Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

法国当地时间2006年3月10日中午12时，05/06赛季欧洲冠军杯1/4决赛与半决赛抽签仪式在巴黎市政厅举行。这是欧足联首次把抽签仪式放在决赛举办地进行。

Since the second round of the round of 1 between Inter Milan and Ajax will be held on the 8th of next week, there are a total of 14 teams participating in the draw ceremony: AC Milan, Juventus and Inter Milan from Serie A, Barcelona and Villarreal from La Liga, Arsenal, Lyon, Benfica and Ajax will represent the Premier League, Ligue 9, Portuguese Super League and Eredivisie respectively.

The draw for the quarter-finals is random, so teams from the same league may meet in advance. This year, there may be a civil war between Serie A or La Liga, among which the most concerned is the possibility of the Milan derby, which is perhaps the derby that people least want to see, because the Milan derby has already appeared twice in the past three seasons.

The draw ceremony was hosted by UEFA CEO Olsson, and former French central defender Blanc, who won the 1998 World Cup at the Stade de France, was the guest of honor. The newly designed trophy to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Champions League was also displayed at the draw site, with the names of the previous 50 champions engraved on the trophy.

Former Real Madrid star Gento and last year's champion captain Gerrard appeared with the trophy. Gento was one of the Real Madrid players who won the first Champions League and the only player to win six Champions Leagues. Gento and Gerrard handed the trophy to Olsson, who then handed it to Paris Mayor Delanoe. The trophy will be on public display until the final day.

Afterwards, the draw ceremony was hosted by Olsson, and Blank drew the balls representing the teams one by one. The team that was drawn first would play at home first during the match...

The first team to be drawn was Arsenal, the only team from the Premier League, and their opponent was Juventus from Serie A;

The next team drawn was Lyon from France, and their opponent was AC Milan from Serie A;

The third pair drawn is the winner of Inter Milan and Ajax, who will face Villarreal, one of the two representative teams of La Liga;

The team drawn to play first at home in the last group is the Portuguese Super League representative Benfica, and their opponent is the last La Liga representative team that automatically ranked - Barcelona;

Therefore, the grouping of the semi-finals was automatically sorted.

The winner of Arsenal and Juventus will first face the winner of Inter Milan or Ajax and Villarreal at home;

The match between Lyon and AC Milan will be played in Shengze, and the winner between Benfica and Barcelona will be played.

The quarter-finals of this year's Champions League have successfully avoided the Serie A and La Liga civil wars, but the semi-finals may see the European version of the Serie A national derby between Juventus and Inter Milan; and the Milan derby between AC Milan and Inter Milan is only likely to appear in the final...

1/4决赛的两回合比赛将分别于3月28和29日，以及4月4和5日进行，半决赛将安排在4月18和19日，以及4月25和26日。决赛于5月17日在巴黎法兰西大球场进行。

After the draw results were announced, major European bookmakers immediately adjusted their odds for winning the championship.

Barcelona and Juventus are seen as the biggest favorites to win the title, and their odds have been lowered again, ranking in the top two at 2.5 and 4.5 respectively.

AC Milan and Lyon will have a strong match, but the odds of both teams have risen, ranking third (7.0) and fourth (8.0) respectively.

Although Inter Milan's match with Ajax has not yet been completed, it is still favored and the odds have been lowered to 9.0.

The least favored team is still Ajax, ranking last with odds of 101 times.

另外排在第六位的阿森纳的赔率是12.0，排在第7位的比利亚雷亚尔是15.0，排在第8位的本菲卡为29.0。

……

Soon, some media summarized the historical records of battles and grievances between Benfica and Barcelona.

两队在欧洲三大杯历史上只交战过3场(全部都是在冠军杯中)，本菲卡1胜1平1负与巴萨平分秋色，进4球失4球；其中本菲卡在60/61赛季的欧冠决赛中以3比2的比分力克巴萨夺冠。而两队的最近一次交锋是在91/92赛季的欧冠复赛中，两回合的较量本菲卡1平1负不敌巴萨。

Although Barcelona has not won the Champions League for 14 years, including a memorable 0-4 defeat, don't forget that Benfica, which has reached the Champions League final seven times, last won the title 7 years ago.

