Chapter 830 Suppression
On the evening of December 9, 2020, the last match day of the sixth round of the 2020-2021 UEFA Champions League group stage arrived.
This evening, Manchester United traveled to Denmark to challenge Midtjylland. Manchester United, which had already qualified for the group and secured the first place in the group, played with a full substitute lineup and finally tied with the opponent 1:1.
In this way, the group stage of the UEFA Champions League this season has ended. The performance of the four Premier League teams was very good, and all advanced to the knockout stage as the first in the group. Among them, Manchester City had the best record, with an unbeaten record of 5 wins and 1 draw, tied with Bayern Munich for the best in the top 32; Chelsea was also unbeaten in the group stage, with a record of 4 wins and 2 draws; Manchester United and Liverpool achieved 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, ranking first in their respective groups.
In the end, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid in Group A, Manchester City and Borussia Mönchengladbach in Group B, Manchester City and Porto in Group C, Manchester United and Atalanta in Group D, Chelsea and Sevilla in Group E, Dortmund and Lazio in Group F, Juventus and Barcelona in Group G, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain in Group H successfully advanced to the knockout stage.
Salzburg, Shakhtar Donetsk, Olympiacos, Manchester United, Krasnodar, Bruges, Dynamo Kyiv and Leipzig were eliminated to the Europa League. They will compete for the top 16 of the Europa League with the 24 teams ranked in the top two of the Europa League group stage.
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In the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals on December 14, there were many strong teams. Manchester United was not very lucky, and drew the French Ligue 1 champion Paris Saint-Germain; Chelsea and Liverpool were also very unlucky, Chelsea met Simeone's Atletico Madrid, and Liverpool met Barcelona; only Manchester City was lucky, and drew the Bundesliga Champions League newcomer Monchengladbach.
The remaining four groups of matchups are Bayern Munich vs. Lazio, Manchester City vs. Atalanta, Juventus vs. Porto, and Dortmund vs. Sevilla.
Among the eight group runners-up, the three strongest teams, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, all met Premier League teams, which makes people wonder if there is something fishy.
For a time, major British media and the Internet appeared that UEFA intended to suppress Premier League teams.
Since the Premier League teams swept the Champions League and Europa League finals in the 2018-2019 season, at the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, the Premier League surpassed La Liga with a slight advantage and topped the UEFA standings, becoming the veritable first league.
Last season, Manchester United defeated Bayern Munich again and won the Champions League for the third time in a row. The Premier League teams continued to perform well in the European arena. After the start of this season, the Premier League has surpassed the second-ranked La Liga by nearly ten points in the UEFA standings, and there is a faint trend of being far ahead.
Under such circumstances, the Premier League will be suppressed by UEFA, which is also expected by everyone.
In the group stage, the opponents in the group where the Premier League teams are located are relatively strong, which has already shown UEFA's ideas.
As a result, the Premier League teams continued to explode in the group stage and all advanced as the first in the group. In this era, the Premier League teams are far ahead in the UEFA standings in the new season.
UEFA certainly does not allow such a thing to happen, and then the result of the knockout draw is obvious: three of the four Premier League teams have encountered strong opponents.
This is still the case that only three of the eight second-place teams in the group are outstanding, otherwise Manchester City will definitely not escape the fate of encountering strong enemies.
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On the evening of December 13, a focus match of the 12th round of the Premier League was held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, with the Red Devils Manchester United facing their city rivals, the Blue Moon Manchester City.
Since Cardiff was rated as a second-tier area, 2,000 fans were allowed to enter the Millennium Stadium for this match.
For Manchester United, this is the first game in the true sense of the return of fans. After all, the previous away game against West Ham United was away, and there were very few Manchester United fans who could enter.
Although there are still only more than a thousand Manchester United fans who can enter, they are still very happy.
Of course, another piece of news that makes Manchester United fans happy is that the team captain Bruno Fernandes has returned to the team. Bruno, who left the team for more than ten days because of the birth of his eldest son, returned to Manchester on the eve of the first Manchester City derby of this season and entered the roster for today's game.
However, considering Bruno's travel fatigue, Mourinho did not put Bruno in the starting lineup, but temporarily stood by on the bench.
In Mourinho's plan, if the team's game goes well, Bruno will not play today. After all, the team granted Bruno two weeks of maternity leave, and Bruno returned to the team two days in advance.
