.

I had already sent Sarafina a congratulatory text message yesterday morning, but I made up a lot of excuses such as going back to school, training, sprinting, playing games, etc., and I didn't call her until I saw Chiara off...

After cooking the porridge for about half an hour, she said a lot of bad man quotes without blushing, such as "I definitely didn't lie to you. I spent the weekends alone preparing for training, etc...."

Finally, when being questioned about the specific details of his schedule for Valentine's Day, Ricardo successfully diverted the topic to the arrangements for the Easter holiday in early April and escaped...

After hanging up the phone, Ricardo drove directly back to the club for training.

On Sunday evening, Rijkaard arranged recovery training for the Champions League battle. In addition to recovering from yesterday's game, he began tactical training against Chelsea, focusing on practicing defense on the flanks and set pieces. These two points are recognized as the biggest reasons for Barcelona's defeat when the two teams met last year.

However, after the training, the boss announced the 18-man roster for next week's Central European match. Ricardo was successfully selected again and will travel with the team to London, England on February 2.

While Ricardo was showering, he was washing his body carefully and thinking: "Going to London... I wonder if I will have time to sleep with Julianne, oh no, meet her."

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Chelsea Football Club (Chelsea F.C., referred to as "Chelsea"), was founded on March 1905, 3, nicknamed "The Blues", and its home stadium is located at Stamford Bridge, near the Thames in Fulham, London, England.

Stamford Bridge, which opened in 1905, has a history of years. It is the third largest stadium in London and can accommodate the largest number of spectators.

On July 2003, 7, Roman Abramovich, a mysterious Russian tycoon at the age of 2, acquired the debt-ridden Chelsea and invested a huge amount of money that no other club had ever imagined to buy outstanding players. Since then, Chelsea, which had been a mid-table team in the Premier League for many years, has made a rapid leap to become one of the super giants in Europe.

In the summer of 2004, Chelsea welcomed the most successful head coach in the team's history - 34-year-old José Mourinho. The magic bird who calls himself "The Special One" has led Porto in Portugal to win the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League for two consecutive seasons, and also won the Portuguese Super League and Cup championships in Portugal for two consecutive seasons.

As the defending champion of the Premier League this season, Chelsea has been making great strides in the league. Even though Chelsea lost to Middlesbrough 0-3 last weekend, the worst score since Mourinho took office, Chelsea is still 12 points ahead of second-placed Manchester United. Their advantage as the leader of the Premier League is too obvious.

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At around 2006 am on Tuesday, February 2, 21, the entire Barcelona team took a flight to London Heathrow Airport, the busiest international aviation hub in Europe.

The flight from Barcelona to the capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is about 1138 kilometers and takes an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes. So the entire Barcelona team landed at around 13: noon in this Europe's largest city with a population of more than million and the largest economic center, which is also one of the world's famous international wealth and financial centers.

After arriving in London and checking into the hotel, the entire Barcelona team went to Stamford Bridge for training, adapting in advance to the potato field that has been criticized by the Spanish media - of course, the English media would not think so, although it is true.

After the two-hour training session, the whole team is allowed to have free time, but there is a curfew requirement, which means they must return to the hotel and report to the coaching staff before 22 p.m.

Ricardo's eyes rolled, "We just need to go back to the hotel? That's too easy! I can only apologize to my roommate Leo for having to stay alone in the empty room tonight..." He then quickly arranged for Pimenta to help book an extra room in the hotel, and then went to meet Julian for a romantic dinner... He would make sure to return to the hotel on time in the evening!

(For the sake of love and peace, I will omit a few thousand words about what happened after returning to the hotel in the evening...)

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而就在21日的晚上，05/06赛季欧洲冠军联赛1/8决赛第一回合首个比赛日燃起战火！

One of the highlights tonight was Real Madrid playing against Arsenal at home, and Henry scored the only goal of the game alone, helping Arsenal defeat Real Madrid away from home.

The second focus of the night is Bayern's challenge against AC Milan at home. Super Saiyan Ballack and Ukrainian nuclear warhead Shevchenko each scored for their team, and the two sides ended in a 1-1 draw in the first leg.

In addition, there was another big upset tonight as the defending Champions League champions Liverpool lost the ball in the final moments and lost 1-0 to Benfica away from home.

In the last game of the night, Lyon, who played with 10 men, relied on the free kick master Juninho to win 1-0 away from home against Eindhoven.

