Chapter 253 Lost Contact

After the crucial battle between Chelsea and Manchester United, the whole of England and even Europe began to talk about the collapse of Manchester United. Among them, Ye Qiu's comments on Manchester United were widely circulated and affirmed by countless professionals. They believed that Ye Qiu's views on Manchester United were sharp and Ferguson had no way to refute them.

But sometimes it is like this. You know the opponent's weaknesses and flaws, but this does not mean that you can defeat the opponent.

There is a saying that is right, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. Even if Manchester United is not good, its absolute strength is still one of the best in the Premier League. It is not a strong character that any relegation team can kill.

Ye Qiu also saw this very clearly, so he believed that it would work sooner or later, so he didn't care whether Manchester United would be like this. This is completely useless for Chelsea, because only playing their own games well is serious.

If you don't play your own games well, even if others make mistakes, what advantage can you get?

In the middle of the week, Chelsea ushered in the opponent of the League Cup round of 16 knockout, away to Reading.

Although it was an away game, it was not far from London, but Ye Qiu had already arranged a lineup of substitutes and young players to play. Van Persie's goal helped Chelsea beat Reading 1:0 away and successfully advance to the next round, where the opponent was West Bromwich.

Back to the Premier League, Chelsea challenged Leeds United away.

Just experienced a peak battle with Manchester United, the team was affected. As a result, Manchester United won Aston Villa 4:0 in this round, but Chelsea tied Leeds United 1:1 away, and it was Pennant who helped Leeds United score first, and Ronaldinho equalized the score in the end.

Fortunately, Arsenal also tied in this game, so Chelsea's lead is still 6 points.

Ye Qiu was also very dissatisfied with this. After returning to London, he held an internal meeting of the first team and severely knocked on this group of players who thought that after defeating Manchester United, they could easily defeat other teams. He used the fact that Leeds United tied away to tell them that there is no weak team in the Premier League.

On December 9, Chelsea still played Turkey with a substitute lineup. Van Persie and Sun Jihai's goals finally helped the team beat Besiktas 2:0 away and finally qualified as the group leader.

In this way, all the matches of the 8 groups of the Champions League were over, and Chelsea and Sparta Prague qualified as the top two in the group.

Among all the groups, Ye Qiu also paid attention to another team, which was his old club Ajax.

Van Basten was still a little naive. Although Ajax let go of many outstanding stars including Maicon, Van der Sar, Ibrahimovic and others this season, Ajax's Dutch team was still there, and players such as Mascherano, Yaya Toure, Van der Vaart, Robben and Sneijder were still in the team.

But Ajax was eliminated in the competition with AC Milan, La Liga Celta and Belgium Bruges, and fell to fourth in the group, and even failed to qualify for the UEFA Cup. This has to be said to be a very regrettable thing.

Ye Qiu didn't care who got first place in the group, he cared about second place.

You don't know until you see it. You'll be shocked when you see it. Bayern Munich and Deportivo La Coruna are both second in the group, while Lyon and Monaco, two French Ligue 1 teams, actually beat the Bundesliga giants and La Liga giants to get first place in the group. It has to be said that the European giants seem to have encountered trouble this year.

But even so, no one wants to face such a strong opponent. Hitzfeld is also very good at playing knockout matches.

The draw ceremony was held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. Ye Qiu was busy with the league and did not participate. Peter Kenyon, who had just taken office at Chelsea, went to Switzerland. As a result, the bald man immediately brought good luck as soon as he came out. Chelsea drew the Bundesliga Stuttgart, which was in the same group as Manchester United but ranked second.

Manchester United encountered Porto, Real Madrid was unlucky and encountered Bayern Munich, and Arsenal encountered Celta.

After learning the result of the draw, an English reporter interviewed Ye Qiu immediately. The latter gave a high evaluation of Stuttgart and believed that the strength of this team was very outstanding. "They are now the leader of the Bundesliga, overpowering Bayern Munich. It can be seen that the strength of this team is extraordinary, and they are very good at playing at home!"

Ferguson's Manchester United suffered a big loss in the away game against Stuttgart. This team played offensive football in the Bundesliga, but they also made the same mistake as Ye Qiu when he coached Ajax in the first Champions League. They were too obsessed with attacking, which was difficult to win in the Champions League.

Ye Qiu was not worried about meeting an opponent like Stuttgart. On the contrary, he felt that this draw was good. If he was unlucky to draw Bayern Munich, he would definitely cry miserably.

The good luck of the Champions League draw did not extend to the team. In the 16th round of the Premier League, Chelsea welcomed Bolton at home. As a result, the Blues seemed to have exhausted all their energy in the game against Manchester United, ushering in two consecutive draws, 1:1 again, while the opponents Arsenal and Manchester United defeated their opponents successively, and the lead was reduced to 4 points.

