Chapter 988 Who is most likely to be the champion?
The morning after the game, at Manchester Carrington training base.
Nuno Kroos took the newly released test data from Manchester City's team doctor, which recorded in detail the results of various tests that Su Dong had just completed. Some of the important data indicators were marked with black lines by Nuno Kroos as he read them.
Finally, the head of Su Dong's personal coaching team put down the report in his hand, nodded and smiled at the team doctors and personal coaches around him, and finally looked at Su Dong who was already sweating profusely after training opposite him.
“All test results are good and we should be able to play this weekend.”
As soon as Nuno Cruz finished speaking, Su Dong breathed a sigh of relief and burst into laughter.
Although in name, Nuno Cruz is an expert hired by Su Dong, in fact, he is the key to whether Su Dong can play in the game. After every game, he will test Su Dong's physical indicators.
Su Dong can certainly object, or even ignore Nuno Cruz's professional advice, but this would be irresponsible to himself.
It is generally believed that with Su Dong's current state, he can play until he is 40 years old, but this is based on the premise that Su Dong can follow the advice of his personal coaching team and cooperate with them. If he acts recklessly, who knows how long he can play? Su Dong asked himself that he was not an expert in this area, but he believed in professionalism and science.
This is probably his greatest characteristic.
Of course, sometimes, especially when he was prevented from playing, he would still feel a little depressed, because it was like he spent money to find himself a leader who controlled his body.
To a certain extent, professional players' bodies do not belong to themselves.
Not to mention Nuno Cruz, if Guardiola forced Su Dong to play in some games, he really had no way to refuse.
Of course, this is just an assumption, because once this is done, it means that the cooperation between the two parties has broken down, and the final result is that no one will benefit. The head coach generally will not do such a thing.
Especially when facing a superstar like Su Dong.
"I and everyone else are working intensively to prepare a training plan for you this summer. Our preliminary estimate is that you need to lose at least five kilograms to make yourself lighter, which will effectively reduce the load on your legs."
"Lose five kilograms?" Su Dong frowned.
Nuno Cruz nodded affirmatively and said, "This is just the beginning. We will probably have to lose some weight every year."
"But if that's the case, my physical strength will definitely decline." Su Dong was a little embarrassed.
In fact, many of his technical moves and even many of his goals on the court are achieved by relying on his physical advantages.
Especially in recent years, in European football, basically no defender can take advantage of Su Dong physically, especially after the aging of a generation of central defenders such as Lucio and Vidic, Su Dong is invincible in European football.
Just like in the match against Real Madrid, Ramos and Albiol were basically not good enough in front of Su Dong.
But without a strong body, Su Dong's threat would be greatly reduced.
"This is an inevitable result, and it is a slow decline process, so the impact will not be that great," Nuno Cruz explained. "And you should also know that as you get older, your physical function will decline, and transformation is certain. You should appropriately reduce physical contact, otherwise, injuries will increase."
Just like Drogba, when he was young, he was in such a great physique. Who in European football could deal with him?
But the consequence of relying too much on the body is that when you get older, you don't have time to transform your playing style and you get more and more injuries.
To put it bluntly, as we get older, our body functions decline and our physical strength is not as good as that of young people.
"Don't worry. We have done simulations. Even if you don't rely on your body, as long as you can maintain your flexibility, speed and explosiveness, and your footwork is still delicate, your threat on the court will not be weakened. The team just needs to make appropriate adjustments when formulating tactics."
Su Dong did not doubt Nuno Cruz's professionalism. If he said so, it must mean he has a complete plan.
…
Defeating Real Madrid 4-1 at home became the most exciting thing for Manchester City.
Even the most optimistic players about the team's prospects could not believe that their team could reach the quarterfinals in their first Champions League appearance, and now they have defeated Real Madrid 4-1 in the first leg and have one foot in the semifinals.
That's the Champions League semi-final!
What does this mean? The whole world knows that all the teams that reach the semi-finals of the Champions League are basically capable of winning the championship. There is no big suspense about who will enter the final and who will win the championship.
After all, a team that can climb out step by step from the group stage that tests strength to the brutal knockout stage is definitely not simple in strength.
Manchester City now even shows signs of becoming a favorite.
However, even if Manchester City really gets past Real Madrid, they still have Barcelona in front of them, and it will not be easy to reach the final.
But this will not affect the mood of Manchester City players. Everyone is very satisfied to be able to advance to the semi-finals.
You know, many of the players in Manchester City are participating in the Champions League for the first time.
I believe fans know how high the status of this event is in the minds of all professional players around the world.
