Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

It was close to midnight on April 4th. After the game, the exhausted Manchester United took a night flight back to Manchester. After two days of rest, the entire team would head to London to challenge the only title rival in the league, the Blues Chelsea.

This was the last of Manchester United's three-game away game at the end of the season, so even though the whole team was very tired, no one complained. Instead, they all held their breath and were determined to overcome the difficulties in one fell swoop.

Although the start of the three consecutive away games was not very good, and they unexpectedly lost points in Blackburn, they also unexpectedly won a victory in Barcelona, ​​which made the morale of the whole team return to the peak:

As long as they win the last crucial game of the three consecutive away games, the 6-point gap and the huge goal difference advantage of 26 goals will make the last two rounds of the league completely become friendly matches for Manchester United.

The stumbling block of this round, Chelsea, has an away game in the Champions League in the middle of the week just like Manchester United, but the game time is one day earlier than Manchester United, and they only go to Liverpool in the country to challenge the Reds.

So although they failed to win the game, Chelsea, who were lucky enough to score a valuable away goal to equalize an own goal, were in high spirits and were waiting for the arrival of the Red Devils Manchester United at Stamford Bridge.

Moreover, the day before the game, the mother of Chelsea midfielder Lampard passed away, which also brought a sense of mourning to the Blues in this round of games: the entire Chelsea team also knew that if they could not beat Manchester United in this round of games, then the suspense of this season's Premier League championship would be completely lost.

Therefore, Chelsea issued a killing order at home! This is a game that must be won at all costs.

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In order to give the team more time, Sir Alex Ferguson even cancelled the pre-match training. After all, he had come to Stamford Bridge to play football many times in recent years.

However, at the pre-match press conference, Sir Alex took the game very seriously and claimed that he came with the goal of breaking Chelsea's 80-game unbeaten streak in the home league.

But this is not an easy task for Manchester United. In the league, the Red Devils have not won a game at Stamford Bridge for 5 years and have not scored a goal in the past 4 years. The last victory dates back to 2002, when Scholes, Van Nistelrooy and Baby-faced goalkeeper Claudio Ranieri's Blues were defeated.

In addition, Chelsea is one of the teams least afraid of Manchester United in the Premier League: the Blues have scored 40 points from the Red Devils in the history of the Premier League, more than any other team. Moreover, Manchester United has never tasted the taste of scoring at Stamford Bridge in the Abramovich era. In the first four seasons, Chelsea had an absolute advantage with 3 wins and 1 draw.

After the press conference, when the starting lineup was announced, the media knew that Sir Alex was throwing smoke bombs as usual.

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2008年4月26日中午12时45分，为了给下周中的欧冠半决赛让路，07/08赛季英超第36轮比赛中的争冠焦点战役，被安排在了最早的中午场次进行。

Manchester United, wearing red shirts and white pants, visited Stamford Bridge to challenge the home team Chelsea, wearing pure blue jerseys.

Before this round of games, Chelsea's unbeaten record in the league at Stamford Bridge had reached an astonishing 80 games, and their unbeaten record in domestic competitions had reached 100 games.

Chelsea have remained unbeaten in their last six home games against Manchester United, with three wins and three draws, including a clean sheet in the last five games.

However, Manchester United remained unbeaten in all away games in 2008.

双方英超历史交锋31场，曼联9胜13平9负，其中客场4胜6平5负。

本场比赛是双方历史上第150场交锋，曼联65胜44平40负占据上风；不过在斯坦福德桥进行的65场比赛中，切尔西取得29胜17平19负，反而是略微占据上风。

Since they have taken the lead in the Champions League semi-finals, Sir Alex obviously attaches more importance to the Champions League game next week, so he rested half of the main players in this round of the trip to Stamford Bridge:

Compared with the Champions League in the middle of the week, Ronaldo, Li Qi, Hargreaves and Evra were all on the bench, Park Ji-sung and Scholes were not included in the squad at all, Tevez, Giggs, Anderson, Fletcher and Silvestre took turns to play, Vidic recovered from illness and played as a central defender, and Rooney continued to start.

Sir Alex Ferguson lined up the parallel 4-4-2 regular starting formation that he has used most this season:

The goalkeeper is No. 1 Van der Sar;

The back four is No. 6 Wes Brown, No. 5 Ferdinand, No. 15 Ferdinand and No. 27 Sylvester;

The midfield lined up is No. 8 Anderson, No. 16 Carrick, No. 24 Fletcher and No. 11 Giggs;

The two strikers are No. 10 Rooney and No. 32 Tevez.

