January 19th is the penultimate match day of the 22nd round of the Premier League. On this day, only one game will be held. Premier League giant Chelsea will host Birmingham at home.

In terms of strength, Chelsea is stronger than Birmingham and is at home, there is no suspense in the game itself. The result is also the same. In the end, Chelsea relied on Icelandic striker Eidur_gudjohnsen to win the goal in the 25th minute of the first half.

This is not a big victory, but this game attracted a lot of media attention. After the game, many Chelsea fans were asked a question when they were interviewed in the mixed zone: "What do you think about the next FA Cup game?"

"FA Cup?" The Chelsea stars who were asked were stunned at first, and then they thought that they seemed to have drawn an amateur team to be their opponents?

So most people laughed: "I think we're lucky."

Only a few people are serious when facing the camera: "No matter who the opponent is, we will take it seriously..."

"Even if it's facing an amateur team?" the reporter asked in a bad way.

Lampard, who was asked, was stunned for a moment, then nodded: "Yes!"

Then he hurriedly left, obviously he was not interested in this issue. He was in a hurry to take a shower in the locker room, then change his clothes and go home.

The team's captain John Terry was kept by reporters. He was only twenty-one years old and just took over the team's captain's armband from French veteran Deselli this season.

The reporter asked directly: "John, do you know Terry Eames?"

Terry narrowed his eyes and looked at the reporter who asked the question, while recalling the name in his brain to see if it was someone he had known. Then he shook his head: "No, I don't know."

"So good, do you know Kevin Cooper?"

This time Terry shook his head straightforwardly: "I don't know you."

"Where is Joe Shilin? Andy Sullivan Gavin Borger?"

Terry kept shook his head. "No one knew."

"What about Chu?"

The strange pronunciation made Terry frown: "Who is that?"

The reporter was very satisfied with Terry's reaction and smiled: "They are your opponents in the FA Cup on Sunday."

Hearing the reporter's words, Terry knew that he was teased by the reporter. The young Terry smiled embarrassedly. As the captain of the team, he knew nothing about the opponent in the next game, and it was not very nice to say it... "So can you talk about the following game? Chelsea's upgrade is not a problem, right?"

Terry made a mistake before, and now he seems much more cautious. He frowned and shook his head: "I don't agree with this statement. I know that team, they just defeated Wimbledon, and I think they should have something powerful..."

In fact, Terry doesn't know this team at all, but the name has been heard in the media. In recent days, the media has begun to craze the Wimbledon team. Although he doesn't think much, he can still hear others saying "Wimbledon Athletics" and "Wimbledon Athletics" in his ears.

"Then good luck, John!" The reporter glanced at Chelsea's head coach Ranieri just came over, so he patted Terry on the shoulder and signaled that he could leave.

Terry, who was racking his brains to compile the lyrics, breathed a sigh of relief and fled from the mixing area like flying.

"I think I need an Italian translator..." As Ranieri walked towards the mixing area, the reporter joked, and his colleagues around him laughed. In fact, he was following his English translator behind Ranieri.

Ranieri saw the British reporter who smiled at him and stopped voluntarily, intending to accept a simple interview. For more questions, please wait until the post-match press conference to answer.

"Hello." The Italian coach is a good man. He also knows to say hello to the British reporters who had just ridiculed him in half-baked English, although the British guys may not understand his English at all... "Hello, Mr. Ranieri. I have only one question - can I briefly talk about your opponents in the FA Cup?"

After hearing the translator's words in his ear, Ranieri smiled and nodded in Italian and said, "No problem. I think I'd be happy to evaluate this team. They are a very magical team, and it's not easy to be able to get to this point as an amateur team. We have to take them seriously, yes. It's not easy to play."

After saying that, Ranieri looked at the reporters with a smile, waiting for the translation.

After listening to the translation and retelling, a group of British reporters looked at each other. Ranieri said a lot, but it seemed that there was no substantive content... The reporter who asked the question reached out to Ranieri: "I'm glad you can accept my interview. Good luck, Mr. Ranieri!"

Then the old Italian man was sent away.

"Huh... it's really hard to talk to an Italian." The reporter looked at Ranieri's back and exhaled. "I found that what I said was not the same thing as him."

"Maybe he deliberately concealed the point? Maybe he didn't want us to know their trump card..." Some reporters had different opinions.

"Well, do you need to hide any trump cards to play an amateur team?"

"It might be the habitual nonsense of Italians? When an Italian tells me that this is noodles with ketchup, I have to pick the noodles and look at them in person."

"Haha!" A group of British people unscrupulously joked about Italians.

In fact, it is not just the British, but people in many parts of Europe do not look down on Italians very much. Apart from noodles and football, Italians can hardly leave too many beautiful impressions.

※※※Chelsea players and coaches’ contempt for Wimbledon is just a small episode before this game.

In fact, almost no one has made a voice in the media for criticizing Chelsea's performance for underestimating the enemy because if they were in Chelsea's position, their performance would have been the same as "seafood" (seafood, the nickname of Chelsea, but it is slightly derogatory. They are called this because their performance fluctuates, just like the price of seafood. In addition, seafood hotels and hotels in Chelsea resorts are very famous).

Who would care about an amateur team from the Ninth Division?

As long as you perform normally, this team will not have any chance.

