Chapter 1011: Internal strife
?In this match held at the Estadio da Gloria in Madrid, the Colchoneros finally defeated Barcelona 2-0 thanks to two goals from Griezmann and Koke. Isco was elected the best player of the game for his outstanding performance.
This not only excited the entire Estadio da Gloria and fans all over the world, but also surprised the Spanish media, because they were surprised to find that, without realizing it, Atletico Madrid already had the strength to challenge Barcelona and Real Madrid head-on.
Even this season, the Colchoneros have won both games against Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Thanks to the victory in this game, Atletico Madrid finally reversed Barcelona and successfully topped the La Liga standings.
At the post-match press conference, head coach Simeone was full of praise for the team's performance, especially Isco, believing that the player's performance was the best in La Liga.
But at the same time, Simeone has repeatedly stated that Atletico Madrid should not be satisfied with this, the team still has great potential to be tapped and should not stop moving forward.
"Yes, we are the defending champions and regaining our place in the league table is a wonderful thing for us."
"But I hope the players can also clearly understand that when we are second in the standings and when we are the leader, it is two different situations."
"When we beat Real Madrid and Barcelona and took the lead in the league, all the teams would target us, but that's not terrible. What's terrible is that we have lost the opponents and goals to chase. We can only use our own limits and peaks as benchmarks, and keep going beyond them."
“When you feel satisfied that you are the leader, that’s when you are surpassed by your competitors.”
"I will try my best to make all the players forget about this game and play well in every game!"
Simeone's remarks at the post-match press conference were very calm and rational, and were unanimously recognized and affirmed by La Liga professionals.
Because for Atletico Madrid, the league is not even halfway through, and it is far from time to celebrate.
On the other hand, after Barcelona lost this decisive battle, Enrique was disappointed with the team's performance. As for Neymar, who was alone after losing Messi, Enrique expressed his understanding. He also admitted that the loss of Messi was a big loss for the team, but he did not think the team would lose the fight for the La Liga title because of this.
Barcelona's management also quickly made a decision to stabilize the morale of the team, that is, the team will further strengthen the team during the winter break.
This was also understood by the outside world as a signal that Barcelona would invest heavily in the winter transfer market.
As the battle for the lead in La Liga came to an end, the battle in the European Champions League has once again been ignited.
Atletico Madrid will challenge Borussia Mönchengladbach of the Bundesliga away.
In this group of death, Simeone's team's performance is no less than that of La Liga.
In the group match, they pushed Borussia Mönchengladbach into the abyss of despair with a score of 3-0, and then defeated Roma 2-0 away. In the third and fourth rounds, they defeated Manchester City with scores of 2-1 and 3-1 away and at home respectively.
With four wins in all, Simeone's team topped the group and advanced to the next round.
Relatively speaking, Manchester City won the first two games, but lost to Atletico Madrid in the next two rounds, resulting in the Blue Moon occupying second place in the group with six points, Roma ranked third, and Borussia Mönchengladbach ranked fourth.
In the fifth round of the group stage, Simeone arranged for a half-main lineup of Atletico Madrid to play even though they had already qualified for the group stage. As a result, they fell behind by one goal in the first half away from home.
But in the second half, Simeone adjusted the tactics, the team regrouped, and soon reversed Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-1 with goals from Diego Costa and Tevez. The two players provided assists respectively from Alex Teixeira and Rafinha.
Manchester City beat Roma 1-0 away from home thanks to a goal from Aboubakar.
As a result, Borussia Mönchengladbach ranked at the bottom and lost the right to qualify for the group. It will even be difficult for them to get third place in the group, and it will be difficult for Roma to shake Manchester City's second place in the group.
In the La Liga, Atletico Madrid took advantage of the morale of defeating Barcelona and once again sat at the Glory Stadium. With Griezmann's brace and goals from Isco and William, they defeated Espanyol 4-0 at home.
Not only that, a week later, in an away game against Granada, the Colchoneros defeated Granada 2-0 thanks to goals from Jose Jimenez and Griezmann.
The two victories firmly defended Atletico Madrid's position as the league leader.
On the other hand, although Barcelona won the 13th round with Neymar's goal, they unexpectedly drew 1-1 with Valencia away in the 14th round.
As a result, the points gap between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona widened from three points to five points.
With this five-point gap, the Bed Sheet Army has secured its position as the leader.
As for Real Madrid, although they also won two consecutive games, the points gap was a bit large before, and it is difficult to catch up for the time being.
Not only in La Liga, but also in the Champions League, Atletico Madrid played with an entire substitute lineup in the last round, but still won a narrow 1-0 victory over Roma at home. Young player Correa assisted Munir in scoring.
Manchester City defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach 4-2 at home and advanced from the group together with the Colchoneros.
In another group, Southampton secured the top spot early on. Although Ancelotti sent out substitutes in the next two rounds, no one expected that the Saints' performance would be better.