Looking at the opponent Chelsea's starting lineup, it is still Mourinho's 4-3-3 formation:

The goalkeeper is No. 1 Cech;

The back four is No. 20 Ferreira, No. 6 Carvalho, No. 26 Terry and No. 3 Ashley Cole;

The three midfielders are No. 12 Mikel, No. 13 Ballack and No. 5 Essien, forming a super tough combination;

The forward trident is No. 10 Joe Cole, No. 21 Kalou and No. 11 Drogba.

They also had to play in the Champions League semi-finals, but Chelsea sent out their strongest lineup, not only to retain the last hope of winning the championship, but also for the unbeaten record at home, to prevent Manchester United from winning the championship at home, for Lampard's deceased mother, and for Grant's personal honor...

This is Grant's 50th game in charge of Chelsea. Before the game, Grant had already made a pledge in front of owner Abramovich: to break Sir Alex Ferguson's unbeaten record in the semi-finals this season!

So the game entered its climax directly from the first minute. Chelsea, who could not accept any other result except victory in this game, took the initiative.

Chelsea was at a disadvantage in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Liverpool in midweek, but they regained their form today against Manchester United; in addition to the home and away factors, the comeback of African Buffalo Essien was a key.

The Ghanaian was suspended due to accumulated yellow cards when facing the Red Army, but this actually accumulated enough physical strength for the battle to subdue the demons, and he ran like crazy at the beginning of the game.

While Terry was leading the defense to press forward, Essien also led the three tough midfielders of the Blues to frantically chase and intercept Manchester United's ball, making Manchester United's four midfielders unable to cope; it seemed that Essien had endless energy.

The Blues' style of play with a large defensive line is rarely seen in the past. After all, the essence of Mourinho's counterattack has been deeply rooted in the Blues' genes, and it is not easy to change in a short time.

But this time, Grant gave it his all, and Chelsea also fought hard, catching Manchester United, who mostly played as substitutes, off guard.

Although Chelsea's high-pressure offside tactics are very risky, they generally require long-term practice to form a tacit understanding. After all, once a breakthrough is made in the midfield or an offside is achieved, it is basically an opportunity for a single shot.

However, Chelsea's three tough midfielders in this game effectively made up for the Blues' lack of tactical proficiency, making it difficult for Manchester United's midfield and backcourt, which lost the speed of Ronaldo and Lizzie, as well as Scholes's deployment, to effectively deliver the ball across half the court.

The Blues showed their determination to give it their all from the very beginning, intercepting the ball on the spot and then counterattacking, always creating extremely threatening attacks.

Just 30 seconds into the game, under Essien's pressure, Wes Brown's header back pass almost went wrong, and Van der Sar subconsciously blocked the ball in a hurry. Then, Kalou passed the ball to the middle, and Essien followed up and volleyed from 22 yards, but the ball was slightly higher than the crossbar.

Chelsea almost scored in the 21st minute when Cech kicked the ball out, but Ferdinand headed the ball away under Drogba's attack.

Kalou chested the ball to Joe Cole, who immediately launched a counterattack. Although Joe Cole's direct pass was a little slow and was intercepted by Silvester, the latter hastily cleared the ball under Mikel's pressure and hit his teammate Carrick who was returning to defense, and the ball bounced to the middle of his own penalty area.

Fortunately, Joe Cole's shot near the penalty spot hit the crossbar and bounced out of the bottom line, and Manchester United escaped.

However, before Manchester United could enjoy the blessing of escaping a disaster, they were breached by the desperate home team in the injury time of the first half.

In the second minute of stoppage time in the first half, Drogba, who was pulled to the wing, received a direct pass from Mikel, protected the ball, leaned on Evra with his strong body, and then turned half way and made a cross.

Ballack came in from behind and headed the ball into the goal from 10 yards in front of the goal with no one guarding him at the far post!

The ball hit the lower left corner of Manchester United's goal like a cannonball! Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United!

……

Looking at Ballack who was wildly taking off his clothes to celebrate, and the Blues players who were celebrating by holding up jerseys with Lampard's mother's surname on them, Sir Alex Ferguson blushed and looked helpless: they did play better than Manchester United.

Let Ronaldo, Li Qi and other brats warm up quickly!

The original plan to let them play for a maximum of 30 minutes in the second half may have changed...

……

[No need to wait. There will probably not be a second update in the second half of the night. It will probably be in the afternoon.

Let's see if Li Qi can be a super substitute and change the situation? 】