……

Early the next morning, after seeing off the ice beauty to her internship, Ricardo hurried back to his room, and then went to the restaurant with Messi to meet up with the whole team.

Before the final training session in the morning, Ricardo also took the time to browse the media's coverage of the game.

The media generally called Barcelona's away game against Chelsea a revenge match, but in fact, Ricardo's team atmosphere was quite normal. After all, who remembers what happened last season? Do you think every game is the Miracle of Istanbul?

Other media with good intentions commented that this match was a match between the world's sexiest offensive football and the world's most utilitarian defensive football - well, Ricardo likes this positioning, it has a big picture!

However, some media have compiled statistics to prove that this match is more likely to be a goal-scoring battle! Because the two sides have scored 19 goals in the last four encounters, and in the 60s, there were also 9 goals in three encounters between the two sides, which means that a total of 7 goals have been scored in 28 matches, an average of 4 goals per game!

Some media have analyzed the recent status of the two teams and believe that the match between Barcelona and Chelsea is undoubtedly one of the most suspenseful Champions League quarter-finals. Although both teams represent the highest level of Spanish and English football respectively - Barcelona is currently the leader of La Liga, while Chelsea is the leader of the Premier League. But what is intriguing is that the two teams are not in good form in the recent league. Although Barcelona beat Betis by 1 goals last Sunday, they had already lost two consecutive league games before; and Chelsea lost to Middlesbrough by 8 goals in the last round of the league...

The last one is the Spanish media, which compared the current and a year ago Barcelona lineup. Today's Barcelona is completely different from a year ago. A year ago at Stamford Bridge, Barcelona was hit by an unprecedented injury. Gabri, Edmilson, Larsson and Motta were injured for half a year. Barcelona was short of talent on the bench, and only Eto'o was struggling to support the front line.

Today's Barcelona not only has no large-scale injuries like last season, but also has new players such as Van Bommel, Messi and Li Qi. Compared with the miserable situation of Barcelona barely gathering 18 players when they went to London a year ago, this Barcelona is much stronger than a year ago even if only Xavi and Giuly are missing.

After seeing the news report, Ricardo remembered that the team seemed to be missing a familiar short figure: "Oh, yes, Brother Giuly did not travel with the team for this game because of discomfort in his left leg muscles... There is no way, it is true that Brother Giuly is not very burly, sometimes I can't notice it..."

The media also announced the starting and substitute lists of both sides:

Barcelona continue to use 4-3-3 formation

The goalkeeper is No. 1 Valdés

The defenders from left to right are No. 12 Van Brontehorst, No. 4 Marcos, No. 5 Puyol, No. 23 Oleguer;

The iron triangle in the midfield is No. 15 Edmilson, No. 20 Deco and No. 3 Motta;

The forward trident is No. 10 Ronaldinho, No. 9 Eto'o and No. 30 Messi;

Including Li Qi, strong players such as Iniesta, Belletti, Larsson, Van Bommel, Sylvinho and Jorquera started the game from the bench.

In the midfield, Rijkaard did not start Iniesta, but used Motta who had just recovered from injury. This change of tactics was to curb Lampard, and he would rather strengthen the defense at the cost of sacrificing the creativity of the midfield. However, Motta had just been injured for five weeks and just returned to the game last weekend. It is still unknown whether he can handle the heavy responsibility in this game.

Madman's Chelsea also adopted a 4-3-3 formation.

The goalkeeper is Czech goalkeeper Cech, who has not yet put on a beret;

The back line from right to left is Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry and Del Horno;

The forward line is Makelele and Lampard partnering with Gudjohnsen;

The forward trio consisted of center forward Crespo and wingers Joe Cole and Robben;

There are also many good players on the bench, including Cudicini, Maniche, Duff, Geremi, Drogba, Wright-Phillips and Huth.

What surprised Ricardo was that Drogba didn't start the game. Although the Argentine striker is also an experienced, physically fit and technically competent shooter, Drogba is obviously more useful. I don't know what the Magic Bird is thinking...

(Voiceover: Maybe many people don’t know that Crespo scored twice in the first half of the Champions League final! As for those who don’t know why they haven’t heard of him winning the Champions League, they should ask Liverpool in the 04/05 season…)

(Edamame: The author is the bad guy... oh no, it's the keyboard guy!)

