Chapter 389: Leiden East, who bullies the weak and fears the strong

The news of Leiden Oriental's defeat was immediately filled with the front page headlines of British sports media, Leiden Oriental finally lost! Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Every time Leiden Oriental finished playing in the league for more than a year, they either won or tied. What else do you let others play...

Ferguson, who was expected to take on the heavy responsibility of blocking Leiden East and completed this task with living up to expectations, also received countless praises. After losing this game, Leiden East's points fell to sixth place and was four points away by Leeds United, which was topped by the top. Of course, they still played one less game.

At this time, the newly released "Leedon Oriental" proved from a detailed perspective that the loss of this game is not a bad thing. Losing in the first few rounds of the league is better than losing at the last few rounds of critical moments. After a long-term unbeaten, the players of Leedon Oriental were invisibly burdened with the burden of losing. After losing this game, Leedon Oriental could completely abandon everything and move forward lightly, and would definitely make great strides in the next game...

In short, the Leiden Oriental Newspaper is trying hard to rebel against the beneficial aspects of Leiden Oriental, supporting without reason and trusting without reason. This practice has caused other media to laugh at the Leiden Oriental Newspaper, but the editor-in-chief and reporters of the Leiden Oriental Newspaper have not responded to this. Originally, they were holding Xiao Ming's bowl, so they naturally had to try their best to help Xiao Ming speak nice things...

However, this approach is still beneficial. At least after seeing these reports, the fans of Leiden Oriental felt a little depressed because of the termination of the unbeaten record. After all, some of the above truths are justified.

Xiao Ming knew that losing a league game was nothing, after all, it was not the kind of loss at a critical moment. As long as you win a few games in the next game, the impact of the loss will gradually fade.

After losing this game, Leiden East ushered in a mid-week supplement game, away against Ipswich. This dark horse from last season quickly revealed its true colors this season. He did not win a single game in the six games that ended, only drew three games and lost three games. Compared with the good momentum that had maintained the whole season last season, it was a huge difference. In fact, before the start of the league, they did not lose too many players. It was just that the main goalkeeper Wright was poached by Arsenal and introduced goalkeeper Andy Marshall from Norwich to fill the romance.

There was a vacancy, and in the frontcourt they introduced Nigerian veteran Finidi George, who was called Ajax's wings in Ajax and Ovimas, from Mallorca, from Ajax and Ovimas. The Nigerian winger has extremely excellent speed and explosiveness. Last season, his good performance on the wing helped Mallorca achieve the third place in the La Liga. Logically speaking, Ipswich's overall strength this season is much better than last season, but he played very badly this season, which is completely incomparable to his performance last season.

At this time, Xiao Ming couldn't help but feel a little lucky. Fortunately, he had such a supplementary game against Manchester United and Arsenal. Otherwise, Arsenal would also be a team that Leiden Oriental might not be able to win. If he couldn't win, Leiden Oriental would not win for four consecutive rounds in the league. Such a record would probably have a greater blow to morale. If he could win this game in the middle and narrow the gap with the first place to one point, the team's morale would be much higher.

In fact, dark horse teams like Ipswich have shown obvious decline in their second season. There are many situations in history. The outstanding performance in the first season is often not a reflection of their real strength. After achieving good results with the team's momentum and other teams' unfamiliarity with them, their confidence in the second season was too inflated and other teams found a way to deal with them, their performance naturally began to decline. Ipswich is now ranked last in the league and will face the challenges of the League Cup, and the team is likely to be dragged down.

At this time, Leiden East and Ipswich met. It was Leiden East's luck, but it was Ipswich's misfortune.

Xiao Ming used the main lineup in this game, thinking about quickly dismantling the opponent's resistance with a thunder blow. Even on the away game, he had to win a hearty victory, wash away the previous decline, and accumulate confidence for the next game.

Ipswich resisted tenaciously for 30 minutes, and then the defense began to collapse. In the last game, Van Nie, who was staring poorly by his compatriot Stam, vented all his resentment on Ipswich. After receiving a pass from Jinklaze outside the penalty area, he dodged the gap and suddenly shot a long shot. The ball flew into the dead corner of the goal, which made the opponent's goalkeeper Marshall shook his head helplessly.

Just five minutes later, Ronaldo shook back and forth at the front of the penalty area for two moves and then suddenly exerted force on the spot and shot from a long time. The ball drew a strange arc and flew into the dead corner of the goal. Marshall did not expect that the opponent could still shoot such a decisive shot without any room for force. Standing in the spot, he couldn't even make a save.

