i want to be king

Chapter 124 Maradona's Left Foot, Klose's Head

After lunch, the players stayed in the dugout.

In a short while, in the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, the draw for the UEFA Cup round of [-] will begin. For Sporting Lisbon, it will be another fateful random gamble.

In fact, the UEFA Cup is not pleasing to the teams of the four major leagues.

The pressure of the league itself is high, and the competition is very cruel. Playing one more cup game and fighting on two lines will invisibly create more competition pressure for the team. It is really not something that any team can bear.

More importantly, and at the same time the most critical factor, there is no benefit in playing well in the UEFA Cup.

With less prize money and more competitions, who would like such a competition?

Especially for those teams with many stars, playing the UEFA Cup hard, earning money is not enough to pay players appearance fees and game bonuses, why bother?

Therefore, the teams in the four major leagues, especially those upstream teams, don't like the UEFA Cup at all.

This makes the UEFA Cup a bit like pecking at each other.

Of course, this is also relative to the Champions League.

Under such circumstances, the second-tier leagues such as the Portuguese Super League, Ligue [-], Turkey, and the Eredivisie, as well as some teams in the middle and lower reaches of the four major leagues that are willing to play in the UEFA Cup, can easily stand out in this cup, and the strong teams are not willing to do their best.

For example, the third round of the UEFA Cup knockout round, which is the top 32 knockout round.

According to the usual practice, the top 32 knockout rounds are composed of 24 winners of the second round of the knockout round, plus eight No.3 players in the first group stage of the UEFA Champions League. It includes teams like Bundesliga Schalke [-], Ligue [-] overlord Lyon, Ligue [-] powerhouse Auxerre, Ukrainian powerhouse Dynamo Kiev, Premier League Liverpool and other teams.

But after the third knockout round, Schalke [-], Dynamo Kiev and Lyon were all eliminated, and they basically lost to teams that were not as strong as them. For example, Lyon lost to Denizli Sports in Turkey with a total score of [-]:[-].

This kind of indifference of strong teams has led to the fact that the teams entering the top [-] are generally relatively close in strength.

That is, it is roughly in the middle of the four major leagues, and there are only two strong teams like Lazio and Liverpool.

In this case, the giant teams in the second-tier leagues such as Sporting Lisbon and Porto also have the opportunity to compete for the championship. If they pay more attention, it may not be impossible to go further.

This is why Sporting Lisbon attaches great importance to the draw.

It is very important to get a good lottery, whether it is the UEFA Cup or the Champions League.

……

Of course, Su Dong also paid attention to the lottery.

But before waiting for the live broadcast of the draw to start, he was hanging out in the system store on the road to the king.

Since the beginning of this season, he has continued to practice hard and participated in more competitions. Not only has the potential value of each attribute of the player level been filled up, but his strength has basically reached more than [-], and his advantageous attributes such as speed have exceeded [-].

According to Su Dong's guess, the player level is equivalent to a regional level star, which is considered a minor celebrity.

But now, his strength is considered to be in the middle and upper reaches among stars of this level, and he is far from top-notch.

Su Dong found that the higher the level, the more difficult it is to upgrade later.

Not only is it as simple as consuming the champion value, but more importantly, it is the improvement of strength.

But strength can only be improved through training and competition, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty.

The higher the competition intensity, the faster the strength will improve.

Therefore, if you can play in the Champions League, your strength will definitely increase the fastest.

If it doesn't work, the UEFA Cup is barely enough, and the Portuguese Super League is relatively slow.

The improvement of strength needs a long process, but the star ability card can improve Sudong's competitiveness in a short period of time.

Before the season, Su Dong exchanged a star ability card and got Vieri's [Invincible], but he still has a star ability card on hand, and he has never thought about what to use for it.

Although the outside world's evaluation of Su Dong is comprehensive, in fact, Su Dong knows that he has many shortcomings.

For example, with his left foot, except for a cross, after half a season, his left foot has almost no contribution.

As the game progresses, more and more teams will begin to realize Su Dong's characteristics, and they will do everything possible to restrict Su Dong in a targeted manner. If they only have a right foot, it will undoubtedly be a disadvantage.

In Su Dong's shopping cart, there was a left foot ability card of a legendary star, Maradona's [God's Left Foot].

This card does not allow Su Dong to directly have Maradona's magical left foot, because Su Dong's current strength has not yet reached that level, but it allows Su Dong to have Maradona's left foot skills and awareness.

After getting familiar with many ability cards, Su Dong believed that these alone would be enough to make his left foot reborn.

Especially considering that after more than a year of hard training, Su Dong's left foot ability has reached 13 points.

In addition to his left foot, Su Dong feels that he has another ability that is slightly insufficient, and that is the judgment of the ball's landing point.

how to say?

