Legendary Godfather

To be honest, Maribor fans are really not afraid of Crystal Palace.

Your Crystal Palace is indeed very strong, but we in Maribor are not bad either.

I think that when Yugoslavia was not disbanded, Yugoslav football was at the top level in the world. Before the disbandment, Maribor was also one of the representatives of Yugoslav football. After the dissolution, they were also the representatives of Slovenian football and were the most successful football club in Slovenia.

Therefore, Maribor is really not afraid of Crystal Palace.

Moreover, this time it is their home stadium in Maribor, so they are naturally not afraid.

In this game, Maribor came here to win.

And Maribor really needs to win at the moment.

Because two rounds of the UEFA Champions League group stage in the 2017-2018 season have passed, Maribor has only one point with one draw and one loss. For the time being, it seems to be ranked third in the group, with the same points as Spartak Moscow, which is ranked fourth in the group. Just relying on The advantage in goal difference comes first.

If Maribor wants to advance from this group, it is obvious that they have to score as many points as possible.

Even if there is really no way to qualify from this group, they still hope to hit the third place in a group so that they still have a chance to play in the Europa League.

So, victory is what Maribor needs most now.

Their goal now is to win more victories.

Crystal Palace is indeed very strong, but Maribor is still very confident.

Tong Yi's words before the game also stimulated them. They are now fierce and want to slap Tong Yi and the Crystal Palace people in the face in this game and win this game.

Playing at home, the Maribor people are full of confidence.

Maribor head coach Darko Milanic said this in an interview with media reporters before the game, "Of course I know the strength of Crystal Palace. Their strength is very strong. After all, they were the first team in England last season. Grand Slam winner and the most popular team in Europe. I have watched the videos of all their previous games this season. To be honest, their strength is far superior to ours!"

The media reporters nodded one after another, these words were quite objective.

After all, Slovenian football is not football in the former Yugoslavia. The current level of Slovenian football is really not good. Even though Maribor is the most successful football club in Slovenia and the defending champion of the Slovenian League, its strength is indeed not good.

At least compared to the teams in the five major European leagues, their strength is still not good.

You can tell by looking at their first two rounds of the UEFA Champions League this season. In the first round, they drew with Spartak Moscow one to one with the help of home advantage. In the second round, they were directly defeated by Sevilla three times. A big victory over zero shows the strength level of their team.

you need to know,

In the first round of the Champions League group stage this season, Sevilla lost 0-4 to Crystal Palace.

Combining these two items, is Maribor far worse than Crystal Palace?

Therefore, Milanic is telling the truth.

Milanic also said, "However, this does not mean that we do not have any chances in Maribor. This is our home court after all, we also drew with Spartak Moscow, and we lost to Seville Asia is also away from home. So we are relatively confident when we return to home. Even if we face Crystal Palace, our team still has a chance. Moreover, I think our chance is still very good."

At this time, some media reporters asked why?

Why do you think so? Why do you have this illusion? Can you just go back to the home court?

Anyway, media reporters are not optimistic about Maribor.

Of course, European gambling companies are not optimistic about Maribor.

Milanic said, "Because the Crystal Palace underestimates us and doesn't even take Maribor seriously. They have never looked at Maribor, so naturally they don't know about Maribor." Strength. This is our chance! More importantly, the arrogant Crystal Palace has left all its main players in London. Do you think the Crystal Palace people can defeat us in Maribor with a group of substitutes?"

At first glance, everyone seems to think that what Milanic said makes sense. Crystal Palace is indeed a little overconfident. All the substitutes played in this game, which is a bit underestimating Maribor. But thinking about it carefully, everyone still feels that Maribor has no chance, even if Crystal Palace is full of substitutes, it is very strong.

It's not like you haven't seen Crystal Palace's previous rotations in the Premier League. After replacing the substitute rotation players, Crystal Palace's results are still good and they still maintain a complete victory.

That was a Premier League team we were facing.

So, even if Crystal Palace plays with all substitutes, it will still be easy to beat Maribor, right?

Milanic continued, "I know a Chinese saying, know yourself and the enemy, and you will win every battle! Now the Crystal Palace is so arrogant. They don't even know the true level of our Maribor. How can they defeat us in Maribor? So, this I am quite confident in one game, and in this game, we in Maribor have a great chance of winning.”

Hearing Milanic's words, the Maribor fans were very excited and excited.

They all believe in their head coach.

Their head coach is a meritorious coach of their club, and the Slovenian media even called Milanic the Tong Yi of Maribor.

