Chapter 756: Cradle of the European Golden Boy Award
On the evening of December 11th, local time in Europe, the last round of the Champions League group stage ushered in a showdown, Manchester United challenged the Croatian team Dinamo Zagreb away.
Since Manchester United has already qualified and locked the first place in the group, this Champions League group match is not very meaningful to Manchester United. In addition, Manchester United is about to usher in a very intensive Christmas devil schedule, so Mourinho sent a substitute lineup to play. Many main players, including Bruno, did not even go to the away game with the team.
However, Manchester United, who played with a substitute lineup, ushered in a big win away from home. In particular, Mason Greenwood, the favorite for the European Golden Boy Award in 2019, shined in the game.
In the 10th minute, Conziol made a cross from the right side of the frontcourt to the penalty area, and the 21-year-old young player Olmo made a wonderful volley and scored, and Dinamo Zagreb led Manchester United 1:0.
Manchester United, who fell behind in the score, launched a counterattack. In the 34th minute, Mahrez made a cross from the right side of the penalty area to the front of the goal, and Greenwood scored with a header, Manchester United 1:1 Dinamo Zagreb.
This is the 10th goal scored by the 18-year-old Greenwood in his 20th appearance for Manchester United in all competitions. Among them, he has played 14 games in all competitions this season and scored 8 goals.
Although Greenwood has not yet established a starting position in Manchester United, he has become an important rotation player and has performed well in the game.
Coupled with Manchester United's current influence in football, this also makes Greenwood a hot favorite for the 2019 European Golden Boy Award. His main competitors include Atletico Madrid's Portuguese star Joao Felix and Dortmund's English genius Sancho.
In fact, there are many Manchester United players among the talents selected for this year's 100-person European Golden Boy Award candidate list. In addition to Greenwood, there are Angel Gomes, who is currently playing for Manchester United's youth team, Chinese striker Chong Tahith, and Portuguese star defender Dalot. However, the other three failed to be selected for the final 20-man list of the Golden Boy Award announced in mid-October.
The results of the 2019 European Golden Boy Award will be announced on December 16.
………………
At the end of the first half, the two sides were tied at 1:1.
After the change of sides, in the 47th minute, McTominay's long-range shot from the outside was high.
In the 50th minute, Ashley Young passed the ball to Greenwood on the left side of the frontcourt. Greenwood and McTominay formed a cooperation. Finally, Greenwood dribbled past the defender in the penalty area and scored a goal with a volley to complete his second goal. Manchester United overtook Dinamo Zagreb 2:1.
In the 54th minute, Ashley Young made a precise pass on the left side of the frontcourt. Greenwood in front of the goal volleyed and scored a hat trick. Manchester United led Dinamo Zagreb 3:1.
In the 66th minute, Greenwood, who performed a hat trick, was replaced by Lingard.
In the 79th minute, Manchester United got a free kick opportunity on the right side of the frontcourt. Mahrez kicked into the penalty area. Lindelof's header was blocked. Lingard made a supplementary shot and scored, but the referee indicated that Lindelof was offside first, so Slingard's goal was invalid.
In the 84th minute, Gundo Mahrez passed the ball to Mata in the penalty area, who passed the ball back to the front of the goal, McTominay pushed the ball into the goal, Manchester United 4:1 Dinamo Zagreb.
In the 86th minute, Dalot passed the ball to Mata in the frontcourt, Mata passed it directly to Mahrez, Mahrez got a single chance, and a shot in the penalty area was blocked by Dinamo Zagreb goalkeeper Livakovic.
At the end of the game, Dinamo Zagreb lost 1:4 to Manchester United at home. Dinamo Zagreb achieved 1 win, 2 draws, 3 losses and 5 points, ranking the bottom of the group.
………………
At the weekend, the 17th round of the Premier League kicked off, and Manchester United played at the Millennium Stadium against the traditional powerhouse Everton.
Manchester United lined up in a 433 formation, with Harry Kane rushing forward, Mbappe and Rashford flying on both wings, Bruno attacking midfielder, and Kante and Fred double defensive midfielders. On the defensive line, Van Dijk and Maguire partnered as central defenders, Luke Shaw and Cancelo were on the left and right, and De Gea was still the goalkeeper.
