Chapter 907: Su Dong is too tough!
This season's Champions League final is scheduled to be held at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany.
This world-class stadium, which has become so dazzling because of the World Cup, has finally welcomed the world's top club competitions.
As the representative of Bayern Munich, Breitner was the main guest.
Moreover, UEFA also implemented a very big change in this year's awards ceremony, which was to cancel the previous position awards.
In other words, the previous best goalkeeper, best defender, best midfielder and best forward were all cancelled, leaving only one best player, and then working with the European Sports Media Association, we launched the European Best Player.
The selection rules are actually the same as before. Football journalists from 53 countries and regions vote, and the top three candidates are produced in the first round. Then, on the spot, these 53 journalists vote again for the top three candidates to rank them.
One very interesting thing is that before the draw, according to convention, the representative of the previous Champions League champion must come on stage holding the trophy, and it is usually the captain who does it.
So, Puyol, dressed in a casual outfit of a yellow T-shirt and gray plaid shorts, holding the solemn and sacred Big Ear Cup, walked onto the stage amid the laughter and even booing of the audience.
In fact, everyone present was from the football world, and many of them were familiar with each other. They found Puyol's behavior amusing and thought that this guy was too subversive.
Of course, it is not ruled out that some people will feel that he really loses his image. After all, at this time he represents Barcelona.
But no matter what, the atmosphere on the scene was very warm.
…
The first thing to be done is the draw for the group stage.
The teams are divided into four tiers based on European competition points, and then one team is drawn from each of the eight teams in each tier to form a group. Teams from the same country are avoided. This is the rule for the draw for the UEFA Champions League group stage.
The guest drawer for the first pot is Figo, and his task is to draw the eight teams in the first pot into different groups.
Interestingly, as Inter Milan’s ambassador, Figo’s first draw was Inter Milan.
The guest for the second tier of the draw is Manchester United legend, Bobby Charlton.
The draw he gave Manchester United was lucky as they drew the relatively weak Benfica. The strongest AC Milan was drawn to Barcelona, Valencia was drawn to Chelsea, Lyon was drawn to Real Madrid, and Villarreal was drawn to Inter Milan in Group A. It has to be said that they all took good care of their own business.
The guest of the draw for the third tier team is Gullit.
This is also the draw that Su Dong and Begiristain are most concerned about.
Judging from the current situation, Manchester City will definitely avoid the three strong teams in the Premier League, that is to say, they can only draw the remaining five.
Barcelona, Bayern, Real Madrid, Porto and Inter Milan.
Judging from the current draw results, the luckiest team is to draw Porto, because Porto's second-tier team is Shakhtar Donetsk. If Manchester City is drawn into this group, it will definitely be the favorite to top the group.
More importantly, Manchester City has experience against Porto, having just played against them in the Europa League final last season.
The worst would definitely be being drawn into the group with Barcelona and AC Milan, which would definitely be a nightmare.
But there is no way. Manchester City's previous foundation was too weak and it could only be ranked in the third tier. Everyone knows that the purpose of drawing lots in different tiers is actually to avoid strong dialogues. To put it bluntly, it is to protect the interests of the first-tier teams.
There are only two ways to quickly get out of the third tier: either win the championship and enter the first tier as the defending champion, or slowly accumulate European competition points and successfully enter the top two tiers after five seasons.
To some extent, Manchester City's current accumulation in European football is not as good as Chelsea's in the past.
Of course, Manchester City doesn't want to face the big teams, and those big teams don't want to face Manchester City.
It has to be said that Gullit still takes good care of his old club, so Chelsea drew Leverkusen, which is not weak, but it is better than Manchester City. Barcelona and AC Milan drew Borisov, which is considered a good draw.
After drawing out several teams in succession, Gullit finally drew out Manchester City and directly drew it into Group A, the same group as Inter Milan and Villarreal.
In an instant, the whole audience was in an uproar.
This is definitely the group of death! Although it is not as good as being drawn against Barcelona and AC Milan, it is still dark enough.
But in this case, there will not be many restrictions on the draw for the fourth-tier teams.
The reason is simple. The top three teams are from Serie A, La Liga and the Premier League respectively. The two strongest teams in the fourth tier are Dortmund and Napoli, the latter of which will definitely not be drawn into Group A.
In other words, except for Dortmund, the other six teams are all bottom-ranked.
"We can't be so unlucky, right?" Begiristain breathed a sigh of relief.
Drawing Dortmund is a low-probability event.
Su Dong also nodded, thinking that it was impossible to be so unlucky.
