"We are unlucky, so I don’t want to make excuses, but I want to know that we have far more opportunities than our opponents after watching the game. Of course, our opponents have performed well. Now we are in a very unfavorable situation, but I don’t think the promotion is out of suspense. We must go all out in the second round."
This is allegri talking to Lin Sen in the post-game press conference session. Lin Sen just shook hands with him, but he didn’t fight back on the spot. He turned a deaf ear with a smile on his face.
It’s not difficult to say what you want to say with a long mouth anyway. The important thing is whether you can achieve it or not. However, compared with before the game, Linsen didn’t think that Ali Agri intended to provoke himself this time, but he was not naive. After the game, allegri took the initiative to shake hands with himself and gave up.
The head coach of the team is just like a commander-in-chief. Even if the situation is critical, the head coach Shuai Qi should still stand there firmly, or wait for them to be defeated. Even though A Milan has almost lost its urgent hope, allegri still has to bite the bullet and save his team’s confidence.
This root has nothing to do with what he thinks.
Beating A Milan away from home and returning to Manchester to wait for Tomlinson is not a big relief, but a "false" battle.
Due to the previous draw with Naudts County in the FA Cup, Manchester City needed to play another rematch with its opponent. This game was finally scheduled to be played against Milan A three days later. For the FA Cup, which is more important than the Carling Cup, there is no rigid requirement for some events in Manchester City. Lin Sen is not used to winning trophies. It is good to have both fish and bear’s paw, but many times you have to make a choice.
Of course, there is no need to give up voluntarily. After all, Manchester City went out of the Carling Cup early. Although it did well in the League and the Champions League, the FA Cup still occupies a certain position in the hearts of fans. Once Manchester City has any mistakes in the Champions League, an FA Cup will not be reduced from a three-line battle to an embarrassing one.
In the rematch against Naudts County, none of the starting players played against Milan A, but as in the first round, they didn’t know what was wrong away from home. After returning to home, Manchester City once again showed great power. A five-to-one score sent out Manchester City’s Naudts naked, which had almost eliminated Manchester City before. Then in the fifth round of the FA Cup, that is, in the final, Manchester City finally didn’t let the other side surprise again. It was a crisp and neat three-to "revenge" at home. Aston Villa had defeated itself in the league before and successfully entered the FA Cup.
Followed by two rounds of Premier League leaders, they ran back and forth in two stadiums in Manchester.
First, in the 20th round, Manchester City took the lead in falling, and Fulham drew the goal difference at home, which led the leaders to run from the City Stadium to the Old Trafford Stadium, but then in the 29th round, Manchester United sent the leaders back to the City Stadium by themselves, because they lost 3-1 to their arch-rival Liverpool and Manchester City beat Wigan Athletic.
After 29 rounds of league games, Manchester City returned to the top position, but the competition for the league title should be said to be more and more fierce. Manchester United was only three points behind Manchester City, and then the points were unusually close to Arsenal. It is worth it. First, Chelsea’s state began to recover after the winter transfer supplement. Compared with Chelsea’s recent performance, Arsenal’s recent two-round victory is another negative teaching material. In the original league standings, they approached Manchester City. They failed to continue to beat the cosmic team Barcelona 2-1 at home. Rona’s performance was first unexpectedly lost to Burnham in the Carling Cup final, losing the first chance to win the championship in recent years, and then he suffered two consecutive defeats in Manchester City and Manchester United in the middle of the league, which benefited the fishermen.
Of course, whether it is good or bad in the near future, the first group in the Premier League rankings is still the four teams in the season. Although Liverpool’s recent achievements after changing coaches are excellent and they also played a good show of beating Manchester United at home, this does not change the fact that they fell behind in the league because they had dug a big hole before. Until now, the gap between them and Chelsea, the fourth place, is still more than 13 points.
On March 10th, Manchester City once again welcomed A Milan at home.
Although some "sorry" once again made the city stadium bursting with home fans, Linsen adopted another game strategy that was completely different from the away game in this game, that is, defensive counterattack. Andy Gray angered Linsen’s choice and said it was conservative, while Martin Taylor said with a smile that it was a clever choice.
Both commentators are actually right. Take the lead and defend? This is not conservative. What is it? But from another angle, the advantage lies in one’s own hands. Should the opponent be in a hurry to attack at this time?
Of course, the final right or wrong of the two understandings should be judged by the results of the game.
