Chapter 414 Tickets and Stadium

George felt that the past year was like a dream. In this dream, Chelsea had the best player in the world - Alan Wang, and the team won one game after another and won all the honors it could get.

As a pure Chelsea fan, George's happiest moment was five years ago, in 2000, when Chelsea defeated Villa and won the FA Cup. As the oldest season in the world, the football cup means a lot to English fans. At that time, George and a few friends stayed in the bar for two consecutive days to vent their excitement.

But since the Russian tycoon came to Chelsea, the team even made it to third place in the league last season, which made George very happy, so he was looking forward to this season.

Even though George was expecting the team to have good results, this result was still surprising! !

Defeating Liverpool to win the League Cup, winning the league title ahead of schedule at Old Trafford after 31 rounds, and defeating Arsenal to win the FA Cup, these kinds of honors made George feel like he was in a dream.

George is a small manager in a company and has a salary of 3,000 pounds a week. This salary is not a small amount, but George spent a lot of money on buying Chelsea jerseys, uniforms, and souvenirs. He also donated some to the Fans Association. Among them, the biggest expense was the purchase of the No. 21 black jersey.

This black jersey was worn by Chelsea's No. 21 Allen Wong in the 31st round of the league. After the game, the jersey was pulled off by a crazy fan, and the next day, the person who got the jersey sold it for 7,500 pounds.

But obviously, this price was just the reserve price. Within a few hours, the price soared to 11,000 pounds. George looked at the jersey with envy, made up his mind, and bought it directly for 13,000 pounds.

As it turned out, George's choice was right. When he put the jersey online and indicated its origin, the price was raised to more than 50,000 pounds, which was far beyond George's spending.

But George would never sell it. He put it online just to show off to others. He hung the clothes on the head of his bed. Every morning when he saw it, George would feel motivated to work.

This morning, as usual, George woke up from sleep. He turned his head to look at the jerseys on the wall, feeling very satisfied.

When he saw this jersey, he seemed to see the domineering figure of the black-haired boy No. 21 on the court, the domineering long-range shot of the black-haired boy, and the fact that, in short, the boy could always lead Chelsea to victory. All of this was so beautiful.

After breakfast, George called his girlfriend, said a few sweet words to her, and then drove directly to the ticket area of ​​Stamford Bridge.

He does this every day these days.

The European Champions League final is about to begin, and the ticket sales for Chelsea fans are also about to begin, but George has no inside information and can only come here every day to see when he can buy tickets. Because his home is very close to Stamford Bridge, many colleagues also ask him to help buy tickets. It can be said that George is entrusted by many people to watch the game.

George tried very hard, but there were many more fans who tried harder than him. When he drove to Stamford Bridge, the ticket area next to it was already filled with a long queue. Although the fans were very orderly and did not cut in line, the large number of people still made the scene chaotic.

Seeing this scene, George knew what was happening without even thinking about it, so he parked the car and immediately walked to the back of the line to prepare to queue up to buy tickets. At the same time, he did not forget to call his boss.

"Hello, it's George, what's up?"

"Mr. Fink, I'd like to take half a day off." After thinking for a long time, George said it directly. In fact, his company was an Internet company, and its business was usually very busy. In order to complete the work, Mr. Fink had increased the overtime salary three times, but he still couldn't finish the work. So, George felt a little apologetic when he said he wanted to take a leave.

"What!? You want to take a leave. Did I hear you right, George? You know that the company's work cannot be finished at all. Mr. Stephen was urging us yesterday. If we cannot meet the expectations, then the company will..." As soon as George heard that he wanted to take a leave, there was a loud shout from the other end of the phone, which made George sweat profusely. In the company, what he feared most was Mr. Fink's nagging voice.

"So, can you tell me what made you take leave?"

Hearing this, George heaved a sigh of relief. Even if he had to deduct his salary, he didn't want to hear Fink's nagging anymore. "Boss, tickets for the Champions League final are going on sale today, so I'm queuing up. You know I'm a Chelsea fan, and I really want to watch that game, and..."

"What, buy tickets? George! You actually..."

At this point, the voice on the other end of the phone took a sudden turn. "What? You said the Champions League final tickets are on sale? Oh my God, George, you must buy one. Remember to buy one for me, too. Okay, I'll give you a day off, and today will count as working for the company."

"Oh, okay, Mr. Fink." It wasn't until there was a beep from the other end of the phone that George realized that Mr. Fink was also a Chelsea fan.

"If I had known this would happen, I would have just said no," George thought with regret, but then he waited for the team to move forward slowly with great excitement.

