Chapter 328 International Champions Cup, Manchester City slaughtered AC Milan 7-2!
The fact that Manchester City spent 10 million euros to take a young defender from the Scottish Premier League did not attract much attention from the outside world.
After all, Manchester City used to spend tens of millions of euros on buying players, but it only spent 10 million euros on Van Dijk. In the eyes of reporters, this amount is too small.
How strong can a defender at this price be?
Compared to Van Dijk, they are more concerned about the transfers of big-name stars in Manchester City.
However, as Lin Quan, Kroos, De Bruyne and others appeared on Manchester City's training ground one after another, the transfer rumors spread by the outside world were suddenly refuted.
If these stars really want to transfer, they will not return to Manchester City for pre-season training.
After a short training camp, Manchester City set off without stopping for the United States to participate in the International Champions Cup.
The International Champions Cup is a commercial event that started in 2009. Although it has a loud name, it is actually a warm-up competition.
However, most of the invited teams are top teams, and each participating team will receive a considerable amount of profit.
Therefore, the invited teams will not refuse in most cases. After all, they can make money and take the opportunity to complete pre-season warm-up training. Why not do this kind of thing that kills two birds with one stone?
After being held for five consecutive years, the International Champions Cup has become increasingly influential, and more and more TV stations are willing to purchase the broadcasting rights.
Especially since almost all of the eight participating teams this year are European giants, there are no regional leagues participating to make up the numbers as in the past.
The eight participating teams are: Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Roma, Real Madrid and Olympiacos.
Except for Olympiacos, almost all other teams are giants.
Maybe Manchester City and Roma are slightly worse, but they are also quasi-giant clubs.
This has attracted a large number of fans to watch this year's game. The organizers have just started to release ticket pre-sales, and the tickets for each game have been immediately sold out by enthusiastic fans.
Among them, the match between Real Madrid and Manchester City attracted the most attention.
After all, only these two teams have superstars.
The organizers also understand the market very well and specially booked the final to be held at the stadium of the University of Michigan.
The stadium is very large and can accommodate more than 100,000 spectators.
If Real Madrid and Manchester City meet in the final, the organizers can make a lot of money just by selling tickets!
According to the competition system, the eight participating teams are first divided into two groups. The top two teams in each group enter the semi-finals, and the winners of the semi-finals advance to the finals.
As the two most popular teams in this tournament, Real Madrid and Manchester City were placed in two different groups.
In the group that Manchester City is in, apart from Manchester City, the remaining three teams are: Liverpool, Olympiacos and AC Milan.
The four teams in Real Madrid's group are Real Madrid, Manchester United, Inter Milan and Roma.
In comparison, the teams in Real Madrid's group are more evenly matched.
Especially Manchester United, which has been recruiting players crazily in the summer, has every chance of overthrowing Real Madrid and grabbing first place in the group.
As for the two Serie A teams, Inter Milan and Roma, due to the decline of Serie A, the outside world is not very optimistic about them.
As for the qualifying results of Manchester City in this group, Manchester City will definitely qualify, and the weakest team Olympiacos will most likely be eliminated.
As for who will advance between Liverpool and AC Milan, it depends on their head-to-head results.
As the new Premier League and Champions League champions, Manchester City was scheduled to play in the opening game.
Their opponent is Serie A giants AC Milan.
Because it was a warm-up match, both sides arranged a lot of substitutes.
The main players of both teams sat on the bench, chatting and laughing as they watched the substitutes work hard on the court.
For a warm-up match of this nature, there is no need to field all the main players right from the start.
Because there is no limit on the number of substitutions each side can make, there is also no limit on the number of people on the bench.
As long as you want, you can replace all 11 players on the field at once.
But even with the substitute lineup, there is still a gap in strength between the two teams' substitutes.
After the opening, Manchester City played very actively and proactively.
Just 11 minutes into the game, Jovetic scored the first goal.
Two minutes later, Sinclair scored another goal, Manchester City 2:0 AC Milan.
Although it was just a warm-up match, the team fell behind by two goals after 13 minutes of the game, which made AC Milan's head coach Inzaghi a little embarrassed.
Inzaghi stood up and shouted to the players on the field, asking them to play more actively and aggressively.
