Chapter 416 Mentality

On the second day, Steven Gerrard's name appeared in many news media reports.

In the past, these media would not say much about Liverpool because they felt that Liverpool would definitely be the losing side, which was totally unnecessary.

But this time it was different. Gerrard's attitude at the press conference made them think that Liverpool came with the attitude of losing. This made the media feel that Liverpool had no ambition, so the media criticized Gerrard and Liverpool's attitude towards the game.

In fact, if Liverpool said nothing, or publicized that they came with the purpose of winning, or showed a serious attitude towards the game, then the media would think that they were too proud - wanting to beat Chelsea, is it a daydream?

Now, they show this attitude, and the media say again---they have no ambition, no wonder they lose.

In short, as a weak team, Liverpool did not gain anyone's sympathy. Instead, everything they did was wrong. This is the reality of the football world.

There was only one day left before the game, and everything that needed to be reported about both teams had already been reported, so there was not much to say. Therefore, Gerrard's attitude caused the media to hype it up again.

Has Liverpool really lost confidence?

Are they throwing a smoke screen?

What's the point of doing this, or has Gerrard already decided to leave Liverpool in the summer?

In short, many media outlets have made a big fuss about the "Gerrard incident", and all kinds of strange views, opinions, and speculations have been frequently exposed. It is estimated that even if all the strange speculations in the world are added together, they are not as numerous and more bizarre as the ideas of these media outlets. If they did not become reporters, and came to the ancient Eastern country to become a fantasy master, they might have just as promising prospects.

Most of the media in London acted as if it was supposed to be so. They felt that Liverpool deserved to lose. Their attitude was justified. Facing the world's best team, losing was inevitable. Being mentally prepared in advance would make it easier to accept it after the game.

A quote from the Fulham Post: 'Benitez is already preparing for next season'.

Most media from other countries hold a neutral attitude, and they are the ones who use the most imagination. Many media think that Liverpool is throwing smoke bombs. They have already reached the Champions League final. Regardless of luck or strength, which team would not want to win the championship after reaching this level?

You know, that's the Champions League, the highest honor for European clubs.

Among them, the most imaginative and sarcastic media comes from the ancient Eastern countries.

Although the media from ancient oriental countries are the least well-known among these media, their news are actually the best-selling. The reason for this is that most of them are only sold in ancient oriental countries and have nothing to do with the European market.

For these ancient Eastern media, every time they report on their country's players, they always issue various instructions, resulting in more than half of the reports being untrue. There is also keyword blocking and review by various departments. In short, if you want to report news from your own country, you have to be extremely cautious.

However, even if foreign sports news is sensational, it does not look good. If you always report foreign news, you may be labeled as "worshiping foreign things". In short, it is not easy to be a reporter, open a newspaper or a website.

However, this time it is different, Chelsea is a foreign club, and domestic fans also like to listen to Wang Li's reports.

No matter how Wang Li is reported, the upper class will remain indifferent. After all, even if he has half Chinese ancestry, Wang Li is still an Englishman and has nothing to do with their interests.

As a result, a series of strange speculations were put forward regarding the "Gerrard incident", among which the most popular one among fans was that "Liverpool was afraid of Wang Li, which led to the loss of morale of the whole team."

In this report, the reporter said with reason: "...In this season's match against Chelsea, Liverpool lost three games at home and away. In these three games, Wang Li scored six goals alone, scoring two goals three times in a row. With this goal efficiency, he will still score two goals in this game. How important is a goal in the Champions League final? Two goals, that is almost a death sentence for Liverpool."

This report received a lot of hits on the Bride Sports website. Fans of the ancient oriental country felt that this was very likely. After all, Wang Li's goal was real and not just something made up by the media.

However, this is also related to the fact that there are very few Liverpool fans in this ancient oriental country.

In the ancient oriental country, due to the media's publicity of foreign teams and the broadcasting rights of various TV sports programs in Europe, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Manchester United and Real Madrid have the most fans. Although Liverpool is an old aristocratic team, its performance has not been good since the 1990s. Except for those traditional fans, ordinary new fans will not like a team that performs poorly.

Although the reports were mixed, they did not interfere with Chelsea's training. The media said that Liverpool had lost confidence in the game, but Mourinho did not believe it at all. Instead, he made his training requirements for the players more stringent.

This strictness does not mean increasing the intensity of team training, but a strictness in attitude. He requires players to concentrate during training, regard training as a game, and devote themselves to it wholeheartedly. Only in this way can the training effect be best.

