Chapter 609 Super dark horse, Roma!

Since there is a dark horse, Roma, in this year's semi-finals, this draw becomes extremely important for the other three teams.

If Barcelona had not been upset and had successfully made it to the semi-finals, this year's semi-finals would have been four powerful and prestigious teams.

But Barcelona's unexpected upset allowed Roma to advance, and among the four teams now, Roma is undoubtedly the weakest one.

Therefore, the remaining three teams all hope to draw Roma in the semi-finals. In this way, they can avoid the other two top teams and their hopes of advancing to the finals will be greatly increased.

"How about Manchester City be drawn with Real Madrid? Bayern Munich is obviously weaker this year than last year, so why not let Bayern Munich be drawn with Roma?"

"Haha, you're a Bayern fan, right? I heard your plan in Spain!"

"If you ask me, don't underestimate Roma. They were able to reverse the situation and eliminate Barcelona despite a huge disadvantage in the first round, which shows that they are really good. If you treat them as a soft persimmon, you will probably be the ones who suffer in the end!"

"Yes, I think Roma has the potential to continue to upset. Whoever meets them in the semi-finals might be unlucky!"

Amid the fans' arguments and discussions, the draw results for the Champions League semi-finals were announced.

Under the jealous gaze of Real Madrid and Bayern, Manchester City drew the weakest team Roma, and seemed to be the biggest lucky team in the semi-finals? Bayern and Real Madrid were forced to fight against each other. These two top teams met in the semi-finals in advance, and it was destined that only one team could advance to the finals.

When the draw results came out, the Manchester City representative was all smiles, he really thought it was a good draw.

The Roma representative had a serious expression on his face. Among the remaining three teams in the semi-finals, Bayern was obviously the weaker one, so for Roma, they also wanted to draw Bayern.

But unfortunately, their opponent is Manchester City, which is not an easy team to deal with. Roma's Champions League journey this year may very well end here.

There are still two weeks until the semi-finals, and Manchester City still has two league games to play before that.

Among them, the most important match is the away game against Tottenham in the 34th round.

As the league enters its final stage, after Manchester City won the championship ahead of schedule, the highlights and suspense of this year's Premier League are all focused on who can make it into the top four and qualify for next season's Champions League.

The top four teams in the current standings are Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool.

These four teams are the most likely to represent the Premier League in the Champions League next season, because even Liverpool, ranked fourth, has 7 points more than Chelsea, ranked fifth.

With five rounds left in the league, it will be extremely difficult to make up for this gap.

But this does not mean that the three teams ahead can be careless. Having played to this point, no one wants the team to fail at the last juncture.

If they don't play well in these last few games, all their efforts in the previous half of the season will be in vain.

So, even though they knew Manchester City was very strong and their chances of winning were low, Tottenham, playing at home, still fielded all their main players and showed an attitude of fighting Manchester City to the death.

For Tottenham, if they can beat Manchester City at home, then they will basically have no problem maintaining their top four position in the league.

But if we lose, it will be hard to say.

On April 14, Chelsea's game started first.

The Blues, playing away from home, launched a desperate counterattack in the 70th minute of the second half after their opponents had scored two goals first.

In the end, thanks to Giroud's double and Hazard's key goal, Chelsea successfully reversed their opponents and temporarily narrowed the gap between themselves and Liverpool to 4 points.

But Liverpool then played and defeated Bournemouth 3:0 at home.

Salah, Mane and Firmino scored all three of Liverpool's goals, and they also announced Liverpool's return to glory with a big victory.

Although Liverpool was beaten badly by Manchester City, it does not mean that they will lose to other teams.

Both direct competitors won, and all the pressure fell on Tottenham.

Tottenham, who only wanted to win, made a very risky move - to play against Manchester City! Tottenham's choice surprised Manchester City. In the past season, the only team in the Premier League that dared to play against them was Liverpool.

When did Tottenham become so bold? In fact, Tottenham had no choice but to do so, because they knew that their defense could not withstand Manchester City's attack. If they passively defended, they would probably be slowly worn down by Manchester City's passing and control.

