Chapter 454: Kick Ligue 1 out of the top five leagues?
Although Juventus's fierce attack once made Manchester City's goal tremble, they were unable to penetrate their goal again.
Manchester City's players held on until Guardiola brought on substitutes and adjusted the team's formation.
Kante and Van Dijk were the first to be sent on the field. As for the last substitution, Guardiola did not use it in a hurry, but held it in his hand, intending to use it to intimidate the opponent.
As they didn't know whether the opponent would use the last substitution to replace Lin Quan, Juventus also had concerns and did not dare to use up all their cards.
But if I don’t use all my trump cards, it seems like there’s really no way to win this game.
After Van Dijk and Kante came on the pitch, Manchester City's defensive strength was greatly improved, especially the two midfielders Kante and Fernandinho, who formed an impenetrable barrier in front of the defenders, making Juventus miserable.
As time passed, Juventus players became more and more anxious. However, anxiety makes it easy to make mistakes, especially when facing a player like Kante who is extremely good at intercepting and stealing.
In the 82nd minute of the second half, Kante took advantage of the Juventus midfielder's mistake to successfully steal the ball, and Manchester City launched a quick counterattack.
Son Heung-min, who had fought for the entire game, mustered up his last bit of strength and accelerated along the sideline with the ball towards Juventus' half.
The Juventus players were horrified and retreated across the board, but it was too late.
Seeing that his teammates were unable to return to defense in time, Buffon had no choice but to abandon the goal and take the initiative to attack.
Son Heung-min showed the calm mind and superb shooting skills of a top shooter. He quickly judged the distance between himself and the goalkeeper and the angle of the shot. He did not shoot in a hurry, but chose to lob the ball when Buffon approached within three meters of him and made a blocking move.
As one of the world's top goalkeepers, Buffon has extremely rich game experience. He can predict the choices his opponent may make the moment he attacks.
So he immediately raised his arms and tried to block Son Heung-min's lob shot.
Buffon's judgment was very accurate, but he seemed to have underestimated the speed of the opponent's shot.
The ball flew over Buffon's head before he even raised his arms.
With a swish, the ball rolled into Juventus' goal, and Manchester City reversed the game 2:1! After scoring the goal, Son Heung-min seemed a little unbelievable. I actually broke through the goal guarded by the world's number one goalkeeper?
Is this true? He stared at the goal with wide eyes, and after confirming it again and again, he fell into ecstasy, turned around and took off his jersey, grabbed the corner of his jersey and waved it in his hand, and ran towards the stands where the Manchester City fans were.
Being able to score in the Champions League was enough to make Son Heung-min happy, not to mention scoring against Buffon, who was the living fossil of football and the most powerful goalkeeper in the world! The Manchester City fans in the stands were also very excited. When they saw Manchester City's starting lineup, they thought they were going to lose the game.
They didn’t expect that the substitutes on the field would give them such a big surprise, especially the new players who were just introduced this summer.
His attacks from the wing caused Juventus huge trouble, and both goals were directly related to him.
This guy is really good, reminding many old fans of the Chinese who once played for Manchester City for five years.
Unfortunately, Chinese football seems to have problems in recent years. In the early years, we could see some talented Chinese players playing abroad in the top five leagues, but these have completely disappeared in recent years.
If a few more talented players emerge from China, given Manchester City's affinity for China, they wouldn't mind bringing one or two over to give it a try.
In South Korea, tens of thousands of fans chose to watch the live broadcast of the game after learning that Son Heung-min would start the game.
Being able to play for Manchester City, the world's top team, has greatly increased Son Heung-min's fame in South Korea, and he has become an iconic figure in Korean football.
Therefore, many people in South Korea are looking forward to seeing him perform well in the Premier League and even the Champions League.
In this game, Son Heung-min fulfilled their wishes! He created a goal and scored one himself. With his MVP-level performance, Son Heung-min was crowned the king in South Korea.
Countless people were so excited when they saw Son Heung-min score a goal that reversed the game that they almost jumped up: "Our Heung-min is so amazing!"
"He is absolutely the pride of our Republic of Korea!"
Given Lin Quan and Manchester City's influence and fan base in China, there are also many Chinese fans paying attention to this game.