However, although the players did not dare to talk casually in front of the head coach during training, when they were resting, they gathered in twos and threes and started talking about recent topics.

The topic of the day is of course Gerrard, and the focus of media criticism is also Liverpool.

"Have they really lost confidence? Are they scared?" Joe Cole said casually. "Joe, don't underestimate me. I believe Steven is not that kind of person. He has a strong fighting spirit, especially when facing opponents who are stronger than him. He always shows that strong fighting spirit. He plays at full strength in almost every game." Lampard said with confidence.

"But he did say that. Is it a smokescreen?" Damien Duff said.

"This is clearly psychological warfare. There's no need to pay any attention to it. They just want us to underestimate the enemy." John Terry hit the nail on the head with one sentence.

The players nearby thought about it and realized that the most likely possibility was psychological warfare.

Any team and player who can participate in the Champions League final will definitely give it a try even if they feel that their team has a small chance of winning. They will never put on such a face of "we are here to learn", which will only lower the morale of their team. However, do you want them to underestimate the opponent and get a chance? This is impossible.

Most players think the same way.

Of course, there are also some who don't like to use their brains, such as the Dutch boy Arjen Robben: "Who cares? No matter what, as long as we play seriously, who cares about smoke bombs and so on, those are not important. We played seriously, won the game, and got the trophy. What they do has nothing to do with us."

"Hahahaha, Jin, when did you learn to understand the truth?" Damien Duff.

Wang Li smiled and said, "Alkin is right. As long as we fight hard, we will definitely win. We are stronger than them. As long as we play hard, no matter what strategy they use, it will not succeed."

During the lunch break, everyone was having a heated discussion, but after Wang Li said that, he stopped participating.

Although he now knows that he should put all his energy into the game, there are indeed a lot of annoying things recently, and he has no choice but to study on his own and think things through, the first of which is the summer transfer.

The recent transfer application from Real Madrid is not something fabricated by the media, it is true. Not only Rita, but also he was privately questioned by a scout from Real Madrid. However, European football regulations do not allow private contact with players, and Wang Li is extremely disgusted with things like disturbing private lives, so after just a meeting, he said "talk to my agent" and drove home directly.

It is impossible to say that Wang Li is not attracted by Real Madrid. After all, there are many football superstars there. Although he is confident that he is much better than any of them, all players who can become superstars must have their outstanding qualities. Wang Li feels that he can learn more if he goes there.

But Chelsea is not bad, right? Why transfer?

Here, he can get a lot of salary and has many friends. Here, he is the absolute main force and does not need to adapt to anything. Everything revolves around him.

In addition, there is the issue of Wang Li's personal emotional life. Between Angela and Rita, in the choice between these two women, Wang Li's heart has always leaned towards Angela. This has to do with age and his personal feelings. For Angela, he is more out of love, while for Rita it is out of desire.

However, he didn't want to give up Rita, and that was the dilemma. As a normal man, how could he bear to say no to a woman who only wanted to be his secret lover? Unless that woman was very annoying, at least Rita wasn't.

Besides, where is he going this summer? Is he going to go back to the ancient Eastern country to see his basketball team?

Also, last year, I could only watch the Champions League draw ceremony on TV. Maybe in a few months I will be able to participate in the draw ceremony. After all, the Champions League draw is also an awards ceremony. With my performance, it should be no problem for me to win the European Footballer of the Year award.

Amidst all these thoughts, Wang Li fell into deep thought. Amidst the discussion of his teammates, he actually fell asleep. He did not wake up bleary-eyed until Lampard pushed him and asked him to go for lunch together.

At this time, Wang Li knew that the journey of a season had indeed made him a little tired: "After this game, I can rest for 2 months, which feels really good."

He is now looking forward to the vacation very much. At least during the vacation, he will not be restricted by anyone and will not have so many worries.

In Turkey, many famous buildings are named "Ataturk", such as Turkey's largest airport and museums are all called "Ataturk".

In Turkish, "Ata" means "father" and "Ataturk" means "Father of Türkiye".

The Ataturk Stadium was built to commemorate Kemal, the founding father of Turkey.

Kemal was the first president of the Republic of Turkey. In November 1934, Turkey implemented the surname law. The Grand National Assembly awarded Kemal the surname "Ataturk" in recognition of his achievements. In order to show respect for Kemal, Turks generally only call Kemal Ataturk.

Kemal died on November 20, 1938. After his death, his body was buried on the Lasatepe Hill in the Maltepe District of Ankara, which is one of the highest points in Ankara. The Independence Fort Tower standing on the right side of the entrance to the mausoleum is engraved with his famous saying:

“Survival means struggle and fighting. Only when you succeed in the struggle can survival become possible.”

