Chapter 490 Super Strong Lineup
While the whole world was exclaiming over Manchester United's amazing move, their Carrington training base was almost empty. After the third round of the Premier League, major European leagues were suspended and entered the first international match day of the new season. International players from various countries in Manchester United left the Carrington training base and went to various parts of the world to play for their respective national teams.
And in the current Manchester United, except for the third goalkeeper Johnstone, Carrick, who has already announced his withdrawal from the assistant coach of the England national team, and Ibrahimovic, Van Dijk and Luke Shaw who are still on the injury list, there is no player who is not an international player!
Scottish center forward McTominay, who has only risen in Manchester United this season, was also called up by the Scottish national team on this international match day and became an international player of the Scottish national team.
In addition, although Phil Jones, Smalling and Ashley Young are only substitute rotation players in Manchester United, they were all called up by the England national team coach Southgate on this international match day.
Therefore, during this international match day, Mourinho, as the head coach of Manchester United, was completely unable to lead the team in training.
However, this allows him to rest for a while without worries.
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Bruno was naturally called up by the Portuguese national team and will participate in two World Cup qualifying group matches with the team. The opponents are the Faroe Islands, a weak team, and Hungary, which is not weak.
This is the 7th and 8th rounds of the group stage of the European qualifiers for the Russian World Cup.
In the 6 rounds of group matches that have been played, Portugal has won six consecutive games, leading Switzerland by 3 points and ranking first in Group B.
Moreover, since only the first place in each group can directly advance to the World Cup finals, Portugal is still far from locking in the qualification for the Russian World Cup.
In the game held on the evening of August 31, Portugal played against the Faroe Islands at home. Bruno and Ronaldo both started the game. In the end, Ronaldo scored a hat trick in the game, and Bruno scored two goals and assisted two goals. Portugal slaughtered the opponent 7:1.
Three days later, the entire Portuguese team traveled to Hungary in central Europe.
During the European Cup last year, Hungary was still ranked in the top 20 of the FIFA world rankings, but a year later, Hungary's world ranking has dropped to outside the top 50, which can be said to be the country with the fastest ranking drop in this year.
In the group stage of this World Cup European qualifiers, Hungary's performance was also very bleak. In the first 7 rounds, it only achieved 3 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses, ranking third in the group. Not only was it hopeless to qualify from the group, but even the hope of participating in the play-offs was very slim.
In the previous 7 group matches, they were even unexpectedly tied 0:0 by the Faroe Islands, the bottom team in the group, and lost 0:1 to Andorra, another bottom team in the group.
This is also the key reason why they cannot compete with Portugal and Switzerland.
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In today's game, if Hungary loses again at home, then they will completely lose the opportunity to participate in the play-offs.
Of course, if Switzerland can beat Latvia away, then no matter what the result of Hungary and Manchester United is, they will be completely eliminated.
In order to retain the last hope, at least to keep the last face, Hungary hopes to do something at home.
After the game started, Hungary performed very tenaciously amid the cheers of the home fans. This also led to Portugal's failure to take the lead.
Even though the home team was directly sent off by the referee in the 30th minute of the game because Prishkin elbowed Pepe when competing for a high ball, they still relied on tenacious defense to bring the score of 0:0 into the halftime break.
However, when the second half of the game started, Portugal's advantage on the field became more and more obvious, and finally broke the deadlock in the 48th minute of the second half.
At that time, Bruno completed a wall match with Ronaldo on the left, and then Ronaldo made a cross to assist Andre Silva to break the deadlock with a header, and Portugal led Hungary 1:0 away.
In the 78th minute, Portugal launched a counterattack, and Joao Mario's cross in the penalty area was destroyed, but the ball landed in Bruno's control, and he immediately scored an empty goal, helping Portugal expand the score to 2:0.
In the end, Portugal defeated its opponent 2:0 away and led the Group B standings with eight consecutive wins. However, since Switzerland also defeated Latvia 3:0 away, Portugal still has not secured qualification for Russia. Whether it can directly qualify for the World Cup may depend on the direct confrontation between the two sides in the final round.
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With the end of the international match day, Manchester United players including Bruno returned to the Carrington training base.
On September 5, Manchester United ushered in the first training session after the international match day. Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Riyad Mahrez, the three new players of the team, also made their first appearance at the Carrington training base.
As the captain of the team, Bruno first met with the three people, and then he introduced them to his teammates.
Everyone is not a stranger. Harry Kane and Mahrez have played against Manchester United players many times in the Premier League. Although Mbappe has not played with most of the Manchester United players, his reputation in Europe is also in full swing, and Manchester United players have also paid attention to him.
In fact, Bruno was skeptical about Manchester United signing Harry Kane. After all, Bruno knew how strong the "championship insulator" attribute of this England star was before he traveled through time.
With Harry Kane, Tottenham has indeed reached the peak of the Premier League era. During this period, they have launched many attacks on the championship, but in the end they all failed inexplicably.
This is because Bruno did not know some of the things that happened after he traveled through time, otherwise he would be even more dumbfounded. After all, this British star can make Bayern Munich, the southern king of the Bundesliga, known as the "champion harvester", become a team with nothing.
Although Bruno is not superstitious, sometimes things are so weird that there is no way to explain them with scientific theories.
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However, thinking of Harry Kane's super ability, especially his goal-scoring ability, and the long time he has maintained his peak, Bruno still voted in favor when Giarretta asked him whether Manchester United should go all out to introduce Harry Kane.
In Bruno's memory, from the 2014-2015 season when Harry Kane officially rose in the Premier League to the 2022-2023 season before Bruno's crossing, Harry Kane's number of goals ranked fourth, second only to Lewandowski, Messi and Ronaldo.
