Manchester United drew 0-0 with Marseille away from home.
Liverpool defeated Barcelona 2-1 at home.
…
After the first round of the Champions League knockout rounds, all four Premier League teams performed satisfactorily.
This immediately shocked the entire European football world.
In the past few years, the Premier League's dominance over European football has been quite astonishing. It even broke into three teams in the semi-finals in a row, which made everyone feel the strength of the Premier League teams.
Especially this season.
Gao Shen leads Manchester City. So far, it is the only team in the five major leagues that has maintained an unbeaten record. The results are very stable and the lineup is quite large. This makes no one doubt that Manchester City will definitely be the best in the Champions League this season.
A dark horse.
More importantly, Gao Shen has always been good at playing cup matches.
With such a large lineup as the backing, Gao Shen is ambitious and wants to make a difference in the cup.
But being able to defeat Lyon 3-1 in an away game and almost advance to the quarterfinals ahead of schedule, Manchester City's strength is still amazing.
Lyon's head coach Puel said at the post-match press conference that his team had tried its best, but Lyon still failed to hold on in the face of Manchester City's strong strength.
"But no matter what, we will try our best to turn the situation around in the away game!"
This is actually very unfounded.
Skills are not as good as people, which is what Puel wants to express.
In addition to Manchester City, there was another surprising matchup in the first round of the knockout round, when Liverpool defeated Barcelona 2-1.
Benitez's teams have always been good at playing in cup competitions, and this is recognized.
But Barcelona's strength has also greatly increased this season, especially the powerful attacking lineup created by Guardiola for Barcelona, which has made La Liga and even the entire European football world fearful.
But at Anfield, Benitez's team successfully defeated Barcelona, which was undoubtedly a major upset.
More importantly, this game was a head-to-head match between Liverpool and Barcelona, and their performance was not conservative at all.
Yes, Benitez's team still pressed forward and played.
In terms of ball possession, Liverpool was at an absolute disadvantage, but relying on their overall defense and high-position pressing, they were able to defeat Barcelona at Anfield.
Among them, the double defensive midfielders of Biglia and Mascherano, as well as Gerrard, formed the iron triangle in the midfield, which contributed the most.
It can even be said that these three players are the key to Liverpool's victory.
For this victory, the British media's reaction was even more excited and excited than Manchester City's away victory over Lyon.
Because according to the betting company's odds, the biggest favorite to win the Champions League this season is Barcelona.
Originally, many people thought that Manchester United, Manchester City and Real Madrid might become Barcelona's opponents, but Real Madrid failed in the group stage.
Now, neither Manchester United nor Manchester City have met Barcelona, but Liverpool seems to be eliminating Barcelona.
…
The media and fans outside were very excited about it. After returning to Manchester from Lyon, the Manchester City coaching staff also watched the game for the first time and reviewed and reviewed it.
"The tactics adopted by Benitez are the same tactics we used when Naples played against Barcelona." After watching it for a while, Carlo basically saw the clues.
Gao Shen has always said that against a team like Barcelona, which has excellent passing and ball control capabilities, you must not be defensive.
You can't stop Barcelona's offense and penetration no matter what if you rely on defense.
If you take the initiative, you basically have two sets of ideas. One is what Mourinho thinks, which is to focus on the stability of the overall defense and face Barcelona with a tight defensive formation and aggressive pressing.
Place a center with excellent dominance.
When counterattacking, go directly to the center, who will then plan the attack in the frontcourt.
Mourinho used Adebayor as center in the first Derby of the Century at the end of November, but the effect was not ideal, so Real Madrid ultimately lost 3-0 at Camp Nou.
Well, although it's not nearly as bad as Gao Shen's previous loss, it's still really bad.
Another option is to press high and fight Barcelona like Naples did.
This style of play has extremely high requirements on the team's overall formation and teamwork ability. When Gao Shen was in Naples, he really painstakingly trained this team for three years before bringing them out.
What Benitez is using now is the latter one.
The reason is quite simple, they lack a center.
Torres has a strong scoring ability, but the biggest advantage of the Spanish center is the frontal impact. It is simply unrealistic for him to back up.
Later, Torres moved to Chelsea, but his performance was very unsatisfactory. One of the important reasons was that the Chelsea midfielder could not provide him with the opportunity to attack the defense line head-on. He needed to retreat like Drogba to connect and feed the midfielder.
.
Of course, this is a tactical level. On a personal level, injuries have indeed had a great impact on Torres.
In fact, whether it is Shevchenko, Torres, or even the central forward who asked Anelka to play 433, the effect is not very ideal. The key is that they are not a center like Drogba.
, are unable to adapt to Chelsea’s tactical style of play where the center forward feeds back the midfielder.
Parallel imports are often born this way.
"Judging from the first round, Liverpool did push its capabilities to the limit at home, but there are still dangers. Going to the Nou Camp with such a lineup may be a disaster." Gao Shen speculated on the trend.
In fact, judging from the first round of the game, Barcelona's advantage is still very obvious, but it is poor in seizing opportunities, a bit unlucky, and the rhythm was disrupted by Liverpool.