After the results of the next stage of the Champions League knockout stage came out, Ronald Koeman, the head coach of Benfica who had just eliminated the defending champion Liverpool, vowed that his team could continue to work hard and eliminate Barcelona, ​​which currently has the first odds of winning the championship.

Interestingly, Koeman spent the golden period of his career in Barcelona. In the 1992 European Cup final, it was Koeman's goal that helped Barcelona defeat Sampdoria and win the only European Cup title in Barcelona's history. After retiring, Koeman continued to serve as an assistant coach at Barcelona for a long time.

When evaluating the current Barcelona team, Koeman is still full of affection for his old club. He said: "Barcelona is the team with the greatest hope of winning the championship. They have excellent players, such as Ronaldinho, Eto'o and Deco, but I am very happy to meet them because I have played and coached in this team for many years."

Koeman believes that if Benfica wants to eliminate their opponent in the end, they must seize the opportunity in the first round. He said: "We must ensure that we don't lose the ball in the home game... This is how we eliminated Liverpool. If we score another goal away from home, they must score three. This is my plan. We have a chance to enter the semi-finals. Nothing is impossible in life."

In addition, Benfica's chairman Vieira is also confident about the match with Barcelona: "Three months ago, no one believed that Benfica would qualify from the group stage, but we squeezed out Manchester United. A month ago, no one predicted that we could reach the quarterfinals, but we eliminated Liverpool... Barcelona is undoubtedly the best team today... It will definitely be a very tough match to meet them... But I believe we can advance to the semi-finals because we have proved that we are an excellent team. Everything is possible in football."

……

After training on Friday night, Ricardo not only surfed the Internet to follow the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals, but also continued to organize his thesis for the first time. His plan is to submit the sixth draft with the latest data to the professor for review and revision next weekend. Yes, mainly because Chiara's aunt's day off this weekend, plus Ricardo, who was selected for the league squad this Sunday, has to go to an away game, and Barcelona will play away games twice next weekend, so he will stay away for two days on Saturday and Sunday, so while there are no little goblins to disturb him in these two weeks, Ricardo is determined to study and train attentively.

Yes, Ricardo was very confident that he would be included in the squad for the away game next weekend... In addition, Ricardo selfishly thought that if he was not selected, it would not be too late to summon Chiara to accompany him.

On Sunday, March 3, it was cloudy and drizzling in the morning in Barcelona, ​​which was not very pleasant weather; but the entire Barcelona team had gathered at the base early in the morning and took the train to the away game to prepare for the game.

The destination this time is Pamplona, ​​the capital of the Navarra Autonomous Region of Spain, which is located between the cities of Zaragoza and Bilbao, about 482 kilometers away from Barcelona. The train ride takes about 4 hours. In order to catch the match against Osasuna at 21:9 in the evening, the entire Barcelona team set off at : in the morning this time, because they also have to reserve time for hotel check-in and warm-up in the afternoon.

Because there were no trains or flights back to Barcelona after the game, the whole team could only stay for one night and then take the train back to Barcelona on the morning of the 13th.

Osasuna Club, located in the Basque region, was founded in 1920. Perhaps influenced by the traditional Running of the Bulls in the home city, the team has always been known for its tough style of play. The club's name "Osasuna" also symbolizes courage and strength in Basque.

In the past two seasons, Osasuna has emerged as a dark horse under the leadership of the famous Mexican coach Aguirre. Last season, it miraculously reached the King's Cup final - unfortunately, it lost to Real Betis and finished second; and this season's performance is even more impressive. It has been winning games in a row since the beginning of the season, and even topped the list for a while. It is also the runner-up in the La Liga halfway through the season, second only to Barcelona.

Before this round of matches, Osasuna was only behind Real Madrid and Valencia, ranking fourth in the league. The key player in the current team is Spanish midfielder Raul Garcia, who is the same age as Ricardo.

It is also worth mentioning that as the only football club from Navarra in La Liga and La Liga 15, Osasuna has a large football community and one of the largest echelon systems in Spain. Including two women's representative teams, Osasuna has a total of 100 teams participating in leagues and organizations at all levels and has partnerships with nearly clubs in Navarra.