After seeing Son Heung-min score a goal, some domestic fans couldn't help but sigh in their hearts: "Alas, more and more players from Japan and South Korea have gone abroad in recent years. Their players can be seen everywhere in the five major leagues. On the other hand, here..."
"We can't help it. After all, given our football level, the number of players who meet the criteria for studying abroad is already small. In addition, the domestic league is promoting money-driven football, which makes local players not want to go abroad to explore."
"Yes, players like Wu Lei and Zhang Linpeng should have been sent out several years ago, but they were delayed for several years!"
"Haha, it's understandable that they don't want to go abroad. After all, their annual salary in China is over 10 million. After going abroad, it is said that their annual salary is not as good as that in China!"
After the Chinese national football team suffered a crushing defeat to Spain, the Football Association seemed to have been awakened and began to encourage talented and qualified players to study abroad and receive training in high-level European football.
This summer, after using a lot of connections and doing a lot of work with the players, we finally sent out some young players who met the requirements.
Among them are young players who have received much attention, such as Wu Lei and Zhang Linpeng, especially Wu Lei. After all, he is a unique player among domestic strikers.
In addition, he is not too old, he is only 24 years old this year and still very young, so everyone hopes that he can grow after training abroad and support the national team's forward line in the future.
When this group of players were sent out, the clubs they went to were not very good.
Except for a very small number of people who entered the mid- and lower-level teams in the five major leagues, some of the others entered the Portuguese Super League, some went to the Eredivisie and Belgian First Division, and some played in the Spanish Second Division and the German Second Division.
But it is always a good thing to be able to go out. Even in these secondary leagues, their level is not worse than that of the Chinese Super League.
If they train well here, improve their abilities and strive to become a main player, it will actually be more helpful for improving their abilities than playing in the domestic league.
Of course, there will definitely be a significant loss in terms of monetary gains.
After all, domestic teams have been very generous in recruiting players in recent years, and the salaries of national team players have long reached the threshold of tens of millions of annual salaries.
Not only do they not have such high salaries in these leagues, they may even lose their level due to not being able to play in the games, and then they may not be able to find another club after returning home.
Therefore, many people are actually unwilling to go abroad. Not only the players are unwilling, but the Chinese Super League clubs are also unwilling.
As a result, relatively few people chose to go abroad this summer, far below the expectations of the Football Association, and there are only six or seven real international players among them. Most of the rest are young players under the age of 18 who are sent abroad for training. As for whether they can be trained into talents, it is difficult to say.
…
Son Heung-min's goal stunned Juventus. In the final moments, they attacked frantically and desperately, and Allegri finally completed all the substitutions.
But the time left for them was too little, and after Juventus attacked for ten minutes, they had to accept the result of failure.
After losing this game, Juventus still has only 5 points and their situation is precarious.
As for Manchester City, they had already qualified, so this victory can only be regarded as icing on the cake for them.
After the game, Morata ran over to Lin Quan to exchange jerseys.
Lin Quan looked at him speechlessly: "Dude, I haven't even played yet, are you sure you want to exchange jerseys with me?" Morata didn't care about that. He just saw Lin Quan warming up on the sidelines. Although he put his jacket back on, he was wearing a jersey underneath it.
Seeing that the other party was so persistent, Lin Quan could only take off his coat speechlessly and then take off his jersey and throw it to the other party.
Just as they exchanged jerseys, cheers suddenly came from Juventus' home stadium.
Both of them looked towards the stands in surprise. What was going on? Wasn't it Juventus who lost?
Why are their fans still so happy? Could it be...
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"Is the match between Sevilla and Borussia Mönchengladbach over?"
Lin Quan asked his teammates who had been paying attention to the results of another game.
"Well, Borussia Mönchengladbach beat Sevilla 4:2 at home!"
"What? Sevilla lost. Didn't they just beat Real Madrid? How could they lose to Monchengladbach?"
David Silva was very surprised by the result. As a Spaniard, he was very clear about the strength of Sevilla.
As the Europa League champion, Sevilla is quite strong, otherwise it would not have been possible to defeat Real Madrid.
