Chapter 356 It must feel great to score a goal here

Although there have been some minor setbacks along the way, the fact is that Chelsea is still moving forward.

Recently, for Chelsea, in addition to the victory in the game, there is another good news worth celebrating. On January 31, the day before the game with Birmingham, the European football's best team of the month for January 2005, selected by ten European professional sports media including Germany's Kicker, Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport, Russia's Sport Express, England's Soccer World, Portugal's Ball, etc., was announced under everyone's expectation. The three major European leagues divided all eleven seats, with the Premier League at the top of the list, and Chelsea surpassed Barcelona to become the team with the most selected players.

Among them, John Terry, the team captain on the back line, received 9 votes and was undoubtedly included in this lineup. In January, except for the suspension, Terry's performance was undoubtedly the cornerstone of Chelsea's defense, which was unanimously recognized by the media.

However, for Chelsea, the performance of the back line is much worse than that of the front line. Robben and Damien Duff on the two wingers are definitely the shining players, and both of them entered the best team with such shining performance. Although compared with Wang Li, their goal data is not too many, but these two Chelsea wingers have been unanimously recognized by the European media both for their personal skills and the power of cooperation.

In fact, Irishman Damien Duff has never been a famous player, because he does not have outstanding dribbling skills and does not have many shooting opportunities. As a midfielder, he can only run and pass in offense. This kind of player is really not liked by the media and fans. However, with his performance with Robben in Chelsea, his fame is getting bigger and bigger. It can be said that his "fame" has a lot to do with Chelsea and Robben. At least now, more opponents have begun to pay attention to Duff's performance.

The competition in the attacking midfielder position is the most intense.

Argentine Riquelme played very well in the La Liga last month. He almost played the leading role in every league game in January. Barcelona's Ronaldinho's performance was not bad at all. The title of World Footballer of the Year alone was enough to scare the media. However, compared with Wang Li in Chelsea, their performance was a little disappointing. At least in terms of the number of goals, the two of them could not be compared with Wang Li. Now, almost everyone is paying attention to the performance of these three superstars, because they are the core of the team's organization and offense.

The final result is completely consistent with the current positioning of the three in the minds of the media. Wang Li received the highest 10 votes, while Ronaldinho and Riquelme both received 8 votes, and unfortunately failed to be selected for the European Football January Best Team. The two of them were also the only stars who received 8 votes and still failed to be selected. This made many fans think of a popular saying in the NBA: "It is a sorrow for the stars to be born in the same era as Jordan." If we look at the current situation of European football, Jordan can be replaced by Wang Li.

[Specific lineup and players (formation: 4-3-3): Goalkeeper: Dida (AC Milan), Defenders: Maldini (AC Milan), Terry (Chelsea), Cannavaro (Juventus), Puyol (Barcelona), Midfielders: Gerrard (Liverpool), Allen Wang (Chelsea), C. Ronaldo, Forwards: Duff (Chelsea), Montella, Robben (Chelsea)]

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The next day, the entire Chelsea team went to Birmingham to challenge Birmingham away. This was the round of 32 qualifying match for the English FA Cup.

This game did not attract media attention. In fact, even though Chelsea played away, no media believed that Birmingham could beat Chelsea. Even Manchester United and Arsenal could not do it.

However, although the media guessed the result correctly, they failed to guess the process. In fact, Birmingham still posed a great threat to Chelsea. They even scored the first goal in a quick counterattack in the 23rd minute of the game.

In this game, Birmingham adopted the defensive tactics of Manchester United in the previous League Cup game. Head coach Bruce not only cleverly borrowed this tactic, but also made some modifications to it. Although they were not as good as Manchester United in defense, they were able to launch one or two counterattacks, which made Mourinho on the sidelines give Bruce a thumbs up.

However, Birmingham is far behind Manchester United after all. Manchester United almost tried their best to hold on to a 1:0 lead. How could they possibly do better than Manchester United?

So, at the beginning of the second half, taking advantage of a corner kick opportunity, Wang Li headed the ball into the goal to equalize the score for Chelsea. After that, Chelsea still maintained a high-intensity offensive bombardment, making the entire Birmingham team run around in the backcourt and unable to launch a decent attack.

In the end, Chelsea defeated Birmingham 3:1 and advanced to the round of 16 of the FA Cup.

In fact, although Chelsea won the game, head coach Mourinho was not in a very good mood, because he found that it was much more difficult to win recently than at the beginning of the league. Although he knew that this situation was inevitable after each team had a thorough study of Chelsea's tactics and player abilities, it still made him feel a sense of crisis. Before the end of the season, this situation sometimes even made the game out of his control, which made Mourinho feel uneasy.

