On the third day of the match against Middlesbrough, Benitez rushed to the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland to participate in the draw draw against the knockout match between the Champions League and the UEFA Cup this season. This is a draw ceremony live broadcast to the world.

Unlike the Champions League group draw, the draw of the top 16 is just a draw of lots. The draw directly determines the situation of the matchup. There is no award ceremony, so there are not many people on the scene, and more people like to lie on the sofa to come to this grand ceremony.

The draw for the top 16 is that the first and second teams of the 8 teams that qualify, and the second teams of the 8 teams who compete, and teams in the same league and group stage cannot meet.

Liverpool, who participates in the "special identity", is not protected by this rule, but Liverpool ranks first in the group, in the same group as Chelsea, and Arsenal is also the first in the group. Ferguson's Manchester United was eliminated, and Liverpool would not meet his own team in the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals of last season, many strong teams collided in advance, which may be something that many people hope to avoid.

It is certainly good to have a big battle, but the top 16 is just the beginning of the cruel knockout round of the Champions League. Too many strong teams collided, so there are very likely weak teams to enter the semi-finals or even the finals, which is something that fans don't want to see.

For Liverpool, they are more concerned about the teams in the second place in the group.

Among them, Chelsea is impossible to meet, and the other strong teams are Bayern. Real Madrid has not performed well in the league recently. Many people say that Florentino's "Galaxy Battleship" is about to sink, but Real Madrid has always had good results in the Champions League, and no team likes to meet them.

Before the game, media predicted that the most anticipated collisions in the quarterfinals were Barcelona and Chelsea.

This is how Mars hits the Earth.

The theme of this season's group stage is "the road to enemies is narrow". Chelsea Liverpool, AC Milan Eindhoven, Inter Milan Porto, Juventus Bayern, all of whom they played against last season have drawn the same group. Barcelona and Chelsea, which were so dark last season, may also collide again.

Chelsea eliminated Barcelona with a controversial goal at the time with a total score of 5-4. There were many storms outside the court. In the first round, Mourinho accused Rijcard of influencing the referee, and Frisk was forced to announce a "whistleblow"; in the second round, Rijcard and his players had friction with the home team security guards, Etoo claimed to be racist insulted, and when Terry scored a goal in the line, Carvalho also suspected of interfering with the goalkeeper.

However, it is also unlikely that Chelsea will draw the Serie A giants.

In addition to Arsenal and Liverpool, half of Chelsea's six possible opponents come from Serie A. No matter who draws, it is difficult to deal with it. It is inevitable that some grudges will be created. For example, Crespo and Milan's two bigwigs, Moutu and Mourinho.

In an interview before the draw, Mourinho said, "It's hard for Serie A team to deal with, but I still hope to fight them, that would be interesting."

He didn't say 'Chelsea hopes to draw a weak team' because the probability is too small.

Benitez felt very superior at this time. He originally gave up his last match with Chelsea. If Liverpool loses, the situation is even worse than Chelsea. They may still encounter Arsenal. Choose a team from Arsenal, Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Barcelona, ​​Villarreal, and Lyon to be the opponent... This is really a difficult choice. Unless UEFA makes a cheat for Liverpool, the chance of promoting Villarreal is really not high. Other teams are not easy to deal with.

Fortunately... Liverpool did not lose.

In addition to Chelsea, Real Madrid, who has just changed their coach, is also the focus of the media. They will face severe tests. In addition to Barcelona, ​​Villarreal and Lyon, they will definitely meet Arsenal, Liverpool or one of the top three in the Serie A.

Bayern has a larger range of "choices" and they can only avoid Juventus.

Interestingly, except for Barcelona who may encounter Chelsea, Real Madrid vs. Juventus, Bayern vs. Arsenal, and Bremen vs. Lyon have a chance to reappear in the quarterfinals last season!

Finally, amid the sound of Colombian-style music, people from all walks of life who attended the lottery entered the venue.

The ceremony has officially begun.

