The Young Lion

In the cold and windy Kyiv Airport, a small passenger plane flying directly from London, England, landed here.

The first one to walk out of the cabin door was Aldrich in a suit and leather shoes. He had just taken two steps, but turned back. After a while, the suit on his body disappeared and was replaced by a thermal jacket.

A group of colleagues from the coaching staff behind him were already wearing warm jackets. At this time, they took the opportunity to make fun of Aldridge. Forget about demeanor, it is more realistic to ask for a little temperature.

In the second round of the European Champions Cup group stage, Millwall challenged Dynamo Kyiv as a guest.

Before the expedition, Aldridge made the team pay attention to this game. Before the game started, it was already declared that this would be an arduous battle.

After entering October, the temperature in Ukraine began to drop sharply. The lowest daily temperature was close to zero, and the game was held at night. Although the temperature was only five or six degrees lower than that in the UK, the temperature of ten degrees and five degrees felt like decidedly different.

The team's expedition was different from last season when they went to France or the Netherlands. The flight journey was as fast as less than two hours, and as slow as three hours. Their expedition to Ukraine spent almost ten hours on the flight alone.

For short-distance flights, players can recover after a short rest, while long-distance flights are more torturous, especially the mental exhaustion, which is more likely to aggravate fatigue, and the time spent outside of the flight must also be counted.

In more than 12 hours from departure in the morning to arrival at the hotel in Kyiv at night, Millwall did one thing: came to Kyiv from London.

The right time and the right place. People and. Millwall visits Dynamo Kyiv. The same is not accounted for.

So Aldridge thinks this will be a tough game.

The first-team players rested early after staying in the hotel. In order to ensure the best quality of rest for the players, Millwall gave each player a separate room so that each player could recover from fatigue in his favorite and comfortable way.

For example, some people like to listen to some soothing music, some people like to read books, some people want to talk with their family members on the phone, etc., all of which allow them not to be disturbed by teammates in the same room.

Coaches share a room with two.

Before going to bed, Aldridge played cards with two assistant coaches in the room.

A little gamble. At the same time kill time and entertain yourself in this foreign country.

They were playing Texas Hold'em. Aldrich had a bad hand in this round, especially when his opponent was the immovable Benitez. fate.

I really sympathize with Barcelona.

Benitez raised, and then out of the blue came this sentence.

It is estimated that the blood of Real Madrid in his body is boiling again.

People who have worked in Real Madrid for such a long time always have a special mood when they think of Barcelona.

Jansen called and said with a chuckle: This schedule is the most beneficial for us. The second round is a guest in Kyiv, and it is now October. When Barcelona comes to be a guest, hehe, it will be December in the world of ice and snow. At that time, the temperature difference between Spain and Ukraine was more than 15 degrees, and Barcelona really deserved sympathy.

Aldrich took a sip of water and said lightly: Even if external factors are excluded, Dynamo Kyiv is strong enough to beat Barcelona. The big upset in the first round of the group stage has proved this.

In the Millwall group, Millwall's four-goal victory over Eindhoven in the first round may not seem surprising to the outside world.

The champion of the Premier League defeated the champion of the Eredivisie. Judging from the investment and personnel of the two teams, it is not surprising that Millwerge won, but the score is a bit large. The outside world generally believes that the gap between the two goals is normal.

But in another match in the same group, there was a shocking shock.

Barcelona was defeated by Ukrainian champions Dynamo Kyiv 3-0 at Camp Nou!

All of a sudden, people began to pay attention to this Eastern European team where the new coach took office in the summer, or the old coach returned for the third time.

Aldrich rested his chin in thought, when someone knocked on the door, Aldrich came back to his senses and shouted to come in, only to see Najib walking in with a frown.

Aldrich immediately asked, How is it?

Nagy shook his head and said, Alonso and Pedretti have rested under the care of the team doctor, but they will definitely not be able to play tomorrow's game. Fortunately, it's just a common cold, not the flu, otherwise it would be really troublesome.

Aldridge sighed and said, Otherwise, tomorrow's match will be cancelled, and the youth team will bring 16 players over. Suddenly, two of them can't compete. Maybe someone will catch a cold when they wake up tomorrow.

Najib thought for a while and said, Let's see tomorrow. If only two players are absent, the game will continue as usual during the day. If there are any more players who cannot play, it will be cancelled. That would be a pity.

It's nothing, don't worry, this is also a kind of exercise.

Because of the Champions League, Millwall's youth team had three chances to go abroad in the second half of the year, all of which were youth team friendly matches played at the same time as Millwall's guest in Europe. As for Millwall's invitation to these opponents to London, they brought Youth team, all three teams refused without exception.

After all, there would be costs for the club, and it would also disrupt their youth team plans, so Aldridge gave up. He didn't want to come, so we just came to challenge.

As for Millwall sending the challenge letter to the door, these teams cannot refuse it. In any case, it is also a matter of face.

