Chapter 920 We Are Strong Too!
Chapter 920 We Are Strong Too!
The UEFA Super Cup is played at Monaco's Stade Louis II on the second night of the UEFA Champions League group draw.
Last season's Champions League champions Barcelona played against last season's UEFA Cup champions Shakhtar Donetsk.
Originally, this should be a game without any suspense. Before the game, everyone was overwhelmingly optimistic about Barcelona. No one believed that Shakhtar Donetsk could win.
The Barcelona players probably thought so too, so when the game started, they were not excited, entered the game very slowly, and played carelessly.
When they found that Shakhtar Donetsk was not easy to deal with, they were a little flustered to speed up.
Their offense became somewhat disorganized.
As a result, in nine 10 minutes of official game time, they failed to break through the goal of Shakhtar Donetsk who was fully defending.
The weak Ukrainian team, which was not expected before the game, dragged the game into overtime!
This is really a situation that no one thought of before the game.
Barcelona didn't expect a European Super Cup that was just a formality, and it would go to overtime!
They had thought that the UEFA Super Cup was nothing more than a celebration of the best trophies they had won in yesterday's Champions League ceremony.
They weren't going to play overtime at all.
So when the overtime game started, Barcelona was still playing in pain, and the players' physical fitness began to have problems.
On the contrary, Shakhtar Donetsk played vigorously after the game entered overtime, as if they saw hope of winning.
In their plan, it is to directly drag the game to a penalty shootout.In the penalty shootout, Barcelona's strong overall strength will be compressed and compressed, and their ball possession advantage will disappear. The final competition is the ability and mentality of individual players.
In this regard, Shakhtar Donetsk believes they are no worse than Barcelona, especially mentality.
In terms of penalty kicks, Shakhtar Donetsk also conducted targeted training. The goalkeeper also carefully studied the characteristics of each Barcelona penalty kicker with the help of the coaching staff. He knows exactly which side they are used to penalty kicks.
All preparations were made to beat Barcelona on penalties.
At the end of the first half of extra time, Barcelona still failed to score and the score was still 0:0.
In the second half of overtime, the two sides changed sides and fought again. The atmosphere on the scene was already a bit dignified. There were singing and dancing before, and most of the elated Barcelona fans were silent at this time.
When the live TV camera swept across the stands, many fans wearing Barcelona jerseys could be seen covering their mouths with their hands, staring at the stadium nervously with their eyes wide open.
The fans of Shakhtar Donetsk continued to cheer, applauding every successful defense of Shakhtar Donetsk.
The commentators no longer touted the achievements of Barcelona's players in the past season as they did in the first half.
Some of them even started to cheer for Shakhtar Donetsk.
The other part of the people was silent a lot, and they didn't talk as much as before.
Obviously also worried about the fate of Barcelona.
But just when everyone thought that Shakhtar Donetsk would successfully drag the game into a penalty kick, Barcelona's talented striker Pedro had a flash of inspiration and scored the winning goal for the team!
When he scored, the entire Luis II stadium was boiling, and the Barcelona fans who had been silent before jumped up from their seats and shouted.
And Barcelona's head coach Pep Guardiola also rushed out of the coach's bench excitedly, waving his fist vigorously, and shouting to the sky-he can finally breathe a sigh of relief...
In the end, with Pedro's goal, Barcelona defeated Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0 in the UEFA Super Cup.
They have harvested their fifth championship this year. The previous four were the Copa del Rey, La Liga, Champions League and Spanish Super Cup.Now there is only one Club World Cup left in front of them.
If they can win the Club World Cup at the end of the year, then they will become the first "six champions" in European football to win all championships within one year!
This will be an unprecedented feat!
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On the second day, the whole of Europe stopped discussing the results of the Champions League grouping. They were discussing the UEFA Super Cup, Barcelona's five championships, and their dream of winning six championships.
Similarly, in the dressing room of Manchester City, someone also talked about this game.
It was the last 10 minutes before the away game against Portsmouth. When Benitez left the locker room, Rong Guang stood up, and he talked about the game to his teammates.
"How many people watched the UEFA Super Cup yesterday?" he asked.
Some raised their hands and some did not.
But in general, there are quite a lot of people who watched this game.
