Chapter 225: The bad start

Every time there is training in Leiden East, three young people run together for three kilometers to go to the Leicester training base. It is a scene in Leiden. Since Sun Jihai and Gerald moved into Daniel's home one after another, they saw Daniel set off from home an hour in advance every day and then ran to the training base, Sun Jihai and Gerald also did this. Although they have enough endurance, there are only benefits and no harm in insisting on doing this - it is not advisable for players with insufficient endurance to do this, and a lot of energy consumption before training can only affect the quality of the players during training.

Although Xiao Ming allowed players who participated in national team competitions to participate in training one hour later today after the team re-concentration, Daniel and Gerald Sun Jihai still got up and ran to the training base together.

After coming to the locker room, it was only 7 o'clock in the morning. According to the custom, they went to take a shower first, then went to the restaurant for breakfast, and then started training after resting for an hour. Leiden Oriental training usually starts at 9 o'clock in the morning, and players often came after breakfast. However, the restaurant in the training base also has breakfast, which is specially prepared for players like Daniel and others.

Daniel walked into the locker room without squinting, preparing to take a shower. Sun Jihai, who was walking at the end, turned around and saw a large piece of paper sticking on the wall of the locker room.

"Guys, see what this is?" Sun Jihai shouted, calling Daniel and Gerald who were walking in front back.

It was a large piece of paper that almost covered the entire wall, but there was not much content on the paper, just a few days and a few team names.

"On April 3, Leiden East will play against Chelsea at home.

On April 8, Leiden Oriental played away against Mallorca.

On April 10, Leiden Oriental played away against Middlesbrough.

On April 13, Leiden Oriental played away against West Ham United.

On April 17, Leiden East faces Leeds United at home.

On April 22, Leiden Oriental played against Mallorca at home.

On April 25, Leiden Oriental will play away against Everton."

Daniel and others can see at a glance that what is written on it is the schedule of Leiden Oriental in April. The seven games in April, including five league games and two Winners Cup games. After these five league games, will Leiden Oriental still have a chance to compete for the league championship, or will it only have a chance to enter the Champions League next season, or even only play in the League Cup, almost made a decision. The two semi-finals of the Winners Cup against Mallorca can determine whether Leiden Oriental has the chance to enter the finals of the European event for the first time!

April of each season is often when the devil schedule of teams who are still on all fronts begin. Compared with the two winners' Cup knockout games last month, Leiden East has been under much pressure this month. Not to mention three more games, most of the main players in the team have just returned from the national team, unlike before that.

Of course, Xiao Ming asked someone to put it in the locker room. The purpose is to remind everyone that the league is over. No matter how tired you are, you have to grit your teeth and persevere. Otherwise, you can only watch what you have the opportunity to get slip away from your hands, and your efforts in the first half of the season will not be rewarded as they deserve.

"It's time to fight." Daniel tightened his fists and was full of fighting spirit. This season is his first season in the Premier League. Of course, he hopes to do it more perfectly!

Sun Jihai thought a little more than him. As the first Chinese player to play in Europe in the 1990s, Sun Jihai believed that he had a heavy responsibility. If he could win one or two more titles than the FA Cup championship, it would undoubtedly be an inspiring shot for Chinese football in a slump.

Although Gerald cannot guarantee the main player yet, his position in the team has steadily increased. Such a intensive season means he has more opportunities. After all, he has the most opportunities to enter the bench and has many opportunities to play.

Slowly, the players who came to the locker room to prepare for training gradually came. After seeing the paper on the wall, everyone had different expressions and thoughts. However, at least one thing was that no one liked to fail, and no one liked to miss any honor after a season's outstanding performance because of the continuous loss of chains at the last moment.

The same is true for Xiao Ming.

He gave up the FA Cup and the League Cup, and he didn't feel a pity for it. However, if he couldn't qualify for the Championship Cup, he would lose a lot. So what he values ​​most now is the league, followed by the winner's Cup - winning the last winner's Cup and keeping this trophy in the honor showroom of Leiden Oriental forever, which is also a very desirable honor.

As for the league championship, Xiao Ming wants to try his best to win, but he knows that Manchester United and Arsenal have almost never lost their chains in the final stage of this season, and they don’t have strong opponents behind them. Leiden Oriental still has to face the challenges of Chelsea, Leeds and Aston Villa. There are opportunities, but with the current experience of Leiden Oriental players, it may be difficult to persevere until the end.

