Chapter 566: Barcelona's 0:4 defeat shocked the football world
Throughout January, Manchester City was training slowly.
Guardiola fulfilled his promise and made bold rotations to fully ensure the main players' rest time, while giving substitutes and young players enough playing time.
Of course, there is a price to pay for doing this.
In the 21st round of the Premier League, Manchester City lost 0:2 to Everton away from home due to a large rotation of the lineup and the opponent's excellent form.
But these same people equalized the game against a strong opponent like Tottenham.
You should know that in the first two rounds of the game, Tottenham defeated the top-ranked Chelsea and ended the opponent's 13-game winning streak.
From these games, we can see that Manchester City's substitute lineup is not without strength, but it is not stable enough. They are good in one game and bad in another. If they play well, they can compete with strong teams, but if they play badly, it is not surprising to lose to mid-level teams in the league! Maybe it is because the competitive level of the Premier League is too high and the competition is too intense! The performance of these players in the FA Cup is obviously better than that in the league.
In the two FA Cup matches in January, Manchester City won 5-0 and 3-0 respectively, and these substitute players played with the same dominance as the main lineup.
After entering February, Manchester City's condition has obviously improved a lot.
They first won another 4-0 victory over West Ham United away from home, and then beat Swansea 2-0 at home.
In the 25th round, they defeated Bournemouth 2:0 away from home, achieving three consecutive victories.
Manchester City played very easily in these games. Several main players almost punched out after halftime and did not feel tired at all.
As the young players have played more games and accumulated more experience, they are obviously much calmer on the field than at the beginning. They are more relaxed physically and mentally, and have more courage to do things that they did not dare to do before.
As a result, their performance naturally got better and better.
It’s strange to say, but when the whole team played with the burden of winning the championship, they often encountered various emergencies.
Either the defense makes low-level mistakes, or the opponent gets lucky and scores a magical goal. In short, it is extremely difficult to win when you want to win.
On the contrary, now that Manchester City has calmed down and no longer has the idea of winning the championship, their games are getting better and better.
On the contrary, the leader Chelsea has not had a good time recently! In this round of the game, they were unexpectedly tied by the weak Burnley, which surprised the outside world.
In fact, this is not surprising. After entering the second half, as Chelsea also suffered injuries and the fatigue of the main players gradually accumulated, their condition was undoubtedly declining.
The results are the best evidence. Since the start of the second half, Chelsea has only won 3 games, lost one and drawn 2 in 6 games.
This scoring efficiency is much worse than the previous time when they won consecutive games! If other strong teams were not in good shape during this period and failed to seize the opportunity to catch up, Chelsea's top position would probably be unstable.
So, what is surprising is that the team now ranked second in the standings is neither Liverpool nor Tottenham and other teams that had a very strong momentum in the first half, but Manchester City, which fell flat in the second half.
Manchester City now has 52 points and is temporarily ranked second, 8 points behind Chelsea. To be honest, the gap is still very large.
But if Chelsea continues to fluctuate like this, their championship title may be in jeopardy.
But there is also good news for Chelsea, that is, Manchester City will play in the Champions League knockout stage.
Due to poor group performance, Manchester City qualified as the second in the group.
So when the Champions League knockout draw was conducted, many of the top clubs that qualified as group leaders were very nervous, fearing that they would be unlucky and draw Manchester City.
Fortunately, they were lucky enough to escape the disaster in the end. The unlucky team that met Manchester City was Monaco from Ligue 1.
When the live camera was turned to the Monaco representative who was doing the draw, he was clearly feeling extremely miserable, but he still had to force himself to smile in order to face the camera.
This forced smile made many fans laugh.
Monaco is so unlucky! If Monaco is unlucky, then Paris Saint-Germain feels that they are really unlucky! They met Barcelona again, just like a script arranged by UEFA.
Is it because they see that we have Neymar, a former Barcelona player, in our team that they are trying to do tough things for us?
It's no wonder that fans love to watch it! According to a poll conducted on social media before the game, the most anticipated match in the quarter-finals is the grudge match between Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona.
