i am a football star

Chapter 159 Champions League Draw
Liu Ting, who scored the only goal in the Super Cup, became the best player in the game. At the same time, with this goal, Liu Ting also became the first player to score in two consecutive European Super Cups.

However, Liu Ting's two consecutive Super Cup wins are not the only ones. AC Milan had the feat of defending the Super Cup back then, so many players had the record of winning the Super Cup for two consecutive years, but Liu Ting was the first player to win the championship on behalf of different teams for two consecutive years.

After Liverpool's victory this time, the number of European Super Cup titles has reached four times, second only to AC Milan's five titles, becoming the team with the second most European Super Cup titles.

After the Super Cup, the Liverpool team did not return to England immediately, because the next afternoon will be the draw for this season's Champions League group stage. At the same time, there will be awards for last season's Champions League. Liverpool, as the champion, naturally has many players selected.

Both Liu Ting and Torres were selected as the best striker, Gerrard was selected as the best midfielder, Agger was selected as the best defender, although Reina has left, it does not prevent him from being selected as the best goalkeeper, and both Gerrard and Liu Ting were selected as the best player in the UEFA Champions League.

On the afternoon of August 8th, the draw for the UEFA Champions League group stage in the 30/09 season was held at the Grimaldi Convention Center in Monaco.

As in previous years, draws and awards were interspersed.

The best defender was awarded to Barcelona's Puyol, the best midfielder was given to Gerrard, the best striker was Messi, and the best player was also given to Gerrard. These awards were awarded to the two teams in the final.

Liu Ting was shortlisted for the two most important awards of best forward and best player. His performance last season gave him the qualifications to be shortlisted, but he didn't get any of them in the end.

Liu Ting has already been mentally prepared for this situation. Wagner has already told him that the biggest obstacle preventing him from appearing on the stage at the awards ceremony is his low qualifications and insufficient reputation.

With the end of the award ceremony, the draw for the UEFA Champions League group stage (ranked from first to fourth):

Group A is Bundesliga Bayern Munich, Serie A Juventus, Ligue [-] Bordeaux and Israeli team Maccabi Haifa;
Group B consists of Premier League Manchester United, Russia's CSKA Moscow, Turkey's Besiktas and Bundesliga's Wolfsburg;
Group C is AC Milan in Serie A, Real Madrid in La Liga, Marseille in Ligue [-] and Zurich in the Swiss Super League;

Group D is Premier League Chelsea, Portuguese Super League Porto, La Liga Atletico Madrid and Cyprus team Athletic Greek;

Group E is Premier League Liverpool, Ligue [-] Lyon, Serie A Fiorentina and Hungarian team Debrecen;
Group F is La Liga Barcelona, ​​Serie A Inter Milan, Ukrainian Kyiv Dynamo and Russian Super League Rubin Kazan;

Group G is Sevilla in La Liga, Glasgow Rangers in the Scottish Premier League, Stuttgart in the Bundesliga and Uniria in Romania;

Group H is Premier League Arsenal, Eredivisie Alkmaar, Greece's Olympiakos and Belgium's Standard Liege.

Strictly speaking, this year's grouping does not have a real meaning of the death group, because the strong teams are basically divided into the top two tiers, which largely avoids the emergence of the death group.

In the fourth class, only the new Bundesliga champion Wolfsburg is stronger, but Manchester United dominates his group B, and the other three teams compete for second place in the group.

The third-tier teams include Marseille and Bordeaux in Ligue [-], Fiorentina in Serie A, and Dynamo Kiev in Ukraine. After comparison, Group C of AC Milan, Real Madrid and Marseille is considered the most difficult group this season.

Only Liu Ting knows that the two groups where Liverpool and Bordeaux are in are the real death group. If history does not change, Liverpool will be squeezed out of the top two by Fiorentina, and Bordeaux will also squeeze out Juventus to advance to the knockout round.

However, the situation of Liverpool has changed now. Even if there are some difficulties, they will not be eliminated by the group stage, otherwise Liverpool will become the first Champions League defending champion to be eliminated in the group stage.

But as far as Liverpool's group is concerned, almost everyone believes that Liverpool will secure the first place in the group and Lyon's second place in the group is more likely, but Lyon should also be careful not to be squeezed out by Fiorentina.

The draw for the group stage ended and the Liverpool team returned to England.

Liu Ting's performance in the UEFA Super Cup last night only occupied the sports page for half a day, and was quickly compared with the results of the UEFA Champions League draw.

The English media paid the most attention to the groups of the top four in the Premier League. Manchester United and Arsenal were both top draws, followed by Chelsea. Liverpool’s group was the most difficult. The English media’s remarks about UEFA not wanting Liverpool to defend the Champions League came out, because the defending champions were drawn to a relatively difficult group in the group stage.

The most topical group in Europe is the group where Barcelona and Inter Milan are located. This is another war between Mourinho and Barcelona.

At the beginning, Mourinho started as an interpreter for the Barcelona club, and later became a world-renowned coach in the football world, but he had conflicts with Barcelona time and time again.

Mourinho became famous in one fell swoop by winning the Champions League in the summer of 04, and then went to Chelsea.

