From the man behind the football king to the football king.

2020年12月9日晚，2020-2021赛季欧冠小组赛第六轮的最后一个比赛日到来。

This evening, Manchester United traveled to Denmark to challenge Midtjylland. Having already qualified for the group and secured first place in the group, Manchester United played with a full substitute lineup and ended up drawing 1:1 with their opponent.

Thus, the group stage of this season's Champions League has come to an end. The four Premier League teams that participated in the competition performed very well and all advanced to the knockout stage as group leaders. Among them, Manchester City had the best record, with an unbeaten record of 5 wins and 1 tie, tied with Bayern Munich for the best among the top 4 teams; Chelsea also remained unbeaten in the group stage, with a record of 2 wins and 4 draws; Manchester United and Liverpool achieved 1 wins, 1 draw and loss, ranking first in their respective groups.

In the end, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid in Group A, Manchester City and Borussia Mönchengladbach in Group B, Manchester City and Porto in Group C, Manchester United and Atalanta in Group D, Chelsea and Sevilla in Group E, Dortmund and Lazio in Group F, Juventus and Barcelona in Group G, and Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain in Group H successfully advanced to the knockout stage.

Salzburg, Shakhtar Donetsk, Olympiacos, Manchester United, Krasnodar, Bruges, Dynamo Kyiv and Leipzig were eliminated to the Europa League. They will participate in the Europa League round of 24 with the teams ranked in the top two of the Europa League group stage.

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In the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals on December 12, there were many strong teams. Manchester United was not very lucky, and drew the French Ligue 14 champion Paris Saint-Germain; Chelsea and Liverpool were also very unlucky, Chelsea met Simeone's Atletico Madrid, and Liverpool faced Barcelona; only Manchester City was lucky, and drew the Bundesliga Champions League newcomer Borussia Mönchengladbach.

The remaining four matches are Bayern Munich vs. Lazio, Manchester City vs. Atalanta, Juventus vs. Porto, and Dortmund vs. Sevilla.

Among the eight group runners-up, the three strongest teams, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, all met Premier League teams, which makes people wonder if there is something fishy going on.

For a time, reports appeared in major British media and on the Internet that UEFA intended to suppress Premier League teams.

Since the Premier League teams swept the finals of the Champions League and Europa League in the 2018-2019 season, at the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, the Premier League overtook La Liga with a slight advantage and topped the UEFA standings, becoming the veritable first league.

Last season, Manchester United defeated Bayern Munich again and won the Champions League for the third consecutive time. The Premier League teams have also continued to perform well in European competitions. After the start of this season, the Premier League has overtaken the second-ranked La Liga by nearly ten points in the UEFA standings, and is showing a trend of leaving the rest far behind.

Under such circumstances, everyone expected that the Premier League would be suppressed by UEFA.

In the group stage, the Premier League teams are in groups with relatively strong opponents, which has already shown UEFA's thinking.

As a result, the Premier League teams continued to perform well in the group stage and all advanced as group winners. This era, the Premier League teams are far ahead in the UEFA standings in the new season.

Of course UEFA would not allow such a thing to happen, and the result of the knockout draw was obvious: three of the four Premier League teams encountered strong opponents.

This is because only three of the eight group runner-ups are strong, otherwise Manchester City would definitely face a strong opponent.

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On the evening of December 12, a focus match of the 13th round of the Premier League kicked off at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, with the Red Devils Manchester United facing their city rivals, the Blue Moon Manchester City.

As Cardiff was rated as a second-tier area, 2000 fans were allowed to enter the Millennium Stadium for this game.

For Manchester United, this is the first game in which fans have truly returned. After all, the previous game against West Ham United was played away from home, and very few Manchester United fans were able to enter the stadium.

Although there were still only more than a thousand Manchester United fans able to enter the stadium, they still made them very happy.

Of course, another piece of news that made Manchester United fans happy was the return of captain Bruno Fernandes. Bruno, who had been away from the team for more than ten days because of the birth of his eldest son, returned to Manchester on the eve of the first Manchester derby of the season and was included in the squad for today's game.

However, considering Bruno's fatigue from the journey, Mourinho did not put Bruno in the starting lineup, but temporarily kept him on the bench.

In Mourinho's plan, if the team's game goes well, Bruno will not play today. After all, the team granted Bruno two weeks of maternity leave, and Bruno returned to the team two days in advance.

