Chapter 913 "Barcelona" defeated Barcelona in the most Barcelona way!
The final score of the European Super Cup was 3-2.
Manchester City narrowly defeated Barcelona thanks to Su Dong's clean and direct free kick.
Su Dong scored two goals and made one assist, while Messi scored one goal and made one assist. Both star players showed strong strength.
Especially in the final stage of the game, Barcelona fell behind by one goal and launched a crazy counterattack against Manchester City. Messi frequently instigated attacks. Whether it was his personal performance or helping his teammates shoot, he performed very well.
But in the end, Manchester City still maintained the score of 3-2.
When the whistle sounded, it was obvious that the emotions of the fans in the Stade Louis II seemed to be frozen.
All the Barcelona players had frustrated expressions on their faces and were obviously very dissatisfied with the result.
They definitely have their reasons.
As the defending champions of the Champions League, they could have performed better, but they did not do so in this game.
…
"Wow, you win again!"
Messi walked towards Su Dong panting, exhaled heavily, then opened his arms and hugged Su Dong.
"Don't say that, you played very well." Su Dong patted Messi's sweaty back and comforted him.
After the two separated, Messi smiled at Su Dong.
"Stop pretending. You must be so happy right now. It's written all over your face." Messi stretched out his hand and gestured in front of Su Dong, as if Su Dong's face was really full of happiness.
"You saw through me." Su Dong curled his lips and spread his hands helplessly, "In fact, I want to tell the whole world now that I defeated the best player in Europe. I am so proud! So proud!"
Messi was so amused that he burst into laughter and punched him lightly.
Iniesta also came over at this time. This guy was not tall, but he actually bumped his shoulder into Su Dong's shoulder and arm, as if he was venting his inner dissatisfaction and felt that he had lost miserably.
"Xiaobai, if you do something stupid again, I will kill you!" Su Dong scolded with a smile.
Iniesta really didn't dare to get closer, for fear of being caught by Su Dong. He muttered with some resentment: "Are you so impatient to come back?"
"Of course!" Su Dong said seriously, "I must get back what I lost myself."
Messi and Iniesta were both stunned. It was obvious that Su Dong was not only talking about the selection of the best European player that had just ended, but also the Champions League title and the upcoming FIFA Golden Ball Award.
Messi is the top favorite.
"It seems that I need to work harder." Messi said seriously.
Iniesta looked at Messi, then at Su Dong, and suddenly realized that he seemed to have nothing to do with it.
"To be honest, the most important thing is that Manchester City's owner is willing to invest." Su Dong said with emotion.
In today's economic environment, bosses willing to invest so much money are really rare.
Real Madrid invested heavily in 2009, but after two consecutive years of failure, did not make any additional investments this summer.
Not to mention top teams like Chelsea and Manchester United, Bayern Munich continues to adopt the strategy of cash is king, managing its own piece of land pragmatically and conscientiously.
Manchester City has invested huge sums of money for many years. After winning the Premier League, Europa League and FA Cup last season, it also invested over 100 million euros in transfer fees and brought in powerful stars such as Aguero and Hazard. This shows the courage and ambition of Manchester City's management, which is not just as simple as wanting to be the champions of the Premier League.
"Manchester City is indeed very strong now, but in the final analysis, it is because of you. Otherwise, the strength would not have been improved so much." Iniesta said admiringly.
The superstar effect brought by Su Dong joining Manchester City is still very obvious.
As for last season, if Su Dong had not joined, with the strength of Pepe and Marcelo, they would definitely not have gone to Manchester City, but would have gone to Real Madrid and Barcelona.
You know, Real Madrid and Barcelona were also keen on them at that time.
If these two players had not joined, with Manchester City's strength, it would have been absolutely impossible to win the treble last season, and they might not even have been able to win a Premier League title.
Even if Manchester City won the treble last season, without Su Dong, how could they compete with top teams such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern for Hazard?
Thinking of Hazard, Messi sighed unwillingly, "At the critical moment, we were still conservative."
The Argentines are still dissatisfied with Mourinho's substitutions.
This is actually a major criticism of Mourinho by the outside world. He always makes relatively conservative decisions at some critical moments.
Just like when the game was tied at 2-2, the situation was actually relatively stable. Although Manchester City had the advantage in ball possession, there was no need to strengthen the defense. Mourinho finally chose Seydou Keita to strengthen the central defense.
Guardiola's choice is to put Hazard on to strengthen the team's passing, ball control and offense.