Borussia Mönchengladbach is recognized as the weakest team in the group. Everyone assumes that they are the easy-to-win team. However, unexpectedly, Sevilla actually lost to this easy-to-win team.
"Yeah, it's really unexpected. The points situation in our group is really confusing now!"
The current situation in Group D is indeed a mess. Except for Manchester City, which is at the top of the list and has won all five games, the other three teams are all rolling in the mud.
Juventus has one win, two draws and two losses in five games, with 5 points, currently ranking second in the group.
Borussia Mönchengladbach also had one win, two draws and two losses, with 5 points, and is currently ranked third due to goal difference.
Sevilla is the worst, with four losses and one win, and is last in the group with 3 points.
However, even Sevilla still has the possibility of qualifying in the last round, and the hope is very high.
As long as they beat Juventus at home in the last round, they will most likely advance together with Manchester City. The reason is very simple. Borussia Mönchengladbach's opponent in the last round is Manchester City. No one thinks that Borussia Mönchengladbach can beat them at Manchester City's home field. This is almost a sure defeat! So, even though Borussia Mönchengladbach has more points than Sevilla, their qualifying situation may not be as good as Sevilla's! However, Juventus is definitely in the best position to advance. Sevilla's defeat is equivalent to handing the initiative to them.
In the last round, as long as Manchester City does not lose unexpectedly, Juventus only needs to maintain a draw and get one point to advance.
We can qualify if we draw, isn’t this condition lenient enough?
However, this seems to be a curse, as teams that could qualify with a draw often fail in the end.
It's no wonder that Juventus fans were so happy after hearing the news. For them, this is indeed a piece of good news among a pile of bad news! ...
After the end of this round of the Champions League, the qualifying situation of each group has become very clear.
In Group A, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain both advanced.
In Group B, Wolfsburg advanced one round in advance, but the first place in the group is still uncertain.
In this round of games, Manchester United was tied by PSV Eindhoven at home, losing a good opportunity, making their qualifying situation confusing. In the last round, they will be forced to go away to challenge Wolfsburg, the leader of the group.
If they lose this game, Manchester United can only hope that PSV Eindhoven loses. If their opponent beats CSKA Moscow at home, they will fail to qualify for the group stage.
In Group C, Atletico Madrid and Benfica advanced together. In Group E, Messi, who returned from injury, announced his return as the king with a hat trick, leading Barcelona to slaughter their opponents by a large score and also announcing that they advanced early.
Bayern was the dominant team in Group F, and like Manchester City, they won all five games and advanced early.
Arsenal, who lost all four games in the first four rounds, finally recovered in this round, beating Dinamo Sagna 3-0 at home and getting valuable 3 points.
Although the Gunners are still last in the group, they still retain a glimmer of theoretical hope of qualifying as their two direct competitors have lost.
Compared with Arsenal and Manchester United, Chelsea's performance in the Champions League is much better. After they once again defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv in this round, their qualifying situation is very good.
However, the situation in Group G is also very complicated. After defeating Porto, Dynamo Kyiv has caught up in points. In the last round, these three teams may be eliminated. It depends on who can seize the opportunity.
The situation in Group H was somewhat surprising, with Lyon and Valencia, two teams from the top five leagues, being treated like underdogs and beaten badly.
However, two teams from other leagues ranked in the top two. Among them, Zenit St. Petersburg of the Russian Premier League even won all five games, making them one of only three teams to remain undefeated in the Champions League so far.
The most unbelievable team here is Lyon, the French Ligue 1 giant that was Real Madrid's nemesis in the past few years and made Real Madrid lose every year. But their record in the Champions League this season is really shocking.
In this Champions League group stage, they lost 4 out of 5 games and only got a pitiful one point.
This isn't Real Madrid's victim at all, this is clearly a weak team!
After all, they are the second seed of Ligue 1, but they ended up playing this? No wonder many fans think that Ligue 1 should be kicked out of the top five leagues. Except for Paris Saint-Germain, other teams in Ligue 1 are simply not human! The second seed of your league is performing like this? The third seed even lost in the play-offs and couldn't even enter the main competition? The Portuguese Super League has more points than you, so why not just call the Portuguese Super League one of the top five leagues!
(End of this chapter)