In a word, try your best to strive for it, but if you don’t win, you don’t need to be too discouraged. This year, although Leiden Oriental is indeed very strong, there are factors that some teams are not very familiar with Leiden Oriental. In addition to losing some points that should not be lost at the beginning of the season, Leiden Oriental has almost won all the points that they are capable of so far. This performance is already quite surprising.

At the same time, for Xiao Ming, if Leiden Oriental cannot win the league championship, then he would rather let Arsenal than let Manchester United win it. If Manchester United really wins the triple crown this season, then its position in the Premier League will be almost unshakable. After all, the honor of the triple crown is even more shocking than the two Champions League championships, and Manchester United's position as the first in the Premier League was laid this season.

Originally, Xiao Ming also thought that if nothing unexpected happened, Manchester United's legend should have happened as scheduled. However, after his Leiden East defeated Manchester United and lost to Arsenal at home, he began to think whether Arsenal would beat Manchester United this season - after all, Manchester United only beat Arsenal one point in history this season. Now he has less than three-pointers on Leiden East. Can Manchester United still win the league championship?

Last season, he broke Arsenal's dream of double championship. It's not rare to break Manchester United's dream of triple-champion this season, right? Just treat it as a compensation for Arsenal...

The first game after the team re-concentrated was to play Chelsea at home in the league.

This game is undoubtedly a very important game for both sides. Although Chelsea is five points away from Leiden East, they have one less game. If they can defeat Leiden East in a face-to-face game, they are likely to surpass Leiden East and even continue to maintain pressure and threats to the top two. If Leiden East can defeat Chelsea, it will basically lock in the Champions League qualification and continue to maintain pressure on the top two.

In the first round of the game, Leiden East once defeated Chelsea away, but Leiden East won in that game. If Yasquelenen had not saved the opponent's penalty at the last moment, Leiden East could only take away one point. Although now, no one dared to say that Leiden East won away and would definitely win at home.

Leiden Oriental was unbeaten in the previous ten rounds and in a good form, but its good momentum was interrupted by the national team's game. Although Chelsea lost two games recently, their winning rate in other games is quite high, which is why they can still pose a threat to the top three. The three teams ahead Manchester United, Arsenal and Leiden Oriental have only lost three games in the league, while Chelsea have lost four games. Since the establishment of the Premier League, except for the season when Blackburn won the championship, the team with the least losses won the championship, which is a convention.

After this game, both Leiden Oriental and Chelsea will immediately usher in the Winners Cup. Both sides have asked to postpone the game so that they have the energy to win glory for the Premier League in the European arena. Unfortunately, the FA rejected their request because they had no time to arrange the game. So Viali and Xiao Ming could only curse in their hearts while sending players who had just completed two national team games to the court to fight desperately.

Bates, who has always been a big mouth, naturally tried his best to criticize the FA before the game for only favoring Manchester United. Last season, Manchester United played in advance before the Champions League, and the same was true for this season. Chelsea and Leiden East did not have such generous treatment. This time Xiao Ming stood on the same front with him...

One front is one front, but on the court, both sides will not be polite with their opponents. Chelsea has always played toughly, and Leiden East will naturally not show weakness at its home court. After the game, the two sides fought in a dark place, and there were scenes of people constantly turning their backs on the court.

However, both sides are relatively restrained in their steps and do not deliberately hurt others. After all, both sides are sympathetic and can't fight to the death and let the Serie A La Liga team take advantage in the Winners Cup.

Chelsea scored a first goal in the away game, Zora assisted Flo in the first goal with a free kick from 40 meters away. In the subsequent game, Leiden East launched a crazy attack and continued to break through Chelsea's defense through the two wings. The defense line was originally quite solid this season, and Chelsea, who conceded only more goals than Arsenal and less than Manchester United, was hit by Xiao Ming and bought Deseri and the degree of stability of the defense line decreased, otherwise he might not have lost some balls that should not have been lost in the previous game.

Before the start of this season, Xiao Ming had never thought of having an impact on the status of Manchester United and Arsenal. Leiden Oriental wanted to enter the Champions League next season, and its best opponent was Chelsea. This is also one of the reasons why Xiao Ming poached Deselli, who was originally going to Chelsea, but gave Stam to Manchester United - of course, another reason was that Stam himself wanted to leave, otherwise Xiao Ming would not let Stam go.

Xiao Ming is also a little regretful now. If Stam is not released, Manchester United may have a much worse result this season - but it is too late to regret it now, and the deployment before the start of the season also played a role at this time. Without Deselli, it has become much easier to tear off Chelsea's defense...

