Chapter 832: Buddy, shoot at my goal!
In the last round of the Europa League group stage, Manchester City challenged Juventus away.
From the moment Manchester City announced the 18-man roster for the away game, the whole world knew that Manchester City had given up on this game. In fact, as early as the previous round, Manchester City played with an all-substitute lineup.
This was even more true in the match against Juventus. Guardiola even included English teenager Sterling, who just turned 16 on December 8, into the squad. This was the first time that an English genius entered Manchester City's squad.
There is not a single regular starter in the entire starting lineup of eleven positions, which is enough to explain the problem.
Even the commentator of the live TV broadcast joked that if Lech Poznan saw Manchester City playing with such a lineup, they might complain to UEFA that Manchester City deliberately let Juventus advance.
But things have come to this point, Manchester City can be said to have done its best, while Juventus performed very poorly in their home court and did not score a goal until the 43rd minute.
It would have been fine if the goal was scored late, and it was also understandable that Juventus failed to score again afterwards. But in the 77th minute, the defender of Juventus actually took the initiative to give a gift and passed the ball directly to Adam Johnson.
Now, the England winger took the ball directly to the bottom and made a cross. Portugal midfielder Moutinho decisively followed up and scored in front of the goal, equalizing the score for Manchester City.
Things suddenly became interesting! There were still about fifteen minutes left in the game. If Juventus launched a fierce attack immediately, they might still have a chance, but the problem was that the Zebras showed an indifferent attitude, as if they didn't care whether they could advance or not.
Since you act so cool, it is certainly impossible for Manchester City to put in the effort to please their opponent.
Especially after Guardiola replaced young player Sterling, the kid played very actively on the wing, created several threats and made Juventus' defense nervous.
In the end, the two sides shook hands and made peace with the score at one to one.
…
It is difficult for the King of Hell to persuade the damned ghosts! This sentence is really suitable to introduce Juventus.
When Manchester City had already sent out all the substitutes and their only hope of advancing was to win, they showed such a lack of aggressiveness in their own home stadium. It has to be said that it was very surprising and disappointing.
After the game, the Italian media launched a barrage of criticism against Del Neri's coaching.
The Europa League is indeed not very attractive, with many games, little prize money, and a high demand on players, so many teams are unwilling to play. This is understandable, but it is only the group stage, and being eliminated in this way, especially, is too demoralizing!
As Turin Sports Daily said, Juventus did not actively and strategically give up the Europa League, but was eliminated miserably!
The former is understandable, but the latter is caused by insufficient strength and problems. The two are not comparable.
Of course, Poznan Lech won a narrow 1-0 victory over Salzburg Red Bull away from home.
So, theoretically speaking, even if Juventus defeated Manchester City, they still failed to win the championship in the end.
But things can’t be viewed that way.
The two games were played at the same time. If Juventus defeated Manchester City and ultimately failed to advance, it would still be understandable. But if they drew with Manchester City, it would be tantamount to voluntarily giving up the right to advance, which would be difficult to forgive.
In the end, Manchester City and Lech Poznan both advanced.
…
After the last Europa League group match, the Europa League draw was held and Manchester City faced Aris Thessaloniki of Greece.
This team is not well-known, but it has a very famous head coach.
Cooper!
Yes, he is the Argentine coach who led Valencia to the Champions League final twice and had a feud with Ronaldo at Inter Milan. After leaving the four major leagues, he moved to many teams and is currently coaching Aris in Thessaloniki.
This also basically determines the characteristics of this team, solid defense.
There is still a huge challenge for Manchester City, that is away games.
The first round of the game will be played in mid-February. Manchester City will travel to Greece, a long distance, and the energy consumed on the journey may be greater than the energy consumed during the game.
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December 26th, Boxing Day.
Guardiola's management is relatively humane, and he basically does not require the team to gather the night before the game.
But after spending Christmas with his family, he had to get up early the next morning to gather at Carrington, and then head north to Newcastle. This would be a very depressing thing for any player.
The players were emotional throughout the whole process, and everyone was unhappy.
Even Su Dong himself felt depressed.
Wang Chuqing finally got a vacation, but he ended up being busy with competitions again.
In the past, whether in Spain or Germany, he could accompany Wang Chuqing to travel around during the winter break, but now he can only leave her alone at home. How can Su Dong be happy?
If the captain of the team is like this, you can imagine how the others feel.
The coaching staff was well prepared for this, but they themselves were also very depressed.
This is a bit like being in a bad mood when waking up. Everyone knows that it shouldn’t be done, but they still feel bad.
And the facts have proved that it is not only Manchester City players who are like this, but Newcastle players are even more outrageous.
