Handsome position is not easy

Chapter 129
Porto needs to face Aihuaka at home next. This is the bottom-ranked team in the league standings. They are destined to be relegated, but even so, Aihuaka still caused a lot of trouble for Porto.

In order to give enough rest time to the main players who will go to the Czech Republic to play the Champions League away game, and because Ihuaka's performance has not been recognized by the Portuguese League, after confirming that the team can take the opponent lightly, Murray Neo intends to give those poor players one last chance.

Pavlin, Ibarra and Ricardo Silva have not had a chance to play for some time. This game is a battle for their names, and Mourinho did not use Deco, Carvalho and Baia, who had just returned from injury, were placed in the squad, and they were replaced by young players from the second team and the youth academy, which meant that Pavlin and others had to be prepared to play the entire game. It was new to them.

In all fairness, the only thing Mourinho can do is to use low-intensity games to restore the confidence and recovery of the players, but his good intentions have not been rewarded. One bad mistake was made by Ibarra.

The Argentine, who served as the starting right back, missed the Ihuaka player he should be defending. The striker then shot through the goal guarded by Paul Santos from a small angle. There was a burst of boos at the Asantas Stadium. Rinho sat back on the coach's bench with a gloomy face. At this moment, he began to regret his merciless behavior.

Surprisingly, Porto, which has gradually adapted to playing without a midfielder, failed to make a well-formed attack. Ibarra was too impatient to hold the ball and was repeatedly cut off. Ricardo Silva This high school defender can't even compete for the top. Pavlin's problem is not serious, but it can be seen that his technical movements are slightly out of shape.

The score was still 0:1 down at halftime, and Mourinho returned to the locker room without saying a word, just sitting on a chair near the door, looking at the watch on his left wrist from time to time, Porto's starting player felt that the house The atmosphere had dropped to freezing point, the coach didn't speak, none of them dared to make any excessive movement, and they also stood on tiptoe to minimize the movement when arranging the sneakers.

Brito noticed this weird atmosphere, leaned close to Mourinho and said in a low voice: "The team is still behind, you really don't want to say a few words? It doesn't matter if you change someone, we didn't even have a chance in the first half. I didn’t play any offense, and the little guys in the second team and the youth team also played timidly.”

Mourinho glanced at the group of players who were quiet like little girls behind him, waved to Brito and said: "Give them the last 10 minutes, if they really fall like this, that's okay." The method is to at least see clearly who in the team is not able to support the wall with mud."

After the start of the second half, although the scene improved, Porto's offensive end still did not improve. Mourinho, who was exhausted from patience, looked at the bench and replaced three people in one breath, including receiving the punishment from the second team. Postiga who was brought back.

The 19-year-old young striker appeared very quiet on the field, but this does not mean that his talent has been worn away by this bad experience. Just in the 80 minutes of the game, Postiga dexterously swayed Aihua with the ball Card's two defenders volleyed successfully from the left side of the penalty area, and Porto equalized the score.

The 1:1 score was maintained until the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game. Mourinho left the field without a word and walked straight into the player channel. After refusing to attend the press conference, he even He didn't even bother to go to the locker room, and went straight back to his office on the court.

By the time Brito and Faria had dealt with all the matters at the end of the game and came here, Mourinho was already packing up his pen and notebook. He divided all the players that Porto could play into three groups. One group will fight with themselves next season, the second group is the players who have not been decided to stay, and the third group will be completely abandoned.

"Jose, who are you going to show this list to? Mr. Chairman? Or someone else?"

"No, I'm going to talk to the players about it in training tomorrow, the list won't be given to the upper echelons of the club, and I'm not going to say the names in front of everyone, if they want to know they've been called. Which group you belong to, you can come to the office to find me alone."

Brito and Faria looked at each other, with slightly bitter smiles on their faces, Brito took the lead and said, "Jose, even if you make it clear to them, I don't think there will be any A few people came to the office to ask you, this kind of mentality is like a child waiting for the report card after the test, how many people do you think will be willing to know the score in advance?"

"I know, that's why I won't release this list. Even if someone comes to me to inquire about something, I won't tell them information other than myself. In this matter, my intention is more I want to create an environment where I can chat with the players alone, as long as the players take the initiative to take the first step, I will use the best attitude to face them."

……

As Brito and Faria thought, after the training session the next day, few people really went to the office to talk to Mourinho, and the ones who came to ask were older players, they would not be like young people. I fell out with the coach because of my temper, but I don't want to play this kind of cat and mouse game with the coach.

The reason why they want to know their grouping in the roster is just to pave the way for their future career. If it is really not in Mourinho's plan for next season's lineup, they will ask their agents to find suitable transfer candidates first. The team, as for the young people, whether they are angry or confident, they will not do this kind of "lost value" behavior.

Everyone knows that Porto's Champions League run is at stake, and that if another big mistake is made in the league, the entire 2001/02 season will be wiped out.After the home draw with Ihuaca, Porto dropped to the fourth place in the Liga Liga standings. Benfica, the direct competitor, climbed up, and there were Belenlens, Maritimo and old club Leiria below. Eyeing.

Porto is not far away from losing the qualification for the European war next season, but Mourinho still has not shaken his belief. He firmly abandoned several players in the main lineup, even if this will damage the overall strength of the first team , Whether he is slandered by the media or scolded by the club staff for being stubborn, he doesn't care at all.

In the game against Sparta Prague in the Czech capital, Mourinho used the strongest lineup he could come up with. Not only did he want to win, but he also had to hope that Real Madrid could win. Beat Panathinaikos away.

But not only the Spanish team only got a 2:2 draw, but even Porto led by Deco was defeated by Sparta Prague, completely swallowing the bitter fruit of 0:2. The next day, many media in Portugal played " Shameful farewell" headlines.

For Porto, this game means saying goodbye to the Champions League, and for Mourinho, he also wants to say goodbye to Pavlin, Ibarra, Ricardo Silva and others Well, if it weren't for Paul Santos to find Mourinho to apologize to him after the game, the Setubal people almost included the 29-year-old goalkeeper on the cleaning list.

(End of this chapter)