This is the match in which the two teams are closest in strength in this round.
The closer the strength, the more exciting the game will be.
The two teams did not disappoint the expectations of the outside world. On February 15, in the first leg match held at the Parc des Princes, Paris Saint-Germain defeated Barcelona 4-0 at home with goals from Neymar, Di Maria and Cavani.
To be honest, no one could have imagined this score before the game.
This is Barcelona, the cosmic team that just defeated defending champion Manchester City at home not long ago! How could they be so easily defeated by Paris Saint-Germain?
In a short time, the news spread all over Europe, shocking the entire football world! Many people, especially Barcelona and Messi fans, could not accept this result! Messi performed poorly in this game. Not only did he not score a goal, but he also made many mistakes throughout the game, which was completely unworthy of the fans' expectations of him.
Although Messi said after the game that he would perform a miracle at home, to be honest, the outside world is not optimistic about them.
In the history of the Champions League, there has never been a team that was able to come back from a four-goal deficit. It has never happened once.
Although Barcelona is strong, Paris Saint-Germain is not made of clay!
Barcelona needs to score at least 5 goals to defeat the opponent. If the opponent scores one more goal, the number will increase to 6! Is this possible?
It's impossible!
So, after this game, the outside world thought that Barcelona was out and the next game was just a process.
In fact, in this round of games, in addition to Barcelona being completely carried away, the Premier League giants Arsenal were also beaten badly by Bayern.
Bayern Munich scored from multiple points and swept Arsenal 5:1.
The entire Arsenal team seemed to have lost their souls after being beaten, and the team's top player Sanchez even took a penalty kick.
They were four goals behind in the first leg, but with an away goal, the situation was slightly better than Barcelona.
But the problem is that the gap in strength between Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain is not as big as the gap in strength between Arsenal and Bayern!
Arsenal really can't beat rivals like Barcelona for three years and Bayern for five years.
I really tried my best, but I just couldn't win.
It is not completely hopeless to let them score four goals after returning to their home court, but it is simply impossible to defend against Bayern's attack and prevent the opponent from scoring a single goal.
So when the result came out, Arsenal fans immediately realized that the team had once again stopped in the round of 16.
It’s strange to say, but Arsenal has been in the top four every year and has entered the Champions League every year. After entering the Champions League, they have always qualified from the group stage. Even in such a difficult situation last season, they still qualified. Tell me if it’s inspiring or not?
But Arsenal's ceiling is also very low, unable to make further breakthroughs and often stopped in the round of 16.
Compared to Bayern and Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica and Real Madrid, who also won in the first round, were much more normal.
Benfica defeated Dortmund 1:0 at home and gained a certain advantage, but it was not very big. In the next round at the Westfalen Stadium, Benfica may not be able to withstand the offensive of the Hornets.
Real Madrid beat Napoli 3:1 at home. This advantage is not small. Considering the strength of the opponent, Real Madrid has one foot in the quarterfinals.
Strangely enough, in the four games in the upper half, the home teams won all of them.
But when the second half of the competition started in the second week, the situation changed again.
Leverkusen suffered a 2:4 defeat to Atletico Madrid at home and was basically eliminated.
Porto lost 0:2 to Juventus, and one of their players was sent off. They are likely to face a tough next game.
Seeing that both home teams lost in the first two games, the new Champions League team Leicester City excitedly said, "It's my turn!" But they were beaten 2:1 by Sevilla, a regular visitor to the Europa League, at home!
In fact, the game was very uneven, and Leicester City's disadvantage was much greater than the final score.
They only completed 8 shots in the whole game, while the opponents completed 26. They only got 1 corner kick in total, while the opponents got 8.
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They only completed a pitiful 251 passes, while their opponents completed 655 passes, more than twice as many.
As for ball possession, Leicester City's possession rate was only 27%, almost one-third of their opponents!
After Leicester City lost the game, the British media was wailing.
Tottenham failed to qualify from the group stage, Arsenal was badly beaten by Bayern, and Champions League newcomer Leicester City was beaten by Sevilla without any chance of fighting back.