To some extent, this is a reflection of the different coaching styles of the two head coaches, and it also reflects from the side why people including Cruyff have always been dissatisfied with Mourinho's coaching of Barcelona.
Obviously, there are quite a few people in the locker room, especially Barcelona's loyal players like Messi and Xavi, who basically do not agree with Mourinho.
But there is no way. On the one hand, the chairman is putting pressure on him, and on the other hand, Mourinho's performance is indeed good.
It is entirely conceivable that after tonight, Mourinho's coaching at Barcelona will be questioned again.
The European Super Cup is actually not that important. What is really fatal is that Barcelona lost to Manchester City.
Sudon and Guardiola can be said to be the two people that Barcelona fans and media are most reluctant to lose.
But in this game, Barcelona lost.
Not only did we lose the score, we also lost the ball possession.
…………
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As expected, the day after the European Super Cup, the Catalan media Daily Sports published a front-page headline.
"Barca" defeated Barcelona in the most Barcelona way!
The "Barcelona" in front is specially put in quotation marks, obviously to remind everyone that this Barcelona is not the real Barcelona, but the orthodox Barcelona rumored by many people.
In this world-renowned focus match, both teams basically played in their own styles. The difference is that the styles of the two teams are so similar that it looks like two Barcelona teams are facing off on the court.
The score was 3-2, with Manchester City slightly ahead.
This can be said to be a narrow defeat, but what really made Daily Sports pay attention was the ball possession rate, 54 to 46, a difference of eight percentage points, which can be said to be very surprising and also unacceptable to the Barcelona media.
You know, in the past so many years, Barcelona has never lost to its opponents in terms of ball possession. Even if it loses the game, it must win over its opponents in terms of ball possession to maintain its own style and tradition.
But in this game, Mourinho's team was evenly matched with Manchester City in the first hour or so, and the ball possession rate was basically maintained at 50-50. However, since Seydou Keita came on the court, Barcelona began to change the team's style, and the ball possession rate gradually fell behind.
The Daily Sports believes that in this peak showdown, Mourinho's team suffered a complete defeat.
This is true not only on the tactical level, but also on the football philosophy level, and even on the course of the game, especially the conservatism in substitutions, which makes Daily Sports believe that it goes against Barcelona's long-standing tradition.
Busquets proved the importance of the traditional number four position with his stable performance, while Yaya Toure's foul at a critical moment made people see his shortcomings in this position and gave Su Dong an excellent free kick opportunity, which caused the team to lose the ball in the end.
…
If the Daily Sports was still lenient, Cruyff was as sharp as ever in his column.
The godfather of Barcelona once again criticized the stupidity of the current management in his column, because it has been five or six years since Su Dong left Barcelona, and Barcelona has changed the center position again and again, from Bojan to Eto'o, and even once introduced Ibrahimovic at a super high price.
"In the end, these players all became passers-by at Barcelona, and the team also lost a huge amount of transfer fees, but so far, no one has been able to replace Su Dong and satisfy the fans, including the later local striker Villa."
"So, in many cases, we had to compromise and arrange Messi to play as a center forward, which put him in close combat with defensive players. This greatly consumed Messi's energy and physical strength, so he publicly stated more than once that he missed the good times when he played football with Su Dong."
Cruyff believed that Su Dong's performance in this Super Cup once again proved the stupidity of the management, and Guardiola's use of the purest Barcelona football to defeat Mourinho's copycat Barcelona completely exposed the ignorance of the management.
"Whether it's Sudon, Guardiola or Busquets, they were once Barcelona players and were very close to Barcelona. We can even say that if Guardiola were to coach the current Barcelona team, with Sudon and Busquets on the team, how strong would that be?"
"This was definitely a dream team that could dominate European football for many years and create the greatest football dynasty in history. But all of this was destroyed and ruined by our stupid management."
"We personally gave the best center forward in history to our opponents, and expelled the coach who was most suitable for Barcelona from the team. In the end, they took revenge on Barcelona with a victory in front of everyone at the Louis II Stadium."
At the end of the column, Cruyff still called on the management to pull back from the brink, listen to the fans' opinions, invite Guardiola back as soon as possible, buy back Busquets, and preferably invite Sudong back as well.
"We have every reason to believe that with the combination of Su Dong and Messi, under Guardiola's coaching, Barcelona will have at least five more years of peak years. This will be the most fantastic team in the history of world football!"
(End of this chapter)
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