However, his shouting not only failed to have any effect, but also made the players feel a little overwhelmed.
In the 23rd minute, Navas scored another goal and Manchester City extended their lead to 3 goals.
Four minutes later, Manchester City expanded the lead again and the score on the field became 4:0.
That’s not all. In the 32nd minute, Jovetic scored another goal and Manchester City beat AC Milan 5:0.
Seeing that the team was about to be defeated, Inzaghi could no longer sit still.
He replaced four main players at once, trying to turn the situation around.
However, the effect of this substitution was not good. Central defender Van Dijk and goalkeeper Navas, who played for Manchester City for the first time, performed well in this game and repeatedly resolved AC Milan's attacks.
Especially Navas, his god-level save made the AC Milan players almost doubt their lives.
Fortunately, Montari successfully scored a goal in the 42nd minute, allowing AC Milan to save a little face.
But after the start of the second half, Manchester City also began to make substitutions.
Main players such as David Silva, Kroos, Aguero and De Bruyne began to appear on the field one after another.
After these people came on the court, the situation on the field immediately changed drastically, from AC Milan besieging Manchester City to Manchester City besieging AC Milan.
AC Milan also made personnel adjustments immediately. Inzaghi replaced four main players again. At this time, AC Milan on the field almost had a full main lineup.
On the Manchester City side, at least half of the main players were still sitting on the bench! The fans who came to the scene saw more and more stars appearing, and the game became more and more exciting.
Everyone's emotions were aroused, and the voices of cheering and shouting became more enthusiastic.
However, the atmosphere at the scene has not yet reached its peak, because more than 50,000 fans are looking forward to that man's appearance!
"Change to Lin Huang!"
"Let Emperor Lin take the stage!"
"We want to see Emperor Lin!"
The game was almost at the 70th minute, and Manchester City was still reluctant to let Lin Quan play, which made the fans unhappy.
They began to shout Lin Quan's name at the top of their lungs to put pressure on the event organizers and Manchester City coaching staff.
The team was leading by a large margin and completely suppressed AC Milan on the field.
This made Manchester City coach Pellegrini very happy. After hearing the cheers of the fans, he smiled and turned his head to the side and asked, "Lin, do you want to go out and warm up?"
Lin Quan nodded. Although the outcome of the game had been decided, as a fan-loving maniac, he always took good care of his own fans.
So, in the 75th minute, Lin Quan was substituted on.
Seeing Lin Quan finally appear on the court, the fans at the scene cheered enthusiastically.
"Forest!"
"Forest!"
More than 50,000 fans in the stadium shouted Lin Quan's name in unison. It felt like they were welcoming their football emperor! With such support from the fans, Lin Quan couldn't help but express his gratitude.
After he came on the pitch, he scored directly from a free kick, helping the team further expand the score.
In the final moments of the game, Lin Quan received the ball on the wing and dodged interceptions from several AC Milan defenders.
He almost reviewed the entire defense line of AC Milan, then broke into the penalty area and calmly scored!
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This goal completely ignited the whole stadium, and the fans were all impressed by Lin Quan's wonderful performance! In the end, Manchester City defeated AC Milan with a score of 7:2 in the opening match.
Although it was a warm-up match, the score difference was still too outrageous.
During the handshake session after the game, AC Milan's new coach Inzaghi had a very unhappy look on his face when shaking hands with Pellegrini.
His predecessor, Seedorf, was fired by AC Milan because of the poor performance of the team. He had just taken office when such a tragedy happened.
This made Inzaghi feel a little pessimistic about his coaching prospects at AC Milan! This Milan team is very different from the one he played for back then! The two Milan giants are unlucky together! Manchester City just slaughtered AC Milan, and on the other side, Inter Milan also fell at the feet of Real Madrid.
However, compared to AC Milan's crushing defeat, Inter fought until the very last minute, but unfortunately had bad luck and lost in the penalty shootout.
There is no draw in the International Cup matches. A draw will lead to a penalty shootout.
In other matches, Manchester United defeated Roma 3:2 and Liverpool beat Olympiacos 1:0.
The Premier League team won all three games and remained unbeaten.