Tottenham has strong offensive capabilities, and if they take advantage of their home court to fight against their opponents, their chances of winning may be greater.

But the result of the game told them that they thought too much!

Facing the aggressive Tottenham, Manchester City showed no mercy at all.

In the 22nd minute of the first half, B Silva and Lin Quan made a wall pass and broke into the penalty area. After taking away two defensive players, they passed the ball to the middle. Aguero followed up and fell to the ground and shot the ball into the goal.

Manchester City takes the lead!

Manchester City's goal made Tottenham a little flustered, and the defense line was thrown into disarray.

Just two minutes later, Manchester City scored again.

This time, Manchester City successfully intercepted the ball in the frontcourt, and Lin Quan was brought down by the opponent's goalkeeper after dribbling into the penalty area.

The referee awarded Manchester City a penalty after showing a yellow card to the opposing goalkeeper.

Lin Quan took the shot personally, deceived the opponent's goalkeeper and scored the goal.

The score became 0:2, and Manchester City has gained a great advantage.

On the field, Tottenham's star player Kane became more and more anxious as he saw his opponents score goals one after another.

He ran hard in the frontcourt, not missing any opportunity and trying to break Manchester City's goal.

But unfortunately, he was closely monitored by Manchester City today.

Kane had no way out under the opponent's tight defense.

But in addition to Kane, Tottenham has two other powerful attackers, namely Eriksen and Son Heung-min.

In the 42nd minute, Kane got the ball in the middle and made a straight pass, and Eriksen decisively inserted a shot and scored the goal.

Tottenham finally scored a goal and changed the score to 1:2. The Tottenham fans in the stands who had originally had tense and nervous faces finally relaxed a little after seeing this goal.

They felt that this was a good start and that the team had finally found the right way to attack.

Many fans are expecting the team to continue this form in the second half and equalize or even reverse the score as soon as possible.

However, their expectations were once again dashed.

At the beginning of the second half, Tottenham was caught off guard by Manchester City's quick break just as they were preparing to attack.

After receiving the pass from De Bruyne, Mbappe rushed down the wing as fast as a wild horse.

Tottenham players tried to intercept him, but he easily dribbled past them with a change of direction.

After passing the defender, Mbappe took the ball decisively and shot before the goalkeeper could make a move.

Mbappe's shot was at a very tricky angle. The Tottenham goalkeeper had no way to deal with the ball and could only watch the ball go into the net.

Tottenham players picked up the ball from their own goal with frustration, put it back into the center circle and kicked off, but before they could complete a complete attack, they were intercepted again.

In this game, Tottenham's possession rate was not low, but they made a lot of mistakes, especially in the midfield, which were simply countless.

Manchester City launched a counterattack immediately after stealing the ball, and Lin Quan passed the ball to Mbappe on the wing.

The latter rushed all the way, took the ball to the side and made a cross.

Aguero's header was blocked by the post, and Lin Quan followed up with a shot and scored the goal.

The score became 1:4. Manchester City scored two goals in just one minute, which directly stunned Tottenham.

After scoring this goal, Manchester City quickly made substitutions.

Lin Quan and Aguero were substituted one after another, and Gundogan and Haaland came on.

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Manchester City replaced Lin Quan. Tottenham had the opportunity to launch a counterattack, but their morale seemed to have been broken and they failed to seize this opportunity.

On the Manchester City side, the players had just finished the Champions League game and their physical strength had not yet fully recovered. Seeing that the opponent's attack posed no threat, they began to control the tempo of the game and kept the ball firmly under their feet.

In the end, Tottenham lost 1:4 to Manchester City at home and became the biggest loser of this round of the league.

This defeat seemed to bring bad luck to Tottenham. In the 35th round, when playing away against Brighton, which is ranked in the middle and lower reaches of the league, Tottenham failed to maintain their lead after scoring first and was equalized by the opponent.

With only 1 point in two games, Tottenham's prospects of maintaining the top four are in jeopardy.

However, the performances of several other teams in this round were not good either, and Liverpool's was even worse. After leading by two goals, they were tragically equalized by their opponents, and the three points they had obtained flew away.