Therefore, the fans in Maribor are now in high spirits and they all feel that they have a good chance in this game.

The fans in Maribor are looking forward to this game.

After hearing Milanic's words, Tong Yi was slightly startled. He didn't expect that Milanic was so confident.

Tong Yi looked at the information collected by Schwartz in his hand and smiled.

Milanic's confidence actually makes sense.

After all, Milanic has seen a lot of the world, and his coaching ability is also very good. At least coaching in Slovenia can be said to be very, very good and very, very successful.

The information in hand shows that Milanic was also a player and became a professional coach after retiring.

In the player era, Milanic's career was relatively successful. When he was only 17 years old, he joined the local giant Partizan Belgrade, where he won the Yugoslav First Division championship and two cup championships. After moving to Sturm Graz, he won two Austrian league championships and three cup championships, played nearly 200 games for the team, and was once a main player in the Yugoslavia and Slovenia national teams.

This was a very successful player in Yugoslavia and Slovenia.

Tong Yi looked at the information in his hand and couldn't help but sigh, "It turns out he was born as a central defender. No wonder the team he coaches pays so much attention to defense. He's so professional!"

Schwartz immediately said, "This person also has very rich coaching experience. He has been coaching in many countries, and his coaching results are quite good, especially in Slovenia."

When Tong Yi heard this, he said, "It's interesting!"

Then he looked at it carefully. It contained detailed records of Milanic's coaching experience.

Hey, it’s really quite rich.

Information shows that Milanic has coached in Slovenia, Austria and England, and even coached Austria's Graz Storm twice and now Slovenia's Maribor. This time coaching Maribor is considered his second career. In addition, he also coached the British Championship team Leeds United in the 2014-2015 season.

This coaching experience is really rich.

After coaching Leeds United for one season, he returned to Maribor for a second career.

This data also shows that Milanic's results in coaching Maribor were very good twice, which can be regarded as the most brilliant result in his coaching career. Because here, he has led the team to win 5 Slovenian top league championships and 3 domestic cup championships.

No wonder some Slovenian media would call Milanic "Tong Yi of Maribor". He is simply an honor-collecting machine!

You have to know that he has coached Maribor twice for only 7 complete games.

In this season, they won 5 league championships and 3 cup championships, a total of 8 championships. This result is indeed very amazing. No wonder it is called that, and no wonder the fans in Maribor have such trust in Milanic.

No wonder the Maribor fans became more confident after Milanic said those words.

Now the Maribor fans in the outside world think that Maribor will win.

Tong Yi was noncommittal about this and was too lazy to say anything. Everything will be clear after the game is over.

Tong Yi also did not reply to Milanic's provocative words before the game. He doesn't put too much thought on it now. After all, there is no use in talking before the game. If you don’t believe it, ask Lukaku now.

However, Tong Yi still attaches great importance to this game.

Tong Yi hopes to secure a qualifying spot in the UEFA Champions League as soon as possible, and then be able to focus more on the league. The competition in the Premier League this season is very fierce. All the major clubs have invested heavily in reinforcements and are very strong. If they are not careful, they may be surpassed and lose the league championship.

It’s really impossible not to pay attention to it.

Moreover, multi-front operations are indeed influential and also add a lot of uncertain factors. What Tong Yi is doing now is to minimize these uncertain factors. In this case, their chances of defending the Premier League title will be greater.

Therefore, every current Champions League game is very important, and Tong Yi's goal is the same, which is to win.

Crystal Palace has won the first two rounds of this season, and today it must also win in the third round.

Moreover, in Tong Yi's view, Spartak Moscow and Sevilla are both stronger than Maribor, so it should be relatively easy for him to defeat Maribor.

This is not to look down on Maribor, nor is it to be arrogant, this is simply self-confidence.

If they don’t feel confident facing teams like Maribor like Crystal Palace and Tong Yi, then Crystal Palace really haven’t defended their Premier League and Champions League titles?

For a team like Maribor, confidence is a must.

And at this time, these substitutes and rotation players of Crystal Palace attach great importance to such opportunities. After all, these opportunities are really hard-won for them. Every opportunity is very important. They have to give their best performance, so that they can get more opportunities if they perform well.

In this game, these rotations and substitute players of Crystal Palace will even play more actively and devotedly than the main players.

Therefore, it is not difficult for Crystal Palace to win this game.

In this way, the third round of the UEFA Champions League group stage between Maribor and Crystal Palace officially arrived.