Kemal Ataturk Stadium, also known as the Olympic Stadium in Turkey, is the venue for the European Champions League final. The stadium can accommodate 81,000 fans, and UEFA was impartial this time, allocating 10,000 tickets to Chelsea and Liverpool each. Of these tickets, 8,000 were purchased through online booking, and only 2,000 were sold at the team's ticket windows.

In order to reduce the occurrence of ticket scalping, no matter whether it is sold online or at the window, one person can only buy two tickets.

However, 2,000 tickets are nothing compared to the number of Chelsea fans. At this time, there are at least a thousand fans in the square in front of the ticket window, and more fans are arriving one after another.

George didn't know all this. Now, he was somewhat glad that he came early. There were only about 1,000 people in front of him. According to the ratio, he could definitely buy a ticket.

Time passed quickly, and three hours went by in the blink of an eye. At this time, there was only one person in front of George. He was very excited. If he could buy the tickets this time, he could go to Turkey to watch the game. Judging from Mr. Fink's opinion, he would definitely agree to let him go to watch the game. Maybe he could even go with Mr. Fink. Then there would be nothing to worry about.

"What, there's only one left, but my girlfriend and I need two." When George was thinking happily, the fan standing in front of Fink suddenly shouted, and this shout made all the fans behind him feel a little desperate.

"Sorry sir, there's really only one left."

George stood blankly in the square, and then staggered towards the parking lot with the crowd of fans.

He spent the whole morning queuing but still didn't buy a single ticket. Being scolded by the boss was no big deal, but not being able to watch the game made him feel very disappointed.

George walked on the road in a daze, but he didn't even notice that he was on the road.

At this moment, an eye-catching Bugatti Veyron was driving straight towards them on the road. George didn't notice it at all and was about to collide with the car.

"Beep, beep, beep" "Hiss"

With two car horns and the sound of grinding wheels rubbing against the ground, the car stopped exactly one meter in front of George. If it had moved forward a little, George would probably have to go to the hospital or even to see God.

"Friend, please be careful when walking!!"

The person who got out of the car was none other than Wang Li. If he had not reacted in time, George would probably have been lying on the ground, so he was a little angry.

"Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to."

George was so scared that he took two steps back, waving his hands to apologize. He knew that he was distracted just now, and there was no sidewalk at this location, so it was obvious that he violated the rules. (PS: In the UK, you don’t have to pay money for hitting someone. You need to go to court. Whoever made the mistake should bear the responsibility.) "Oh, what's wrong with you? You should walk more carefully. Okay, bye." Seeing that George was still a little confused, Wang Li knew that he didn't mean it.

“Oh my god!”

Only then did George see the model of the car clearly. There were definitely no more than three people in London who owned this kind of car, and the black-haired boy No. 21 from Chelsea was one of them. George looked at the car in surprise, then turned his gaze to the owner, only to find that it was Wang Li.

"Alan!! Oh my God, am I dreaming!" After reacting, George immediately ran forward and said to Wang Li in surprise. However, he was caught off guard at this time and didn't know what to do. He just stared at Wang Li again and again.

Being looked at by such eyes, Wang Li was a little scared. He pursed his lips and said, "Friend, what happened to you just now?"

"Oh, by the way, Chelsea's tickets are sold out and I couldn't buy one. So I can't go to Turkey to watch your game." George said with a disappointed look on his face.

"Football tickets?" Wang Li was stunned, then said, "Well, my friend, is this what brought you to the street?"

Seeing George's lost look, Wang Li felt sorry for him, so he took out a few tickets from the car and stuffed them into George's hands, saying, "My friend, I'm giving you the tickets. You must be careful when you walk. Your life is much more important than tickets."

At this time, George looked at the ticket in his hand with surprise, and he was stunned.

"Oh my god, this is the ticket that Alan gave me"

After realizing what was happening, George immediately pulled out a stack of bills from his pocket and stuffed them into Wang Li's pocket, saying, "Thank you, thank you, Alan. Oh my God, I can't believe it."

After saying that, George turned around and ran to the side. His movements were extremely agile, as if he was afraid that someone would snatch his ticket.

"But, there's no need for so many."

Wang Li waved his hand, wanting to return the money to George, but he could no longer see George. He stared blankly at the stack of banknotes in his hand, and after a quick count, he found that there were about three thousand pounds. He thought to himself, "It turns out that you can make a lot of money by scalping tickets."

Of course, this was just a joke. 3,000 pounds was a very small amount of money for him.

In fact, the price of an ordinary UEFA Champions League final ticket is between 100 euros and 300 euros. Each player of Chelsea club can get a few tickets. After the assistant coach distributed the tickets to the players, the remaining stack of at least thirty tickets was stuffed into Wang Li's hands.

