Swindon Town and Southampton are both English League One teams, but Southampton is currently ranked first, while Swindon Town has been in very poor form recently, with seven defeats, two draws and only one win in the last ten games. This victory came in the first round of the FA Cup, a hard-fought win over an English League Two team.
Swindon Town is currently ranked 24th, which is the last place, in League One.
So even though this game was a knockout match of the FA Cup, Coach Adkins did not field all of his main players.
After all, on the third day after this game, Southampton will face a real tough battle, the League Cup quarter-finals, where they will challenge Manchester City away from home.
The main players Southampton sent out today were only captain Davis, vice-captain Walton, and Hammond.
Even Lambert, who has always been diligent, only played half the game.
Gu Ran, Chamberlain, Lallana and others are all on rest.
There really wasn't much suspense in this game. Even when Southampton played with a substitute lineup, they still dominated Swindon City.
In the first half, Southampton scored a goal through a quick attack from the wing by Garrod.
In the second half, Southampton won a penalty kick, and Barnard scored in one fell swoop, changing the score to 2:0.
In the end, Southampton defeated Swindon City 2-0 as expected and successfully advanced to the third round of the FA Cup.
After the game, Southampton had a day off.
After all the players returned on November 29, Coach Adkins only asked the players to do recovery training and take targeted tactical classes.
During this period of time, Gu Ran's competitive state has been very good and his growth has been obvious.
So far, Gu Ran has accumulated 14 talent point bubbles.
Before playing against Premier League giants like Manchester City, Gu Ran also made targeted and reasonable allocation of the 14 talent point bubbles.
The dribbling attribute was allocated 3 points, increasing from 79 points to 82 points.
The speed attribute increased by 3 points, from 85 points to 88 points.
The balance attribute increased by 2 points, from 83 to 85.
The long-range attribute increased by 6 points, from 80 points to 86 points.
The focus is on improving long-range shooting attributes, mainly targeting Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart.
As for the various skills, they have also been greatly improved in this one month, and many common skills have been strengthened and upgraded.
In general, Gu Ran's current ability is definitely enough to stand out in the Premier League.
Early in the morning of November 30th.
Gu Ran and other main players arrived at the Staplewood training base early. After a simple breakfast, they took a bus to the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
The full name of Manchester City is Manchester City Club.
It is a top team in the same city as Manchester United.
Therefore, when talking about Manchester City, it is difficult not to mention Manchester United, and it is difficult not to mention the grievances between these two city rivals.
The feud began in 1902, the year Manchester United was founded.
Manchester City was founded in 1880, and in fact, Manchester United already existed at that time, but it was still called "Newton Heath".
Later, Manchester City officially decided to name the team "Manchester" in 1894, and after Manchester United was acquired by a brewer in 1902, the first name they wanted to change was Manchester City.
So, the owners of the two clubs in the same city held a round of meetings in private.
The boss of Manchester United said that he would give you some money if you gave up the name of Manchester.
Manchester City said they are not short of money.
Manchester United said, with your current status, are you worthy of being called Manchester?
Manchester City says Fuck your mother.
——No one knows the specific situation at that time, but it was probably like this. The bosses of both sides started fighting in the bar after less than ten sentences, and finally parted on bad terms.
After the boss's attack, the players of both teams naturally became rude to each other.
Football in that era was not so standardized at all. All kinds of killing moves often occurred. Whenever players from both sides met, injuries were bound to occur.
In fact, this situation was just a minor incident. After all, there were far more teams fighting each other than just Manchester City and Manchester United.
There are two things that really started the hatred.
The first incident was the famous “brown envelope incident” in football history.
In 1909, Billy Meredith, a Welshman known as "the first football star in British history", was playing for Manchester City. According to the salary cap order of the English Football Association at the time, the maximum weekly salary of a player could not exceed 4 pounds - after all, the pound was still the world's hard currency at that time and was very valuable. Moreover, football at that time had not yet become commercialized and star-oriented. The players' wages were based on the working class, and 4 pounds a week was already considered very high.
Then, the inside story was exposed by a company, and the Football Association found Manchester City and Meredith guilty. Meredith was suspended for 9 months and Manchester City was forced to sell all 17 players in the first team.
The person in charge of the FA at the time was one of the senior executives of Manchester United's board of directors.
When Manchester City was forced to sell players, Manchester United took the opportunity to buy six of Manchester City's absolute main players, including Meredith.
This was more than just poaching, this was digging up the family 's graves! The seeds of grievances between the wealthy families were sown.
The second thing that caused the two sides to become completely hostile was the "Traitor Gate" incident.