Ye Qiu has his own opinion on the sluggish performance of his team in the last two rounds. He believes that this is the price the team must pay in order to adjust its physical fitness, and adjusting its physical fitness is to better cope with the winter break schedule, but he believes that this will definitely not affect the team's stable performance on the road to winning the Premier League.

"We still have a 4-point lead now, don't we?"

In the middle of the week, Chelsea faced West Bromwich Albion in the quarter-finals of the League Cup. Fabregas and Ribery's goals helped Chelsea pass the quarter-finals and advance to the semi-finals. The opponent was Middlesbrough in the Premier League.

This also made Chelsea's bench depth and youth team rookies recognized by everyone. Players such as Van Persie, Ribery, Fabregas, Messi, Robert Huth and others performed well in the League Cup, and they are now part of the team's substitute lineup and play their own role.

Almost everyone believes that with time, this group of Chelsea rookies will become the backbone of the team.

In the 17th round of the Premier League, Chelsea welcomed Fulham.

This is a derby between London teams. The home courts of the two teams are not far apart. With the rise of Chelsea this season, Fulham, as a neighbor, is unwilling to give up. Chris Coleman, the young coach who helped Ye Qiu snipe Arsenal before, tried every means to snipe Chelsea in this game.

It has to be admitted that when Fulham played a tenacious defense and counterattack, Chelsea also had a hard time making a difference, but in the end, Drogba's goal in the 71st minute helped Chelsea beat their opponent 1:0 away.

Things change, this time Arsenal tied Bolton 1:1 away, and the latter is now in the limelight, directly becoming a sniper for the Premier League championship contenders, specifically targeting these strong teams. Wenger was helpless about this, watching his league points once again being pulled up to 6 points by Chelsea, and he was so angry that he almost vomited blood.

After this round, the Premier League ushered in a short one-week Christmas holiday.

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How to spend Christmas and the winter break?

This is obviously a worry for players in La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga, but they are worried about where to go on vacation.

But for the Premier League teams, this is not a problem at all, because they finished the 17th round of the Premier League on the 20th, and the 18th round of the Premier League will be ushered in on the evening of the 26th, and the next is the most intensive winter break schedule, so they have no intention of thinking about vacation.

But almost all Premier League teams will make arrangements for Christmas and the winter break, because this is a good opportunity for the club to communicate with the players and show their image to the outside world during the festival.

Chelsea did not miss this opportunity, so after playing the 17th round of the league, the team went to the most famous St. Mary's Hospital in London to visit the hospitalized children and presented a small Christmas gift from the club, hoping that they can recover and be discharged soon.

Considering that the players have to spend Christmas with their families, and the team's training will continue from the 21st to the 24th, Ye Qiu negotiated with the club and decided to hold a regular dinner event starting in the afternoon of the 24th.

Chelsea has such a dinner party every month. Ye Qiu saw the effect of this kind of dinner party when he was coaching Ajax before, so after he came to Chelsea, he still promoted such a player dinner party, once a month, and the location is not fixed. It can be arranged randomly, either in a hotel, a restaurant, or a player's home.

Because Ronaldinho had always wanted to invite players and coaching staff to his home, it was finally agreed that this Christmas Eve dinner party before Christmas would be held at Ronaldinho's villa in Cobham.

The villa is not far from Chelsea's new training base, so after the team finished training that morning, changed clothes and took a shower, and had lunch, everyone got on the team's bus and first went to the Cobham training base where the team had been under construction for several months.

In order to be able to put it into use faster, Chelsea listened to Ye Qiu's advice and divided the entire project into two phases. The first phase is mainly the team's training building and football field. The goal of this phase is to strive to complete it before the start of the next season. In other words, the team will start daily training at the Cobham training base next season.

Ye Qiu had to admit that it was really easy to get things done with money, even in London, England.

Abramovich was not short of money, but he wanted things to be done quickly, so in just over three months, the first-team training building at Cobham Training Base had been capped, and the surrounding walls had been completed. What remained was decoration and the purchase of equipment. I believe it would be completed within half a year, and there would be no problem.

There were two roads at the entrance. Going straight led to the first-team training ground, and going south led to the youth training camp training ground, which extended along the banks of the Mole River. The entire training base covered an area of ​​150 acres, which was very large, and one-third of it was used by the first team, and the rest was all for the training area of ​​the youth team.

The first-team training ground was also very spacious in terms of the stadium. In addition to the regular stadium, the first-team dedicated venue also had a small-sized stadium and a large-scale comprehensive training ground. Unlike the Harrington training base, each training ground here had advanced drainage and geothermal systems.

It was Ye Qiu's idea for the first team to come to Cobham training base for observation. He hoped to let the players feel the club's dedication to them. So even though the youth training camp is still all yellow soil, the facilities on the first team's side are very complete. The scenery of the entire training base is very beautiful. The club even introduced water from the Moore River to create an artificial lake.