Before the end of the first half, Leiden East scored again. Gerrard's heavy gun shot from 30 meters away from the goal opened the goal again. He shot three long shots and three goals. This thunderous attack made the entire Ipswich's home court silent.

After the start of the second half, Leiden East did not stop the momentum of attack. Even if Xiao Ming replaced Phillips, Pirlo and Sun Jihai in one breath, replaced Van Nicht, Ronaldo and Daniel, they still suppressed Ipswich away.

Since last season, Leiden Oriental has rarely ruthlessly rushing and fighting in the league. As long as it can ensure victory and maintain physical fitness, after taking the lead, they often maintain the lead advantage until the end of the game through ball control and downs. They won not win too many goals in each game, so they have always had a disadvantage in goal difference. However, since Xiao Ming gave the order to fight to the death in this game, the players of Leiden Oriental naturally had to play hard...

This may be considered as bullying the weak and afraid of the strong, but a big victory after a loss is the most convenient way to increase the morale of the team. Poor Ipswich, who made them meet Leiden East at this time, who was about to use a big victory to save morale and face...

In fact, Xiao Ming planned to test other tactics in the second half. Pirlo's appearance also made him more comfortable in the midfield and the style of adapting to the Premier League. However, Leiden Oriental, who had already played crazy, did not continue to attack from the wings and the middle as he imagined. After Pirlo passed the ball a few times, he found something was wrong, so he simply ran up to play the front midfielder himself, and before the end, he scored his first goal after joining Leiden Oriental with a beautiful shot from outside the penalty area...

Seeing this scene, Xiao Ming could only shake his head helplessly, and then sighed that Leiden East's tactics had indeed been very mature before. If you want to change the tactics, you probably have to go a long way to go...

However, Pirlo's performance on the court made Xiao Ming's eyes lit up. It seems that Pirlo has been doing physical training and physical confrontation training under the guidance of his compatriot Pintus over the past few months. Shortly after he took the game, his position became very high. He was not at a disadvantage in the direct confrontation with the tall defenders of Ipswich, and his confrontation ability was rising very quickly.

As long as the ability to fight is improved, with Pirlo's skills and awareness, even if he hits a front midfielder, Xiao Ming thought, touching his chin.

After defeating Ipswich with four goals, the "Leedon Oriental" began to be a little proud. After all, the "Leedon Oriental" immediately won a big victory after ending the unbeaten record. At least to a certain extent, it proved the correctness of the argument that "the record was terminated is actually a good thing". The fans of the "Leedon Oriental" naturally smiled and believed that the previous analysis of the "Leedon Oriental" was indeed very correct, and the "Leedon Oriental" will strode towards victory...

After defeating Ipswich, Leyton East welcomed Arsenal for a week at home. The Gunners, who had the advantage in physical strength, also had a certain advantage on the court. However, Leyton East was not to be outdone at home. This game became a contest between two shooters. Van Nie scored one goal in the first and second half, while Henry equalized the score after the start of the second half, and then scored twice with a beautiful free kick. After 90 minutes, both sides scored one point and ended with a draw.

The fans of Leiden Oriental are not dissatisfied with this result. In recent years, Leiden Oriental rarely has been able to defeat Arsenal and always tied with the opponent. Instead, they often win against Manchester United with better results. This may be a problem of mutual restraint. Arsenal also has a strong wing road, and their forward Henry has been in good shape in recent years. It is difficult for Leiden Oriental's defenders to defend such a forward with excellent personal abilities and cooperation abilities, not to mention that Arsenal's offensive line has never lacked good players.

However, for Leiden Oriental, after the unbeaten record is terminated, it does bring some benefits to some extent. Before each game begins, players do not have to face overwhelming reports on how long Leiden Oriental’s unbeaten record can be extended. The game is the game, and there is no need to add something else without any worries.

As time goes by, Leiden Oriental has maintained stable results in the league and the Champions League, and has basically won all the games that should be won. When facing strong teams, they can basically remain unlossed. Although the outside media always measured Leiden Oriental's games in the double championship last season, just like if they don't win big in every game, Leiden Oriental is still moving forward step by step towards its goal.

