Hero of the Penalty Area

Chapter 112: Everything for the Champions League (third update, ask for a monthly pass!)

When the time entered February, even the smell in the air changed.

The UEFA Champions League!

This started to appear frequently in major media.

On February 17, the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League will be in full play. The teams will fight each other and compete for the highest honor of European clubs-the European Champions Cup.

This world-renowned event actually started at this time.

After the UEFA Champions League has been restructured several times, it is now called the Champions League. After the number of participating teams has increased, there is a significant change that many second- and third-rate league teams enter the group stage. This of course has brought good news to those second- and third-rate league teams, giving them the opportunity to go to the Champions League and earn some appearance fees. But at the same time, the side effect is that the gold content of the group stage has plummeted, while the water content has soared. Many fans have never heard of the team entering the group stage. They did not expect to be in this great football match. Leaving their own names, they are purely here to play soy sauce, just thinking that they will be knocked down after six games. There are very few teams that have entered the Champions League but desperately want to prove themselves in this tournament.

Even Serie A teams like Udinese only treat the Champions League as an opportunity to drive up their players' worth and sell a good price, let alone the Bulgarian, Romanian, and Israeli leagues... …

Of course, many teams do not want to fight hard in the Champions League, but the price of trying hard is really too great-this time fighting hard to win a strong team, maybe they will have to be relegated by the end of the season. It's... that's really not worth the gain.

But in any case, the decline in the audience for the Champions League group stage is recognized, and many games are simply tasteless. Many strong teams are unwilling to fight in distant Eastern Europe early in the winter, so the contradiction between the giants and UEFA has never disappeared. Although g14 is dead, the idea of ​​forming a game belonging to the giants-the European Super League is the same. Are still there.

Nowadays, the Champions League has to wait until the knockout stage to be the real "Champions League". The teams that can almost reach the top 16 have two brushes... Of course, Mr. Nan Guo naturally has them, but they usually go too. Not too far...

The Champions League quarter-finals are about to start in half a month, which makes many fans start to become active.

The 16 teams participating in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League are also paying more attention.

Not only fans, but also many professionals pay attention to them. Even the scouts of participating teams...

From the recent leagues of each team, the state of this team can be inferred, especially the state of several major players.

This is part of analyzing the opponent.

But for Naples and Real Madrid, this is completely unnecessary for their opponents. Real Madrid is the largest of the giants. Their games are everywhere, and the media are reporting on them all day long. Their players can be gossiped by the media even if they wear clothes or brands on the streets, so there is no need for Naples to send the ball. Go to Spain to observe the recent state of the opponent.

What about Real Madrid? They obviously don't need to know how Naples is.

Everyone understands that whether Real Madrid can break the eight spells is entirely up to them. It can even be said-whether they can get the tenth Champions League trophy in club history is entirely up to them. In this world, as long as they get serious and behave normally, there is almost no team that can beat them.

But this is nonsense...pointless.

Because in recent years, Real Madrid has not been normal! Judging from this season, their normal chances are also very small...

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After entering February, not only fans and the media have put their minds on the Champions League, but even the players themselves seem a little absent-minded.

Their absent-mindedness is reflected in the fact that Naples, who played all the main force, lost to Udinese 1:3 in the away game.

In this game, even Chen Yingxiong was out of state.

The Naples team is so absent-minded, and the commentator can understand: "It can be seen that the Naples players are already considering the Champions League semi-finals, even though they are still ten days away from the game..."

Therefore, the Naples players who lost the game did not feel any frustration or sadness. If they lost, they lost. It doesn't matter if they fell from third in the league to fourth in the league.

Even Mazzari expressed his understanding of the players' performance in the press conference after the game.

"...The players want the Champions League? This is normal, and I don't think it is a bad thing. Because it shows that our players have enough motivation and fighting spirit, they are not intimidated by our opponent's name..."

Don't think Mazzari is just wiping the players' bad performance in front of the media.

In fact, Mazzari knew about this a long time ago-he is the head coach of the team, how could he not know the internal movement of the team?

Even the result of losing to Udinese, he was already mentally prepared.

The temporary strategy to abandon the domestic league is basically his arrangement.

