In a little while, in the UEFA headquarters far away in Nyon, Switzerland, the draw for the UEFA Cup knockout rounds of the top 16 will begin. For Sporting Lisbon, this will be another fateful random gamble.
In fact, the UEFA Cup is not pleasing to the teams in the four major leagues.
The pressure of the league itself is high and the competition is very cruel. Playing one more cup competition and fighting on two fronts will invisibly create greater competition pressure for the team. It is really not something that just any team can handle.
More importantly, and at the same time the most critical factor is that there is no benefit to playing well in the UEFA Cup.
The prize money is small and there are many competitions. Who would be happy with such a competition?
Especially for those teams with many stars, if they work hard to play in the UEFA Cup and earn enough money to pay players appearance fees and match bonuses, why bother?
Therefore, the teams in the four major leagues, especially the top teams in the upper reaches, do not like the UEFA Cup at all.
This makes the UEFA Cup a bit like novices pecking each other.
Of course, this is also relative to the Champions League.
In this case, second-tier leagues such as the Portuguese Super League, French Ligue 1, Turkey, and the Eredivisie, as well as some teams in the middle and lower reaches of the four major leagues that are willing to play the UEFA Cup, can easily stand out in this cup. Strong teams simply cannot
Not willing to try my best.
For example, the third knockout round of the UEFA Cup, which is the top 32 knockout round.
As usual, the top 32 knockout rounds are composed of the winners of the 24 second-round knockout rounds, plus the third-place players from the eight first-stage group stages of the Champions League, including Bundesliga teams such as Schalke 04.
, French Ligue 1 hegemon Lyon, French Ligue 1 powerhouse Auxerre, Ukrainian powerhouse Dynamo Kiev, Premier League Liverpool and other teams.
But after the third round of knockout rounds, Schalke 04, Dynamo Kyiv and Lyon were all eliminated, and basically they lost to teams that were not as strong as them. For example, Lyon lost to a score of 0 to 1.
After losing to Turkey's Denizlispor, Schalke lost 1-1 in the away game and 1-4 at home to Poland's Krakow.
This kind of indifference of strong teams has led to the fact that the teams entering the top 16 are generally relatively close in strength.
That means we are roughly in the middle of the four major leagues, with only two stronger teams like Lazio and Liverpool.
In this case, the wealthy teams in the second-tier leagues such as Sporting Lisbon and Porto also have the opportunity to compete for the championship. If they pay a little attention, it may not be impossible to go further.
This is why Sporting Lisbon attaches great importance to the draw.
It is very important to draw a good team, whether it is the UEFA Cup or the Champions League.
…
Of course Su Dong also attached great importance to drawing lots.
But before waiting for the live broadcast of the lottery to start, he wandered around the system store of the Road to the King of Football.
Since this season, he has continued to practice hard and participated in more games. Not only has he maxed out the potential of all attributes of the player level, but his strength has basically reached over 60, and his speed and other advantageous attributes have exceeded
Eighty.
According to Su Dong's guess, the player's level is equivalent to that of a regional star, who is somewhat famous.
But now, his strength is considered to be in the middle and upper reaches among stars of this level, but he is still far from the top.
Su Dong discovered that the higher the level, the more difficult it would be to upgrade in the future.
It is not only as simple as consuming the King Points, but more importantly, it is the improvement of strength.
But strength can only be improved through training and competition, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty.
The higher the intensity of the competition, the faster the strength will improve.
Therefore, if we can play in the Champions League, our strength will definitely increase the fastest.
If not, the UEFA Cup is barely enough, and the Portuguese Super League is relatively slower.
Improving strength requires a long process, but star ability cards can improve Su Dong's competitiveness in a short period of time.
Before the season, Su Dong exchanged a star ability card and got Vieri's [Indestructible], but he still had a star ability card on hand and had never figured out what to use it for.
Although the outside world's evaluation of Su Dong is comprehensive, in fact, Su Dong himself knows that he still has many shortcomings.
For example, his left foot has made almost no contribution after half a season, except for one pass.
As the game progresses, more and more teams will begin to realize Su Dong's characteristics, and they will do everything possible to restrict Su Dong. If he only knows his right foot, he will undoubtedly suffer a lot.
In Su Dong's shopping cart, there was a legendary star's left foot ability card, Maradona's [God's Left Foot].
This card cannot allow Su Dong to directly possess Maradona's magical left foot, because Su Dong's current strength has not reached that level, but it can allow Su Dong to possess Maradona's left foot skills.
and consciousness.
After getting familiar with many ability cards, Su Dong believed that these alone were enough to completely transform his left foot.
Especially considering that after more than a year of hard training, Su Dong's left foot ability has reached 13 points.
In addition to his left foot, Su Dong feels that he has another ability that is slightly lacking, and that is the judgment of where the ball will land.
how to say?
