Chapter 413 Goal: Triple Crown
After Barcelona defeated Real Betis and won the Spanish Super Cup, Real Madrid's mouthpiece AS mocked that the Spanish Super Cup has a curse, and all teams that win the Super Cup will fail in defending the title.
The Catalan media scoffed at this, saying that AS was just saying the grapes were sour.
It was in this atmosphere of mutual firing between the two major media camps that the entire Barcelona team set off for Monaco.
At the end of August every year, the eyes of football fans around the world are focused on Monaco.
After three rounds of qualifying matches, the 32 teams of the Champions League have been decided. Monaco's draw will determine the future trend of these 32 teams.
As early as after the qualifiers were over, major media outlets reported the standings of this season's Champions League seeded teams.
Barcelona is first in the seeding table thanks to last season's title win, followed by Real Madrid.
This makes many people sigh at the strength of La Liga.
In the early years of the century, Real Madrid won the Champions League twice in three years, and its momentum was so strong that it could be said that it was unmatched in the entire European arena.
Today's Real Madrid has shown signs of fatigue. Superstars such as Zidane, Ronaldo, Figo, and even Beckham have shown signs of aging and are not in peak form. However, Barcelona has risen up and taken over the La Liga banner from Real Madrid.
Although Barcelona did not invest a penny in the transfer market this summer, no one can deny that the overall strength of this team is better than last season.
Marcos Senna can finally represent the team in the Champions League. The joining of Van Bommel has also strengthened the midfield. In addition, young players such as Sudong, Messi and Iniesta have matured by one year, which has improved Barcelona's overall strength.
So much so that, just after the top 32 teams were decided, the three major European bookmakers all offered odds on winning.
Barcelona is the undisputed favorite, second only to the Blues Chelsea who are at the top of the list.
The main reason why Chelsea was able to surpass Barcelona is that this team spent a huge amount of money this summer to introduce many powerful stars including Essien, and its overall strength has been greatly improved.
But Barcelona's problem still exists, that is defense, especially when the opponent counterattacks.
…
The draw will still be held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, interspersed with the award ceremony.
The overall situation of this year's Champions League group stage has changed a lot from last year, which can be seen from the second-tier teams.
As a La Liga team, Barcelona avoided Villarreal, a fellow country team in the second tier. Their real strong opponents are Juventus and Chelsea. The Zebras' performance in European competitions in recent years has not been satisfactory, so their points are not high, but they have performed very stably in the league.
With Vieira joining this season, Juventus has formed a double defensive midfielder combination of Vieira and Emerson, which is arguably the most luxurious top double defensive midfielder in world football today. Coupled with the incredibly luxurious defense, Capello's team is also a favorite in this year's Champions League.
Fortunately, Barcelona was lucky this time. They avoided Juventus and Chelsea and drew Porto of the Portuguese Super League.
This sign is neither good nor bad, overall it's pretty good.
Due to participating in the European Super Cup, the entire Barcelona team was invited to participate in this event. When they saw that they had drawn Porto from the Chinese and Portuguese Super League, everyone couldn't help but laugh and obviously felt relieved.
After all, no one wants to encounter a strong opponent in the group stage too early, which is not a good thing.
But the third-tier team had worse luck in the draw, as they drew the strongest team, Werder Bremen from Germany.
Among the fourth tier teams, they avoided Real Betis from the same country and drew Udinese from Serie A.
As a result, the group Barcelona is in is in an awkward situation again.
When it comes to strength, Barcelona is definitely the best team, there is no doubt about that.
Even Porto has lost its former glory in the past two years. After all, after Mourinho left, he poached most of the team's players, causing Porto's overall strength to return to the second-rate in Europe.
But Werder Bremen and Udinese are both teams from the four major leagues. The fact that they can make it into the Champions League zone proves that the strength of these two teams is extraordinary. Even if they are not as good as Barcelona, they still have the ability to disrupt the situation.
Therefore, Barcelona's draw this season can only be considered average, neither good nor bad.
On the contrary, Real Madrid had much better luck. Although they drew French Ligue 1's Lyon in the second pot, the third and fourth pots were Olympiacos and Rosenborg, neither of which could pose a threat to Real Madrid and Lyon.
Relatively speaking, the Galaxy Battleship's luck is obviously better.
…
Along with the draw process, the major awards of last season's Champions League were also announced one after another.
The Champion Coach Award was given to Rijkaard and Gazzaev. The former was the head coach of Barcelona and led the team to win the Champions League, and the latter was the head coach of CSKA Moscow and led the team to win the UEFA Cup.