However, this is also directly related to Chelsea's goal this season. The quadruple crown is by no means easy to obtain, and Chelsea has now secured the league championship and the League Cup has entered the final stage. In this case, Mourinho is more worried about the FA Cup and the Champions League, especially the Champions League, which is the most valuable competition.

In order to calm the anxious mood and to make the team more confident of advancing to the Champions League, Mourinho generously gave the whole team a day off the day after the match with Birmingham, and he took Wang Li to Spain to watch Barcelona's game at the Camp Nou.

In fact, Wang Li, who finally got a day off, didn't want to come at all, because Angela was going to return to the United States in early February, and he wanted to spend a romantic time with her. But Mourinho didn't give him this opportunity: "Barcelona is very strong, we need to examine its offensive and defensive capabilities, and you also need to see their actual defensive capabilities, so as to intuitively understand its weaknesses, strive to score more goals in the game, and lead the team to victory."

Wang Li, who was somewhat confused, was fooled by Mourinho to go to Spain, but in fact, Mourinho did not think so.

In the eyes of this Portuguese man, Wang Li is his most outstanding disciple, and their relationship is like that of a father and son. When the disciple performs extremely well, the master will of course feel proud. Now Wang Li's reputation among the fans even surpasses Mourinho's. This makes him feel proud to take Wang Li to Spain. Even if he is caught by the media, Mourinho will have the capital to brag with this outstanding disciple by his side.

This is not a strange and ostentatious mentality, but a normal "show-off" mentality. "Don't you have Ronaldinho in Barcelona? I have Alan, who is much better than your World Footballer of the Year, so we will definitely be the winner." Mourinho thought so. Although this may be a bit "Ah Q", it must be said that this can indeed boost his self-confidence.

Mourinho is no stranger to the Camp Nou. In the past, when the Englishman Bobby Robson and the Dutchman Van Gaal were in charge of Barcelona, ​​Mourinho served as their assistant and translator. Wang Li, on the other hand, is completely the opposite. He has never been to Spain and is completely unfamiliar with the Camp Nou. However, seeing the crazy Catalan fans here and this magnificent stadium, Wang Li also felt that he had gained a lot this time.

Compared to Stamford Bridge, Camp Nou is obviously much more magnificent. The capacity of the two stadiums alone is incomparable. Camp Nou can accommodate more than 100,000 fans. Just imagine if there are 100,000 Barcelona fans in the stands, what a huge impact it will have on the away team. Wang Li even felt that if his first visit to this stadium was to challenge Barcelona away, he would be a little nervous.

Mourinho and Wang Li stood together in the camp of neutral fans. There was nothing special about their attire. Mourinho was still in a suit and tie, while Wang Li was in Versace casual clothes. However, in order to avoid being recognized by the fans, both of them wore hats to cover their appearance.

As it turned out, this little cover-up was even more suspicious. As soon as the two of them sat in the fans' stands, they were recognized by the fans next to them. Soon, before the two teams on the field started the game, the big screen on the scene had already switched to the two of them---

"Oh my god, what is Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, doing at the Camp Nou?"

"The one next to him is... Alan, Alan Wang. That's right, Chelsea's young player Alan Wang. Oh my God, they must be here to spy on the military. It seems that the Barcelona fighters have to be careful in this game and don't perform too well, otherwise all your abilities will be recorded in the mind of this annoying Barcelona translator."

After the big screen cut to Mourinho, he did not continue to sit and watch the game in a pretentious manner. Instead, he took off his hat, stood up, waved and greeted all the fans. Unfortunately, Mourinho was greeted with boos from the whole Barcelona stadium. Obviously, the Portuguese was not popular with these Catalan fans.

However, in contrast, Wang Li was welcomed. Compared with the head coach of a team, the star player was obviously much more popular. Although Wang Li also came to "spy on military intelligence", when he stood up and waved to the fans, he still won some applause. This made Mourinho next to him feel very embarrassed. He even felt that it was a mistake to bring Wang Li.

Of course, these are just a small episode in the whole game.

When Mourinho came to Camp Nou, he focused on the practical capabilities of the attacking triangle formed by Cameroon striker Eto'o, World Footballer of the Year Ronaldo and French star Giuly.

Barcelona's defense is not a big threat to Chelsea, and Mourinho brought Wang Li here just to let him see the opponent's defense, while he himself focused on Barcelona's offense. Chelsea's recent situation is not very good, especially in the team's defense, there are always various problems. In the battle with Barcelona, ​​Chelsea will definitely face their crazy offense. How to effectively defend the opponent's offense and how to score more goals than the opponent will definitely be the key to Chelsea's victory.