In the first minute of the game, Bruno turned and shot in the middle of the penalty area, and Manchester United got off to a dream start.
Everton was not a weak team without any ability to fight back. They almost equalized the score in the 7th minute. Richarlison passed the ball, and Holgate's long-range shot was powerful. Fortunately, De Gea showed his strength as a world-class goalkeeper and flew sideways to ensure that Manchester United's city was not lost.
In the 26th minute, Bruno shot a free kick at the front of the penalty area. Although Pickford tried his best, Bruno's free kick was too high and Pickford was out of reach. Manchester United took a two-goal lead at home.
In the 36th minute, Baines made a cross from the right corner. Calvert-Lewin, Mina and De Gea competed for the first point but failed to touch it. In the chaos, Van Dijk accidentally touched the ball into his own goal.
Although Calvert-Lewin was suspected of colliding with the goalkeeper, VAR determined that the goal was valid and Everton scored a goal.
Neither side made any personnel adjustments in the midfield.
Dixon's powerful shot from the left was saved by Pickford, and Mbappe's supplementary shot from the right wing of the penalty area hit the target, helping Manchester United to expand their advantage to two goals again.
In the 65th minute, Mourinho made a personnel adjustment, Greenwood replaced Rashford, who also came from Manchester United's youth training camp. Lingard replaced Mbappe.
In the 77th minute, Bruno cut in from the left and passed the ball, and Greenwood's low shot from the front of the penalty area hit the lower right corner, and Manchester United changed the score to 4:1.
Greenwood scored in the Champions League and the Premier League. This season, he has scored 11 goals in all competitions, including 6 goals in the Premier League.
………………
On Monday, December 16, at 12:00 CET, the draw ceremony for the 2019-2020 Champions League quarter-finals was held in Nyon, Switzerland.
After the last round of the Champions League group stage last week, the 16 teams participating in the knockout stage have all been decided. Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid in Group A, Bayern Munich and Tottenham in Group B, Manchester United and Atalanta in Group C, Juventus and Manchester City in Group D, Naples and Benfica in Group E, Barcelona and Dortmund in Group F, Liverpool and RB Leipzig in Group G, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid in Group H ranked first and second in the group.
In this season's Champions League group stage, the Premier League teams are undoubtedly the biggest winners. All five teams successfully qualified, among which Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea ranked first, Manchester City finally ranked second only by goal difference, and Tottenham also advanced to the knockout stage one round in advance, but because Bayern Munich in the same group was too strong, it was one of the two undefeated teams in the group stage, and the other team was Manchester United.
15 of the 16 teams in the Champions League came from the top five leagues, and Benfica became the only team outside the top five leagues. All the stronger teams advanced, which further increased the possibility of a strong dialogue in this draw.
………………
According to the draw rules, the draw for the quarter-finals is based on the principle of "avoiding the same group in the same association", the first in the group will play against the second in the group; teams in the same group and association will not meet; and the first round will be played at the home of the second in the group, that is, the second in the group will play at home first and then away.
After the draw, Manchester United faced Real Madrid, which is also considered the strongest duel in this Champions League quarter-final. After all, the two teams are Real Madrid, which has won 12 Champions League titles and is known as the King of the Champions League, and Manchester United, which is currently the strongest team in the world football and has maintained 32 unbeaten games in the Champions League and 22 consecutive wins.
However, for Manchester United and Real Madrid, this is undoubtedly the worst draw result.
If such a duel happened in the final, it would undoubtedly be another top-level duel, but now it happened in the first round of the knockout stage.
Such a result is undoubtedly full of conspiracy.
At the moment when the draw guest drew Real Madrid to play against Manchester United, the TV broadcast camera switched between Manchester United coach Mourinho and Real Madrid coach Zidane who participated in the Champions League draw ceremony for a long time, showing the expressions of the two to fans all over the world.
In the end, the TV camera was fixed on UEFA President Ceferin.
The meaning of this is naturally clear.
………………
In addition to the super duel between Manchester United and Real Madrid, there is no lack of strong dialogue in this season's Champions League quarter-finals.
For example, Bayern Munich faced the La Liga powerhouse Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain faced the Bundesliga giants Dortmund, and Juventus faced the Premier League powerhouse Tottenham.
