Manchester United legend

Chapter 110

This season's Premier League has been brilliant and exciting, with a lot to watch.

The first is that a lot of money and famous coaches and stars continue to flock in.Famous coaches such as Evans, Gullit, Wenger, Dalglish, and Keegan are coaching several super teams, and they are still seeking to leverage Manchester United's dominance.

In terms of players, last season's Brazilian footballer Juninho, former Juventus captain Vialli, Italian Bantam Zola, Pulsatilla Ravanelli and other superstars have all joined the Premier League, bringing more attention and popularity to the British Isles.

赛季从1996年的8月到1997年的5月，一共进行了380场联赛（实际上其中有一场比赛非常诡异，那就是米德尔斯堡自行取消了和布莱克本的比赛，结果被英足总罚掉对于米堡保级来说致命的3分）。全部球队一共打入了970粒进球，场均进球2.55粒。

The number of such goals is actually not particularly high, but the situation of winning the championship is not clear until the last two rounds of the league. It is not until the last round that it is known which team will unfortunately be relegated. Therefore, overall it is still very stalemate and very intense.

Among all the teams, Manchester United was the last big winner and finally won the league championship.

Ferguson won the league's best head coach honor, Beckham won the league's best rookie award, and a total of 4 Manchester United players were selected into the best team of the season.

Compared with Manchester United, the most unfortunate team can be regarded as the Middlesbrough team, which has a little relationship with Manchester United.

This old English team has actually just been promoted to the Premier League not long ago.

In the 1994-95 season, Gibson became the chairman of Middlesbrough. He invited Manchester United's "magic captain" Brian Robson as the head coach and asked him to serve as a player.

With generous investment, Middlesbrough returned to the Premier League as the Champions of the First Division in one season.Gibson continued to invest heavily. In 1995, a brand new Riverside Stadium with 3 seats was built. The whole Middlesbrough club was full of confidence and opened a new page in history.

In the 1995-1996 season, Gibson continued to buy people frantically. He successively acquired the England international Nick Barmby with a club record transfer fee of 525 million pounds, and bought the great Juninho from the Sao Paulo team of Brazil. The lineup has been strengthened.They also successfully avoided relegation that season and finally ranked 13th.

This season Gibson continues to recruit and prepare for a big fight.

He successively bought Ravanelli, a powerful striker from Juventus, and then introduced Emerson and Baker. Although Bamby switched to Everton at a price of 10 million pounds in October, the Middlesbrough team is still strong.

However, the situation of the season was strange. The whole game process made Middlesbrough fight to the end and exhausted both physically and mentally. Although Ravanelli scored a hat-trick against a strong opponent like Liverpool in the first game, even though Juninho's Brazilian dance made countless defenders lose sight of one another.

But I have to say that Middlesbrough's lineup is too thin, and their appetite is too big.

What is particularly unforgivable is that their event directors actually made such low-level mistakes.Throughout the entire league season, after a series of tough battles, they finally scored 42 points in the league and could have been ranked 14th, but they canceled a league game with Blackburn without authorization, and were deducted 3 points by the FA.

That is the fatal 3 points!Although Middlesbrough, who was eventually deducted three points, extended their relegation hopes to the final round.

If Middlesbrough can win the last round, they will still be able to stay in the Premier League.

It's a pity that they were still tied by their opponents in the end, and bid farewell to the Premier League amidst the tension, loss and final tears of the home fans.

In the end, the whole stadium was touched by the sadness of the players. The scene of Juninho sitting on the ground and crying is vivid in my memory. In an inexplicable tragic atmosphere, at the moment when the team was relegated, the riverside stadium was full of tears.

The performance of those home fans at the Riverside Stadium after the game was shocking.

No fans left the field early, all stood up and tearfully saw the team off and gave high fives... When you see these fans, you will believe that one day this team will make a comeback.

Middlesbrough is not only a pity to be relegated due to penalty points, they have reached the finals in both the FA Cup and the League Cup!The most regrettable thing is that this team, which fought hard until the final decisive battle, fell in front of two cup championship trophies in a row.

Middlesbrough face Leicester City in the League Cup final.

The two teams were tied in the first final, and went to overtime in the rematch, and finally lost to their opponents 0-1 and lost the trophy.In the FA Cup final, they lost to Chelsea 0-2. The final ending was empty-handed, the stars were scattered, and it ended sadly.

It's not just Middlesbrough who invest heavily and hope that the team will burst out and win the championship.Chelsea have the same thoughts, but they have enough background and good luck.Chelsea's money was mainly spent on signings. The joining of Vialli, Zola and Di Matteo and the coaching of Gullit made the Blues a strong London team with a blend of Italian and Dutch styles.Zola, who was still an Italian international at the time, made a rather surprising decision. In November 1996, he moved from Serie A to Chelsea for £11 million.

Of course, among them is the reason why Gullit is his best friend.After Zola's joining, Chelsea rose rapidly and grew.

In Zola's first year at Chelsea, he helped the team win the FA Cup after an absence of 26 years, and made Chelsea leap from an obscure mid-stream team to a super powerful team with superior strength.