Lewandowski, Messi and Ronaldo are all top stars of top clubs. It is difficult for Manchester United to dig them up, and these people are all older. In comparison, Harry Kane's age advantage is very obvious.
Harry Kane, born on July 28, 1993, just celebrated his 24th birthday. Manchester United's recruitment of him can almost ensure that there will be a reliable scorer on the front line for the next ten years.
If Rashford, who has good ability, and Mbappe, who may join the team, are added, Manchester United will have a top front line that will scare Europe and the world in the next ten years.
Coupled with the midfield led by himself, maybe Manchester United can really create an era of its own in the Premier League and even in Europe!
As for Harry Kane's inherent "champion insulator" attribute, Bruno believes that he can completely overcome it.
If even he can't control Harry Kane's "champion insulator" attribute, then Bruno will admit it.
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After the afternoon training session, Manchester United also took a family photo for the new season. The players' jersey numbers and the new season's lineup were officially determined.
There are three goalkeepers, namely No. 1 De Gea, No. 20 Romero, and No. 32 John Stone.
There are ten defenders, namely No. 2 Victor Lindelof, No. 3 Joao Cancelo, No. 4 Phil Jones, No. 5 Marcos Rojo, No. 12 Chris Smalling, No. 15 Harry Maguire, No. 17 Daley Blind, No. 23 Luke Shaw, No. 25 Antonio Valencia and No. 36 Matteo Damian.
There are nine players in the midfield, namely N'Golo Kante No. 6, Bruno Fernandez No. 8, Juan Mata No. 13, Jesse Lingard No. 14, Michael Carrick No. 16, Ashley Young No. 18, Ander Herrera No. 21, Ilkay Gundogan No. 22, and Marouane Fellaini No. 27.
There are six players in the forward position, namely Kylian Mbappe No. 7, Harry Kane No. 9, Zlatan Ibrahimovic No. 10, Riyad Mahrez No. 11, Marcus Rashford No. 19 and Scott McTominay No. 39.
There are only 28 people in the entire first team, but this is not a fixed selection. After all, if there is a shortage of manpower, people can be recruited from the youth team and the reserve team at any time.
Of course, as long as there is no special situation, such as large-scale injuries, the 28-man lineup can fully cope with any situation, even multi-line operations.
In particular, the depth of this Manchester United team is very impressive, and it can almost field two sets of strong starting lineups.
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Stoke City, led by Manchester United legend Mark Hughes, became the first team to suffer after Manchester United's strong lineup was formed.
On the afternoon of September 9, at the Britannia Stadium, Manchester United challenged Stoke City away.
Since returning to the Premier League in 2008, Stoke City has been firmly in the middle of the Premier League. Although it is difficult to enter the European war zone, there is basically no risk of relegation.
In the Tony Pulis era, Stoke City had many tall forwards and defenders in the team, showing the traditional British bombing tactics on the field, which earned Stoke City the nickname of "Sky City".
With Tony Pulis leaving Stoke City in the summer of 2013, Manchester United legend Mark Hughes became the new coach of Sky City. Under Mark Hughes, Stoke City has entered the top half of the Premier League standings for three consecutive years, ranking ninth all the time.
Since Mark Hughes' Stoke City performed well against strong teams, they were given the title of "Big Club Terminator" after "Sky City". Their representative works were their 3:2 victory over Arsenal and 6:1 sweep over Liverpool in the 2014-2015 season.
Although Mark Hughes is one of the top ten scorers in Manchester United's history and a very famous Manchester United star, Mark Hughes never showed mercy when facing Manchester United.
In the past four seasons, Stoke City's record against Manchester United in the league was 2 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses, which is not bad.
Manchester United lost to Stoke City twice in these four years, in the 24th round of the Premier League on February 1, 2014, 2:1 at home, and in the 18th round of the Premier League on December 26, 2015, 2:0 at home.
And their home stadium, Britannia Stadium, is also a stadium that brings bad memories to Manchester United. They have played 2 draws and 2 losses in the past 4 league away games against Stoke City without a win.
It is precisely because of such results that Stoke City shouted the slogan of defeating Manchester United again at home before the game.
However, when the game officially started, Mark Hughes found that the Manchester United he faced was completely different from the Manchester United last season.
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“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALL!!!!!!”
“Oh my God, my God!”
“Bruno! It’s Bruno again!”
“Just three minutes into the game, Bruno quickly took the ball from the left and cut inside, then shot directly with his right foot, breaking Stoke City’s goal for Manchester United!”
“He scored a goal in just three minutes to take the lead, and Stoke City’s defenders couldn’t stop him at all!”
“Bruno was very excited tonight, and he looked very active.”
“This is Bruno’s seventh goal in the Premier League this season, assisted by new signing Harry Kane!”
Scoring a goal in three minutes showed Bruno’s outstanding competitive state. The head coach Mourinho on the sidelines was so excited that he danced with joy.
He now really found that as long as Bruno was in good shape and played smoothly, Manchester United would be invincible.
And the facts also confirmed his point of view.
After Bruno opened the scoring, Manchester United continued to press forward. Stoke City organized a tight defense, but it only lasted fifteen minutes.
In the 18th minute, Bruno passed the ball back to Valencia from the right, and the Ecuadorian right back made a large-scale transfer. Rashford assisted Harry Kane to score the second goal of the game, which was also Harry Kane's first goal after joining Manchester United.
Manchester United expanded the score 2:0.
Stoke City lost two goals in a row, and the team's morale suffered a painful blow.
Sixteen minutes later, this time it was Rashford who took charge. With an assist from Harry Kane, Rashford scored in the penalty area, further expanding the score for Manchester United.
Perhaps the arrival of Mbappe put a lot of pressure on Rashford. The Manchester United youth training genius striker was very active today and in good condition.
3:0!
Manchester United led by three goals in the first half, and their morale was high.