But all these unfavorable factors will be difficult to reproduce at Camp Nou.
"Fernando, arrange for someone to go to Camp Nou to watch the game and get first-hand detailed information." Gao Shen warned.
Lucas nodded immediately.
According to Manchester City's deduction, Barcelona is the number one rival in the Champions League this season.
In fact, judging from the results of the first round, Gao Shen's previous evaluation of Moratti was right, that is, Serie A is gradually declining and the Bundesliga is taking its place.
The most obvious signal is that in addition to Naples, AC Milan also lost at home in the first round.
As for Naples being able to stop the decline, this is also related to the strong team Gao Shen left for this team.
Recently, Gao Shen has been paying close attention to the movements of the Qatari consortium.
It is said that they are still in contact with Manchester United, but they do not rule out that they have secretly contacted Paris Saint-Germain.
If the Qatari consortium enters European football, it will inevitably set off a wave of acquisitions. By then, Naples will definitely receive attention. If they can take the opportunity to make another fortune, it will undoubtedly be a timely rain for Gao Shen.
…
After playing the Champions League in mid-week, the fifth round of the FA Cup will begin on the weekend.
This time Manchester City's opponent is Aston Villa.
In the fifth round, basically all participating teams were Premier League teams. There were only two English Championship teams, but they broke into one English League One team, and that was Brighton, headed by a wealthy owner.
Manchester City is at the Etihad and faces Aston Villa at home.
Gao Shen played in a rotating lineup, and Yaya Toure opened the scoring for Manchester City on an assist from Leighton Baines in just five minutes.
Yaya Toure then assisted Van Persie to score a goal.
After a change of sides in the second half, it was Henderson who sealed the victory for Manchester City.
In the end, Manchester City defeated Aston Villa 3-0 at home.
After defeating Aston Villa, Manchester City had good luck in the draw for the quarter-finals and drew Reading in the English Championship.
But this team advanced after an upset 1-0 win over Everton in an away game, and their strength cannot be ignored.
As for Brighton, the rich team in the English League One, their strength is only in the English League One, and they lost to Stoke City 0-3.
…
Returning to the Premier League, we ushered in the 28th round of the league.
Gao Shen once again played with a rotating lineup and defeated the visiting Fulham 2-1 at home.
Subsequently, in the 29th round of the Premier League, they defeated Wigan Athletic 1-0 at home.
In the second leg of the Champions League knockout round of 16, Manchester City faced Lyon at home.
Having defeated their opponents 3-1 away from home in the first round, Manchester City, which was basically guaranteed to win, did not relax at home, but continued to play steadily.
The Lyon team, which had a high probability of being eliminated, played extremely vigorously in the away game. Not only did they deploy a three-forward tactic, but they also arranged a dual-core lineup of Gourcuff and Pjanic in the midfield, leaving only one Tula.
Lang was last.
Those who are barefoot are not afraid of those who wear shoes. Facing such a desperate opponent, Manchester City fell into a passive position from the beginning. However, Gao Shen quickly adjusted the team's tactics, especially focusing on targeted defense, and quickly stabilized the position.
In the 37th minute, Gareth Bale passed the ball low from the left, allowing Felipe to break into the penalty area and shoot a cold shot, opening the scoring for Manchester City.
After changing sides in the second half, Felipe first made a pass from the left and assisted Suarez to score a header.
Then came David Silva's pass, which allowed Robben to shoot with his left foot in the ribs, sealing the victory for Manchester City.
In the end, Manchester City beat Lyon 3-0 at home with a total score of 6-1 and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals.
…
Manchester City won a big victory and advanced, and the focus game far away at Camp Nou did not go beyond Gao Shen's expectations.
In the first round, Barcelona suffered a 1-2 defeat away from home. After returning to Camp Nou, they regrouped and completely suppressed Liverpool at home.
Benitez's team only lasted half of the game, and fell apart in the second half.
Messi's brace, Busquets' and Xavi's goals allowed Barcelona to score four goals in the second half. In less than 30 minutes, they scored four goals in a row to win the game.
Liverpool was unable to fight back.
In the end, Benitez's team suffered a 0-4 away defeat.
The total score was 2 to 5, and Liverpool was eliminated.
…
After playing Lyon, Manchester City followed up with a 1-0 victory over Reading in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
The latter was on tight defense and simply set up an iron barrel formation, allowing Manchester City to besiege them.
Finally, in the second half, Giroud assisted Sturridge to score the winning goal.
But in the subsequent Premier League match, Manchester City drew with Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea 1-1 away from home.
The Blues are currently under a lot of pressure in the game. Ancelotti's team strategically gave up the FA Cup and tried their best to retain the Premier League, but in the end they failed to win Manchester City at home.
One to one, both sides shook hands and made peace.
After playing for Chelsea, Su Qing, who returned to China after the Spring Festival to complete the resignation procedures, finally returned to the UK.
What follows is the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals, as well as news about Leeds United.
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