Because Manchester City's players stayed collectively in the hotel in Portsmouth last night, they didn't want to be so free in their own homes, so many people followed the game when they were bored.
"Very good." Rong Guang nodded. "Before the game, how many people thought that Shakhtar Donetsk would drag the game into overtime? What I saw was that the media all over Europe were saying that Barcelona was about to win the fifth championship, and they didn't think that Shakhtar Donetsk could win. But the process of the game made many people not expect it. I think this game showed us very well. How many people were not optimistic about us before the game, it really didn't make any sense. No one was optimistic about Shakhtar Donetsk before the game, but this did not prevent them from making Barcelona so embarrassed."
Just as he was talking, Robinho raised his hand: "But Rong, it was Barcelona that won in the end. Shakhtar Donetsk played very tenaciously, but they still lost the game. Their hard work is nothing short of a joke..."
Hearing what Robinho said, everyone turned their attention to Rong Guang.
That's right, the whole world is not optimistic about Shakhtar Donetsk's win. The final result is that Shakhtar Donetsk did not win. No matter how tenacious they are during the game, competitive sports depends on the result. If you didn't win, it doesn't matter how good you played before.
Robinho asked the question on many minds.
How will Rong answer this question in everyone's mind?
"That's because Shakhtar Donetsk is not strong enough. Even if they are stronger, they can beat Barcelona in the game. But we are different, we are very strong, we are much stronger than Shakhtar Donetsk." Rong Guang said. "I have always disagreed with the media's statement that Manchester City's overall strength is not strong enough. Manchester City is not my team alone. Manchester City and you are also very strong, so we are stronger together. We are a strong team. Otherwise, we would not be able to win the league first, beat Manchester United to win the FA Cup and the Community Shield. Why can we? Because we are very strong."
Speaking of this, Rong Guang thought of the old German head coach of the National Youth Team, Klauschen.
When he was in the World Youth Championship, he repeatedly told the Chinese National Youth Team, who had no confidence at that time, that they were very strong.In the end, the national youth team defeated Argentina and won the first international championship in the history of Chinese men's football.
But now, what he said is exactly the same as what Kraushen said back then...
"So, we are really strong, we can beat Bayern Munich, we can beat Real Madrid. We will end up different from Shakhtar Donetsk. Or, do you all think you are weak?"
Rong Guang finally asked back.
This rhetorical question caused many players to protest: "We don't think so, Rong!"
"Exactly! Who is weak? I am not weak!"
"Damn it, Rong is right, we are clearly a strong team! We were almost fooled by those damned media!"
"Damn! I can't wait to play in the Champions League! I want to prove to those damn reporters that we are strong!"
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Benitez took his ear away from the door, and then he spoke to assistant coaches Mauricio Pellegrino and Mark Bowen, who were also lying on the door to eavesdrop.
"It's amazing."
He admired it from the bottom of his heart.
"When I chose him as the captain, I didn't expect him to be so good..."
"Rafa, I think we should not disappoint these players and Rong. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich may be strong, but we are also strong, and we should work hard to get out of this group. If we must regard this season as a season of accumulating experience, then we should not only accumulate experience in the group stage, we should also accumulate experience in the knockout stage." His assistant Mauricio Pellegrino said.
"Yes, Rong is right, we are also very strong."
Next to another assistant coach Mark Bowen said.
After listening to the words of the two assistants, Benitez rubbed his chin, then nodded.
When he just saw the result of the draw, he really didn't have much hope for Manchester City's performance in the Champions League this season.
But now he is ashamed because he is not as courageous as his players.
As a coach, he almost raised his hands in surrender... If he hadn't heard Rong Guang's words...
"Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are indeed not as strong as they seem..." Benitez said after making a decision in his heart. "Real Madrid has changed a lot of players this season, and the team is still in the running-in period. After losing Rong, Bayern Munich has not found a real core. Ribery worked very hard, but didn't you find that the better his individual performance, the worse the performance of the Bayern Munich team? So if we really fight against them, we may not be able to win."
The two assistant coaches looked at each other, and when they heard what Benitez said, they were sure that Benitez was really determined to fight Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
If Manchester City qualify from this group, who will be eliminated between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich?
It's exciting...
(End of this chapter)