These two teams are also participating in the European Super Cup tomorrow.
There was not much controversy about the best goalkeeper of the year, mainly because the goalkeepers of the two teams participating in the Champions League final were not very good.
Not to mention Valdes of Barcelona, Dida of AC Milan is also not very reliable.
The three goalkeepers who actually participated in the competition were Liverpool's Dudek, Juventus's Buffon and Chelsea's Cech.
In the end, it was Cech of the Blues who won the award.
This Czech goalkeeper was indeed the best and most stable goalkeeper in European football last season. Whether in terms of height or various statistics, Cech is the well-deserved number one goalkeeper.
Considering Cech's age and the stability he has shown so far, I believe it won't be long before he surpasses predecessors such as Buffon and Casillas and becomes the new generation of top goalkeeper in Europe.
The best defender award was given to AC Milan's Maldini.
This is a more controversial award because Maldini's competitors are Chelsea captain Terry and Barcelona's Puyol. Needless to say, the former was the best performing central defender last season. Puyol led the team to win the Champions League as captain, especially that epic reversal, which are all plus points.
But in the end, Maldini, the oldest scorer in the history of the Champions League final, won the award.
The Midfielder of the Year award is also controversial, but the source of the controversy is not the winner, but Ronaldinho's position.
Kaka won the Midfielder of the Year award, but many people thought that Ronaldinho was the most suitable candidate. However, in UEFA's classification, Ronaldinho was classified as a forward.
In other words, Ronaldinho has no chance of competing for the best midfielder.
So Kaka beat Deco and Xavi and won the award.
In the best forward of the year award, Ronaldinho lost to his teammate Su Dong, which is also undisputed.
Not to mention anything else, just the five goals in the Champions League final mean that Su Dong could have basically swept all the major awards last season.
Finally, the Player of the Year award was also given to Su Dong.
When Sudong received the MVP award, which represents the best player, from UEFA President Johansson, the entire Grimaldi Conference Center burst into applause, and all the Barcelona players cheered and applauded for him.
In his speech, Su Dong also expressed his gratitude to the Barcelona players and coaching staff.
He said that without the support of his teammates and coaches, he would not have been able to stand on this podium and receive this award.
"Here, I want to tell my teammates that although this award is given to me, it also belongs to everyone. I hope we can continue to work hard in the new season. I believe that we will have the opportunity to compete for more and higher honors!"
Su Dong's words are undoubtedly in response to the club's strategic goal this season, the treble! In the history of La Liga, no team has ever won the treble, even the peak team like Real Madrid.
With Barcelona's current strength, it is really capable of competing for this honor.
The premise is that the club creates a better playing environment for the team and the locker room remains stable and harmonious.
…
Su Dong's speech after receiving the award quickly sparked heated discussions around the world.
Barcelona's current strength is indeed very strong, but not strong enough to ignore other competitors, such as Real Madrid.
As the mouthpiece of Real Madrid, AS was the first to come out and believe that it would be difficult for Barcelona to achieve the goal of winning the treble because their defense was still fragile and Rijkaard's on-the-spot command and deployment of troops gradually revealed their shortcomings.
"When Su Dong was pinned down by the opponent, Barcelona had almost no way out!"
The British media also believe that Barcelona is unlikely to defend the Champions League title.
"It is not difficult to see from the odds of the bookmakers that the real number one favorite is Chelsea. After Mourinho's team has successively introduced a number of strong players, its overall strength has become very strong."
"If we really meet in the Champions League, Chelsea will definitely be the team that laughs last!"
The British media are definitely on Chelsea's side.
Barcelona godfather Cruyff supports Su Dong and Rijkaard, believing that Barcelona is fully capable of achieving this goal.
"I want to remind everyone, especially the Barcelona management, that from ancient times to the present, Barcelona's problems have never come from the locker room, but from outside the locker room!"
Cruyff reminded the management that if they wanted to achieve the great goal of winning the treble, they must ensure a stable game and training environment in the locker room and minimize unnecessary operations.
"So far, the management's approach is commendable."
"The renewal of contracts with Sudon, Ronaldinho and Rijkaard has stabilized the team's morale. The renewal of contracts with newcomers such as Iniesta and Messi has provided a guarantee for the depth of the team's lineup. Barcelona's first team is now full of talents and there is definitely hope for results."
Finally, Cruyff also tactfully reminded Rijkaard that the team should increase its rotation efforts to ensure that some core players are in good shape for key battles.
"I am looking forward to seeing Rijkaard's Dream Team II create their own great era!"
(End of this chapter)
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