Chapter 599 The King Returns
Shakhtar Donetsk, Braga and Belgrade Guerrilla, these are the three opponents Tottenham Hotspur drew in the Champions League group stage. According to many experts, Ye Qiu and UEFA seem to have passed the honeymoon period.
The reason for this is that although these three teams are not very famous teams, in fact, these three teams have good strength and are also powerful teams in their respective leagues.
Shakhtar Donetsk is a veteran team in the Ukrainian league. It is a frequent visitor to the Champions League group stage and even the knockout stage. Everyone is familiar with this team. Although this team does not have the strength to challenge Tottenham Hotspur, it still has the ability to cause trouble, especially considering that the disgusting UEFA arranged Tottenham Hotspur to visit Ukraine in the fourth round of the group stage in November. This is simply going to freeze people into popsicles.
Braga was the runner-up of the Portuguese Super League last season. From their ability to suppress Porto and enter the Champions League, it can be seen that the strength of this team is not bad. Moreover, from the performance of the Champions League and the Portuguese Super League in the past season and this season, Braga is also a very difficult team, because they have 17 Brazilian players in the team, which can be said to be a Brazilian team.
Belgrade Guerrilla is considered to be the weaker in this group, but this Serbian team has excellent offensive power, defense is a big weakness, but the home field combat ability is very strong, which will also be a big test for Tottenham Hotspur.
In short, there are no weak teams in the Champions League group stage, and looking at the group where Tottenham Hotspur is located, the North London team is well-deserved to be the first, but Braga and Shakhtar Donetsk in the group have the strength to disrupt the situation, so this group is also a very troublesome group.
Relatively speaking, Barcelona's luck is much better, it is the only one, and the other three teams are weak teams.
At the same time as the draw, UEFA also began to present awards for the Champions League last season. Last season's Champions League champion Manchester United became the top winner, including goalkeeper Van der Sar, midfielder Sneijder and striker Rooney, all of whom became the best players in their positions, while the best defender was given to Tottenham Hotspur's Thiago Silva.
For Tottenham Hotspur, it was more or less a consolation prize.
The most suspenseful thing was the award for the best player. In the end, UEFA President Platini personally presented the award to Rooney, who had made great contributions to helping Manchester United win the Champions League.
This made it difficult for Messi, who was sitting in the Grimaldi Conference Center in Monte Carlo, to hide his disappointment. He was also selected for the candidate list, but unfortunately, he did not win the award in the end. Rooney deserved the award.
Last season, Manchester United was able to win the Champions League thanks to the concerted efforts of the entire team. Therefore, Rooney's winning of the best player award actually represents that all Manchester United players won the award together, because Manchester United played a very holistic football last season.
In fact, judging from the situation in the Champions League last season, holistic football obviously has an overwhelming advantage. Whether it is Mourinho's Inter Milan, Ye Qiu's Tottenham Hotspur, or Ferguson's Manchester United, they are all known for their integrity. Their teams have a very obvious feature, which is not to rely too much on a certain player.
Although Tottenham Hotspur had Falcao, the European Golden Boot, and superstars such as Messi, Ribery and Fabregas last season, Tottenham Hotspur's overall performance has always been relatively stable. Although it was eliminated by Manchester United in the semi-finals, everyone can see that Tottenham Hotspur lost a bit unfairly.
On the other hand, another type of team, such as Real Madrid or Chelsea, the former relies heavily on Cristiano Ronaldo, while the latter relies on Drogba to an excessive degree, so these two teams have not performed well in the Champions League, because everyone knows how to contain them.
To paraphrase Beckenbauer's original words, the strongest link is the weakest link.
In the field of football, your best link is also your weakest link.
So, in Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo performed very well, but what it represents behind this is that Real Madrid is very weak, and the same applies to Chelsea and Drogba.
According to this theory, Ye Qiu thinks that balance is the kingly way, that is, it looks very balanced, there is no so-called strongest, nor the so-called weakest, there is no obvious strength gap between the strongest position and the weakest position, the whole team has no obvious advantages, nor obvious disadvantages, this is a truly combative strong team.
Just like Manchester United last season!
Ye Qiu was sitting next to Messi. He clearly felt Messi's unwillingness. What he could understand was that this unwillingness was not because he couldn't afford to lose, but because he didn't want to admit defeat. So Ye Qiu admired Messi's unwillingness to admit defeat because it could spur Messi to continue to improve. Almost all outstanding players would not be willing to admit defeat to others.
In Ye Qiu's opinion, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were like the talented, optimistic Mozart and the passionate and cynical Beethoven in the field of music. It was difficult to have an accurate standard to measure who was better. It could only be said that both players were equally good, but they belonged to two different environments.
Some people say that Mozart's music has healing properties. He can turn things as hard as iron into soft ones. Beethoven's music is full of destructive power, which can make weak things become extremely tough. The former gives people confidence and hope, while the latter gives people the courage to conquer.