Romario's [Wolf in the Restricted Zone] has greatly improved his sense of capturing fighters and his insight into the situation. Simply put, it has improved his ability to run without the ball.

But here comes the problem, his prediction of where the ball will fall is not accurate.

Don't look at him scoring headers, but in fact, he missed more headers.

Su Dong believes that if he can improve his prediction of where the football will land, with his body and running ability, the header attack will change, and may even become an offensive weapon that is not inferior to his right foot.

In his shopping cart, there is also a star's header ability card, German striker Miroslav Klose's [Sky Overlord].

This is a star ability card newly released after the World Cup in Korea and Japan. At first, Su Dong was more inclined to Bierhoff or Golden Bomber Klinsmann, but after the World Cup, the system was updated and a new card was launched, which was noticed by Su Dong.

In this summer's Korea-Japan World Cup, Klose scored five goals, all of which came from headers, including a header hat-trick in the bloodbath of Saudi Arabia in the World Cup.

What's even more frightening is that the German center forward is only 1.8 meters four and weighs only 81 kilograms. He doesn't look like a hunk like Vieri or Adriano. The reason why he can often score headers comes from his accurate prediction of the landing point.

Su Dong absolutely has reason to believe that Klose's height can score so many headers. If his body and running position are replaced by his own body and running position, with this ability to predict the landing point, how sharp is the header attack?
This is also what Su Dong is most troubled at the moment.

His left foot is what he needs to strengthen, and he is reluctant to let go of the header.

Is it the left foot first, or the header first?
……

"Su, the lottery has begun."

Just when Su Dong was struggling, Ronnie patted him gently.

Su Dong opened his eyes and saw that the live TV broadcast had already started the UEFA Cup round of [-] knockout draw.

Sixteen small balls were put into a large glass jar, and the guests who drew lots randomly drew out small balls, took out the names of the teams inside, and fought against each other in pairs.

Even if it's just the UEFA Cup, the teams that can reach the top [-] are not weak.

Teams such as Liverpool and Lazio are strong, but teams such as Malaga, Anderlecht, Stuttgart are also good, and even Porto, Sporting Lisbon, Anderlecht are not bad.

From the perspective of Sporting Lisbon, the last thing I want to encounter is Turkey's Besiktas, except for Liverpool and Lazio, two teams that are obviously stronger.

The biggest headache for this team from Istanbul is the away game.

The voyage is more than 3000 kilometers, which is farther than flying to Greece. It takes a total of ten hours of long-distance travel to change planes halfway.

Therefore, whether it is in the Champions League or the UEFA Cup, going to Turkey to play away games is a nightmare.

Sporting Lisbon has experienced a trip to Greece and knows how difficult it is to play away games. Naturally, they don't want to encounter away games in the Middle East.

Greece's Panathinaikos was drawn first and met Belgium's Anderlecht.

Auxerre followed, and as a result the Ligue [-] team had the unlucky encounter with Liverpool.

Houllier's team is very strong, and no one wants to meet it.

Lazio was drawn to the third group duel, and the opponent they encountered was Krakow, who eliminated Schalke [-].

At this point in the draw, the Sporting Lisbon players were visibly relieved.

The most unwilling to meet, Liverpool and Lazio, the most powerful, have been taken away, which is very cool.

For Sporting Lisbon, even if they encounter Malaga, Stuttgart, Celtic and other teams, they are not afraid.

With the strength of the Green Lions, they can compete with these teams.

But soon, following the lottery, everyone's hearts slowly became agitated again.

The unlucky Turkish team Besiktas has not been drawn yet.

Especially after the five duels of the top ten teams have been drawn, among the remaining six teams, Besiktas is among the four opponents that Sporting Lisbon may encounter, excluding Porto of the same country.

"It can't be so unlucky, can it?" Tonito was a little impatient.

"We just finished playing in Greece, and now we are going to the Middle East? If we really want to pull out Besiktas, I seriously protest UEFA's intentional punishment of us, making us run around like this!"

The words of the Spanish midfielder were unanimously approved by everyone.

Who said no?
Playing away to Greece, what is the team like?

Are you going to fight Türkiye now?

But things in the world are like this sometimes, the more you are afraid of something, the more he will be more afraid of it.

The first team to be drawn in the sixth matchup was Sporting Lisbon.

Almost everyone in the lounge held their breath and watched as the lucky draw guests reached into the glass jar again, only four small balls were left inside.

He reached out and stirred it, randomly grabbed a small ball, opened it, took out the note, turned it around, and faced the live camera.

Besiktas!
There was a deathly silence in the lounge, and then there was a burst of scolding.

It turned out to be a super long-distance away game!

This is definitely the rhythm to kill Sporting Lisbon!

(End of this chapter)