Rebirth 1994: Football Situation

Chapter 749
In the four quarter-finals of the first round, the English team stole the show.

Newcastle defeated Bayern [-]-[-] at home, while Chelsea also defeated Juventus, a veteran Serie A powerhouse, [-]-[-] at home. Tony and Terry scored two headers. Juventus only relied on Canna in the second half Varro's goal recovered a point, and in the other two games, Lyon was tied [-]-[-] at home to PSV, and AC Milan was [-]-[-] at home thanks to goals from Stam and Shevchenko. After defeating the rivals Inter Milan in the same city, one foot has entered the semi-finals.

In other words, the Premier League is likely to occupy two places in the semi-finals. If it can occupy two places, among the four major leagues alongside the Premier League, La Liga has already been wiped out, and there will be no teams left in the Bundesliga. In Serie A, there is only one team left at most.

Although this does not explain anything, Serie A still occupied three places in the Champions League semi-finals two years ago, but for the habitually arrogant English media, this seems to have proved that the Premier League has become the number one in Europe and even the world league!
But in fact, neither Mourinho nor Benitez are as relaxed as the media showed.

Newcastle's situation is better. After all, the advantage of two goal difference is relatively large, while Benitez's Chelsea only won one, and Juventus scored an away goal-you know, Juventus Scotia is a Serie A team, and it is the most standard Serie A team. Under the leadership of the standard Italian coach Fabio Capello, winning [-]-[-] is probably their best way to win, and they only need to win a game at home. With a score of zero, Chelsea can be eliminated.

What's more, whether it is Bayern or Juventus, for Newcastle and Chelsea, they are just external enemies. They also have internal enemies-Newcastle is Chelsea's internal enemy, and Chelsea is Newcastle's internal enemy.

31 rounds of the Premier League have passed, and there are only seven rounds left. Newcastle and Chelsea have 83 points and 82 points, leading Manchester United and Arsenal. The advantage is already quite large. In fact, their opponents are only each other.

Seven rounds, one point gap, what does this mean?It means that in the next seven rounds, both sides will desperately grab points in the league and lay a solid foundation for the final battle!

In the last round of the league, Newcastle hosts Chelsea... Before that, no one can breathe a sigh of relief!

The problem is, in the Champions League, they can't breathe a sigh of relief-how long can a person not relax?It won't be too long, and it's the same when switching to the team!
In the media and newspapers, Newcastle and Chelsea were described as the hope of the Premier League, and the dignity of the Premier League also brought them a lot of pressure.

Although neither Mourinho nor Benitez are desperate for fame, but playing the Champions League is not only for fame, but also for real profit!
Every step forward in the Champions Cup, the benefits you can get are much more!

Revenue from TV broadcasting, income from home games, increase in the club's reputation, image improvement...even if a player plays one more game in the Champions Cup, it will also increase a lot of fame!So even if they are gritting their teeth, Mourinho and Benitez will go as far as they can in the Champions League!

The situation facing Chelsea is the same as that of Newcastle. They will play as many games in April as Newcastle!

Although Chelsea have more players in the first team than Newcastle, the players that Benitez often uses may not be more than Newcastle!

After all, Mourinho has been in Newcastle for more than a year, and Benitez only has less than a year. With this extra year, it means that Benitez can command more players than Murray. Neo for less!

You must know that in the past year or so, Mourinho has never stopped transforming Newcastle. Except for a few players, all of his players were selected by him and Pei Wei. Now Newcastle, Has been deeply branded with Mourinho's brand.

And Chelsea still bears a strong imprint of the Ranieri era. Although Benitez bought and sold a lot of people, after all, he doesn't have enough time.

Mourinho and Benitez know that in the current situation where the Champions League is so tight, the league... may have to give up for a while.

In this situation, the difference of one point and two points in the league does not need to be too concerned. After all, in the last round of the league, both sides still have the opportunity to play against each other directly. If the advantage expands to more than three points, the direct confrontation in the final round will be meaningless, but the question is-are they capable of doing this?

