Rebirth 1994: Football Situation

Chapter 765 Go, For the League Championship

May 04th is the last round of the 05-[-] season, the English Premier League.

For Premier League fans, this season's Premier League is unprecedentedly exciting. The championship battle has not yet been decided in the final round. Now after defeating Charlton at home in the last round, Chelsea's points have reached 99 points, and Newcastle's points are 97 points, and these two teams will play against each other at St. James' Park in the final round, which means that no matter who wins or loses or draws, there will definitely be a goal. The team's points reached [-] points!

At least in the five major leagues, no team has been able to win the championship with such points, and no team has scored more than [-] points in the final round and cannot guarantee the championship!

As for relegation, since the establishment of the Premier League, no team has been relegated before the end of the last round of the league like this season!
Norwich has 33 points, Crystal Palace has 32 points, Southampton has 32 points, and West Bromwich Albion has 31 points. There is one.

These four teams will usher in different opponents in this round. From the current point of view, Norwich's relegation situation is the best, but they are challenging Fulham away, and Crystal Palace is also playing away. Charlton, Southampton's game is at home, but their opponent is Manchester United, West Bromwich Albion vs. Portsmouth at home.

After nine or ten minutes, whoever goes to heaven and whoever goes to hell will have a final decision.

The game will be held at the same time at [-] pm UK time, and as early as around [-] noon, almost all the home courts of the Premier League teams are full, and fans will not miss the last big meal of the season.

Of course, for fans of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United, the end of the league does not mean the end of their season. Arsenal and Manchester United will also compete in the FA Cup. For these two veteran teams For them, this season's FA Cup will be their last chance to win the championship, and Chelsea's game is more important. They will face Italy's AC Milan in the Champions League final.

However, this does not mean that Newcastle has any loopholes to take advantage of. The final of the Champions League will be held on May 25, and there is an eleven-day gap between the final round of the league. This period of time is enough for Chelsea players to recover from fatigue up.

Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for Benitez to keep any strength in this game-the Champions League is important, but the league is equally important. It is impossible for any European giants to give up in these two games, especially in the They only need to score one point in the away game to win the championship.

Although there are not many teams that can do this this season, it should be very few - throughout the season, Newcastle only drew three games at home, and in the league except for being tied by Tottenham in the second round, No. In addition to being picked up by Crystal Palace in the sixth round of 30, Newcastle won all the other sixteen home games!

In the Champions League, the only draw was by Chelsea.

Can they still do this?

****************************************
"Absolutely impossible!" Mourinho roared in the locker room, waving his arms: "They were able to take away a draw from our home court in that game, and that was entirely because Benitez took advantage of our mentality of worrying about gains and losses! When he put on a defensive stance, we couldn't attack without worry because we were worried about losing the ball at home... And now, this kind of concern does not exist at all! What I ask of you now is to use your offense to break through their The best line of defense in the Premier League!"

"The whole world knows our excellent defensive ability." Mourinho said word by word: "Now is the time for us to show our offensive strength! In this game, what we have to consider is not defense, but how to score one more goal than the opponent. ball!"

He said this of course not to let the players focus on offense and ignore defense, but to focus more on offense on the basis of defense-the Newcastle players naturally know this well, Newcastle can be in two years. A team of the great Adolphus type has become a powerful team that everyone fears in Europe, and its foundation is defense. Naturally, Mourinho will not be so stupid as to change the foundation of the team for a game.

"The biggest problem with Chelsea's defense is that they don't have a full-time defensive midfielder, and this is our strength, so in this game, we must maximize this advantage." Mourinho told the players Explaining tactics: "For our offense, the two wings are the strongest, because our two full-backs and full-backs have strong offensive capabilities, coupled with the scoring ability of the two centers, The biggest headache for any team is how to defend our wings."

What he said made the Newcastle players nod constantly. This is indeed not Mourinho's boast. With the strength of Newcastle's wingers like a cloud, plus the two full-backs with such excellent offensive capabilities, especially the right-back Maicon's offensive ability is already considered world-class, but his defense is still lacking, so he has not gained the reputation of the two captains of Brazil and Argentina, Cafu and Zanetti.

Coupled with the fact that two centers with a height of about 1.9 meters are grabbing points in the middle, it is true that few teams can compete with them in the header competition in the penalty area.

But Chelsea is not in this category. Both Terry and Carvalho are experienced central defenders with headers, anticipation ability and positioning. They are not inferior to Drogba and Ibrahimovic. In the two rounds of the Champions League Keeping Newcastle's offense from scoring a single goal in the game speaks for itself.

"It is for this reason that Chelsea will not take our wing attack lightly." Mourinho drew a few lines on the tactical board: "Chelsea's defense on the wing is not weak, the only possibility is that They are on the right side, so we still focused our offensive firepower on the two sides at the beginning of the game, especially the left side where Frank is (Chelsea's right side), so that they can focus all their attention on the side. Come on defense, and then quickly shift the offense to the center and give them a fatal blow! If you fail to score, then the plan remains the same, and try to suppress the opponent from the center until the goal is scored, understand?"

"Understood!" The players replied in unison.

******************************************
"This season will go down as the greatest in Chelsea's history."

On the other side of the player tunnel, in the visiting team's lounge, Benitez was also preparing for the battle: "With two games left, we will become the third team in England's history to win the league championship and the Champions League. (Chelsea has won the League Cup this season, the first two teams were Liverpool in 1984 and Manchester United in 1999). Chelsea have only won the league once in history Champions, never won the Champions League and after these two games we will give Chelsea fans the joy of winning a big game."

Benitez's voice is not as passionate as Mourinho's, but it is more able to arouse the fighting spirit of Chelsea players-Although Newcastle has won three more league titles than Chelsea in the history of the Premier League, after all they have It's been too long without a title. After winning two consecutive cup titles last year, the desire for titles has become less urgent, and Chelsea have been steadily rising since entering the 90s, winning the Cup Winners Cup, League Cup and FA Cup. Champions, but there is a lack of a heavyweight champion such as the league champion or the Champions League champion-the victory in the Champions League has to be said that a large part of the reason is that Chelsea players desire the Champions League more than Newcastle players, and In the league, the desire of the players on both sides is comparable, but in terms of the desire to win, Newcastle has some advantages-because they were eliminated from the Champions League final by Chelsea, the desire for revenge is much greater than that of the Chelsea players In addition to the advantage of the home court, Benitez had to find ways to stimulate the fighting spirit of the Chelsea players before the start of the game to offset this disadvantage.

Both Mourinho and Benitez are masters in mobilizing players' psychology. The fighting skills between the two outside the court greatly affected the final result of the game.

"Newcastle's defense, as solid as ours, although they have conceded six more goals than us in the league, it doesn't really mean anything, we conceded about the same against the top four teams, and They conceded a lot of goals when the game was set and that's something we definitely have to take note of."

"Newcastle's right flank is their strong point, but also their weak point. Maicon and Nie Fei's right flank combination can tear apart any left flank corridor in the world, but their defense is also not reassuring, so In Newcastle's double defensive midfielder, Essien often appears on the right to fill the position. He is an excellent defensive player. With him, Nie Fei and Maicon can participate in the attack with confidence, so they want to play from their right It is not an easy task to score goals, so our ultimate goal is their left wing - Bernard is a relatively good full-back, but his ability is relatively average, as long as we defend Newcastle After attracting their center of gravity to the right, they will focus on attacking their left, which will definitely have a good effect."

**************************************
"Go for the first league title in 50 years!" Benitez told the players.

"Go, for the first league title since 78 years!" Mourinho said to the players.

(End of this chapter)