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

Chapter 373: Racing all the way

Manchester United beat Manchester City with ten men, making them the only team to maintain a complete victory after four rounds of Premier League games. Because one day later, Chelsea, another team that had maintained unbeatable victories in the first three rounds, was tied 4:2 by Swansea, nicknamed the "Swan Sea", at the Liberty Stadium in Wales.

As a result, after four rounds of the Premier League, Manchester United can lead the Premier League standings alone.

The impact of this game is far-reaching. It has built strong self-confidence for the entire Manchester United team.

In the following time, Manchester United won consecutive victories on all fronts and sang triumphantly.

At 9 pm Central European Time on September 16, Manchester United visited the Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to challenge Feyenoord led by Van Bronckhorst.

This is the first round of the Europa League group stage this season.

Since Manchester United only ranked fifth in the Premier League last season and the Red Devils failed to qualify for the Champions League this season, Bruno can only compete in the Europa League again after two years.

It is precisely because Manchester United can only compete in the Europa League this season that major European betting companies are not optimistic about Bruno's ability to win this year's European Golden Globe Award and World Footballer.

Although there has been no official announcement yet, almost everyone knows that the cooperation between FIFA and "France Football" has ended, and the FIFA Ballon d'Or Award, which has been held for six times, has come to an end.

Starting from 2016, world football will resume the coexistence of the European Ballon d'Or and World Footballer.

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2016 was the year of the competition, but Argentina, led by Messi, lost to Chile in the Copa America final and missed the championship. Portugal, led by Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno, defeated many powerful enemies and aspired to the championship. This made almost the whole world The media and betting companies all believe that this year's competition for the World Footballer and the European Ballon d'Or will be a civil war between the Portuguese twin stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno.

In terms of the national team, as the Portuguese dual-core Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno, their results are evenly matched. Although Bruno won the European Cup Golden Boot and Golden Ball Award, Cristiano Ronaldo also scored 6 goals in the game and served as captain. He is the spiritual leader of the Portuguese team, so the performance of the two in the national team cannot be divided.

But on the club side, Ronaldo's performance will take advantage. After all, Real Madrid, where he belongs, is a super-rich club and won the Champions League last season. Although Bruno scored a record 39 goals and 29 assists in Udinese last season and led Udinese to defend the Serie A championship, compared to Ronaldo's 16 Champions League goals and the Champions League title , still slightly inferior.

After all, Ronaldo won the Champions League Golden Boot, but Bruno did not win the European Golden Boot. This honor was won by Barcelona star Suarez, who scored 40 goals.

In addition, after Bruno moved to Manchester United, he could only compete in the Europa League this season, while Cristiano Ronaldo led Real Madrid to compete in the Champions League, which once again tilted the balance of competition towards Cristiano Ronaldo.

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Manchester United is in Group A of the Europa League this season with Eredivisie giants Feyenoord, Turkish Super League giants Fenerbahce, and Zoya from Ukraine.

Although Manchester United is recognized as the strongest team in the group, the games in this group are not easy to play. Neither Feyenoord nor Fenerbahce are easy players.

In particular, Feyenoord's record this season is also very good. In the Eredivisie, they have won five consecutive league games, beating PSV Eindhoven and Ajax and ranking first in the Eredivisie standings.

This also makes Feyenoord Manchester United's biggest competitor in Group A.

This is the first time the two teams have met since the UEFA Champions League group stage in 1997, when Manchester United defeated their opponents in two rounds. This is also the first time that Manchester United has participated in the group stages of the Europa League and its predecessor, the UEFA Cup. After all, during the Ferguson era, Manchester United had never fallen out of the top three in the Premier League, so they would not participate in the group stages of the Europa League.

Mourinho rotated 8 people, only Bruno, goalkeeper De Gea, and Maguire, who received a red card in the Premier League, continued to start. Mata, Herrera, Damian, Ashley Young, Smalling , Schneiderlin, Rashford and Lingard played in rotation. Rooney was arranged to rest, and Ibrahimovic, Kanter and Gundogan entered the bench.

Since neither captain Rooney nor vice-captain Carrick entered the squad, Bruno wore the Manchester United captain's armband.

He wore the captain's armband in the fifth game he played for Manchester United. Bruno became the fastest player in Manchester United's history to wear the captain's armband after joining the team.

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Despite the large-scale rotation, Manchester United played very proactively in the away game with the residual power of defeating Manchester City last weekend and took the lead early in the game.

In the 24th minute, Rashford passed the ball, Damian passed from the right, and Bruno volleyed from the edge of the penalty area. The ball flew into Feyenoord's net like lightning.

This is Bruno's 12th Europa League goal in his career and his 14th Europa League goal.

Before half-time, Manchester United scored another goal to expand their lead.