Among the giants in London, another blue army has been added.

Newcastle finished second again, and their bid for the title for the second year in a row was ultimately unsuccessful.

The strength of Newcastle, which introduced Shearer, has continued unabated, but Keegan's team leader has caused problems in the Magpies' locker room.

Finally, Dalglish replaced the unfulfilled Keegan in the middle of the season.

But even if Dalglish took over, facing Ferguson is no longer an opponent.

For most of the season, Newcastle did not actually cause any trouble for Manchester United. The 5-0 at the beginning of the season seemed to relieve Keegan and Shearer, and it also made the Magpies fans happy.But the final standings told them that it was just an insignificant "great" victory.

In addition to the league runner-up, the only thing Newcastle is happy about is that Shearer once again won the honor of top scorer this season with 26 goals.

This is the third time that Shearer has won the honor of top scorer in the Premier League, but that's all.

Of course, the striker formed by Shearer and Les Ferdinand scored 41 league goals in a season, and it was also the most lethal combination.

Ian Wright and Bergkamp were the second striker partnership to cause headaches for the teams' defenses. They scored 35 goals. Although Manchester United won the league championship, Solskjaer and Eric Cantona, the top scorers in the team, only scored 29 goals.

Although the number of goals scored by Cole and Cantona has declined, Manchester United is still the most offensive team in the league. They have scored 76 goals in total, with an average of 2.00 goals per game. On the contrary, Leeds United, Blancos is the weakest offensive team in the league, with only 28 goals, with an average of 0.73 goals per game. 32 goals, conceding only 0.84 goals per game; while Middlesbrough, who was unfortunately relegated, was the worst defensive team, conceding 60 goals in total, conceding 1.57 goals per game.

This season, Beardsley won the Special Contribution Award. The league bid farewell to his glorious era through such an award, and Liverpool's chasing boy Michael Owen set foot on the grass of the Premier League for the first time.

Of course, at that time Liverpool's absolute superstar belonged to their new king-Fowler.This year, the performance of some newly promoted teams was astonishing: the young black striker Huskey helped Leicester get a good result in ninth in the league, while Derby County finally ranked 9th.

By the way, another very interesting thing happened this season. Someone performed noble morals on the court.

It was a league game between Liverpool and S Arsenal on March 1997, 3. When the game went to 24 minutes, Liverpool striker Fowler went straight into the opponent's penalty area in the attack, forming a single-handed fight.

Seaman, who rushed up to "block the eye-catching", abandoned the goal and attacked. Fowler wanted to wade past Seaman and hit the empty goal.

However, at the moment of Fowler's kick, Seaman made a horizontal save regardless of everything. If Fowler kicked out at this time, it is very likely to kick Seaman.

At this moment, Fowler suddenly retracted his feet, lost his balance and fell to the ground.The referee blew his whistle, thinking that Fowler was thrown down by Seaman, and showed a red card to send Seaman off the field and a penalty kick.

A strange thing happened. Fowler repeatedly explained to the referee that Seaman didn't touch him, and he lost his balance and fell down. He asked the referee to take back the penalty.

Then, a strange thing happened, the referee withdrew the red card, but still insisted on awarding a penalty kick!Even more amazing things happened again!Penalty kick by Fowler.

When Fowler took the penalty, he was careless or intentional at all. His penalty kick was saved by Seaman, who judged accurately.

The stunned audience saw an even more unbelievable scene. Seaman saved the ball, but the ball bounced to the feet of Liverpool's McAteer, and McAteer sent the ball into the bottom of the net!Nima, after so much tossing, it's not a goal? !

Well, what a magical scene!
After watching the game, the then secretary-general of FIFA actually wrote to Fowler: "This is a move to maintain the unity of football. In this important game, the demeanor you showed will become a model for all athletes to learn from."

There are also many interesting things outside the stadium. In April 1997, a major event was held at the Manchester City Art Gallery, where artist Michael Browne unveiled a controversial new work.It was a painting of Ferguson and Eric Cantona and several other players.

The characters in the painting are all dressed in ancient costumes, and it is obvious that the work is based on the works of the Renaissance masters "The Resurrection of Jesus" and "Julius-Caesar".

Brownie painted Eric as Jesus!Many people thought it was blasphemy and lodged serious protests against the author and the museum.

However, Michael explained that he only wanted to show the place football occupies in people's lives, and did not want to emphasize the fans' admiration for Cantona.

Ferguson, who attended the unveiling, said in an interview with reporters, "I can understand the criticism, but I don't think it offends the church that it took Michael a year to complete this masterpiece. It's a beautiful work of art."

In addition, also in April, Manchester United held a commemorative match for the team's meritorious veteran McClair.

The opponent is the giants Celtic in the Scottish Premier League.It was a good night for McClair, United players and fans at Old Trafford.

Nearly 4 spectators poured into the arena, full of emotion. Ferguson said before the game, "Only McClair can attract so many fans to see him, because he is loyal to Manchester United and has made great contributions. He is our hero for Manchester United!" Manchester United lost 1:2 in the commemorative match.

(End of this chapter)