Before the end of the first half, Leiden East tied the score. Jinklaze made a cross from the left. Fanny leaned against the opponent's defender Leboff in the penalty area and made a clever ball. Boban shot in the penalty area and broke Dehuye's ten fingers. Leiden East fans in the stands immediately cheered loudly.

After the second half, Leiden East's offense became more and more fierce. Soon, Phillips, who could not find the feeling in the national team, returned to the club and was in a state of water. After receiving a pass from Glenshare, he turned around and flashed through Dubery's defense, and then broke through Dehuye's goal with a tricky shot!

This is Phillips' tenth goal in the league, tied with Van Nie to the top scorer in the team!

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. In the 70th minute, Poyette's wonderful long shot once again brought both sides back to the same starting line. The head coaches of both sides were obviously not satisfied with the draw. In addition to allowing the two teams to continue to entangle in the next game, Manchester United and Arsenal fishermen could only benefit!

But sometimes the results of the game will not be diverted by human will - in the next game, both sides created many opportunities, but with the joint efforts of the defense line and the goalkeeper, they blocked the opponent's attack one by one. When the game reached the last ten minutes, the head coaches of both sides could only command the team to slow down the pace. At this time, they could not make any mistakes. Compared with the final loss of the ball and losing the game, the draw seemed to be barely acceptable...

The two-to-two score means that in the next game, both sides will have to compete for the Champions League qualification to the end, and the hope of winning the league championship becomes increasingly slim.

After Leeds United won this round, their points reached 57 points and began to officially intervene in the Champions League qualifying match.

Manchester United and Arsenal, who won this round, seem to have left the chasers behind them for a certain distance, but they still cannot just focus on each other.

The four-country military chess became a battle of five countries, which was dazzling.

In the next 32nd round of the league held on April 5, the three teams, Manchester United, Chelsea and Leiden East, were all postponed to April 13. This postponement has its pros and cons.

In this round of the league, Arsenal, the only top five, beat Blackburn 1-0 at home, surpassing Manchester United by one point in the league and jumping to the top of the standings!

Perhaps affected by this bad news, in the next Champions League semi-finals, Manchester United, who played at home, only relied on Giggs' goal in the second half to tie last season's Serie A champion Juventus, 1-1 at home, and the situation was worrying.

Although Juventus' league performance is worrying this season and is in decline with Inter Milan, he can only watch Fiorentina, Lazio and AC Milan compete for the top spot in the standings, but as the team with the most stable performance and best performance in the Champions League in the previous few seasons, no one can underestimate their strength and experience in the Champions League.

In the past three seasons, Juventus has won the championship once in the Champions League, twice in the runner-up, and entered the finals three times in a row. This feat has tied AC Milan in the Milan dynasty era. In the entire history of the Champions League, only Real Madrid, Ajax, Bayern and Benfica have achieved the results of entering the Champions League finals for three consecutive years or more.

When going away from home, Manchester United's prospects are not favored by most people.

And the other two England teams were not in good condition in the Winners Cup...

Chelsea did not have much choice in their home court. They could not tear open Lazio's solid defense line, but their defense line was constantly broken by Lazio. Vieri crushed Chelsea's defense line like a tank, and Salas was waiting for a fatal blow at any time like a ghost assassin. The midfielder composed of Almeida, Concesan, Stankovic and veteran Mancini firmly controlled the situation on the field. Although Poyette's goal once helped Chelsea lead, the goals of the two Yugoslavs humiliated Chelsea at home - Stankovic's long shot from 30 meters away and Mikhainovic's direct free kick from 30 meters away!

Chelsea, who lost one-to-two, is even worse than Manchester United. They still have a chance away from home, and after losing at home, Manchester United will probably have a smaller chance.

Leiden East also suffered a defeat. Although he knew that Cooper was a head coach with the victory theory, Xiao Ming really did not expect that Mallorca would set up an iron barrel formation at his home court. Leiden East, who was very satisfied with the attack, inevitably made mistakes on the defense line. Another Yugoslav Stankovic initiated an attack, and Dany made a lightning strike, Leiden East lost 1-0 away!

When the three teams participating in European competitions were in a bad situation and the other three teams participating in the League Cup had even been wiped out, fans in England were quite dissatisfied with this. They believed that the chaos in the Premier League system was the biggest factor in the poor performance of Premier League teams in the European arena!

The chaos in the Premier League system is notorious. Last season, Manchester United lost a large part of the situation in three more games. Although the situation has improved a little more, Liverpool has only played twenty-nine games until now when most teams have played thirty-two games! If it weren't for their much difference in points from the top, then maybe the league would have become even more chaotic...
Chapter completed!