The players were in a good mood and enjoyed the recovery training. The coaching staff also relaxed the requirements appropriately. The training content was mainly recovery-oriented and the intensity was not high, so Carrington was filled with the laughter of the players.
It was not until the end of the training that Guardiola reminded the players to forget about last night's game.
"When we face Sunderland the day after tomorrow, I hope you can completely forget about this game and the Champions League for now. When we go to the Bernabeu next week, we need to forget the score of the first leg and still go all out."
Guardiola looked extremely serious when he said this.
Obviously, he was worried that the team's emotions were getting too inflated.
This is the most common problem for all rookies, and Manchester City is a rookie in the Champions League.
Why is the knockout round so cruel? Because it is highly targeted.
Is a three-goal lead a lot?
It’s a lot if you say it’s a lot, but it’s also not a lot if you say it’s a little.
Think about it, AC Milan lost four goals away from home, but was able to turn the situation around when they returned home. Isn’t Real Madrid only three goals behind now?
At the Bernabeu, Real Madrid scored three goals against Manchester City and reversed the aggregate score. Was it difficult? It was not difficult at all.
If Manchester City does not have a deep awareness of this and blindly indulges in the lead in the first leg and thinks that the qualification is in their grasp, then they may be reversed by Real Madrid at any time or even be completely humiliated when visiting the Bernabeu Stadium.
Not to mention anything else, just with Real Madrid's offensive power, if they really play well, who knows how many goals they can score?
Guardiola's admonition comes from this. He hopes that everyone can calm down and be humble.
…
After returning to the locker room, Su Dong also kept the players and reiterated the head coach's advice.
Being motivated is a good thing, but being arrogant is not.
Manchester City is now winning consecutive games and has a strong momentum. The most important thing is to play steadily and well in every game, rather than thinking too much about the future.
For example, the semi-finals.
That is media hype. For Manchester City now, the qualification for the next round is not guaranteed. The battle at the Bernabeu is still very risky. If they are not careful, they may capsize in the ditch, so Guardiola ordered no one to discuss the semi-finals.
"I have experienced many tough battles, many big wins, and even the biggest comeback in the history of the Champions League, which I participated in, so I understand the cruelty of the Champions League more deeply than any of you."
"It may be just an inadvertent thought, just a little bit of laziness, or even just a trivial mistake, which may lead to the failure of the entire game and even our efforts throughout the season."
Su Dong told his teammates that the more crucial the game moment, the more they should remain calm and control their emotions.
The most important thing in the Champions League knockout stage is not how strong the team is, but how stable the performance is.
"In fact, you can see that in the history of the Champions League, all the teams that won the championship had very stable results in the knockout stages. Even the Barcelona team I played for had ups and downs in the competition, but the overall results were still relatively stable."
"If we are talking about championship potential, only teams that perform stably and at a high level have championship potential!"
Today, Su Dong is fully qualified to talk about his qualifications and past in front of his teammates.
In this Manchester City team, no one has more Champions League experience than him.
Most importantly, Manchester City players are also very convinced of him.
…………
…………
This weekend, in the 31st round of the Premier League, Manchester City played against Sunderland at home.
Guardiola rotated the team, and the players were indeed affected by the recent good momentum and were somewhat optimistic. This, coupled with the fatigue accumulated from fighting on multiple fronts, broke out in the last game of March, resulting in the team's poor performance.
The team conceded the first goal in the 31st minute of the first half. Fortunately, before the end of the first half, Dzeko broke into the penalty area and created a penalty kick. Aguero calmly took the penalty and equalized the score for Manchester City.
After that, neither side was able to score any more goals.
Manchester City controlled the situation on the field and launched a fierce attack on Sunderland, but they were never able to break the Black Cats' goal, and Sunderland was unable to launch an effective counterattack under the strong pressure of Manchester City.
It was not until the 75th minute that Guardiola used his last substitution and replaced Milner with Su Dong.
With three forwards on the field at the same time, it put enormous pressure on Sunderland.
In the 85th minute, it was Su Dong who received a diagonal pass from Leighton Baines, broke into the penalty area from the left rib, dribbled past the defender, and shot into the far corner with his right foot, reversing the score for Manchester City.
Just two minutes later, Aguero received a pass from Sudong, broke through outside the penalty area, caused the opponent to foul, and won Manchester City a free kick opportunity in the frontcourt.
Su Dong took the lead and took the penalty kick himself. He used a falling leaf ball with a strange arc to penetrate the goal guarded by Mignolet, scoring another goal for Manchester City, 3-1!
This score remained until the end of the game.
Manchester City finally reversed Sunderland 3-1 thanks to two goals from substitute Su Dong.
(End of this chapter)
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