But no one expected that Manchester City would be so unlucky.
Matthäus was the fourth-tier guest in the draw. After he came on stage, the first team he drew was Dortmund, and he was directly drawn into Group A, which immediately ignited the whole audience.
The four teams in the group stage come from four major leagues, and what’s more, each team is very strong.
There is no need to talk about Inter Milan, which was second in Serie A last season; Villarreal was fourth in La Liga, but the problem is, if this team had not aimed to maintain its fourth place in La Liga last season, it would still be unknown who would win or lose in the Europa League match against Porto, as their strength would definitely be at the same level as Porto.
As for Dortmund in the fourth tier, it was a strong team that fought evenly with Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga last season and regrettably lost the Bundesliga championship until the last moment.
It can be said that judging from strength alone, these four teams are all well-seeded teams, or second-tier teams.
Damn, they were all assigned to the same group.
What about those who are lucky?
Look at Porto, they drew Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St. Petersburg and APOEL Cyprus. Do they feel they have a presence?
Judging from the strength, except for the fourth-tier Cyprus APOEL, the other three teams in this group are relatively close in strength and the competition will be very fierce. However, if any of the four teams in Group A is placed in this group, it will definitely be a favorite.
But sometimes, drawing lots is just so frustrating.
Su Dong turned his head and glanced at Begiristain, who also had a helpless expression on his face, and the word "crow's mouth" was almost written on his face.
…………
…………
After the drawing of lots, the final stage, the award ceremony, officially began.
This is also the biggest difference from before.
In the past, prize giving and drawing lots were conducted alternately, but now the drawing is done first, followed by prize giving.
UEFA has already announced the top three candidates, Suarez, Messi and Xavi.
Su Dong was shortlisted because of his outstanding performance in the Premier League and Europa League, while Messi and Xavi were shortlisted because of their outstanding performances in La Liga and the Champions League.
In fact, everyone knows that in terms of results, the Europa League is far inferior to the Champions League, so Su Dong is destined to be a runner-up tonight. This is also the reason why Platini, Messi and others called Su Dong separately and invited him to attend.
They were all afraid that Su Dong would not want to come, but Su Dong's answer was always the same, he would definitely come! "Watching Messi win the award is no different from me winning the award myself!" This is what Su Dong said in a previous media interview.
Before the second round of voting, all three candidates took the stage for a brief interview with the host.
Su Dong still expressed his support for Messi, and he believed that Messi deserved this award.
"He is one of the strongest players in world football and the star with the best results and performance last season."
Messi believes that Su Dong should win the award because he scored more than 50 goals in the Premier League last season, which is far beyond his reach.
"So far this season, he has scored nine goals in three Premier League games, averaging a hat trick per game. I have to admire him."
Su Dong joked that Messi also scored two goals in the La Liga opening game and performed very well.
Many people are concerned about Su Dong's opinion on the group stage draw that just ended. Su Dong said it was a bit bad, but acceptable.
"In fact, before we walked into the Grimaldi Forum, we were already mentally prepared to accept the group of death because we were in pot three and we had no choice."
Regarding the prospects of the group stage, Su Dong said that he always believed in one sentence.
"Results are achieved by kicking the ball one by one on the football field, not by sitting here and drawing lots."
"I believe that as long as we hold on to the belief that we must win, we will never lose."
Su Dong's words made many people present applaud and cheer.
When the host hoped that Su Dong could shout a slogan to the other three teams in the group stage, Su Dong first smiled and waved his hands, indicating that this was deliberately setting a trap for himself, which caused laughter at the scene.
But under the insistence of the host and the jeers of many people at the scene, Su Dong was forced to accept the task.
"Well, I am here, on behalf of all Manchester City people, to say to our three future opponents in the Champions League group stage, I am really sorry. I know that the competition for the second place in the group is very fierce, but I can only wish you good luck!"
There was an obvious pause at the scene, followed by a burst of warm applause.
Even representatives from Inter Milan, Villarreal and Dortmund couldn't help but laugh.
This is really a very fierce statement! ...
In the final second round of voting, Messi was still elected with a high vote.
Su Dong came in second and Xavi came in third.
This is basically in line with the outside world's speculation, because Messi's performance in the Champions League and La Liga last season was indeed outstanding.
The disadvantage of Su Dong is that it cannot participate in the Champions League. Although it won a Europa League and treble, its championship is still not as valuable as Barcelona's.
Not only is he the best player in Europe, Messi is also bound to become the number one favorite for the next FIFA Ballon d'Or.
(End of this chapter)
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