In comparison, the opponents of Manchester City, Barcelona, Liverpool and Chelsea are relatively satisfactory to them.
The Blue Moon faced Naples, the weakest team in the group. With Manchester City's strength, Guardiola's coaching experience, and Manchester City's current situation, the final promotion is almost a matter of course. After all, Manchester City is currently far behind Liverpool and Manchester United in the Premier League. The league is hopeless, and the Champions League must be the only goal of Manchester City management.
Barcelona's opponent is Benfica, the only non-top five league team, Liverpool is facing Manchester United's opponent in the group stage, Serie A team Atalanta, and Chelsea's opponent is Liverpool's opponent in the group stage, Leipzig Red Bull from the Bundesliga.
The rules of the Champions League this season have returned to the previous ones. The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be drawn, there is no avoidance principle, and any team may meet.
In the final, if the two sides are tied after the 90-minute statutory time, they will enter a 30-minute overtime. If the overtime is still tied, the winner will be determined by a penalty shootout. The winner of the final will be the champion of the UEFA Champions League that season and can participate in the FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup and the UEFA Champions League group stage next season in Qatar in 2020.
The first leg of the quarter-finals will be held in mid-to-late February, and the second leg will be held in mid-March.
But Bruno knows that due to the sudden outbreak of the global epidemic, this season's Champions League knockout round is destined to be impossible to proceed according to the scheduled schedule.
………………
Also on December 16, the Italian football magazine "Torino Sports Daily" announced the final winner of the 2019 European Golden Boy Award. The talented new star Greenwood from Manchester United defeated the Portuguese new star Joao Felix and the talented new star Jaden Sancho from England, who played for Dortmund, and was finally elected.
This Manchester United star, who just celebrated his 18th birthday in October, won the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup treble with Manchester United in the 2018-2019 season, and his performance this season is even better. Even in the star-studded Manchester United, he still got a lot of opportunities to play, played 15 times in all competitions, scored 11 goals, and scored a hat trick in Manchester United's match against Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League group stage, thus surpassing Rooney (18 years and 339 days) and Raul (18 years and 113 days) at the age of 18 years and 62 days, becoming the youngest player in the history of the Champions League to perform a hat trick.
In fact, this is also one of the key reasons why Greenwood was able to finally beat Felix and be elected as the European Golden Boy in 2019.
After all, before this, although Greenwood won the treble with Manchester United, his personal performance was not too amazing, and his personal data was also quite different from Felix.
At least Felix has become an absolute main force in Atletico Madrid, while Greenwood is just an ordinary substitute rotation player in Manchester United and has not established a main position.
………………
With Greenwood being elected as the European Golden Boy in 2019, he has also become the fourth Manchester United player to be elected as the European Golden Boy in the past five years.
Before Greenwood, Martial was elected as the European Golden Boy in 2015, Rashford in 2017, and Mbappe in 2018.
In particular, the consecutive elections of Rashford, Mbappe and Greenwood made Manchester United the first team to win the European Golden Boy Award three times in a row.
At the same time, Greenwood is also the sixth elected European Golden Boy. Rooney and Anderson also won the European Golden Boy Award as Manchester United players.
The European Golden Boy Award is only the 17th, but Manchester United has produced six of them. The Red Devils deserve the title of the cradle of the "European Golden Boy Award".
In fact, including Bruno, who currently plays for Manchester United, seven of the 17 European Golden Boys have played for Manchester United!
What the world doesn't know is that Greenwood, who had just received the European Golden Boy Award, was called home by his old predecessor, the current Manchester United captain Bruno, for some ideological education when he returned to Manchester.
Bruno was full of regret for Greenwood, a talented junior, because in another time and space, he had to leave the stadium due to some off-field factors during the rising period of his career, and was even eventually kicked out by his old club Manchester United.
In order to prevent Greenwood from repeating the same mistakes, Bruno paid special attention to the ideological education of this little brother in this time and space. After all, in this environment where "boxers" are everywhere, boys must protect themselves.
Especially big stars like them, they must be cautious in their words and deeds, otherwise they will be hurt or even doomed if they are not careful.
Bruno doesn't want Greenwood's career to be ruined again for the same reason.