The Times once had a very vivid and appropriate description that Cristiano Ronaldo is an individual hero. Although he is very diligent, very hard-working, and very hardworking, his completely self-centered style of playing football makes his teammates around him have to choose to rely on him.
Messi is an individual team player. Although he also pursues individualism, his pursuit is not magnified like Cristiano Ronaldo, but compresses his pursuit of individualism, integrates into the team, and realizes his pursuit of individualistic ideals on the basis of helping the team.
Ye Qiu patted Messi on the shoulder and smiled confidently, "You must have a chance to step onto that stage again!"
After hearing Ye Qiu's words, Messi also smiled slightly. He didn't say anything, but his expression had revealed his thoughts in his heart, that is, he was full of expectations and desire for this.
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After two weeks of suspension, the Premier League reignited the war on September 11th. In the game at noon on the 11th, Manchester United was forced to a draw with Everton 3:3 away at Goodison Park, but this is obviously not the point.
The point is that Manchester United lost two goals in the last minute of the stoppage time, which was absolutely unimaginable in the past. This is not the first time Manchester United lost a goal in the stoppage time this season. The previous draw with Fulham was also a draw in the stoppage time. Now the game against Everton is the same.
After the game, Ferguson said that this was related to Ferdinand's injury and the young player Evans starting, but this is obviously not convincing. After all, Evans' performance in this game is still very good.
In the final analysis, it is because Gary Neville on the right is old. In fact, whether it is against Fulham or Everton, the team's continuous loss of goals is inseparable from Gary Neville's right side. The veteran's defense is indeed unable to keep up with the increasingly tense pace of the Premier League. At the age of 35, it is difficult for him to adapt to the current competitive pressure of the Premier League.
But on the right side, the performance of the brothers Fabio and Rafael is very ups and downs. O'Shea and Brown are unable to bear the heavy responsibility. Originally, Ferguson wanted to introduce Maicon, but was intercepted by Manchester City halfway. Now Manchester United's right side is seriously lacking, which has become Manchester United's biggest weakness.
Compared with Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur challenged West Bromwich Albion away this round. Ye Qiu was not affected by the pre-match media, but still adopted the rhythm that the team had originally planned, arranging young players including Ramsey, Phil Jones, Varane and Alba to appear on the field.
With the end of the World Cup, national teams of various countries have also started a new round of reorganization, including Kyle Walker, Phil Jones, Coutinho, Neymar and Nastasic, who have been selected for the national team. This makes Tottenham Hotspur choose the starting lineup in this round. Ye Qiu arranged those players who have no national team tasks, or have less playing time and returned to the team earlier, because West Bromwich Albion is not Tottenham Hotspur's opponent.
In fact, Tottenham Hotspur defeated West Bromwich Albion 2:0 away with goals from Ramsey and Fabregas. Fabregas helped Tottenham Hotspur get three points with one assist and one shot in the absence of Messi and Ribery, and the team's league points quickly rose to fourth place.
It is worth mentioning that in this game, Manchester City tied Blackburn 1:1 at home. Joe Hart, who performed very well in the first round of the league, was overconfident and attacked too hastily within less than fifteen minutes of the start, resulting in a mismatch between himself and Kolo Toure, and Blackburn scored.
And this is not Joe Hart's first mistake. A few days ago, in the England national team's match against Switzerland, he had a scene where he handled the ball at his feet and made everyone scream. This is obviously a side effect of Joe Hart facing the almost overwhelming praise since the start of this season.
Falcao, who scored consecutively in the first three rounds, also fell into a goal drought in this round. West Ham United also lost to Chelsea 1:3 at home. Ancelotti's team has performed very well recently, leading the Premier League standings with four consecutive wins.
Arsenal defeated Bolton 4:1, and Liverpool also defeated Birmingham. The two teams ranked second and third in the league respectively.
In this way, after four rounds, the top four teams in the league are Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur.
When Ye Qiu was interviewed by Guardian reporter Sean Ingler, he felt that the start of the Premier League so far this season did not mean anything, because the league has just started.
"The league is a very long journey. We have only played four rounds of the 38-round league. The results we have achieved now are not convincing at all. If we want to see the performance of a team, starting from November, if Chelsea and Arsenal can maintain their current ranking from November to March next year, I will admit that they are the favorites to win the championship!"
Many people think that Ye Qiu's remarks are just a dead duck, but some people think it makes sense.
Chelsea has not faced any strong teams so far, except West Ham United. Although West Ham United has many stars, it is currently playing with the same lineup, which is obviously affected by the national team, so it lost to Chelsea.
"As the league progresses, the Champions League and national team matches are staggered back and forth. This is a real test for teams aiming to win the championship. For Arsenal, their performance in the first half will never be convincing. The key is to see how they perform in the second half!"