As for Chelsea, their situation was even more outrageous. Facing a relegation team, they had all the advantages playing at home, but they were unable to score. Instead, the opponent used defensive counterattacks to break their goal.

Although Chelsea equalized the score in the end, they still failed to beat their opponent. They failed at the critical moment of their fight for the top four, which almost completely made them lose all hope of participating in the Champions League.

Manchester City's performance in this round was still strong. Thanks to goals from Aguero, Lin Quan, De Bruyne, David Silva, Sane and others, Manchester City defeated Swansea 5:0.

Manchester City played very well as a team in this match. The players seemed to have a grudge against scoring goals. They scrambled to pass the ball to each other, and finally scored more goals, turning their opponents into Muggles.

It is worth mentioning that after this victory, Manchester City’s points have reached 96 points. With another victory, they will be able to break the Premier League record they set in the 2014-2015 season.

…

After finishing the Premier League game, Manchester City had no time to rest, because three days later, they would face the challenge of Roma, their Champions League semi-final opponent, at home.

Although Guardiola has never coached an Serie A team, he pays a lot of attention to Serie A teams.

Thanks to the matches with Juventus in the past few years, Manchester City has collected a lot of information about Serie A.

Although Juventus is the only dominant team in Serie A, Roma has also shown strong competitiveness in the past few seasons and even almost snatched a league trophy from Juventus.

In addition, they played very well in the home game against Barcelona 3:0, which made Guardiola realize that Roma is not a weak team, but a team with considerable strength.

Maybe they are not the best team, but they must not take it lightly, otherwise they will pay the price.

…

It is worth mentioning that there are two former Manchester City players in this Roma team.

One is Kolarov, who left the team last summer, and the other is Dzeko, who left the team on his own initiative because he was unwilling to be replaced by Lin Quan.

Although both are former Manchester City players, their attitudes towards their former clubs are completely different.

As a key player during Manchester City's treble-winning period, Kolarov won three Champions League trophies and four league trophies with the team.

It can be said that the highlight of his career was achieved at Manchester City.

Therefore, although he left Manchester City, he still has a good impression of Manchester City.

In the player tunnel before the game, Kolarov took the initiative to step forward and greet his former teammates.

When Manchester City players saw Kolarov, they were also very enthusiastic, and the old players came forward to hug him and chat with him.

Kolarov played for Manchester City for seven years, made 247 appearances for the team, scored 21 goals and made great contributions to the team.

We have worked together for a long time and have a good relationship privately.

"Hey, Alexander, do you want to stay for dinner after the game? I found a great restaurant that I guarantee will surprise you!"

"Come on, I've been in Manchester longer than you, there's nothing delicious here, don't try to fool me!"

When talking about Manchester's mistakes, Kolarov just shook his head.

It was only after I went to Italy that I realized that Britain is really a food desert.

I really don’t know what kind of genius could invent such a magical dish as Looking Up at the Stars!

When he first came to the Premier League, Kolarov, who was unaware of the situation, went to eat there once. Since then, he has been psychologically traumatized by British cuisine and never dared to try it again.

It's too disgusting. This is not just dark food, it's devil food! Seeing Kolarov's frightened expression, his teammates all laughed. Obviously, they were all in the same boat and could empathize with Kolarov's fear.

Compared with Kolarov, Dzeko on the side just can't get along with these people.

Firstly, he had not played for Manchester City for a long time, only two seasons, and most of these players joined after he left. He was not familiar with these people, so there was nothing to talk about.

Secondly, Dzeko was almost sold at a low price by Manchester City, so he has no feelings for the team.

What he is thinking about at this moment is not reminiscing about the past, but how to take revenge on his former club Manchester City on the pitch in front of tens of thousands of Manchester City fans.

You used to ignore me, but now I want to use my strength to prove that you are out of my league!

However, Dzeko had been away from Manchester City for too long and had no idea how strong this Manchester City team was.

From the very beginning, the game was completely taken over by Manchester City and entered into Manchester City's rhythm.

(End of this chapter)