If Linsen’s "conservatism" fails to make Manchester City resist Milan’s attack, Linsen is ruining the game, but if Linsen’s "conservatism" makes Manchester City finally advance, Linsen chooses Cong, and Linsen is lucky to be a wise man in this game.
In fact, Lin Sen, who is conservative, just made a fine adjustment in the middle of the array, that is, vidal replaced David Silva and added a layer of concrete to the original midfield barrier.
There is no way out from half-time to half-time. A Milan stormed the big half of the game but still failed to get even a decent chance. In the 73rd minute, Manchester City "stole" a goal. The goal was A Milan old acquaintance Adriano, which was a powerful long-range goal.
The score became one-to-one.
The total score became four to one.
There are less than 20 minutes left in the game, and in this period, the current score is definitely not short, but the total score is definitely not long. If Milan want to advance, they must first copy what another English team did to them in Istanbul and scored three goals at half time.
Then they can return to the same starting line as Manchester City.
At one time, the allegri team saw a glimmer of hope. Pato once scored a goal in the tenth minute of the game to chase the score to one-to-one, but even so, they still have a gap of two goals, and they will not be given preferential treatment when they are on the opposite side from the beginning of this game.
There will be less and less time
When the game whistle remembered, the city stadium broke into a warm applause.
The score is still one to one, and the total score is four to two
In the two rounds, A Milan scored the first goal and the last goal, but the promotion was Manchester City.
The elimination of A Milan and Manchester City became the first four teams to advance to the top four. Unfortunately, Arsenal failed to resist Barcelona’s counterattack in the Champions League at Camp Nou, and lost to Donetsk miners 2-3 in the first leg. Rome also failed to show off on the road. They lost a simple 3-0. Except Barcelona and Donetsk miners, they appeared with Manchester City on the same day. The German team Schalke 4 was eliminated by them. It was La Liga Valencia.
In the other four games, although the game will not be held until a week later, there is little suspense about the qualifying team in these four games, because apart from the fact that Inter Milan and Bayern are close in strength and Real Madrid and Lyon are somewhat unpredictable due to the season’s enmity, the strength of the other two games is so different that you can almost tell who will qualify for the first round without any upset results from the moment when the lottery results come out, which makes these games even more suspenseless.
Manchester United vs Marseille Chelsea vs Gohagen
If there is no accident, it is obvious that there will be three Premier League teams and two La Liga teams.
Of course, Lin Sen’s understanding of other games is not because of his enthusiasm for other English teams, but because there will be no rules for drawing lots in a round of elimination and quarter-finals, that is to say, there will be no principle of avoiding the same country, and there will be no teams to speak of. Even the home and away games will be decided by drawing lots.
In this case, Manchester City may meet opponents.
Including Ferguson, Manchester United, Guardiola, Barcelona and, of course, Mourinho, Real Madrid. If Mourinho’s team can make it smoothly, it remains to be done.
Chapter 45 Finally
Killing God in case of God and killing Buddha in case of Buddha is called bullying, worshipping mountains and burning incense in case of temples. This is called caution.
In football, what kind of strength determines what kind of attitude is touted. Barcelona undoubtedly belongs to the former, because for them, opponents are hard to beat and easy to beat, and no team can make them feel afraid. For Manchester City, they are obviously not as good as Barcelona, although they just eliminated A Milan.
However, Lin Sen also denied that his team belongs to the latter who needs to look at others’ faces.
Because Manchester City’s "disorderly entry" into the Champions League, Lin Sen’s memory of the season is not much. He knew that Manchester United and Barcelona were the final teams, and then Barcelona won the championship. He could not find any memory for a long time. Of course, only the two sides in the final had to draw lots at that time, and Lin Sen could make a judgment.
To put it simply, if Manchester United and Barcelona are the two sides in the final, then most other teams will be out of luck except "odd" Manchester City.
It’s worth one thing: it’s different from the drawing rules of the Champions League in Lin Sen’s memory in a few years. After the Champions League reaches the quarter-finals, the concept of half-zone will be introduced, that is to say, this drawing will be the last one. After the drawing, each promotion team will actually know at a glance which opponents it may encounter in the next game.
It is not impossible for all the strong teams to be divided into one and a half zones. Of course, UEFA will not "sit back and watch" such a situation.