In addition, the facilities in the training building are also luxurious. All player dormitories are built according to five-star hotel standards to provide the players with the best training environment. There are also medical rooms, gyms, swimming pools, and media rooms. A series of other facilities are available, and the functions are very complete.

In addition, the training ground is very large and located on the outskirts of Cobham. A complete security team is set up at the intersection to prohibit anyone from entering. In addition, through the greening, it is difficult for anyone to spy on the team training inside. Condition.

Ye Qiu is very satisfied with this training base, and after this trip, he can clearly feel the players' shock and admiration for the club's generosity, because whether it is from the player dormitories or from the software and hardware of the training base Chelsea strives to be the best and most perfect in terms of facilities.

To put it bluntly, once completed, this training base will be as good as Arsenal's Colney training base.

Ye Qiu also took this opportunity to encourage the players. After all, the team has invested so much and the purpose is very clear, which is to create the most comfortable and best training environment for the players, and the players can also improve the team's performance. The rewards are better and you beat your opponents on the court.

Amid the constant admiration of the players, the team boarded the bus again, left the Cobham training base, and headed to Ronaldinho's mansion in Cobham.

Cobham is a place where London's rich like to live. It is relatively close to London and the transportation is very convenient. The houses are basically single-family villas, each with its own courtyard and garden, and they are all designed with the latest technology. It has a British-style architectural design, but the only drawback is that it is old.

Ye Qiu had also visited the houses here before, but in the end he did not choose Cobham, but went to Totteridge because the house he chose later was newly built, the architectural style was relatively modern, and there were many The facilities are also more complete, after all, they have kept up with the times.

Ronaldinho's villa has a large garden and an excellent home theater, which is perfect for Brazilians who like to listen to music and watch movies.

The house is not small, a typical two-and-a-half-story British mansion with no garage. The first floor is the living room and the residence of Ronaldinho's mother, the second floor is his brother and sister and their families, and the second and a half floor is a home theater and Ronaldinho's bedroom.

In Brazilian terms, the only regret about this house is that it doesn't have a swimming pool.

Because there is no garage, Ronaldinho and his family's cars are parked in the garden behind the house. It is connected to the road and is equivalent to an open-air parking lot. Their real garden is in front of the house, which is very large. Because we had already prepared for it, when the team bus arrived and the players rushed past in a noisy manner, the place was already filled with the aroma of Brazilian barbecue.

Ronaldinho's mother and sister are both expert cooks. They have been preparing for this dinner. As soon as the players arrive, they can enjoy the most delicious food directly, and in order to accommodate the dining habits of professional players , they all made very careful selections of food, many of which were suggestions given by the club.

The guests were not only Chelsea players, but also several neighbors. I heard that they had helped them, and they were invited to come to dinner this time. Many of them wanted to take photos with the Chelsea stars. Take a group photo as a souvenir.

Ye Qiu also met his fans, but he mostly stayed away from the players and worked with his coaching staff.

Because he knows very well that no matter how friendly he is as a head coach, he must still have the authority of the head coach in front of the players, so as long as he is around, it will be difficult for the players to let go and have fun. , so every time there is such a dinner, he will keep himself farther away from the players.

Ronaldinho's brother Assis was responsible for greeting Ye Qiu and the coaching staff, plus the children who adjusted the atmosphere, and they were having a good time.

"By the way, Mr. Ye Qiu, are Miss Moon here?" Ronaldinho's sister Daisy came over and asked. If she remembers correctly, Eliza Moon is also Ye Qiu's agent.

"Did you invite her?" Ye Qiu asked with a smile. He didn't even know about it, so he didn't ask her.

"Of course, she gave us a lot of help when we were choosing a house and moving. I told her a few days ago, but today I can't get through to the phone. They are all turned off. Is something going to happen? It's really scary. Worry!" Daisy seemed to have a very good impression of Eliza, with a worried look on her face.

"It's okay, I'll call you and ask." Ye Qiu said with a smile.

He took out his phone and first called Eliza's personal phone. Like him, Eliza also had two phones, one for business and one for private matters. But what surprised Ye Qiu was that the personal phone was also turned off. That's a little unusual.

Ye Qiu frowned and made another call to the company. As a result, the people at the company told him that Eliza had not been seen all day long. When he called, the phone was turned off and they had lost contact. After a whole day, this made Ye Qiu feel strange. Logically speaking, it wouldn't be like this.

After thinking about it, Ye Qiu felt that he was not needed here. With Ronaldinho and his family entertaining him, and with the coaching staff here to watch, there shouldn't be any big problems, so he simply told Assi Si said something, then apologized to the players, and left Ronaldinho's house early.

When they arrived at Cobham, Ye Qiu went straight to Eliza's house after the taxi arrived.