When the Champions League semi-finals were released, a scene that had never appeared before in the European Champions League was presented to the world!
Champions League semi-finals:
England, Millwall.
Spain, Real Madrid.
Spain, Barcelona.
Spain, Valencia.
Three teams in the top four are from the same league!
This is a grand spectacle in European football in the new millennium and new era.
This has never happened before, and because the Champions League has only been expanded in the past two years, there have rarely been two or more teams from the same league participating in the Champions League.
This phenomenon made the Spanish media happy.
Fleet Street favored Millwall and fought their way out of the siege of the three La Liga heroes!
Millwall encountered a powerful stumbling block in the semi-finals: Real Madrid!
This is another opponent who has a grudge against Millwall. In the final two years ago, these two teams staged the pinnacle showdown in Europe. Millwall defeated Real Madrid in a penalty shootout to win the first title in the club's history.
Champions League trophy.
In the semi-finals, Millwall still plays away first, and will go to the Bernabeu to challenge Real Madrid in the first game.
Aldridge's work is step by step. At this critical moment of sprinting across the board, composure is the first priority.
Over the weekend, Aldridge led his team to face archrival Chelsea at home.
Chelsea started high and low this season. The only bright spot in the league was the 5-0 bloodbath of Manchester United, which had a poor lineup, in the first half of the schedule. When they faced Millwall in the first half, they had already suffered three consecutive defeats. At Millwall
After giving them four consecutive losses, until the end of the first half of the schedule,
They only won one game after that, which could be described as a terrible collapse. So Vialli shifted his focus, and Chelsea began to go all out in the cup. They entered the semi-finals of the FA Cup, and also competed with Arsenal in the UEFA Cup.
They advanced to the semi-finals together, and the London derby will be staged in the semi-finals.
In the league, they slipped from the first half of the season and have been swinging in the middle and upper reaches. Now they have reached the sprint stage at the end of the season. They are ranked sixth in the league, two places away from entering the Champions League next season.
At this stage, no matter how turbulent internal Chelsea is, the entire team has returned to calm, the conflicts will be covered up, the anger will be temporarily extinguished, and everything will be resolved after the season ends in a month.
Chelsea obviously lacked stamina, especially in the second half of the schedule when they fought on multiple fronts and played almost the same number of games as Millwall. But by this time, Millwall's physical advantage was clearly reflected on the court.
After all, Millwall has a strong lineup, they are substitutes in the FA Cup, and the main players are given a proper rest in the league. There is not much pressure on the performance. On the contrary, Chelsea must compete for every game and cannot afford to lose in every game. At the end of the league,
Playing as a guest, the gap with Millwall is even more obvious.
With Vialli at his wits end, Millwall took their time and defeated their opponents at home by the same scoreline as in the first half of the season.
3:0
Henry, Ronaldinho and Pirlo each scored one goal.
Aldridge applauded the fans in the stands at the end of the game. The game at the Lion's Den is one game less. Every time I think about the fact that I may not be able to see those unfamiliar but familiar faces from a familiar angle,
There will also be a touch of sadness in his heart.
This is a situation shaped by the traditional history of a club. There are many loyal fans who are not fanatical. Coming to the scene to watch football is an essential part of life. They do not participate in passionate celebrations or participate in the disputes of fans outside the stadium.
Season tickets go into the stadium every season and every home game day. You sit in a fixed position to enjoy the game, applaud and cheer for the team, and feel sad for the team when it loses.
Where Chelsea's fate will go this season is not what Aldridge cares about. He shook hands with Vialli after the game and turned away.
The Lions fans are now too lazy to pay attention to the Chelsea fans. Today, they hate another team even more: Manchester United.
Damn Manchester United won too.
There are five rounds left in the Premier League, and Millwall leads Manchester United by 12 points. Manchester United seems determined to delay Millwall's championship.
On the contrary, Aldrich was happy with this situation. Winning the championship a day later would be beneficial to the team.
The major European leagues have entered their final stage. Serie A is a match between Lazio and Juventus. The situation in La Liga is stalemate. There are 4-6 teams that still retain the hope of winning the championship. Super Depor, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza
, Real Madrid is strangling fiercely, and in the Premier League, Millwall is leading the way without any suspense.
The eyes of European football are focused on Spain.
In addition to the increasingly fierce competition in the league here, the two semi-finals of the European Champions League will be the first to start here.
Millwall's preparations are in order. Villas-Boas produced 30 pages of opponent analysis data, which seemed to theoretically strip Real Madrid clean. Jensen and Klinsmann graded the players' status through training observations.
The only bad news is that Larsson may miss the first Champions League semi-final.
Although Millwall is said to be surrounded by the top three in La Liga, they are still the number one favorite in terms of championship index.
At the pre-match press conference, Aldridge expressed in a low-key voice that he was worried about Real Madrid's offense...
The beautiful scenery of Spain, the temple of Madrid football: Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.
Located in the bustling financial district, it is a famous landmark building in the capital and even in Spain.
As the Millwall team headed to Spain, Aldridge sat with Villas-Boas.
Boas was preoccupied and looked worried.