This sentence still inspires the Turks today, so they express their admiration for the martyrs by naming their buildings.

Although, from a historical perspective, the Ataturk Stadium should appear very old, but in fact, even in the world, the technological level of its equipment and facilities can be ranked among the top, and its appearance looks very modern. The design of the flying wings on both sides of the stands makes this stadium look extremely beautiful and luxurious.

Of course, these are not the key points.

What made the players of both teams, who had just entered the stadium and were adapting to the venue before the game, most uncomfortable was the densely packed fans in the stands.

Although there are few rookies among the players of both teams and the stadium has only 80,000 people, which is still inferior to the Nou Camp, the design of this stadium makes the players feel that the fans in the stands can clearly see their every move from a high vantage point. Even if they are used to being the center of attention, being watched by 80,000 people at the same time will make their heartbeats speed up.

'No wonder the boss asked us to adapt to the venue so early.' Thomas thought.

In the first team, he is only older than Wang Li, but the one with the least experience in major competitions. Although Mourinho had told them in detail about the design of the stadium before the game, he is still a little nervous now.

"Don't perform poorly." Wang Li said with some concern.

He was not nervous, but Thomas was the team's goalkeeper. If he performed poorly, Chelsea would have a great chance of losing. After all, the goalkeeper position is so important.

Thomas looked at the fans around him again, shrank his neck nervously, then reacted, pouted his lips and pretended not to care, and said, "Mind your own business."

Wang Li suppressed a laugh, shook his head and said nothing more. He kicked the ball hard towards the goal. The ball almost brushed Thomas' scalp and flew into the net.

"Oh my God, are you going to commit murder?" Thomas shouted when he realized what was happening.

"Haha, Thomas, you're nervous. I'm just trying to prove it."

"I don't"

The Champions League final, especially the one held in Turkey, not to mention Thomas who was participating in the tournament for the first time, even the other players of both teams were more or less nervous.

Wang Li also had this feeling, but he would interpret it as excitement.

Very excited

Facing the most important game since he joined professional football, Wang Li felt his blood was boiling.

As long as the game goes well and he wins, he will be able to get the Champions League medal that ordinary players can't even dream of. This kind of game is really exciting.

After the players of both teams stayed on the court for more than half an hour, they returned to the locker room, changed their clothes, waited for time to pass, and prepared to go on the court to participate in the official game.

At this time, the head coaches of both teams had finished their pre-match press conference and returned to the locker room to make final tactical deployments.

However, at least for Chelsea, Mourinho had already arranged the various tactics, corresponding arrangements, tasks of each player, etc. before the game. At this time, it is just to let the players stabilize their mentality and strive for better performance.

So, he just briefly comforted the players, emphasized that the game should be viewed with a normal mind, and said a bunch of irrelevant words. This is not that Mourinho does not take the game seriously. Before the big game, it is useless to say anything. What should be done is to fight hard with real swords and guns. Maybe saying more encouraging words will make the players more nervous with the psychological pressure.

Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, players from both teams were ready to go on the court.

Wang Li stood in the player tunnel, his eyes fixed on Liverpool's players. He had no other thoughts, he just looked at the opponent's situation naturally.

At this time, there was no communication between the Liverpool players. Everyone stared at the court with a serious face. The atmosphere spreading among them made the little ball boys next to them silent.

Obviously, judging from the expressions and attitudes of these players, they are not at all "unmotivated" as the media says, but rather they are full of fighting spirit.

"This game is not easy to play." Wang Li thought to himself.

It's not that he thinks they will lose the game, but it's not easy for Liverpool to win easily with such a high-spirited appearance. I'm afraid that before the game, many teammates thought of "locking the score with a goal in the first half and turning the second half into garbage time", which was completely a fantasy.

"Beep..." A light whistle sounded, and the referee waved his hand to signal the players of both teams to enter the field.

As the players from both sides entered the field, commentators from various countries began to introduce the starting lineups of the two teams one by one. However, most media introduced Liverpool's lineup first because their introduction to Liverpool was very brief and just glanced over it.

After that, it was Chelsea's turn. Most of the content was about introducing Chelsea. Every star of Chelsea was talked about in depth, especially Wang Li and Thomas. Both of them have only risen this season. Wang Li is still a little different, and the fans are almost tired of hearing his name, while Thomas was introduced in detail because many fans in remote countries don't even know there is such a person.

As a goalkeeper, this is also the sad part.