For a Barcelona fan, the whole game was undoubtedly very exciting. Compared with Barcelona, ​​Real Sociedad's strength was at least one level lower, which made Barcelona attack almost throughout the game. Their gorgeous cooperation and smooth attack made Wang Li feel that Barcelona's offensive ability was indeed stronger than Chelsea. No wonder Mourinho came to inspect in person before the game.

However, Wang Li was somewhat disdainful of the individual abilities of their offensive players. At least they were far from himself. As for the so-called "Barcelona's defensive ability" by the head coach, Wang Li didn't see it at all. At least he felt that Barcelona was definitely not as good as Manchester United in this regard.

In the end, Barcelona defeated Real Sociedad 2:0. After the game, the ubiquitous reporters intercepted Mourinho and his duo in the stadium.

Facing the interview of Barcelona reporters, Mourinho accepted the interview very sincerely and bluntly believed that "this will be the most difficult game for Chelsea this season"---

"They have players of very high level in every position. This is a very dangerous team. We must show our best condition when facing them. I hope the winner will be Chelsea, but it also requires a certain amount of luck."

Wang Li talked about his feelings about coming to Camp Nou. He stretched out his hands and said with a smile of enjoyment: "I just followed the coach to have a look. This stadium gives me a good feeling. The fans are very enthusiastic. This is really a football sanctuary. In this environment, I feel very comfortable."

Hearing these words, all the Barcelona reporters nearby became excited. They could completely regard this as Wang Li's appreciation of Barcelona, ​​especially when Mourinho was still by his side. Publicly showing his affection for Barcelona could even be elevated to Wang Li already considering a transfer to Camp Nou after the end of the season. No one present would doubt whether Wang Li was qualified to enter Barcelona. They would only consider whether Wang Li was willing to come. Therefore, Wang Li's words instantly won everyone's favor.

However, Wang Li's next sentence brought these reporters to the bottom of the abyss.

"It will definitely feel good to score a goal in this great stadium and I am looking forward to that moment..."

The next day, almost all English newspapers made Wang Li's blatant provocation in Barcelona the top gossip topic. They felt that this boosted the morale of English football.

When talking about this issue, The Times said: "Allen's words in Barcelona can be regarded as Chelsea's pre-war victory declaration. Compared with previous victory declarations, this time is more exciting, because for this victory declaration, Allen even broke into the Nou Camp alone, which has fully demonstrated that he has no pressure at all on the eve of the war and has unparalleled confidence. We look forward to Chelsea being able to really play the momentum of English football and let those annoying Spaniards see what the world's top football level is."

The Spanish media also criticized this matter. When they talked about Wang Li, they all used adjectives such as "funny clown" and "arrogant". "He is even more arrogant than the translator." Yes, Mourinho's words at Camp Nou were considered weak and incompetent by the Spanish media, while Wang Li was regarded as the biggest enemy by the Spanish media. This is the attitude they took in the face of two completely different statements. It must be said that sometimes being tough can make the enemy respect you more.

However, although Mourinho's speech at the Nou Camp was a bit weak, when he returned to London and wrote in The Sun, his tone was obviously different, "I am optimistic and I am confident that my team will win the upcoming round of the Champions League. We have an 80% chance of winning, and Barcelona has a 20% chance."

In an interview with The Sun, Mourinho said that his speech in Barcelona was just to save "their face". Although Chelsea and Barcelona are both the best teams in Europe and the leaders of their respective leagues, Chelsea is stronger. Mourinho said: "For example, they can't defend Alan at all, and their goalkeeper often makes mistakes, while our world-class goalkeeper can sit on the bench."

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After returning to London, Mourinho led the team to continue facing the next league.

In fact, during this period of time, Chelsea has focused on other competitions and has not paid much attention to the league. However, many players in the team are still eager for bonuses. Mourinho is also a little depressed to see this situation. The bonus that Mr. Abramovich impulsively agreed to before the game has become an obstacle for the team to achieve good results in the arena. This is really ironic.

Faced with this situation, Mourinho had to tell the club's chairman about the matter and let Mr. Abramovich solve it personally. After all, all the bonuses were provided by Mr. Abramovich.

However, this is obviously a small matter for Mr. Abramovich. Due to Chelsea's good performance, he has been in the limelight in the social circles of England's upper class recently, which makes Mr. Abramovich very happy. He waved his hand and dropped 10 million pounds, and gathered all Chelsea players and told them: "As long as we can win the quadruple championship, I will never be stingy with the bonus."

Although the players were very eager for the bonuses, honor was also very important. In this case, they immediately adjusted themselves and focused on other competitions. Chelsea club from top to bottom began to work hard to win various championships.