On March 14th, Manchester City ushered in a Cup FA Cup quarter-final. The opponent was Reading at home. With Richards’ goal, Manchester City beat the opponent by a small margin to become the last team to advance to the semi-finals. Before that, the other three teams had been born, and the strongest team had just eliminated Arsenal and Manchester United, and they were also the semi-final opponents of Manchester City.
However, Lin Sen is not in the mood to think about Manchester United for the time being, not only because the FA Cup match against Manchester United will be held after the first round of Champions League, but also because there is a strong enemy in Manchester City. Lin Sen doesn’t know who the quarter-final opponent is, but the game against Chelsea is imminent.
Once people pay too much attention to the goal, it is often when you start to make mistakes, which is different from long-term thinking and near-worry. For Manchester City now, it is obviously not a wrong choice to focus on one game and play every game well.
March 17th Madrid, Spain
Mourinho and his assistant Moles watched the draw for the Champions League quarter-final together in the office.
Coming to Spain from Italy with the triple crown is the same as coming to Chelsea from Porto. This is undoubtedly a new step for Mourinho, but at the same time it is also an unprecedented challenge. Mourinho is full of pride, but this does not mean that he can continue to be in a bad season. Mourinho suffered the most humiliating loss to Barcelona in his first exam.
After the game, Mourinho had to put a low profile, but everyone knew that he would never give up. Now Real Madrid is two points away from Barcelona in the league, and in the King’s Cup, he joined Barcelona in the final of the Champions League, which broke the embarrassment of the Sixteen Champions League. If it wasn’t for that defeat, Mourinho’s first season at Real Madrid was not perfect, but at least it wasn’t bad.
But as in Inter Milan, Mourinho knows exactly what florentino wants, and everyone knows that Mourinho mainly leads Real Madrid to the end of Barcelona’s rule. Not only the King’s Cup, but also the Champions League is the most important yardstick.
The lottery ceremony in the middle of the screen was once again presided over by infantino, the head secret secretary of UEFA. After a short speech, he began to introduce the promotion situation, and at the same time, the screen began to emphasize the wonderful highlights in the past Champions League … Moles and Mourinho were still chatting before, and they began to silence in unison to turn their eyes to the screen.
Champions are never necessarily the best performing teams, which has been proved in all previous Champions League. Mourinho is even more aware of this. What wonderful highlights are for the fans, not for the coaches? Moles, the game analyst at Mourinho’s hand, has a preliminary understanding of the promotion to seven teams. Of course, further analysis will have to wait for the draw.
The first matchup that was drawn was to make it difficult for the English media to complain about Manchester United vs Chelsea, followed by Inter Milan vs Schalke 4, and then when Barcelona’s name was drawn, everyone’s heart shrank, of course, because of excitement or worry.
Moles doesn’t know how Mourinho feels, but his breathing has stopped.
Although Mourinho said that the fiasco in the first half of the season was not difficult to digest, it was a great psychological advantage for Mourinho. All of them were Mourinho’s magic weapons to win, but the fiasco just defeated this confidence. This kind of thing is easy to destroy but difficult to build. Of course, this does not mean that Mourinho has been afraid of Barcelona ever since.
But now is really not the best time to touch Barcelona.
Miners in Donetsk!
When the name of the Ukrainian team was matched to Barcelona, many people breathed a sigh of relief, and some people couldn’t help but say that Barcelona was really lucky as always …
Moles also breathed a sigh of relief, but when he turned his eyes to talk to Mourinho, he found that Mourinho looked a little strange, and then his horse came to his senses. Three of the four matches have been drawn, which means that Real Madrid opponents can be left in Manchester City.
Manchenglinsen
Moles naturally knows that Mourinho and Linsen have a certain friendship. Not only do they have the same agent, but they also often send messages to each other during important games. However, because David Silva was influenced this summer, Moles doesn’t know it now. Obviously, it is not the principle of football avoidance.
Before Moles could figure out Mourinho’s idea, it was followed by two semi-final matches: Inter Milan vs Schalke winner vs Chelsea vs Manchester United winner; Barcelona vs Miner winner vs Real Madrid vs Manchester City winner.
Well, this one has to cross after all.
"I finally touched him." Mourinho turned his head and said with a smile.
Finally?
Moles slightly dazed.
According to the lottery, if Real Madrid takes the lead in touching Manchester City, then Barcelona may be the next one. Obviously Barcelona is not suitable for the word "finally", then Mourinho said that it may naturally be Linsen.
"It’s not a bad result," Moles also smiled. "Although I met Barcelona a little more times this season."