From the pre-game preparation meeting, Aldrich did not use his opponent's technical and tactical analysis report.
Aldrich did not despise his work. Aldrich read the 30-page report twice and understood everything at a glance.
After reading it, he also praised Villas-Boas's work efficiency. However, when finalizing the team's tactics and formation for the first round against Real Madrid, Villas-Boas keenly discovered that what he highlighted in the report
Aldrich failed to adopt several key points, or even ignored them.
"Aldrich, is it because we have defeated Real Madrid before, so you..."
Boas finished half of what he said, but then he stopped talking.
After all, the man sitting next to him is still his boss.
Sometimes expressing opinions is one thing, but challenging the boss's authority is an act of ruining one's own job.
He was worried that Aldridge would become arrogant and arrogant, especially because he had won before, so he would not take Real Madrid seriously.
But the current Real Madrid has undergone tremendous changes from the Real Madrid two years ago, especially in the team's technical and tactical play and formation.
"You think I'm looking down on Real Madrid, right?"
Aldrich smiled and said what he had not finished.
Boas hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"Vilas, you have done a great job, and I also think the technical and tactical suggestions in the report are great."
"That......"
"Listen to me, but in a normal situation, for example, if you inspected Valencia or Inter Milan, I think this is a perfect report, but if you inspected Real Madrid, this report
The report is wrong from the starting point and has a directional error, so I cannot accept it."
Boas looked shocked and asked: "What kind of mistake?"
"You don't take into account the history of Real Madrid, you don't add the arrogance of Real Madrid into the analysis. Do you know Real Madrid?"
"I don't think there are many people who don't know about Real Madrid, right?"
Aldridge smiled, shook his head and said: "In fact, more than 90% of fans, especially non-Spanish fans, even if they know that Real Madrid is a Spanish giant, they only regard them as the same as Manchester United, Juventus, Barcelona and other clubs.
They are just giants with the same status, but the fact is that Real Madrid is unique and should be the most special among all the first-class clubs in the world."
Villas-Boas thought thoughtfully, in fact, for the world, the situation of Real Madrid is just like the most ordinary relationship between lovers. If you like it, you will like it infinitely. If you don't like it, there is nothing special about it.
In the football circle, no matter how tall Real Madrid is, if you are not a Real Madrid fan, if you evaluate it objectively, it is just like that.
As for the six-time champion of the Champions League and the reputation of "qingren" in the Champions League, I'm sorry, it's too old. For the entire European football world, Real Madrid can no longer produce much shock in the contemporary era, especially in the past ten years.
The popularity in the league is completely inferior to that of the dream team Barcelona, which is on the rise.
Villas-Boas is Portuguese. Even though he is a Latin American country where Real Madrid's influence is most famous, he did not put Real Madrid in a special position when he made an investigation report on Real Madrid.
"Real Madrid is a noble, a natural and pure noble! No matter how many honors Millwall, Manchester United, Juventus, AC Milan and other teams win, they cannot become a noble like Real Madrid. Vilas, you
Do you understand?"
Boas seemed to have been given a slap in the face, and with one word he woke up the man in his dream. He slapped himself on the forehead with one hand and understood what the biggest factor he had ignored was.
Real Madrid is definitely the most unique team among all the strong teams in European football.
The club was born in the financial district. From the first day of the club's establishment, their supporters, fans, fans are the Madrid aristocracy, middle class, scholars and other groups with middle and upper social status, which extend to the development of the club.
In the process, sources of funding, and promoters of increased influence, they were given noble titles even in their infancy.
In addition, when Spain was ruled by a dictator, Real Madrid was portrayed as an enemy of Catalonia. It was favored by the dictator and used as a target to resolve internal class conflicts, which further deepened this image.
This is completely different from other clubs. Whether they are now prestigious giants or declining old powerhouses, their clubs rely on the lower class, the working class, and the blue-collar class during their birth and development. They are the majority of working people who spend their spare time after work.
For example, the development of the Juventus club is inseparable from the large number of workers attracted by the Fiat Group who turned to support the team and formed the backbone to be passed down. As for the Premier League teams, that is not to mention
, in the early days, most of the supporters were miners.
Therefore, the tradition of Premier League fans is to shout, which requires players to fight hard on the field, let them vent, and let them show their men's side. It doesn't matter whether the game is good or not, the key is whether the players are soft or hard on the field.
As for those businessmen, scholars, celebrities, and nobles in Madrid, do they need to vent their support for Real Madrid? No, they just want to enjoy the game and go to the best games as the highest level of enjoyment!
Over time, Real Madrid has developed a unique tradition and style.
Member-based management allows fan members to have the greatest say and control the fate of the club, such as who they support as chairman and who overthrows the head coach.
Fans can directly challenge the club. They want to watch the best games, but their requirements are very high, and they must have a championship.
Therefore, the utilitarian football philosophy cannot survive in Real Madrid. They wear white clothes and want both elegance and glory.
During the Sanz era, Capello, the only meritorious coach of Real Madrid who led the team to win the league championship, still dismissed get out of class and left as the coach after winning the championship, which took this point to the extreme.
Real Madrid does not need a championship coach, but it must be elegant and gorgeous.
