Jagged Wings

Chapter 104 Before the Game
This season's Barcelona is the peak period of the Dream II team. They are the best in the league and won the league championship with a huge gap of 2 points ahead of No.12 Real Madrid.

In the Champions League, they are also making great strides. Barcelona's attacking trident led by Ronaldinho, Argentine genius Messi and Eto'o is infinitely powerful. The group opponents are Werder Bremen, Udinese and Panathena. Kos could only parry and had no power to fight back. In the group stage, Rijkaard's team achieved an impressive record of 5 wins and 1 draw, scoring 16 goals and only conceding 2 goals. Advance to the knockout round.Barcelona met their old rival Chelsea again in the first round of the knockout round, which was also a repeat of the first round of the 2004-2005 UEFA Champions League knockout round.Although Chelsea won 2-1 at home in the first leg, Barcelona, ​​who was sitting at Camp Nou in the second leg, eliminated their opponents and advanced to the quarterfinals with Ronaldinho's lore.They first eliminated the dark horse Benfica in the quarter-finals, the latter upset the 8 champion Liverpool in the first round of the knockout round, and then Barcelona eliminated the Serie A powerhouse AC Milan in the semi-finals, thus reaching the final.

If it is expected that Barcelona reached the final, then Arsenal's appearance in the final seems a bit unexpected.As midfielder Vieira left the team before the season, Arsenal's midfield strength was greatly reduced, and the long list of injuries also made Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger have to rely on the young players in the team.The results proved that Reyes, Cesc Fabregas, Senderos, Ebrahimovic and Flamini and other teenagers did not show any fear in the Champions League, and Arsenal blew a red storm.

Of course, in the Champions League odds, Arsenal are behind Barcelona!
In terms of public opinion, all walks of life also regard Barcelona as the biggest favorite to win the championship.Cruyff said: "Barcelona has played very beautiful football this season. Regardless of whether there are injuries or not, they can be confident. Ronaldinho is the decisive figure in the Barcelona team. If Arsenal pays too much attention to him, Then the rest of Barcelona's players can get more chances."

Famous European coaches such as Heathfield and Koeman also believe that Barcelona has a much greater chance of winning the championship than Arsenal, because the Barcelona team has superstars like Ronaldinho and Eto'o.

Benfica coach Koeman, who was eliminated by Barcelona, ​​said, "I have experienced their greatness first-hand, and I know the horror of this greatness-it simply makes you unable to breathe." Koeman thinks this game may not be very good. Brilliant, "If we were hoping for a good goal-scoring show, then we're likely to be disappointed. Both teams are emphasizing more on defense at the moment - their defense is equally good, but Barcelona guarantees an attack on top of the defense. Be stronger."

In the official game, Arsenal and Barcelona have only played against each other twice. That was in the 1999-2000 Champions League group stage. than 1 wins.

Of course, the two games are too far apart, and there is no comparison with now.

The only topic for the two teams was Henry.

Although Henry verbally promised Arsenal to renew his contract, he has been procrastinating on the grounds that "the game is heavy and he has no intention of negotiating".But everyone knows in their hearts that if Arsenal can't win the Champions League, Henry will definitely leave Arsenal and join Barcelona.

And Barcelona happened to be Arsenal's opponent in this game.

There were even rumors before the game that Henry's friend Cisse visited La Masia and inadvertently "revealed" that Henry had bought a house in Barcelona.

This undoubtedly added a layer of oil to the fire of this game.

The championship final has become the last game between clubs this season, and it is also the most watched game.In order to dig up news, the media are always watching the little grass and trees of the two teams, and even the referees are unavoidable.

The UEFA Champions League final referee is an all-Norwegian team, and Bogan has become a celebrity in his hometown because he was lucky enough to be selected as a line referee.A local newspaper asked him to be photographed wearing the final team's jersey, but he only had the Barcelona jersey, so he didn't think twice about wearing it.After this photo appeared in the newspaper on the 16th, it immediately caused a storm; Arsenal fans believed that he was a fan of Barcelona and should not participate in law enforcement in the final on the 17th.

UEFA believes that there must be no flaws in the referee preparations for the UEFA Champions League final, and referees like Bogan who are suspected of "subjective tendencies" cannot enforce the final.

The UEFA referee committee decided that night that another Norwegian referee, A. Sundet, would replace Bogan.

Wenger didn't care whether Bogan was a Barcelona fan. He said at a press conference that afternoon: "I never go to the field to observe the referee. I have always had a good feeling for them. They are always as fair as they can. Law enforcement match."

Barcelona coach Rijkaard believes that someone is making a fuss and deliberately making things difficult for Bogan.He said: "Arsenal should also give him a jersey, Arsenal Arsenal let him put it on and take a photo so that the two sides are evened out."

Another member of the referee team, the referee Hauge, also received attention, especially the Catalan media, who were all jubilant.

Hauge can be regarded as the lucky star of Barcelona. In a total of 6 Barcelona games he has officiated, Barcelona has achieved 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss.Especially in the 1/8 finals of this season's Champions League, Hauge had refereeed Chelsea's home game against Barcelona, ​​and in the game, the Norwegian referee also sent off Chelsea defender Del Horno, which attracted a lot of attention. The British media criticized him, and he even received death threats from Chelsea fans after the game.

Arsenal are not familiar with Hauge's law enforcement style and strict requirements, because the Norwegian has only law enforcement in one of their games. In that game, Arsenal lost 0 to 2 to the Spanish team Deportivo. .

The hype about the referee also shows how much everyone attaches importance to this game.

The popularity of this Champions League final has also been fired to an unprecedented level. On the one hand, the importance of the final is on the one hand, and on the other hand, both teams are giants, and they are both giants who advocate offense. Can attract the attention of fans.

48 hours before the start of the UEFA Champions League final, tickets for the final on the European black market have been hyped by scalpers to 3000 euros per ticket, but the supply is still in short supply.On Monday, two masked gangsters even broke into the city hall of Saint-Denis in Paris at gunpoint, trying to demand tickets from the mayor by force, but failed in the end.

On the online auction website eBay, the lowest starting price was 2000 euros. A fan was willing to pay 5500 euros for two tickets, but there was no response.The face value of the Champions League final tickets is only 180 euros at the highest and only 60 euros at the lowest.Before the game, the Barcelona club sold the allocated 8000 tickets to members who participated in the application through a lottery, but some of the 8000 tickets flowed into the black market.On Monday, an interesting scene happened outside the Stade de France: a German fan took his car keys to exchange a final ticket with four Barcelona fans, but failed.

The game took place on Thursday, and the entire Arsenal team arrived in Paris on a special plane early on Wednesday morning.

(End of this chapter)