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This Manchester derby was the last match of this round, but in the other matches that ended before this, traditional strong teams suffered upsets. Chelsea lost 0-1 to Everton at Goodison Park, and Ancelotti completed his revenge on his old club; Tottenham, who played next, drew 1-1 with Crystal Palace away, and Liverpool also drew 1-1 with Fulham away. Arsenal was the biggest upset of this round. They lost 0-1 at home to Burnley, the second-to-last team in the standings, and their ranking has dropped to 15th, only three places above the relegation zone.

The game was intense but not exciting enough, with the score at halftime being 0:0. Both sides created some chances but failed to seize them. But in general, Manchester United, playing at home, still had the advantage on the field. Except for a slight lag in ball possession at 45% to 55%, Manchester United had a slight advantage in terms of shots, corner kicks, and the number of times they entered the penalty area.

In this situation, Mourinho did not make any substitutions during the half-time break, and Bruno was still sitting on the bench at the start of the second half.

Shortly after the start of the second half, Manchester United had a great opportunity to score.

In the 48th minute, Cancelo made a curved cross from the right, Rashford got rid of the ball in the penalty area and was brought down by Kyle Walker. The referee hesitated for a moment and still awarded a penalty.

In the absence of Bruno, Rashford naturally would not give up the opportunity to take the penalty kick. However, just as he walked to the penalty spot with the ball in his arms and was about to take the penalty kick, the video referee team prompted the referee to watch the video on the sidelines.

This situation basically means that the penalty kick will most likely be cancelled.

This was indeed the case. After the referee went to the sidelines to watch the video replay, he pointed out that Rashford was offside and the penalty was cancelled.

Mourinho was naturally very dissatisfied with such a penalty, but he had been punished for protesting against the referee's decision this season, so even though he was very angry, he still tried his best to suppress his temper and did not speak rudely to the referee team.

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After the referee cancelled Manchester United's penalty, Mourinho immediately signaled Bruno to get up and warm up.

The signal is already very clear, Bruno will soon come on as a substitute.

While Bruno was warming up, Manchester United created another good scoring opportunity.

In the 54th minute of the game, Mata made a diagonal pass into the empty space on the left rib, Rashford entered the penalty area in time and took a low shot, but the ball was just slightly off target.

In the 60th minute of the game, Bruno finally came on as a substitute, and the person he replaced was none other than the team's veteran Mata.

In the first two games when Bruno was absent, Mata, as Manchester United's main attacking midfielder, although he did not have a very outstanding performance, he played his role.

In today's game, Mata played diligently on the field, so when he was substituted, he received applause from all the Manchester United fans present.

After Bruno came on the pitch, his position was not the attacking midfielder he usually plays, but relatively far back, forming a three-midfielder formation with Gundogan and Kante.

During this period, Manchester City's offensive was very fierce. The task that Mourinho gave to Bruno was to first help the team stabilize its defense and then wait for an opportunity to counterattack.

In the 66th minute of the game, Guardiola first replaced veteran Fernandinho with Pogba, and three minutes later replaced the exhausted veteran Aguero with young player Ferran Torres.

Both substitutions carried strong signals of strengthening the team's offense.

Manchester United also quickly made a substitution, with Greenwood coming on to replace Harry Kane.

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Manchester City's powerful offensive made Manchester United dare not be careless at all. The three lines retreated to the 30-meter area in their own half, forming three solid lines of defense to deal with Manchester City's repeated attacks.

In the final stage of the game, Kyle Walker also frequently pressed forward, and there were only two central defenders left in the back line. A huge amount of manpower was invested in the frontcourt attack, forcing Manchester United to further shrink its defense line.

The situation on the court was extremely critical. Any mistake at this time might cause the team's efforts for most of the previous half to be wasted. Both sides dared not slack off in the slightest.

Bruno said he was an attacking midfielder, but in fact he almost returned to the same position as the defensive midfielder.

There is no way around it. Manchester City pressed too high and Manchester United's penalty area needed protection. Kante and Gundogan had played the whole game and only Bruno came on as a substitute. He had to be more active.

As the game was coming to an end, De Bruyne could no longer run and could only walk slowly in the frontcourt; Jesus had also exhausted his energy and he didn't even move around, but just stood outside the penalty area to accumulate strength and prepare for the next sprint.

The physical strength of Manchester City players has reached its limit, and the situation of Manchester United players is not much better. Only a few substitutes are still running and pressing hard.

Bruno came on as a substitute in the 60th minute of the second half, but he was very hard-working and active from the moment he came on the pitch, and he frequently performed short-distance sprints and shuttle runs, which consumed a lot of physical energy.

When the race was nearing its end, he really felt that he was almost exhausted, but he still kept running.