In Chelsea's first season, Mourinho's team met Barcelona in the 04/05 UEFA Champions League round of 1. This reunion was not warm at all. One of the two teams advocated offensive football extremely, and the other was the most famous defensive coach in Europe. Sparks flew from the start of the match. Chelsea lost the game 2:3 at the Nou Camp. After the game, Mourinho accused Barcelona of bribing the referee because someone saw Barcelona's high-level executives enter the referee room during the intermission. Evidence, the two sides blamed each other, Mourinho and Barcelona's war of words was flying all over the sky, and finally in the second round Chelsea returned to home and defeated Barcelona 1:[-] and successfully made a comeback.

In the 05/06 season, Chelsea once again encountered Barcelona in the top 2. This time Chelsea lost the game with a total score of 3:[-] and were eliminated.

In the 06/07 season, Chelsea and Barcelona met in the group stage. In Chelsea’s 2:2 draw against Barcelona (Chelsea overwhelmed Barcelona and became the first in the group), Drogba scored an equalizer goal in stoppage time for Chelsea. Mourinho played a beautiful kneeling and roaring on the sidelines of the Nou Camp. It can be said responsibly that this is the most beautiful kneeling celebration among the coaches. Pi's tap was turned on, and the whole Chelsea team was chilled.

In the following 07/08 season, Mourinho was fired by Abramovich before he had time to have anything to do with Barcelona. Otherwise, due to UEFA's urgency, he would face Barcelona in the knockout round.

Mourinho has had six seasons since he became famous, one of which was dismissed just one month after the start, which can only be counted as five seasons. Just because Mourinho and Barcelona met each other, so four seasons of encounters with Barcelona, ​​UEFA's ethics should never be overestimated, just like Chelsea always met Liverpool in the Champions League before.

While talking about Mourinho and Barcelona, ​​the mainstream European media also gave the latest odds of winning the Champions League, which made Liu Ting realize the role of fame again.

This summer, Liverpool didn't make much moves. Instead, they lost important players such as Aveiroa, Reina and Modric. However, last year's Champions League final opponent Barcelona paid a lot of money to introduce Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Therefore, Barcelona's winning odds ranked ahead of Liverpool, which is reasonable.

But Barcelona is not the first favorite to win the championship, Barcelona is only second, Liverpool is the third, and the most recognized favorite in Europe is Real Madrid.

Just because Real Madrid introduced last year's World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo and the year before last year's World Player of the Year Kaka, even if they did not perform well in official games, Real Madrid became the number one favorite to win the championship, and it is still the number one favorite recognized by most people. This shows the degree of recognition of fame in football.

Among the winning odds of BWIN, Real Madrid ranked first at 1 to 4.25, Barcelona ranked second at 1 to 5, Liverpool ranked third at 1 at 6, followed by Chelsea at 1 at 7 and Manchester United at 1 at 9, Arsenal and Inter Milan tied for sixth at 1 at 12, and the top seven Premier League semi-finals accounted for four of them.

The Champions League group stage will not start until mid-September, and soon everyone will turn their attention to the league.

During Liverpool’s trip to Monaco to participate in the UEFA Super Cup, the fourth round of the Premier League’s other 18 teams has ended. The focus of this round is the home game between Manchester United and Arsenal. In the end, Manchester United defeated Arsenal 4:2 and won the first strong dialogue of the season.

Liverpool's less game is an away game against Bolton. The specific time for the make-up match will have to be arranged according to Liverpool's future situation. If Liverpool is eliminated early in the domestic cup competition, it is likely to arrange a make-up match in the first half of the season. On the contrary, if Liverpool goes far in the domestic cup competition, it may have to be arranged in the second half of the season.

Liverpool’s start is not very good, it can be said to be bad. At present, Liverpool only has 4 points, ranking 13th in the Premier League standings, and now they have injured two central defenders. If Heynckes led the team to win the first championship of the season, the media may start to hype Liverpool’s coaching change.

The good news is that Skrtel's strain is not a big problem, and he should be able to return after a week of rest. The bad news is that Agger's injury is not very good, and it will take at least a month.

In fact, everyone in Liverpool knew the reason for this situation.

Anything in the world, if you want to gain something, you have to have a comeback.Liverpool made a lot of money in the Asian tour and also expanded Liverpool's global influence, but this also made most of Liverpool's players too tired. Now they are in an unstable state and have many injuries. This is the most intuitive manifestation.

In the 03/04 season, under the leadership of Queiroz, Real Madrid sent the trophy to Valencia in the last five consecutive rounds of the league. Although Queiroz finally took the blame and returned to Manchester United to continue to work as an assistant to Ferguson.

Liverpool's situation is not very good, and the English media will naturally not let go of this topic. Under the hype, some Liverpool fans have also been disturbed.

An episode that happened was that some Liverpool fans protested at the gate of the club with a banner, demanding that the team change sponsors and return to the previous Carlsberg beer.

Last season, Liverpool negotiated a new sponsorship contract with Qatar Airways. From the beginning of the new season, Liverpool’s jersey chest advertisements belong to Qatar Airways. Some tabloids used this to report that Liverpool’s poor situation was due to the loss of “good luck” by changing sponsors. The main reason is that some fans really saw it and believed it.

The sales of Carlsberg beer have dropped, and the money can't be paid, so what's the sponsorship? Two cans of beer machines per sponsor?
The British magic stick is no worse than the Chinese master at all.

(End of this chapter)