In 1973, Denis Law, one of the "Three Saints" who played 404 games for Manchester United and scored 237 goals, was abandoned by the Red Devils and joined the arch-rivals Manchester City.
In the 1974 derby, Denis Law faced his old club who were struggling to avoid relegation. He scored the winning goal with his heel and sent Manchester United into the Second Division with his own hands, no, with his own feet!
Manchester United has been relegated five times in its history, most of which were concentrated in the early days of the club, especially during the "Newton Heath" period. However, being betrayed by their own meritorious players and joining their city rivals, they were relegated again. This was definitely the most painful and desperate relegation for Manchester United.
Since then, whenever Manchester United meets Manchester City, they will be beaten to death.
Subsequent well-known incidents include: In March 1974, Manchester United's Macari and Manchester City's Doyle each received a red card for fighting during a game, but both refused to leave the field and continued to curse at each other. In the end, the referee had to call the police and ask the police to take them back to the locker room.
The scene where the police rode into the stadium on horseback to arrest the players was also a classic scene.
In April 2001, Manchester United captain Roy Keane made a flying tackle on Manchester City captain, Alf Haaland, who had just had a baby boy. As a result, Alf Haaland was seriously injured and unable to participate in the game a year later. He had to retire regretfully and could only train the magic Buol Erling Haaland at home.
These are just tit-for-tat confrontations between clubs and players.
The battle between the two teams' fans truly reflects what "mortal enemies" means.
This kind of grudge that has lasted for a hundred or two hundred years has seeped into the blood of almost every Manchester citizen.
In comparison, although domestic football clubs may have conflicts with each other, in front of true century-old giants, those grudges are nothing at all.
Manchester City, as a club, has also experienced ups and downs over the past two hundred years.
The team's origins can be traced back to 1880, when Arthur Connell, a local pastor of St. Mark's Church in Manchester, and his daughter Anna Connell founded the club in the hope of organizing the unemployed.
When this team was first established, it was not a football team, but a hodgepodge, mainly focusing on cricket.
Later, in the autumn of 1880, Anna Cornell selected several tall, strong, energetic and technically skilled players from these unemployed people to form the St. Mark's Church Football Team. In November 1880, they played their first game against a church team from Anfield.
It was not until 1884 that St. Mark's Church Football Team was renamed Gordon Football Club and entered the professional league.
In 1887 it was renamed Ardwick and in 1894 it was officially renamed Manchester.
Manchester City's original jersey was not sky blue, but black, with a Maltese cross pattern.
This pattern is closely related to the Masonic symbol, so to this day, some people still believe that the predecessor of Manchester City is a product of Freemasonry.
When talking about Manchester City Club, we have to mention the "Chinese Sun" Sun Jihai.
From 2002 to 2008, Sun Jihai played for Manchester City and performed very well. He was also inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame, which is also the highest level for a Chinese player playing football overseas.
In fact, players of that era generally had fighting spirit, hard work, a sense of honor, and good skills.
The generation of national players in the 2002 World Cup and the super platinum generation of the national youth team in 2005, even if they can't beat Japan and South Korea, they are definitely the overlords of East Asia.
At that time, the fans were full of confidence. Everyone thought that Chinese football was going to rise. Who could have imagined that the 02 generation and the 05 generation had already reached their peak.
It’s sad to think about it…
After more than two hours' drive, Southampton's bus slowly drove into the Manchester City Stadium, commonly known as the Etihad Stadium.
The entire stadium can accommodate 55,097 spectators. It is the fourth largest football stadium in the Premier League and the eighth largest football stadium in the UK. The total construction cost is 150 million pounds.
The stadium is bowl-shaped on the outside and oval on the inside. The east, west and south stands have three tiers of seats, and the north stand has two tiers of seats.
Initially, all the stands were named after directions. The North Stand and South Stand were seats behind the goalposts of the stadium, while the East Stand and West Stand were side seats.
In 2004 the West Stand was renamed the Colin Bell Stand after a former Manchester City player.
The Colin Bell Stand is behind the coaching and substitutes' benches, and offers a clear view of the head coach and warm-up players.
The East Stand is also on the long side of the pitch, opposite Colin Bell, and generally has a good view.
The North Stand "Family Stand" and the South Stand are the short sides of the stadium. The South Stand is the stand for die-hard fans and has the hottest atmosphere.
Next to the South Stand is the away team fans' stand, which will further stimulate the atmosphere of watching the game.
Especially when Manchester United came to play, it was common for fans of both teams to throw coins and bottles at each other across the aisle of the stands.
...(End of this chapter)