So the team loses to Udinese, he certainly won't have any surprises or angry thoughts.

Ten days before the Champions League? so what? Naples' opponent is Real Madrid... No, to put it farther, it might be the entire UEFA.

So it's completely normal to start preparing for these two quarter-finals more than ten days in advance, and Mazzari didn't think anything was wrong.

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On February 14th, in the 24th round of Serie A, Naples continued on their road trip. As a result, they drew with Siena 0:0 away, and Siena is currently ranked 20th in the league. There are a total of 20 teams in Serie A, which means that Siena is currently the last one...

It is far from the time for the relegation battle, and Siena also has a chance to comeback. So Naples was able to be tied by Siena in the away game, really deliberately.

Three days later, it was the team's game against Real Madrid.

According to the schedule, they have to go away first.

Naples will go to the football temple Bernabéu Stadium to challenge the overlord there.

Although Mazzari kept instilling propaganda to the players at the beginning of the season, telling them that the real Naples should be the kind of team that "is not afraid of the sky, and the European boundaries are running horizontally", but the spirit is one thing, the actual case has another advantage. Code things.

In terms of strength, Naples is really incomparable with Real Madrid. No one knows how many times the annual budget of Naples is. To give the simplest example, Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo's annual salary almost equals the salary budget of the Naples team for one year...

In terms of strength, Naples is weaker than Real Madrid, but this is definitely not a reason to admit defeat in advance.

Since it is determined to fight Real Madrid, you have to make adequate preparations.

Naples is not Real Madrid and cannot be "mainly on me". Of course, it is necessary to study the opponent. It's normal to start preparing half a month in advance.

Anyway, the current ranking of the team is okay, it has always been in the first team of the league. Give up the league temporarily, Mazzari is also confident to catch up later, at least it is no problem to keep a place in the European War.

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Two consecutive games have not been won, and the Italian media have also understood that Naples is really preparing for the game against Real Madrid.

After all, the opponent is too strong, and it's normal to start preparing two games in advance.

Next, Naples will have to go to the Bernabéu Stadium to challenge the mighty Real Madrid.

The White Giants and them are not a team at all...

After the match against Siena, the Naples team set off for Madrid to prepare for the first round of the Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid in the middle of the week.

"We can only wish them good luck, because their opponents are powerful and suffocating-Pellegrini's Real Madrid has scored 53 goals in the 22nd round of the league, and is tied with Barcelona for the most offensive in La Liga. The team. This number of goals also makes them proud of the entire European football world. And the defense of Naples has always been short-board, although during the winter break, the team introduced the former Italian No. 2 national goal De Sanctis , But in the face of Real Madrid, whether it can be resisted is still very worrying..."

When Naples set off, some local media in Naples said so worriedly.

In the eyes of many people, this sign basically announced the end of Naples' journey back to the Champions League after a lapse of 18 years.

The chances of Naples wanting to beat Real Madrid are too slim.

Now they can only hope that Naples can perform at the Bernabéu a little bit more, and lose but not lose...

In any case, we are also Maradona's team. How can a team with such a rebellious personality bow to the powerful? Not to mention that Maradona used to play for Barcelona, ​​and Real Madrid is a mortal enemy.

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"Bernabeu!" On the plane to Madrid, many players were very excited about going to the Bernabeu, especially Hamsik. He once expressed his yearning for Real Madrid when chatting with Chen Yingxiong in private, saying that if he had the opportunity to go to the rich, his first choice would definitely be Real Madrid.

Compared with the excited teammates, Cassano's performance is relatively flat. First of all, he has played many games at the Bernabéu, because he used to be a Real Madrid player. Secondly, his career at Real Madrid can be described as "terrible", so he has no deep feelings for this team or this stadium.

Before boarding the plane, a reporter came to ask him if he had any special feelings about going to the Bernabéu. The reporter hinted that he could say something similar to "wandering home" and "returning home", but Cassano said with a cold face: " This is just an ordinary Champions League game."

The reporter who had prepared a lot of things choked off the next questions...

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ps, double the *** period, work hard to update, strive for ***~ It will still be three-shift tomorrow, until the fifth!