The Serie A teams lost all three games, showing a clear trend of decline.
This makes the Serie A fans who watch the game, especially those old fans who have experienced the most glorious era of Serie A, extremely sad:
Alas, it seems that Serie A is really in decline!
The grand occasion of the Mini World Cup is no longer there! After three days of rest, the second round of the game will soon begin.
This round, Manchester City faced a civil war in the Premier League, and their opponent was the Red Army Liverpool.
There are many grudges between the two teams, so the game was full of tension from the beginning.
In order to win the game, Pellegrini arranged a semi-main lineup.
Van Dijk and Navas continued to start, and players such as Milner, Fernandinho, Kolarov, Jovetic, Aguero and others also played.
The situation is similar on Liverpool's side, both sides don't want to lose.
The game was very tense and neither side scored a goal in the first half.
In the 53rd minute of the second half, Jovetic scored the first goal and finally broke the deadlock.
However, Manchester City's lead did not last long. In the 57th minute, Henderson's goal helped Liverpool equalize the score.
Afterwards, both teams began to make substitutions.
In less than ten minutes, all the players on the field were replaced by the main lineups of both teams.
However, on the Manchester City side, Van Dijk was still kept on the field by Pellegrini.
The Chilean engineer seemed to have high hopes for this young man and was willing to use such stressful training to accelerate his growth.
"Is this really a good idea? If he makes a mistake during the game and causes us to lose, it could have a huge impact on his confidence!"
The assistant coach said with some concern that he felt Van Dijk should not be put under such pressure so early.
"It doesn't matter. It's just a warm-up match. If you can't handle the pressure of this kind of match, how can you handle it in the league and the Champions League?"
Pellegrini explained while staring at Van Dijk, wanting to see what kind of surprises he could bring him.
Unlike goalkeeper Navas, Van Dijk has never played in the top five leagues before.
The intensity of this game has undoubtedly reached or even exceeded that of the top five leagues.
Moreover, all his teammates are main players, he is the only substitute, and he is a newcomer who has just joined the team not long ago.
This made Van Dijk feel a lot of pressure and he was quite nervous.
But he is not the kind of person who is timid!
In the face of tremendous pressure, Van Dijk's performance not only did not decline, but he played better and better.
In several defensive moves, he not only froze Sturridge, but also Balotelli.
Although Balotelli has a problem with his head, everything below the head is world-class.
With his strong physical fitness, ordinary defenders may not be able to withstand it.
But in front of Van Dijk, Balotelli did not take any advantage and was blocked tightly! Seeing Van Dijk's steady performance, Manchester City's coaching staff breathed a sigh of relief.
On the other hand, Liverpool head coach Rogers was confused.
Where did this big defender of Manchester City come from? Why didn't he have any impression of him? After asking the assistant, he found out that Manchester City had just bought him from Celtic not long ago.
And it only cost 10 million euros! Can 10 million euros buy a defender of this level? Rogers was so excited!
How come Liverpool doesn't have such a good opportunity? If he had known that Celtic had such an excellent defender, he would have grabbed him even if it was 15 million or 20 million euros, not to mention 10 million euros! There are fewer and fewer good defenders now, and they are getting more and more expensive!
It’s all the fault of that idiot Paris Saint-Germain. The three defenders he bought were more expensive than the last, which directly raised the value of defenders in the transfer market!
After the defense line withstood the opponent's offensive pressure, Manchester City's powerful midfield and frontcourt began to show their power!
Under the successive attacks of Lin Quan, Aguero, De Bruyne and others, Liverpool's defense collapsed.
In the 67th minute, Lin Quan scored to help the team regain the lead.
Eight minutes later, Aguero scored another goal after receiving a through pass from De Bruyne, and Manchester City secured the victory.
In the final moments of the game, Liverpool tried to launch a counterattack, but was quickly counterattacked by Manchester City. Lin Quan assisted David Silva to score another goal, freezing the score at 4:1.
Manchester City won big in two consecutive games, allowing them to advance to the group stage one round ahead of schedule.
And scoring 11 goals in two games, this terrifying offensive firepower also made other participating teams feel terrified!
Manchester City's strength has not declined at all, but has become even stronger! (End of this chapter)