Grassroots Glory

With the decision of the top sixteen teams in the UEFA Champions League, before UEFA officially draws the knockout rounds, the gaming company first updated the latest winning odds of the sixteen teams.

According to common sense, Schalke 04, which has won six consecutive victories and made it to the finals, should not be underestimated, but the bookmaker is more conservative because of the huge interests involved. The odds of Schalke 04 are 25 to 1, ranking In the third place, Manchester United and Barcelona ranked ahead of Schalke at 15 to 1 and 2 to 1 respectively. The odds rankings of the two giants Ladbrokes and bwin are also the same, but the specific odds are slightly lower.

Obviously, the gaming company is still more optimistic about the defending champion and the La Liga dream team that has created two generations of dynasties. Although there was a double-beating performance against Liverpool in the group stage, the gaming company is not very optimistic about Schalke 04's ability to fight against the real super giants.

But the German media didn't bother to take a look at this kind of prediction. The victory of the Germans with fighting spirit comes from fighting. A sentence printed on the cover of the latest issue of Kicker magazine hits the nail on the head: Can Ferguson and Guardiola dare to say that they can win against Schalke?

These words are confident enough, but if Slomka knows, probably his first thought is to tear the crow's mouth of the editor-in-chief of the magazine - he doesn't want to verify the authenticity of this question in advance before entering the quarterfinals...

The draw for the round of 16 was held a week later during the winter break of the Bundesliga. Before that, there was still a key league match left in the first half: Schalke 04 challenged Stuttgart away.

Slomka has a full estimate of the difficulty of this game. Zhou Tiancheng just resumed training with the ball two days ago, and he must still be far away from his normal state. But he still issued a kill order to everyone.

Stuttgart needs this victory to narrow the point difference and continue to keep pace with the leaders. And Schalke 04 needs a victory to ensure a successful half-time championship.

Before the team went to Stuttgart, each player received a gift from the club: a CD of all their games in the group stage. The club director Helter personally went to the training ground and handed it over to everyone, and expressed the club's intentions: Boys, you have created our Schalke record. Your performance in this year's group stage is enough for all Schalke people to remember. , You each have a copy of these game videos, so keep them safe.

Everyone was surprised, but Zhou Tiancheng was empty-handed, and Hewedes was also very surprised: Hey, Zhou, where's yours?

How do I know? Zhou Tiancheng spread his hands and looked at Heert with questioning eyes.

Of course, Helter understood what Zhou Tiancheng meant, so he didn't say much, just said: Zhou, come with me.

Zhou Tiancheng could only follow Heert to his office in a daze.

Helter took a small bag from his desk to Zhou Tiancheng,

Zhou Tiancheng saw that it was exactly the same as the CD received by other teammates, but he had two copies.

Zhou, in front of everyone just now, it's inconvenient to hand it over to you. The club cut out all your goals and assists in the group stage, so you have one more game than them.

Zhou Tianjian said politely: You are interested. I just complete the tasks assigned by the coach and do my job well.

Helter smiled and replied, You're right, but it's rare to be able to do your job so well like you. Keep it up, and you'll find out later that this is also a rare memory.

Zhou Tiancheng nodded heavily, the club's approach made him feel very heart-warming. At this time, he thought that his agent Lorca had reminded him that Schalke did not pay much attention to the young people he trained, and often used them as a tool for cashing out. Zhou Tiancheng now feels that the bigger reason may be that those who were sold off are not strong enough.

...

Since winning the championship two seasons ago, Stuttgart's current group of young guards has become a clear stream in the Bundesliga. However, Stuttgart withstood the poaching of many teams and kept most of these championship backbones. Now the team under the head coach Aminfei is a combination of old and new, which is very difficult to deal with. Khedira, Hitzlsperger, Boulahrouz, and Boca are all young and energetic players, and Gomez has already played an important role in the German team's striker. As for the goalkeeper position, they signed Lehmann as a free agent before this season. The German goalkeeper returned to the Bundesliga freely. This is the first time he has faced his old club.

Zhou Tiancheng has just returned from injury, and Slomka originally wanted him to buffer the halftime, but he took the initiative to ask for a fight before the start of the game, and once again showed good running ability in the team confrontation. After Slomka consulted with team doctor Lajota, he was placed in the starting list.

Stuttgart is playing at home. In fact, their overall performance is better than that of Schalke 04. Zhou Tiancheng was still affected by his return from injury. His activity level throughout the game was not as good as that of the opponent's midfielder Sami Khedira. However, Schalke 04 ushered in a turning point with a penalty kick. Zhou Tiancheng took the initiative to apply to stand twelve yards, facing the senior Lehmann on the club's honor wall. Zhou Tiancheng used a clever spoon penalty to help the team win the away game.

When he walked into the goal to pick up the ball, Lehman stopped him from the side. The two high-fived each other tacitly, and Lehman looked at the young man with relief. Although he has played for two teams in the Ruhr area in his career, he has special feelings for Schalke 04, which gave him his first professional contract.

Lyman saw the current Zhou, probably he thought of his nineteen years old.

Lehman at the age of nineteen was far from being as handsome as Zhou Tiancheng is now. At that time, he was just a young goalkeeper of the German second team Schalke 04.

While Lehman lamented that the waves behind the Yangtze River pushed forward the waves ahead, Zhou Tiancheng was also looking forward to when he could reach the height of this veteran.

...

In the end, this crucial battle ended with a small 1:0 victory for Schalke. In the last two games before the start of the winter break, Schalke beat Hertha Berlin 1:0 and drew with Hoffenheim 1:1. At the end of the half, Schalke scored 11 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss. The report card of 18 points won the half-time championship. Leading the halfway again after a season.

All the big and tabloid newspapers in Gelsenkirchen are optimistic that Schalke should be able to really aspire to the championship this year. According to professional company statistics, the Bundesliga half-time champion has a 70% chance of winning the final league title.

However, not all Bundesliga experts believe that Schalke will definitely win the championship. The other 30% of the accidents happened to Schalke two seasons ago.

And once the winter transfer window opens, any changes may happen. Will a master like Bayern willing to hand over the league championship to the top four teams? Obviously no.

Everyone is waiting to see whether Schalke 04, which has been relying on self-production and sales for a living, will make some big moves for the championship this winter window.

To put it bluntly, if you want to be a champion, it depends not only on the strength of the players and the formation of the coach, but also the thickness of the wallet.