From the beginning of the league, the two teams have been entangled. Sometimes Chelsea leads, sometimes Newcastle leads. Although Newcastle leads much more times, the biggest is only four points ahead of Chelsea.

At this point in the league, no one is sure to do this, especially since both teams have entered the quarter-finals in the Champions Cup, there is no reason to give up the Champions Cup.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Mourinho and Benitez both made a decision by coincidence.

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The second round of the No.30 game is on April [-]th. Chelsea will play against Birmingham at home, while Newcastle will challenge Tottenham Hotspur in an away game.

These two teams are not particularly strong teams. Although Tottenham are Arsenal's arch-enemy and a well-known team in London City, their results this season are not very good, and they are only ranked ninth now. Birmingham is ranked No. 14. Compared with Newcastle and Chelsea, it is a long way behind.

It's just that when these two teams saw the lineups of Newcastle and Chelsea, they were all angry.

Without him, Newcastle and Chelsea sent a standard full bench lineup in these two games.

Except for captain Terry, midfielder Lampard and striker Tony, Chelsea sent all other players as substitutes, while Newcastle went even further. Except for midfielder Essien and striker Drogba, the other players who had participated None of the main players in the last Champions League game played!
Even if we are far behind you in terms of points, we are still in the middle of the Premier League, why do you look down on me like that?
This is roughly what the players of Birmingham and Tottenham thought after seeing the lineups of Newcastle and Chelsea.

Although with Newcastle and Chelsea's financial resources, there is no shortage of first-class players on their bench, such as Chelsea's Gudjohnsen, Kezhiman, Cudicini, Bridge, Newcastle's Kufuor, Trabelsi, Given , Janus, Shearer... None of them are worse than the main players of these two teams, but such a large rotation before the second round of the Champions League obviously feels that the league is easier to play than the Champions Cup Well, that means we are easier to deal with!

As soon as this lineup came out, Tottenham's head coach Santini and Birmingham's head coach Bruce didn't need to mobilize. The morale of the players of the two teams was already high, screaming to give a good look to their opponents who underestimated them.

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"Given's clearance ball was blocked by Simon Davies with his body... The ball rolled into the penalty area, Defoe! Defoe shot! Shay gave the ball, but the ball still flew into the goal! Tottenham scored at home. Leading to zero! Beautiful goal!"

With the enthusiastic shout of the commentator, there was a huge cheer in the air above the White Hart Lane.

This is the No.40 second minute of the first half. Tottenham played proactively at their home court, defending Newcastle's offense and did not give up their offense, and finally took the lead before the end of the first half!

On another venue in London, Birmingham also performed exceptionally well. In the first half they withstood waves of Chelsea's offensive. Although the goal was crumbling, they were not scored by Chelsea!
Twenty to 10 minutes after the start of the second half, Newcastle still failed to break through Tottenham's gate. At this time, there was news from Stamford Bridge, another stadium in London, that made Mourinho, who was a little annoyed, happy.

Birmingham is also ahead!Uruguayan striker Pandiani blasted away Cudicini's goal with a beautiful header in the No.605 minute!

The No. 14 and No. [-] teams in the standings were actually both ahead of the No. [-] No. [-] team—this has never happened in the Premier League in recent years!

"Maybe we are too big..." Mourinho said softly to Pei Wei, and the us he mentioned naturally included Benitez.

"This is the advantage of the weak team. If the strong team is distracted by the Champions League, the weak team will naturally have a chance to beat the strong team..." Pei Wei seemed very open-minded about this: "The Champions Cup is equally important. Besides, we are still leading by one point, even if we lose a few points, there is no problem, I think it is impossible for Chelsea to continue the winning streak before the game against us, after all, if our current points are placed in previous years, it is more than enough to win the championship.”

"That's what I said, but I won't just let Tottenham take three points. Maybe we can't keep the winning streak going, but in the away game, we have to get at least one point." Mourinho stood up, Call Robert and Lennon from the bench to warm up.

(End of this chapter)