The first one to be drawn was Chelsea. When they saw the tag of the team's name, all the cameras pointed at Mourinho, and the Portuguese seemed calm and composed.

Then what was drawn was their opponent - Fut Bo L-C Lu B-Barcelona (Barcelona)!

You don't have to look at it at all, you can imagine that Mourinho's face was now, and darkness was a good adjective. He almost jumped up from his seat and scolded him... Fortunately, he maintained his demeanor, but anyone knows that Mourinho's mood must be not very good.

In the quarterfinals, he faced Barcelona again, and this is not a good opponent.

Barcelona is considered the strongest among the sixteen teams by many people, but there is a reason. Barcelona is stronger than last season, and it is not an exaggeration to Ronaldinho be called the best core in the world. His goals have always been more dazzling than the core position. Van Bomel, Larson, Edmilson, Deco, Pujol and other midfielders are quite strong, and players such as Iniesta and Marcos have also grown up. Everyone can see Barcelona rising rapidly. Now they are a behemoth, and they are not competitive at all in La Liga.

This is the current Dream Team 2.

Chelsea has also attracted much attention. Even in the summer, their odds for winning the championship are the lowest, but now no one thinks that Chelsea is better than Barcelona. Last season, Chelsea still eliminated Barcelona with controversial balls. This season? It is really difficult to achieve this season.

Soon, they were drawn one by one against each other.

The Galaxy Battleship will encounter the "arsenal" Arsenal!

Werder Bremen will compete with Juventus!

It's Bayern Munich now, and the Bavarian beast is facing her old rival AC Milan!

Dutch giant Eindhoven's opponent is Lyon, who swept Ligue 1!

Inter Milan's opponent will be...?Ajax! The Italian is interested in several Ajax players.

See how lucky the defending champion Liverpool is, they will meet Benfica who eliminates Manchester United!

The Spanish team Villarreal, who entered the Champions League for the first time, is lucky. There is no suspense left in the end. They will meet the rich wanderers of the Soviet Super League!

...

After the lottery was over, some people smiled happily, while others were full of anger.

For Serie A giants, Juventus and Inter Milan are relatively lucky to play against Bremen and Ajax respectively, while AC Milan is not very lucky. They meet Bayern Munich on a narrow road. Faced with this result, the three teams kept a low profile, believing that any team that can enter the top 16 is excellent. They cannot underestimate any opponent.

Inter Milan coach Mancini said cautiously that the confrontation with Ajax "will not be easy". He said that so far, Ajax has lost only one match against Arsenal in the Champions League.

"We can't be fooled by Ajax's performance in the Dutch domestic league, that doesn't mean their true strength. Although they lost a few stars, some good young players have filled the gap well."

The coach is low-key, but the chairman is not.

Morati expressed his happiness at the draw result, believing Inter avoided stronger teams. However, he also reminded Inter not to underestimate his opponents. "The worst mistake we may make is that we think we have encountered a weak team. Although they lack big stars, their young people performed very well. If we want to reach the quarterfinals, we must play at our best."

Facing Werder Bremen, Juventus coach Capello said this was an acceptable result. But he also warned his disciples not to underestimate the enemy.

"Bremen's counterattack is quite powerful. They have excellent and fast attackers, and we must be careful."

Compared with the good signings between Inter Milan and Juventus, AC Milan Vice Chairman Galliani is obviously quite dissatisfied with the encounter with Bayern and Munich. "This is not the result I hope. We met a strong opponent. However, we can accept this result. We are ready to compete with Bayern."

There are also three teams in the Premier League, but unlike Serie A, only Liverpool coach Benitez is very happy.

At the end of the lottery ceremony, Benitez praised Benfica in an interview. "Benfica is a strong Portuguese team. They eliminated Manchester United, and we should be cautious."

But personally, I can see that Benitez is quite satisfied with the draw of Benfica.

The other two, Wenger and Mourinho, turned blue.