As a result, the Premier League's last hope in the Champions League this season falls on Manchester City.
Why is it always you? Mancheng thought to himself, I don’t want to do that either, it’s just that the others are so disappointing.
If you could have been a little more perseverant, how could we have reached the familiar stage so easily - Manchester City became the only team in the Premier League!
Considering that Manchester City seems to have some big problems with their form this season, they have lost significantly more games than last season.
So some pessimistic Premier League fans even started to worry whether Manchester City would be eliminated.
Fortunately, Manchester City did not disappoint Premier League fans.
In the home game against Monaco, Manchester City was in hot form, winning 5:2 and gaining a 3-goal advantage.
As long as we don’t lose by three goals in the next round, we will most likely advance.
However, it can be seen from this score that Monaco is not as weak as the outside world imagines.
At the Etihad Stadium, Monaco did not hold back like other teams, but instead took up their gear and fought an offensive battle with Manchester City.
Although they lost in the end, they won the respect of Manchester City fans.
There are not many teams like this in the whole of Europe.
For Monaco, since they were able to score against Manchester City away from home, they may not have no chance when they return to their home court.
After all, they still have two away goals in their hands. As long as they can continue to break Manchester City's goal, these two away goals will become very important.
Manchester City's big win brought relief to Premier League fans and also to Manchester United fans next door.
Don't get me wrong, Manchester United fans will not cheer for Manchester City's victory.
They were just secretly happy when they saw Manchester City suffered such a huge loss in the Champions League.
Three days later, Manchester City will welcome Manchester United at home, which will be the second Manchester derby this season.
If it was Manchester City in its prime, the chances of Manchester United coming to the Etihad Stadium would really be slim.
But Manchester City's form has already declined to a certain extent this season, and they have just experienced such a huge consumption in the Champions League knockout round. For Manchester United, this is a great opportunity.
After an in-depth analysis of Manchester City's current state, Mourinho concluded:
The opponent had just experienced a fierce battle, and the players must have big problems with their physical fitness.
Therefore, after the game starts, they will definitely take advantage of their home field and launch a fierce attack on Manchester United in the first half when the players’ physical strength is still sufficient, trying to gain and expand the lead so that they can play more conservatively in the second half.
In this case, what Manchester United has to do is very simple. They just need to take a defensive stance and seize the opponent's mistakes to counterattack.
Mourinho's team doesn't care about nonsense like number of passes or ball possession.
You don't need too many opportunities, just seize three or two of them and successfully deliver a fatal blow.
I have to say that Mourinho is worthy of being Guardiola's good friend and he knows Guardiola's mind too well.
All his guesses came true! Manchester City really launched a fierce attack on Manchester United in the first half, and the attack was stronger and stronger.
But Manchester City's attack did not gain any advantage against Manchester United, who were united and worked together to defend.
Even though they fired 18 shots in the first half, it was useless! The best chance in the first half came in the 35th minute, when Lin Quan passed the ball to Aguero from the wing. Aguero was closely guarded by the opponent's defenders and had no chance to shoot, so he chose to pass the ball back to Lin Quan.
Lin Quan received the ball and took a long shot. The ball came very suddenly, but unfortunately it hit the crossbar and bounced out.
This was the closest chance Manchester City had to score in the first half. Apart from this chance, Manchester City had no other chances to score.
As the game continued in the second half, City's physical condition began to emerge and Mourinho's plan seemed to be succeeding.
But an unexpected change occurred.
Manchester United's midfielder Fellaini was sent off after receiving a red card for a malicious foul during a defense.
This unexpected change disrupted Mourinho's arrangements. Although Manchester United, who were at a numerical disadvantage, tried to launch a counterattack, the numerical disadvantage ultimately affected the quality of their counterattack.
After several attempts, they all failed. In addition, Manchester City started to make substitutions, and the new players began to attack Manchester United's defense, making the situation obviously stalemate again.
In the end, both sides drew, and it was a game that made both sides very depressed.
(End of this chapter)