When there are well-known stars in the Millwall first team, the youth team players will also be crowned with the name of the second generation.

For example, Harvey Alonso, his ability to organize and dispatch in the midfield is very good. With the name of Pirlo II, Pedretti has the shadow of the French predecessor Makelele, known as Little Makelele .

Therefore, the ability of these two people to overwhelm those players who are one or two years older than them is included in the youth team squad, allowing them to receive diversified training earlier.

After the night's card game, the coaches rested one after another.

The next day, the players reported their situation after getting up, especially their physical condition. Never hide any uncomfortable physical reactions.

Players are very cautious in this regard. They also all know that a healthy body ensures good performance. Millwall is also very humane under the management of Aldridge. Like Neil, he was seriously injured for a year. Aldridge spent a lot of energy and time helping him return to the team. in the heart.

Aldrich was relieved to learn that the youth team did not have any additional patients with colds. The match between the youth team and Dynamo Kyiv during the day will continue as usual.

In the eyes of ordinary people, a cold is a very common disease, and most of them can even be cured without medicine.

But for football players. Cold is a big problem. During strenuous exercise, it will cause respiratory diseases, and the body will become fragile. Maybe an irregular movement will cause injury.

Like the future Chiellini said in history: I hope Krasic has the flu.

To ordinary people, this sounds like a joke.

In fact, it's one of the worst curses in football.

In the afternoon, on the pitch used by the youth team of Dynamo Kyiv, the Millwall youth team played a friendly match with the opponent. Aldrich did not go to watch the match. The final result was told to him by Nagy after the game: 4:2.

Millwall youth team lost by two goals.

After Aldridge knew it, he forgot it.

Originally, a game that was not expected to attract too much attention caused a flock of European media.

At the press conference before the Champions League match, Aldridge sat quietly like a mountain.

Journalists from all over the world want to see how the match between the top two of this group will develop.

It's just one round of the group stage. It doesn't make any sense for Millwall to be first in the group now. We are neither guaranteed to qualify, nor are other teams eliminated. So, the ranking does not mean anything, maybe only to the fourth round. After the fifth round of the group stage, we will know who has qualified and who has been confirmed to be eliminated.

Aldridge appeared very calm, he did not want to attract too much attention, which in turn made the team popular.

Therefore, he highly praised Dynamo Kyiv at the press conference.

This is a team that participates in the Champions League all the year round, but sometimes they are a bit unlucky and cannot enter the main match. But this year they entered the European competition very early and eliminated the Welsh champion and the Danish champion in the qualifying round. There is no doubt that Dynamo Kyiv stepped onto this stage step by step. Coupled with the legendary coach Lobanovsky who returned to the team this summer, Dynamo Kyiv is very strong. Barcelona is no accident and Millwall only played one game in the Champions League. Although we won, I don't think we have more Champions League or even European tradition than Dynamo Kyiv. I will not allow players to take this place lightly. Never , because in that case, we will definitely leave here disappointed and defeated.

When talking about the prospects of the game, Aldridge expressed his great importance to Dynamo Kyiv. A reporter from the English media put forward a hypothesis, which attracted ridicule from his European counterparts.

If Dynamo Kyiv also adopts an extremely conservative defensive counterattack tactics at home, will Millwall still have a chance?

These are the exact words of the English reporter.

Reporters from major mainstream media in Europe shook their heads secretly.

Aldridge also laughed it off, saying: The teams that can enter the Champions League stage have their own unique style of label, and secondly, the fierce and cruel competition makes every team have to do their best for every game. Striving to win. As I said just now, Dynamo Kyiv is very strong, and Millwall is not the favorite to win, so the question I should think about is: should Millwall play extremely conservatively.

The English media reporters felt a little dissatisfied. They felt that Millwall represented England in Europe, so they had to show the confidence of a champion and confidently want to win here.

The other European reporters nodded again.

This young marshal is quite clear-headed, no matter whether he really values ​​Dynamo Kyiv in his heart or not, at least he is fluent in speaking.

On the stage of the Champions League, which onion is Millwall?

If you think that you can be defiant by winning the European Cup Winners Cup last season, then you can only say that this team is still a frog at the bottom of the well.

How many real tyrants have you met?

The media outside of England have also heard that Millwall encountered a tough bus tactical sniper in the Premier League, but because the impression that the Premier League tactics are backward and rough still exists, they didn’t take it seriously, and only thought it was England's uninformed teams were beaten by European-style strong teams.

The English journalists were aggrieved by the contemptuous and sarcastic eyes of their colleagues.

They firmly believe that if the weather factor is excluded, even if Millwall plays away, Dynamo Kyiv will not have the advantage.

In this context, the second round of the UEFA Champions League group stage kicked off. The much-anticipated Premier League champion Millwall was a guest to challenge Dynamo Kyiv, and the battle was imminent. (To be continued ()