Chelsea meets an old opponent. Barcelona, ​​known as the "Dream II Team", even though he is confident in his team, he dare not say that he is better than Barcelona. In fact, Barcelona is already at the top of the football style, lineup, or the overall strength of the team. Although Chelsea is also powerful, the two teams are still a little different.

This is the worst sign!

Wenger's face was not good, because Arsenal met Real Madrid. Even if Real Madrid had just changed their coach and was in a turbulent period, even if Real Madrid's league performance was a mess and their overall performance was not good, but there was still no team who wanted to meet Real Madrid. This was a little better signing than Chelsea.

Interestingly, Mourinho and Benitez walked out of the lottery ceremony side by side.

There was no conversation between the two.

Before walking out of the door, in front of a group of reporters, Mourinho threw a sentence at Benitez, "Don't be lucky!" and then turned around and left and got into the car.

Benitez shrugged and spread his hands to the reporters, "Some people are so uncultured."

Then a reporter immediately asked Benitez to tell in detail, even if Benitez is so graceful and has a good temper, Mourinho's provocation just now made him very angry, so he said, "He was not satisfied with the lottery result and thought my team had a good draw and his team had a bad draw, but the lottery ceremony was not decided by me. He couldn't complain about God, so he showed this..."

As he said that, Benitez shrugged and left again.

But his words are actually no different from being directly scolded. It can be translated as, "Murinho is just a villain, and he is jealous of Liverpool when he draws a bad draw."

The reporters were excited at the first time. You should know that Benitez is usually very graceful. It is rare to see him really angry and scold him.

Benitez and Mourinho were not the only ones at the draw.

Next, the reporters interviewed Benfica club head coach Koman. Benfica is going to meet Liverpool in the quarterfinals. Liverpool is the defending champion. The league is very strong this season and the Champions League is also very strong. Such an opponent is quite terrible for Benfica, but Koman said he is prepared.

"In the knockout stage, we will definitely meet strong teams. There is nothing we can do about it. No matter which team we meet, we can accept it."

Before the draw, Koeman said that his next opponent was willing to choose Barcelona in La Liga or Arsenal in Premier League. After the draw results were announced, he was not unhappy with the result. Koeman believed that Liverpool had gathered many stars from England and Spain, with a very strong defensive lineup and conceded few goals; among them, there were also good players in the frontcourt, ranking first in the group stage and was a strong opponent.

But Liverpool is not invincible.

"We are able to enter the Champions League round of 16 and have their own merits. Although Liverpool has advantages, we have defeated the Premier League powerhouse Manchester United in the group stage and eliminated them, which shows that we are capable of defeating the strong team."

But Benitez did not respond to this.

In fact, when he returned to England, Benitez began to hold it in his office and prepare for the next League Cup against Manchester United. For Liverpool, he has no time to talk to other teams. The Premier League is different from other leagues. The two cup games have no winter break, but the schedule is more intensive. He must seize the time to deal with everything.

At the same time, Zhang Tiehan received a news that was not good or bad.

He was selected for the Golden Ball Award in "French Football" and won the second place. Behind him was Inter Milan defender Cannavaro. Cannavaro narrowly beat Zhang Tiehan and won the award, while Zhang Tiehan could only regret to get the second place.

Zhang Tiehan was a little regretful about this result.

Honors have always been what he wants. For opening up the next ancient power, perhaps a Golden Globe Award is not enough, but having is better than not, especially for football players, it is also a happy honor, but...... he can only shake his head and smile bitterly.

This award was voted by European journalists. With his popularity among journalists... it is already very good to have this result, only two points away from Cannavaro.

Unfortunately, he did not win the Golden Ball Award, and Zhang Tiehan quickly left it behind. The whole Liverpool team was ready to face the League Cup and had a big fight with Manchester United at Old Trafford Stadium.

Although it is just a League Cup, this is what Liverpool wants to fight for, and Manchester United will never let go. They have poor results in the league and were eliminated in the Champions League, so they will definitely strive for it in the domestic Cup.
Chapter completed!