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英国当地时间2006年2月22日晚间19:45分，欧洲冠军联赛1/8决赛首回合比赛，切尔西主场迎战巴塞罗那的比赛展开争夺。

This is the 400th European game in the history of Barcelona Club!

As luck would have it, it rained heavily in London before the game started, and I heard that the ground management of Stamford Bridge poured water on the field again before the heavy rain; so the vegetable fields at Stamford Bridge became even more muddy after the rain...

Although the rain had stopped gradually when the game started, even Li Qi, who was sitting on the sidelines, changed into long-spiked combat boots that were rarely used in rainy games.

With a long whistle, the fight between dragons and tigers that the whole of Europe was watching officially began!

Both sides played vigorously at the beginning. Barcelona tried to control the ball, while Chelsea wanted to speed up by using the power of home field and play the game more directly... However, both sides played back and forth from the beginning, attacking and defending each other, and both demonstrated the highest level of technical and tactical capabilities in Europe at this stage.

However, what was unexpected was that one of the shots in this game came from Barcelona's quick counterattack.

In the 3rd minute, Robben made a free kick from the right, Motta cleared the ball in the penalty area, Deco stopped the ball and passed it directly to Eto'o on the wing, who dribbled a few steps deep and passed it directly to the right. Messi stopped the ball on the right wing and cut inside, facing the defenders from 25 yards in the middle and shot directly with his left foot! Unfortunately, the angle of the shot was too straight and Cech caught it directly.

In the 10th minute, Chelsea also responded. Lampard and Joe Cole played a wall pass and then he also took a long shot with his left foot towards the defensive crowd from 24 yards in the middle. Unfortunately, the shot was slightly higher than the crossbar.

After that, Chelsea continued to make moves on the wing, repeatedly rushing into Barcelona's penalty area at 45 degrees or using corner kicks and set pieces... For a while, the air defense alarms in Barcelona's penalty area sounded frequently. Although the Argentine striker Crespo is also 1 meters tall and has the best high-altitude ball judgment and header skills in the industry, his physical fitness is still far behind the first generation of Warcraft, so although the alarms sounded frequently, the high-altitude threats were eliminated one by one by Barcelona's defenders.

Barcelona was more patient in threatening the opponent's defense through passing and cutting on the ground. However, in front of the iron muscle man defense trained by the Magic Bird, although there was a threat, no chance of scoring was created for a while.

The first controversial penalty of the game came in the 20th minute. Robben broke through on the left and made a powerful cross. Marcos in the middle of the penalty area made a tackle to intercept the ball and lost his momentum. After falling to the ground, his supporting hand touched the ball. The TV broadcast showed it clearly, but the Norwegian referee Hauge did not give a penalty. The Chelsea team and the fans at the scene were very dissatisfied, but they were soon distracted by the high-speed game.

When the game reached the 30th minute, Barcelona finally created the best chance since the start. After Barcelona cooperated in the middle, Deco suddenly made a secret pass to the right side, and Oleger, who came in from behind, made a high-speed pass from the right side... Eto'o, who followed up in the middle, had a bad angle and deliberately missed the ball, which also shook the Chelsea defender. Ronaldinho's father followed up from the back and volleyed directly from the edge of the penalty area!

Unfortunately, this wonderful shot was beautifully saved by Chelsea goalkeeper Cech, and Del Horno cleared the ball before Eto'o could make a follow-up shot.

The game was very intense, so in the 32nd minute, the second controversial penalty of the game occurred. Facing Messi's defense, Del Horno kicked the thigh of the Argentine flea while clearing the ball. Messi screamed and fell down. The broadcast camera also explained the blood on the Argentine's leg... However, the Norwegian referee Hauge also did not give a penalty, which also caused dissatisfaction among the Barcelona team and Barcelona fans.

Ricardo seemed to see that the referee actually noticed Del Horno's exaggerated action and even frowned inadvertently...

As expected, the most controversial penalty and dramatic turning point of the game came in the 36th minute! After receiving the pass from Motta, Messi stopped and dribbled past Robben on the right, and Del Horno, who came to defend, saw that he was about to be wiped by this annoying Argentine flea, so he directly hit the Argentine boy from behind and sent him flying with the ball...

"Damn, this tactical foul is too obvious, right?! This deserves at least a yellow sapphire card as a reward, right?!" Li Qi on the sidelines stood up in a panic!

……