Perhaps Wenger will not admit such an evaluation, but it does not prevent everyone from looking at Arsenal in this way. Who made them lose their advantages in the second half again and again in the past?
After the fourth round of the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur sat at White Hart Lane and welcomed Braga, the runner-up team of the Portuguese Super League.
Speaking of this Portuguese Super League team, it has a lot of connections with Tottenham Hotspur, because the latter currently has a record that is closely related to Tottenham Hotspur, that is, they once lost to Tottenham Hotspur 0:3 at home and 0:6 away in the 1984/1985 UEFA Cup 64-round knockout match, with a total score of 0:9 in two rounds.
Because of this, and because Ye Qiu kept some of the main international players in the team in the weekend league and did not try his best, many people speculated that Ye Qiu was going to kill his opponent in the Champions League.
In fact, Ye Qiu did send out all the main players in this game.
Tottenham Hotspur adjusted its starting lineup and tactics in this game. The goalkeeper was Cech, the defense was Marcelo, Kompany, Thiago Silva and Alves, the midfield was David Silva, Yaya Toure and Fabregas, and the front court was the trident of Ribery, Raul and Messi.
At the beginning of the game, Tottenham Hotspur launched a fierce attack on Braga, especially the veteran Raul who started in the Champions League again, and he was desperate to score in the game, because he only needed to score two more goals to catch up with the European goal record of German legendary superstar Muller.
Because of this, Tottenham Hotspur tried its best to create conditions for Raul to score from the beginning of the game. Many people even felt that Ye Qiu deliberately reserved his strength for the Champions League in the middle of the week in order to ensure that Raul could score.
Fabregas, who has been in excellent form recently and had just made one assist and one goal in the league, was very active at the beginning of this game. In the sixth minute, he made a precise through ball, tearing open the opponent's defense line, allowing Messi to quickly cut into the penalty area from the right to receive the ball, but was knocked down by the opponent's goalkeeper.
This was an undisputed penalty, and after Messi got up from the ground, he shook his head with a wry smile, grabbed the ball from the ground, and stuffed it directly into the arms of Raul who came over to help him, "Get him! Come on!"
Raul was stunned at first, but soon understood what Messi meant. He was also a well-informed person who had experienced so many things, and he would not write his feelings and gratitude on his face because of such an incident, but he still walked over and put his arm around Messi's shoulders. This was the most he could do to express his gratitude.
"Come on!"
Tottenham Hotspur's teammates came over one after another, constantly cheering for Raul.
The 33-year-old Raul gently placed the ball on the penalty spot, slowly stepped back, faced the opponent's goalkeeper, took a light step, rushed to the ball, pushed it hard with his left foot, and pushed it directly to the lower left corner. The ball went into the net, 1:0!
The entire White Hart Lane Stadium cheered for Raul's goal. This goal allowed Raul to catch up with Inzaghi's 68 European goals, and was only one step away from Muller's 69 European goals!
As if stimulated by the goal shortly after the opening, Tottenham Hotspur began to play a series of offensive storms, especially the main stars who gathered in the starting lineup for the first time this season, and played a hearty offensive football in their home court, playing tricks on Braga again and again.
In the 25th minute, David Silva retreated to get the ball, turned around and got rid of the defender, but soon used his skillful skills to shake off the opponent's back waist and pass the ball to the left side of the penalty area. Ribery quickly followed and shot directly, once again penetrating Braga's goal, 2:0!
But just nine minutes later, Tottenham Hotspur scored the most beautiful goal of the game.
After Ribery attracted the attention of two defenders near the left corner of the penalty area, he relied on his excellent dribbling ability to pass the ball to the middle. Raul headed the ball to Fabregas at the front of the penalty area. The Spaniard passed the ball directly to Messi on the right side without stopping the ball, and Messi passed it to Raul who entered the penalty area from the middle.
The most beautiful scene appeared. Raul was sprinting forward at high speed. Facing Messi's pass, he was a little caught off guard and quickly passed the ball back to Messi. At this time, Messi obviously thought that Raul would kick the ball himself, because his kick was obviously to give Raul the opportunity to shoot, so he was caught off guard by Raul's return pass.
Faced with the sudden return pass, Messi was a little confused when he stopped the ball, but he quickly used his outstanding ball sense to control the ball under his feet. Like a spinning top, he turned around the player behind him, and then turned his back to the goal. He kicked the ball in front of Raul with his right heel. When the Spaniard rushed forward, he was directly facing the goal, forming a single knife!
With Raul's strength, of course he would not miss such an opportunity. He pushed the ball directly into the bottom of the net, 3:0!
All the fans in the entire White Hart Lane Stadium rushed out of their seats, but they were not only cheering for Raul to tie Muller's legendary European goal record, but also for Messi's exquisite heel assist this time. Even Ye Qiu on the sidelines was applauding vigorously, not only for Raul who staged a king's return, but also for the incomparable Messi!