First, they beat Juventus 4-2 away in the fifth round, and then in the sixth round, they beat Wolfsburg 8-0 at home.
In these two crazy goal-scoring games, Harry Kane shined, scoring a total of three goals, and players such as Sturridge, Martial, and Ravel Morrison all showed outstanding strength.
This also surprised fans all over the world to see that even the Saints' bench lineup was so strong, which made the whole of Europe exclaim and be impressed by the Saints' outstanding strength.
In the end, in this group, Southampton and Paris Saint-Germain advanced as first and second in the group respectively, Juventus ranked third, and Wolfsburg was unfortunately eliminated.
If Southampton and Paris Saint-Germain in Group A got through safely, then the results in Group B were shocking, especially Manchester United's performance.
In the group stage, Manchester United unexpectedly lost to Ajax. Brazilian striker Luiz Adriano performed quite well, but in the second round, Manchester United defeated Tuchel's Hamburg without any danger.
The score between the two sides was 2-1, Manchester United narrowly won, and Hamburg lost somewhat depressingly.
Tuchel's team suppressed Manchester United on the field, but they fell behind in the score.
But after learning from the painful experience, Tuchel's team quickly defeated Ajax 2-0 in the third round of the civil war.
But in the fourth round, De Boer's team turned the tables at home and defeated Hamburg 2-0.
The two civil wars made Yang Huan very distressed. It was really a case of "why are we so anxious to fight each other?"
On the other hand, Manchester United had a very stable performance in the third and fourth rounds, with one win and one draw against CSKA Moscow.
But in the fifth round, Hamburg challenged CSKA Moscow away and the result was uneventful. They won 2-0 safely, defeating the Russian giants and laying a foundation for their qualification for the group.
Manchester United, however, was tied 0-0 by Ajax at Old Trafford.
At the end of the fifth round, Hamburg ranked first in the group with nine points, Manchester United ranked second with eight points, Ajax ranked third with seven points, and CSKA Moscow got four points and ranked fourth in the group.
That is to say, in the last round, Manchester United faced Hamburg away at Volksparkstadion. With no advantage in goal difference, Giggs' team could only give it a try to have a chance of winning.
As it turned out, Manchester United's powerful attack did have a miraculous effect, and they scored the first goal just seven minutes into the game.
But three minutes later, when Manchester United had not yet recovered from the excitement of scoring the goal, Dzeko's goal equalized the score for Hamburg, bringing the score back to one.
In the 34th minute, Götze's goal equalized the score for Hamburg.
This made Manchester United charge forward almost like crazy in the second half, and Hamburg was forced to retreat.
But in the 72nd minute, Hamburg's young central defender Tah mishandled the cross from the wing, resulting in an own goal and giving Manchester United the opportunity to equalize the score.
But just when Manchester United's morale was high and they were about to swallow Hamburg in one fell swoop, Douglas Costa broke through the wing and knocked the ball in front of the baseline. Dzeko followed up with a calm shot and scored again, making it 3-2.
In the end, Hamburg beat Manchester United 3-2 at home and kicked the Red Devils into the Europa League.
In another match, Ajax reversed the score to 2-1 against CSKA Moscow with two goals from Luis Adriano and Bernard after conceding a goal.
In this way, Hamburg and Ajax advanced from the group together.
This surprised Yang Huan.
Because he originally thought that Manchester United would definitely occupy one of the qualifying spots, but he didn't expect that neither Hamburg nor Ajax would be at a disadvantage when facing the Red Devils.
As for the Moscow Central 6th Army, it was completely suppressed by the three powers and could not move.
In Group C, Benfica safely qualified as the second in the group following Real Madrid.
In Group D, Barcelona advanced with Zenit St. Petersburg.
In Group E, Bayern Munich and Tottenham Hotspur advanced from the group.
Group F is Atletico Madrid and Manchester City, and Group G is Monaco and PSV Eindhoven.
But the surprise is group H.
If it was not surprising that Klopp's Inter Milan qualified from Group H as the first in the group, then Anderlecht qualified as the second in the group against Valencia and Lyon, which surprised everyone.
But if we consider that Belgium has produced a lot of talented players in recent years, Anderlecht's qualification is not worth making a fuss about.
After the Champions League group stage, Yang Huan calculated that except for the team that was eliminated in the qualifiers, all of his teams qualified from the group stage without exception, which surprised him.
Inter Milan, Anderlecht, Southampton, Hamburg, Ajax, Benfica, Atletico Madrid and Monaco, among the sixteen knockout teams, Yang Huan's team actually occupied half of them.
Isn’t this too unbelievable?
However, this soon brought up another problem, which was the knockout grouping.
With the first place in each group facing the second place, coupled with the principle of avoiding the same country, there is no doubt that there will be internal strife in the knockout stage.
Although this is a bit cruel, at least in Yang Huan's opinion, this is a good thing.
At the very least, if there is a real internal conflict, at least one team can advance, right?