So, Wang Li has a lot of football tickets, and he doesn't care about a few tickets at all.

Think about such an important game, Wang Hai and Ellis will probably go, as well as Rita, Angela, and Angela's uncle Cole, so a total of 6 tickets can be issued. If you include his good friends Cooper, Harrison, Pete and others, of course if they want to watch the game, there will only be a dozen or so tickets. Wang Li is worried that no one will want so many tickets.

After this little incident, Wang Li drove directly to Crickenwell Road, the residence of Wang Hai and Ellis. The purpose of this visit was naturally to give the couple football tickets.

"Alan, you haven't been here for a long time, honey, how have you been recently? Why didn't you bring your girlfriend with you?"

Ellis was still the same. When she saw Wang Li, she gave him a passionate hug, which made Wang Li a little overwhelmed. Even though he had been in this world for 2 years, he was still not used to Ellis's enthusiasm.

"Tina, let me go, God, I'm here to give you tickets. It's the day after tomorrow. Will you go to watch the game?" Wang Li emerged from Ellis' arms, tidied his hair, and said.

"I will, baby!"

Ellis smiled and said, "I have everything planned. After we go to Turkey, I will go to Portugal with your father. Last time when you participated in the European Cup, he was always busy. This time, you must go shopping."

"Ah" Wang Li looked at Ellis helplessly. He felt that there was too big a gap between him and them.

While Wang Li was still busy preparing for the final, the couple had already prepared where to go for summer travel. The gap was really too big, but as his parents in this world, Wang Li was very happy that they were so happy. After giving Ellis two tickets, he made a few calls to his friends and drove back to Chelsea Club.

The reason why Wang Li was in such a hurry to deliver the tickets was because the team was going to Turkey together in the afternoon. The club attached great importance to this European Champions League final. Mourinho asked the team to arrive in Turkey three days in advance to adapt to the environment there.

In fact, the Portuguese had some other reasons for doing this.

“The European Cup comes to Türkiye!”

This news is a hot topic this season, and many European fans have been arguing about it. For such an important game, UEFA chose a stadium in Turkey, which confused most fans.

Turkey, with 97% of its land area lying on the Anatolian Plateau, was once a mysterious country. In Greek mythology, many stories took place here.

Here is the Trojan Horse in Homer's epic and the birthplace of the Virgin Mary. Scientists have used satellite photos to find traces of ancient times recorded in the Bible in the desolate eastern mountains of Turkey. It is said that this is where Noah's Ark was placed.

Now, this season's European champion will be born here. Perhaps UEFA also values ​​the mysterious color of this place and chose it to arouse the interest of fans.

Kemal Ataturk Stadium, located in the center of Istanbul Olympic Park, is the home stadium of the Turkish giant Galatasaray Club. The stadium was completed in September 2001 and opened on October 31 of the same year. The total construction cost was as high as 110 million euros. The Ataturk Stadium is Turkey's largest investment and the most modern sports and cultural complex to date. It was designed by famous French architects Mackary and Zubrena.

Zubrena's masterpiece is the Stade de France, which hosted the 1999 World Cup. Because he came from a famous family, the Turks proudly believe that this stadium is the Turkish version of Wembley Stadium.

There is no doubt that this new stadium is the secret weapon of the Turkish bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but the Turks have also contributed it in order to host the highest level of European events.

Although the facilities of the stadium are absolutely world-class, this is not the point. The point is that Turkish fans have always been known for their madness and even barbarity. For teams from most other countries, the stadium here is more like hell.

Historically, Turkish clubs, though not very strong, are not afraid of European giants, because their devilish stadiums make foreign visitors extremely uncomfortable - Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Arsenal, AC Milan and other teams have all suffered setbacks in Turkey. The Ataturk Stadium is a hell within a hell.

According to an analysis of the Ataturk Stadium by a professional from the French Football newspaper, the design of this stadium subverts the principle of coordination. In terms of appearance, the stadium is heavier in the west and lighter in the east, with the stadium grass as the base point and extending infinitely upward.

This design ensures that no matter which side of the stands you are watching the game from, you can clearly see everything inside the stadium. And if you stand in the stadium and look up, you will find that almost every fan is staring at you from the sky!

This will put the greatest pressure on every player and make the fans extremely crazy!

Playing on such a stadium puts a lot of pressure on both players. Mourinho is not sure whether the players can adapt to this kind of stadium and the madness of Turkish fans, so he asked the team to adapt in advance.

Similarly, Benítez obviously had this in mind. Two hours after Chelsea set off, Liverpool also boarded the plane to Istanbul.

(To be continued)