How outrageous was it? Less than a minute into the game, goalkeeper Krul passed the ball to his midfielder teammate Barton, but the pass was not good enough and Su Dong rushed out from the side and successfully stole the ball.
It looked like Krul was venting his anger at the Boxing Day game, passing the ball straight to Sudon for revenge.
"Brother, I'm counting on you, shoot towards my goal!"
Su Dong felt embarrassed about "passing" the ball, so after he dribbled the ball to attract Coloccini's attention, he was too embarrassed to rush into the penalty area to shoot, and instead passed the ball to Di Maria, who calmly pushed the ball into the goal, opening the scoring for Manchester City, one to zero!
The emotions of Newcastle players are much greater than those of Manchester City! …
After scoring the first goal, Newcastle launched a fierce attack in an attempt to equalize the score, but in the fifth minute, Manchester City seized an opportunity and launched a counterattack after intercepting the ball in the midfield. Su Dong passed the ball to Milner, who knocked the ball back and completed a two-pass combination. Su Dong then dribbled into the penalty area and calmly shot the ball into the goal, scoring another goal for Manchester City.
2-0! After taking a two-goal lead, Manchester City began to slow down the pace.
This was also the strategy formulated by the coaching staff before the game, and they would not fight to the death with Newcastle in such a game.
There is no need, Manchester City just wants to get the three points safely now.
In the second half, in the 55th minute, Su Dong was substituted.
Neither Newcastle nor Manchester City were able to score again after that.
In the end, Manchester City won 2-0 against Newcastle away from home.
…
Manchester United defeated Sunderland 2-0 at home. Ferguson had seduced Sunderland midfielder Jordan Henderson before the game, but he showed no mercy to him in the game.
Chelsea continued their winless streak, losing 3-1 to Arsenal away from home.
Although the score gap was quite large, in fact, the two teams were evenly matched. Arsenal scored two goals in two minutes, one before the end of the first half and the other shortly after the start of the second half.
For most of the rest of the time, the two teams were basically the same.
Everyone can see that Ancelotti has entered the countdown to his dismissal.
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Two days later, Manchester City returned to Manchester to face their 20th round opponent, Aston Villa.
Just eight minutes into the game, David Silva passed the ball to the left side of the penalty area. After Su Dong got the ball, he refused to fall to the ground despite the pull of the opponent's right-back Lichai, and sent the ball into the goal with his right foot.
One to zero!
Just five minutes later, Manchester City took advantage of a corner kick and Pepe scored with a header, extending the lead to 2-0! In the 27th minute, a goal was scored that made all the fans in the Etihad Stadium stand up and applaud.
Starting from Marcelo and Pepe in the backcourt, to David Silva, Moutinho, Gareth Paris and Busquets, and then to Sudong in the front, Manchester City completed thirty-six consecutive passes in a very short time.
During the entire passing process, Aston Villa didn't even have a chance to touch the ball. The entire defense line was completely played by Manchester City. Finally, David Silva made a straight pass from the left rib, tearing open the defense line. Su Dong broke into the penalty area again, calmly scored, and scored the third goal for Manchester City.
Three to zero! This is also Su Dong's second goal!
In the 33rd minute, Moutinho dribbled the ball to the outside of the penalty area, attracted the defense's attention, and passed the ball to David Silva. The Spaniard rushed into the left side of the penalty area and calmly pushed the ball, 4-0! After the second half, Manchester City launched a fierce attack at the beginning. Sanchez dribbled the ball on the right and broke through two opposing players. He passed the ball to the goal from the bottom line. Su Dong headed the ball from close range and won another game for Manchester City.
Five to zero! Hat trick!
In three days and two games, Su Dong scored four goals, which was quite surprising.
More importantly, Manchester City also showed strong offensive firepower.
In the end, Manchester City also defeated Aston Villa 5-0 at home with Su Dong's hat-trick!
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Manchester City continues to win and continues to lead the Premier League standings.
Ferguson's Manchester United also won Birmingham 1-0 away from home thanks to Berbatov's goal, and won another three points.
Arsenal beat Wigan Athletic 2-1 away from home.
The top three teams in the league have basically defeated their opponents.
Among them, Manchester City had the strongest momentum, especially the goal that came after a series of passes, which was praised by the media as the best goal of this round and captured the essence of Barcelona football. Cruyff also highly praised Su Dong's goal in his column.
Chelsea continued its embarrassing situation.
Ancelotti's team originally scored a goal in the 61st minute through Malouda, but unfortunately the referee ruled it as offside and it was lost.
The final score was zero to zero, and the Blues failed to win again.
Eight consecutive defeats finally caused Chelsea to fall out of the top four, and Tottenham Hotspur took their place.
(End of this chapter)
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