As one of the few four teams in the Spanish top league with a membership system, Osasuna has 4 official fan clubs, not only in Navarra, but in many parts of Spain, and even as far away as Mexico, Uruguay and Switzerland.

(Voiceover 1: Starting from July 7 every year, Spain's traditional festival of San Fermin, also known as the Running of the Bulls, will be held as scheduled in Pamplona, ​​the home city of Osasuna.)

(Voiceover 2: There are many membership clubs in the Spanish league, but in the La Liga and the Spanish Second Division, only four clubs, Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna, are truly membership clubs.)

……

2006年3月12日晚上21时，西班牙足球甲级联赛第27轮展开焦点战争夺，领头羊巴塞罗那奔赴客场挑战本赛季的黑马奥萨苏纳队。

Barcelona still lined up in a 4-3-3 formation in this game. In the midfield, they maintained the same starting lineup as in the Champions League in midweek, but made adjustments to both the back line and the forward line.

The goalkeeper is No. 1 Valdés;

The back line from left to right is No. 16 Sylvinho, No. 4 Marcos, No. 5 Puyol and No. 2 Belletti;

The iron triangle in the midfield is No. 15 Edmilson, No. 3 Motta and No. 20 Deco;

The forward trident is No. 8 Giuly, No. 9 Eto'o and No. 10 Ronaldinho.

Ricardo Liqui started the game from the bench along with Larsson, Iniesta, Oleger and Van Bommel.

In this game, due to Messi's injury, Rijkaard chose the French winger Giuly, who had just recovered from injury, to start the game instead of using the Swedish veteran Larsson who was in excellent form before.

Osasuna, who played at home, lined up in a 4-5-1 formation. In particular, the five-man midfielder led by Raul Garcia can be said to be the representative of La Liga's tough midfield combination, and each of them is as brave as Thiago Motta.

Ricardo frowned when he saw the Osasuna midfielders in red shirts and blue pants: "This group of tough midfielders... looks like this game is not going to be easy."

After the game started, it was obvious that the Barcelona team was unable to get into the game state. It might be that the Champions League match with Chelsea in the middle of the week and the subsequent quarter-final draw took up too much energy of the team.

In the 7th minute, under pressure from Osasuna's midfield, Eto'o made a fatal back pass error; Milosevic directly intercepted the African big cat's back pass and broke into the penalty area from the right side and passed the ball back. Raul Garcia followed up with a shot in the middle, but fortunately Marcos returned to defense in time and blocked it.

In the 11th minute, Osasuna's midfielder made another successful steal. This time, Raul Garcia counterattacked on both sides. Delport made a cross from the left, and David Lopez shot from the far point in the penalty area. Fortunately, this time it was blocked by Sylvinho's timely return and tackle.

Three minutes later, Osasuna came back with almost the same tactics. The midfielder once again joined forces to snatch the ball from Deco's feet, then quickly divided the ball into two counterattacks. Delport again made a cross from the left, but David Lopez chose to shoot directly with his left foot from the edge of the penalty area on the right. The ball penetrated Barcelona's defense, but unfortunately missed the near corner slightly.

However, 15 minutes later, the Barcelona team seemed to have not woken up from their sleep - I don't know if it was because they got up too early this morning to catch the train, or because their attention was still on the European arena.

Osasuna took the lead in the 19th minute with almost the same tactics. After successfully encircling the ball in the midfield, Osasuna quickly divided the ball into two parts and counterattacked. This time, Sylvinho fouled Baldo in the backcourt to prevent the opponent's quick cross.

However, Delport then sent a high free kick from the right into the penalty area, but Valdés, without any interference from his opponent, inexplicably dropped the ball and passed it directly to Baldo, who easily pushed the ball in front of him into the empty goal 7 yards away...

Ricardo, Rijkaard and a group of substitutes on the sidelines all had the same posture. They couldn't help but hold their foreheads with their hands, shaking their heads in a helpless manner: "Oh my god! It turned out that such a mistake led to the loss of the ball..."

This mistake by Valdés was the third fatal mistake this season. The first time was in the 3th round against Valencia at home, when he kicked the ball on Villa's back and the ball bounced into the net; the second time was in the 4rd round against Valencia, when Valdés accidentally passed the ball to Villa, helping Villa score the winning goal...

Osasuna leads Barcelona 1-0.