The Champions League group stage was unbeaten with four wins and two draws, and they qualified as the first in the group. At the same time, they defeated Dortmund two goals in the last round, which made Dortmund beat Dortmund with two goals with Boavesta, and was eliminated because of one less goal difference. Schalke Zero Four in Group C was also kicked to the last place in the group by Arsenal, and did not even get the chance of the League Cup. With three Premier League teams appearing in the second stage of the group stage, only two teams, Bayern and Leverkusen, the Premier League points are just around the corner, and the Premier League is likely to usher in the first four Premier League teams in the Champions League next season.

In the three rounds of the league during this period, Leiden Oriental's performance was average. They shook hands with two London teams, Tottenham and Chelsea, defeating the newly promoted Charlton. After 11 rounds of the league, they finished fourth with Newcastle and Liverpool, and were one point ahead of Arsenal. The top three teams had no high points, and the highest Leeds United had only 23 points. Aston Villa was surprisingly ranked second with 22 points and Manchester United ranked third with 21 points.

The gap between the top few is quite small, and the ranking may undergo drastically changing after one round of the game, so Xiao Ming is not very anxious about this. Almost all of the strong teams have been met, leaving only Liverpool and Newcastle who have not played against each other. Leiden Oriental is still very capable of scoring points on weak teams, and Xiao Ming is not worried about this.

What determines the league ranking is often how many points can be obtained from weak teams and mid-level teams, not only how good the results are in the strong dialogue. Even if you double-kill all your competitors in a season in the league, you often don’t get three points from mid-level teams, and it is still difficult to win the league championship.

This was how Manchester United was before, so Wenger once said angrily: "Middle and lower-level teams in the Premier League often surrender directly when they encounter Manchester United, and fight desperately when they play against Arsenal." Putting aside the sour meaning of the professor's words, Manchester United can score points on weak teams stably, which is also a skill.

Now Leiden East has this ability.

So far, they have won five wins, five draws and one loss in the 11th round of the league. The game they lost was Manchester United. Among the other five draws, Arsenal ranked seventh, Tottenham ranked eighth, and Chelsea ranked ninth, but the gap between them and the team ahead is not big, and Leeds ranked first in the league. In addition to losing two points in Leicester City, Leiden East still maintained a high winning rate when facing other mid-range teams.

This winning rate is the biggest reason why Xiao Ming is not worried about his low ranking for the time being.

In the draw ceremony of the second stage of the Champions League, Leiden Oriental was once again divided into Group B. Looking around, except for Rome that had not met before, led by Capello, they were all enemies - Barcelona and Galatasaray are the other two teams in this group. These two teams have had a lot of grudges with Leiden Oriental in recent years. In Rome, Batistutaco can be regarded as an old acquaintance of Leiden Oriental...

However, this time it was not UEFA that made things difficult for Leiden East. This time the strong team was basically not eliminated in the first stage of the group stage. Sixteen teams can be said to be strong teams. In Group A, Manchester United and Bayern met again in the group this time, after meeting in the knockout round last year. The other two teams eliminated Lazio and Eindhoven in the group, and the Portuguese champion Boa Vista who just beat Dortmund to qualify. The teams that can do this will definitely not be much weaker. Arsenal was even worse in Group D. The other three teams in this group are Juventus in Serie A, Leverkusen in Bundesliga and La Coruna in La Liga. Although there is no champion team in this group, just looking at these names is enough to make people move...

The easiest one is Real Madrid in Group C. Their grouping is so good that everyone is jealous of them. Sparta Prague, Panasinacos and Porto. These are the other three teams in this group. Although Sparta Prague and Panasinacos were both last season champions of the Czech League and the Greek League, the best players in these two countries played abroad and their level is not very high. Although Porto is one of the teams that have won the Champions League, it has been their lowest period in recent years. Otherwise, Boavesta would not have snatched the league championship last season...

Looking at Real Madrid's grouping, I believe the head coaches of other strong teams are drooling, but what can I do? Next year will be a great day for Real Madrid's 100th anniversary celebration. As the best club in Europe in the last century supported by UEFA, UEFA certainly has to ensure that they have achieved better results in the Champions League. When Xiao Ming shook hands with Johnson, he wanted to complain that Leiden Oriental had always encountered the death group in the Champions League in recent years, but when he thought about the four strong teams in Group D, Arsenal, Juventus, La Coruna and Leverkusen fought to the death, Xiao Ming felt that his psychological balance was much more balanced...

Before the second stage of the group stage begins, Leiden Oriental has two league games to play. After playing these two league games, we will prepare to fight Barcelona and Rome to the death. The first two games Leiden Oriental faces these two opponents, and the next game will be held next year.
Chapter completed!