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This Manchester derby is the last game of this round, and in other games that ended before this, traditional strong teams have suffered upsets. Chelsea lost 0:1 to Everton at Goodison Park, and Ancelotti completed his revenge on his old club; Tottenham, who played next, tied 1:1 with Crystal Palace away, and Liverpool also tied 1:1 with Fulham away, and Arsenal exposed the biggest upset of this round. They lost 0:1 at home to Burnley, the second-to-last team in the standings, and the ranking has dropped to 15th, only three places higher than the relegation zone.
The game was intense but not exciting enough. The score in the first half was 0:0. Both sides created some opportunities, but failed to seize them. But in general, Manchester United, who played at home, still had the advantage on the field. Except for the ball possession ratio of 45% to 55%, they were slightly behind in terms of the number of shots, corner kicks, and the number of times they entered the penalty area.
In this case, Mourinho did not make substitutions during the halftime break. Bruno was still sitting on the bench at the beginning of the second half.
Shortly after the start of the second half, Manchester United had a great chance to score.
In the 48th minute, Cancelo made a cross from the right, and Rashford was knocked down by Kyle Walker in the penalty area. The referee hesitated and still blew a penalty.
In the absence of Bruno, Rashford would naturally not give up the opportunity to take the penalty. But just as he walked to the penalty spot with the ball and prepared to take the penalty, the video referee team prompted the referee to watch the video on the sidelines.
Such a situation basically announced that the penalty kick would most likely be cancelled.
In fact, this was the case. After watching the video replay on the sidelines, the referee pointed out that Rashford was offside first, and the penalty kick was cancelled.
Mourinho was naturally very dissatisfied with such a penalty, but he had been punished for protesting the referee's penalty this season, so although he was very angry, he still tried his best to suppress his temper and did not speak rudely to the referee team.
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After the referee cancelled Manchester United's penalty kick, Mourinho immediately signaled Bruno to get up and warm up.
Such a signal is already very obvious, Bruno will soon come on the bench.
While Bruno was warming up, Manchester United created another good scoring opportunity.
In the 54th minute of the game, Mata made a diagonal pass to the left rib space, and Rashford entered the penalty area in time and took a low shot at the first time, and the ball was only slightly off target.
In the 60th minute of the game, Bruno finally came on the bench. And the one he replaced was the team's veteran Mata.
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In the first two games when Bruno was absent, Mata, as the main attacking midfielder of Manchester United, did not perform very well, but played his role.
In today's game, Mata was also conscientious on the field, so when he was replaced, he also received applause from all Manchester United fans on the scene.
After Bruno came on the field, his position was not the attacking midfielder he often played, but relatively backward, forming a three-midfielder style with Gundogan and Kante.
During this period, Manchester City's offensive was very fierce. Mourinho's task to Bruno was to help the team stabilize its defense first, and then wait for an opportunity to counterattack.
In the 66th minute of the game, Guardiola first replaced veteran Fernandinho with Pogba, and three minutes later, he replaced veteran Aguero, who was exhausted, with young player Ferran Torres.
Both substitutions carried a strong signal to strengthen the team's offense.
Manchester United also quickly used a substitution, Greenwood replaced Harry Kane after coming on the field.
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Manchester City's powerful offensive made Manchester United dare not be careless. The three lines retreated to the 30-meter area of their own half, forming three solid defense lines to cope with Manchester City's offensive impact again and again.
In the final stage of the game, Kyle Walker also frequently pressed to the front court, and there were only two central defenders left in the back line. The front court offense invested a huge amount of manpower, forcing Manchester United to further shrink the defense line.
The situation on the court was critical. At this time, any mistake might cause the team's efforts for most of the previous half to go to waste. Both sides dared not slack off.
Bruno said he was a front midfielder, but in fact he almost returned to the same position as the back midfielder.
There was no way around it. Manchester City pressed too close, and Manchester United's penalty area needed protection. Kante and Gundogan had played the whole game, and only Bruno was a substitute. He had to be more active.
As the game was drawing to a close, De Bruyne could no longer run and could only walk slowly in the frontcourt; Jesus had also exhausted his energy and did not even move, but just stood outside the penalty area to accumulate energy and prepare for the next sprint.
Manchester City players' physical strength had reached its limit, and the situation of Manchester United players was not much better. Only a few substitutes were still running and pressing hard.
Bruno came on as a substitute in the 60th minute of the second half, but he was very hardworking and active from the moment he came on the court, and he frequently performed short-distance sprints and round-trips, which consumed a lot of physical energy.
When the game was drawing to a close, he really felt that he was almost exhausted, but he still kept running.