Romario's [Wolf of the Zone] has greatly improved his sense of catching fighters and his insight into the situation. To put it simply, it has improved his ability to run without the ball.
But here comes the problem, his prediction of where the ball will land is not accurate.
Even though he scored headers, in fact, he missed more headers.
Su Dong believes that if he can improve his prediction of where the football will land, with his size and running ability, the header attack will transform, and may even become an offensive weapon that is not inferior to his right foot.
In his shopping cart, there is also a star's heading ability card, German forward Miroslav Klose's [Aerial Dominance].
This is a star ability card newly launched after the World Cup in Korea and Japan. At first, Su Dong preferred Bierhoff or the golden bomber Klinsmann. However, after the World Cup, the system was updated and new cards were launched. Only then was Su Dong favored.
Dong noticed.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! In this summer's World Cup in South Korea and Japan, Klose scored five goals, all from headers, including the bloodbath in Saudi Arabia in the World Cup
A hat-trick of headers.
What's even more frightening is that the German center is only 1.84 meters tall and weighs only 81 kilograms. He doesn't look like a macho man like Vieri or Adriano. The reason why he can often score headers is that
It comes from his accurate prediction of the landing point.
Su Dong definitely has reason to believe that with Klose's height, he can score so many headers. If he had his body and running position, and had the ability to predict the landing point, how sharp would his header attack be?
This is also where Su Dong is most confused right now.
His left foot needs to be strengthened, and his header is something he can't bear to put aside.
Which one should go first, the left foot or the header?
…
"Su, the lottery has begun."
Just when Su Dong was struggling, Ronnie patted him gently.
Su Dong opened his eyes and saw that the draw for the UEFA Europa League's top 16 knockout rounds had begun live on TV.
Sixteen small balls were placed in a large glass jar. The lottery guests randomly drew the small balls from them, took out the team names inside, and fought each other in pairs. The first one to be drawn played at home.
Even if it's just the UEFA Cup, any team that can reach the top 16 is not weak.
Teams such as Liverpool and Lazio are certainly strong, but teams such as Malaga, Anderlecht, and Stuttgart are equally good, and even teams such as Porto, Sporting Lisbon, and Anderlecht are also not bad.
From the perspective of Sporting Lisbon, the last thing they want to encounter is, apart from Liverpool and Lazio, two obviously stronger teams, the only one left is Besiktas of Turkey.
The biggest headache for this team from Istanbul is the away game.
The flight range is more than 3,000 kilometers, which is further than flying to Greece. It takes about ten hours of long journey to change planes in the middle.
Therefore, whether it is in the Champions League or the UEFA Cup, playing away games in Turkey is a nightmare.
Sporting Lisbon has experienced a trip to Greece and knows how difficult it is to play away games, so naturally they don't want to encounter away games in the Middle East again.
Greece's Panathinaikos was drawn out first and met Belgium's Anderlecht.
Auxerre followed closely, and as a result, the Ligue 1 team was unlucky to encounter Liverpool.
Houllier's team is very strong and no one wants to encounter it.
Lazio was drawn into the third group matchup, and the opponent they encountered was Krakow, who eliminated Schalke 04.
At this point in the draw, the Sporting Lisbon players obviously felt relieved.
The last thing I wanted to encounter was that Liverpool and Lazio, the strongest teams, were taken away. This was a great relief.
For Sporting Lisbon, even if they encounter teams such as Malaga, Stuttgart, Celtic, etc., they have nothing to fear.
With the strength of the Green Lions, they can definitely compete with these teams.
But soon, as the lots were drawn, everyone's hearts slowly began to twitch again.
Besiktas, the team representing the unlucky Turkish team, has not yet been drawn.
Especially after the five matchups between the top ten teams have been drawn, among the remaining six teams, excluding fellow countrymen Porto, among the four opponents that Sporting Lisbon may encounter is Besiktas.
"It can't be so unlucky, right?" Tonito was a little impatient.
"We just finished playing in Greece, and now we are going to the Middle East? If we really want to pull out Besiktas, I will seriously protest against UEFA deliberately punishing us and making us run around and work like this!"
The Spanish midfielder's words were unanimously recognized by everyone.
Who says it's not?
When we play Greece away from home, how busy are the teams?
Are you still going to fight Türkiye now?
But things in the world are like this sometimes. The more you fear something, the more likely it will come.
The first team to be drawn out in the sixth matchup was Sporting Lisbon.
Everyone in the lounge almost held their breath as they watched the lottery guest reach into the glass jar again, and there were only four small balls left in it.
He reached out and stirred, randomly grabbed a small ball, opened it, took out the note, turned it over, and faced the live broadcast camera.
Besiktas!
There was a deathly silence in the lounge at first, and then there was a burst of curses.
It turned out to be another super long away away game!
This is definitely a rhythm that will kill Sporting Lisbon!