During stoppage time in the first half, Damian sent a cross from the right, and Rashford headed the ball over. Although Mata went up at the first point, he also hit the Feyenoord defender, which made the latter Bruno stepped in and got another great opportunity, easily sending the ball into Feyenoord's goal.

Although Feyenoord pulled one back in the 79th minute of the second half, they were unable to make a comeback in the end. Manchester United defeated the strongest opponent in this group 2:1 away from home and got a good start in the Europa League. In another match of the group, the Zoya team, which was regarded as the weakest team in this group, unexpectedly drew 1:1 with Fenerbahce at home. This also allowed Manchester United, who won the game, to easily climb to the top of Group A. position of one.

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Three days later, Manchester United visited Vicarage Road to challenge Premier League giants Watford.

Speaking of this team, it actually has some connection with Bruno, because the owner of this team is also the Pozzo family who owns Udinese.

Because they are all teams of the Pozzo family, Watford has many players on loan from Udinese, and Bruno saw several familiar names in Watford's roster. For example, their starting defensive midfielder Robert Pereira.

Bruno's former teammate failed to gain a foothold after moving to Juventus and moved to Watford this summer for 1350 million euros.

However, this is only on the surface. The real situation is that the Pozzo family bought Pereira back, but not through Udinese, but through Watford.

Watford has average strength, ranking 4th after the first 10 rounds of the league, and is considered a typical mid-range team. Bruno is also very familiar with Pereira, so the Argentinian failed to cause him much trouble.

In the 2nd minute of the game, Manchester United scored. At that time, Rooney passed a free kick and Bruno hit the goal with a header from the edge of the penalty area, helping Manchester United get a dream start.

Watford almost scored in the 9th minute. Prodl's header flew in front of the goal during a free kick, but Deeney missed the ball from close range on the left side of the penalty area.

Watford, who missed the great opportunity, soon suffered another blow. In the 31st minute, Fellaini passed the ball and Bruno shot from 30 yards through the Watford goal. Gomez had no reaction.

Watford pulled one back in the 34th minute. Lingard was intercepted by Britos in the backcourt. Janmatt passed the ball back from the right side of the penalty area. Capoue's shot from 14 yards hit De Gea's leg and deflected into the net. He has scored 5 goals in just 4 shots on target this season.

Mourinho complained from the sidelines that Britos had committed a foul first, but the referee still ruled that the goal was valid.

Manchester United once again took a two-goal lead in the 62nd minute. Ibrahimovic and Rashford kicked the wall and then made a pass from the left side of the penalty area. Rashford went over the head, but the ball hit Behrami's chest and deflected. Rashford A close shot from the left side of the penalty area went into the net.

3: 1!

This is the final score of the game. Manchester United has won five consecutive victories in the Premier League season!

On the evening of September 9, local time in the United Kingdom, in the third round of the League Cup, Manchester United played with a full substitute lineup and finally defeated Northampton of the English League 21:3 away from home and advanced to the fourth round of the League Cup.

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At noon on September 9th, local time in the UK, the first match of the 24th round of the Premier League was played. Manchester United defeated the defending champion Leicester City 6:4 at Old Trafford. Smalling, Mata, Rashford and Bruno scored later, and Gray World wave regained the victory.

The Red Devils played their best game of the season in this campaign. Compared with the previous games, Manchester United's offense was extremely smooth and they were more proactive in their style of play.

Manchester United, which has won six consecutive games to start the season, has also created the best start to the Premier League in team history.

In fact, this is the second best start in the history of the Premier League, second only to Chelsea who won 2005 consecutive victories in the 2006-9 season. At the time, Chelsea's head coach happened to be Mourinho.

11 years ago, Mourinho's Chelsea were at their peak in the first period. After nine consecutive wins at the beginning of the season, they were unstoppable this season and finally won the Premier League championship with 9 points, starting the Blues dynasty and making Chelsea official. Become the top team in the Premier League.

Subsequently, Manchester United defeated Roya 1:0 at home in the second round of the Europa League group stage, and continued to lead the Europa League standings with two consecutive victories.

At noon on October 10, the seventh round of the Premier League started. Manchester United sat at Old Trafford and faced the Sky City Stoke City.

This is Manchester United's last game before the national team break. After this game, Bruno will return to the Portuguese national team to compete for tickets to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Bruno scored two goals in the 51st and 69th minutes of the game to help Manchester United gain a two-goal lead.

Stoke City pulled one back in the 83rd minute. Glen Johnson cut in from 20 yards and his shot was barely saved by De Gea. Walters' follow-up shot from the right side of the penalty area was blocked and then bounced off the crossbar. Joe Allen scored an empty goal from close range, 1:2.

Manchester United scored another victory in the 89th minute. Rashford passed from the right and Bruno headed the ball from close range, performing his first hat trick after joining Manchester United.

Manchester United, which has won seven consecutive games, continues to surge up the Premier League standings.

(End of this chapter)