And in Wimbledon Athletics, there is also such an emotion - anyway, we have exceeded the task, and we can still draw Chelsea in this round, all our wishes have come true, so what are you doing so hard? Playing a game with Chelsea, and then winning or losing doesn't matter. I'm satisfied if I can play a game at Stamford Bridge!

This is what most "crazy" players think.

During training, Eames couldn't tell his players, "Our goal in this game is to defeat Chelsea!" This would not boost morale, but would make the players feel panic, thinking that the coach had arranged impossible tasks for them and put too much pressure on them, and some players with poor psychological qualities might be directly abnormal.

Amateur players often have no ambitions and go with the flow. Being able to score in the fourth round of the FA Cup is already amazing for them. Now they have drawn another Chelsea, which has almost wiped out the last bit of fighting spirit of these players.

In fact, Eames initially hoped that the team could draw a League Two team so that he could inspire the team and let them move forward for a while.

As soon as the Chelsea result came out, he knew that the team would no longer have anything straight.

Therefore, he pays great attention to his daily training and competitions. In addition to Chu Zhongtian, he also needs some players who have not completely lost their fighting spirit to help, otherwise it would not work by relying on Chu Zhongtian alone.

During training, he found several people who had this ability, such as Andy Sullivan, Steve Gibson, and... Joe Shilin.

The kid who was yelling to break into the fourth round and even if he exceeded the task, it doesn't matter whether he lost or won in the fourth round, but after knowing the lottery results, he performed very positively in training. He knew that Xilin came out of the Chelsea youth team, and maybe he wanted to show his strength in front of his old club?

No matter what the reason is, as long as he has the fighting spirit, that's fine.

These guys will be the power he can rely on in the game.

After the training, Eames called Joe Xilin and Chu Zhongtian.

"Stay for half an hour of shooting. You two will stay for half an hour of shooting after each training, until the day of the game."

The news he announced surprised everyone a little, but Chu Zhongtian and Xilin had no objection.

Qiao Xilin was originally a striker, so it was not uncommon to practice shooting more, but why did Chu also practice shooting more? Some players began to think about the purpose of the head coach doing this. What was he doing this?

Kevin Cooper thought of the last stage of last season, when Eames invited Chu Zhongtian to shoot. When the team could not start the attack, he wanted to use the back midfielder to insert a long shot. However, at that time, he was a gun-sharking player at the end of the game and did not play any role in the end.

This time it was different, and it was also a little extra practice, but half a season before that Eames emphasized that Chu Zhongtian was shooting practice. This time, the extra practice was just a consolidation.

It seems that the boss intends to make Chu Duo shoot in the game against Chelsea... Does the boss want to win Chelsea?

Kevin Cooper was startled by his thoughts.

Then he turned his head to look at Chu Zhongtian. Although he was a captain, Chu Zhongtian was the core of the team. The young man was listening carefully to the boss for more shooting. Judging from his expression, he seemed to have a certain degree of tacit understanding with the boss.

Is this young man also serious about winning Chelsea?

That's a super team! Their goal is the Premier League Championship and the Champions League, which is very different from us... Do you actually want to win such a team?

Kevin Cooper was full of worries when he left the team, and he might have rethinked his previous mentality. How did he plan to deal with this game?

Do you have to win or it doesn't matter?

This is really a problem.

Everyone left, Chu Zhongtian and Xilin stayed on the court for shooting training. In fact, it was mainly to train Chu Zhongtian. Eames knew that Xilin had coached Chu Zhongtian, so he deliberately kept him.

After Eames finished saying everything he should say, he stepped aside to supervise their training. Chu Zhongtian mainly practiced long shots, which is the area twenty to thirty meters away from the goal.

After more than half a season and three months of practice during the summer vacation, Chu Zhongtian's shots are now pretty good. It's not that he's perfectly shot, and he's wearing a hundred steps... it's just much better than he was at the beginning. However, in normal games, he doesn't have much chance to shoot, and he actually reviews.

Qiao Xilin saw Chu Zhongtian kick the ball into the goal from twenty-five meters away, and couldn't help but give him a thumbs up.

"That's right, Chu. Now if someone bets you again that you score a goal and he runs naked, I will definitely suppress you!"

Chu Zhongtian smiled at him: "Thank you for this, Jeep. Every time I shoot, I yell in my heart: 'This ball must be made!'"

Qiao Xilin laughed when he heard him say this.

"Just for your words, you will definitely score in the game against Chelsea! Ha!"

"Well, if I can really score, I'll hug you!"

"I will definitely not run away!"

The two waved each other and high-five.

※※When Chu Zhongtian walked into the Wimbledon bar, he saw Xu Xiaodi sitting in front of the bar and heading towards the door.

Since this reporter interviewed him several times, he has been running here. Although many other Chinese media interviewed Chu Zhongtian later, Chu Zhongtian still thinks Xu Xiaodi has the best personality and doesn't mind that he often goes to the bar where he works to get close to him.

Seeing Chu Zhongtian come, Xu Xiaodi stood up excitedly and waved to him: "Good evening, Xiao Chu!"

"Mr. Xu, are you here again?" Chu Zhongtian greeted him while wearing an apron.

"Hey, I have a good news to tell you!" Xu Xiaodi's body turned with Chu Zhongtian for a while, and he leaned over to Chu Zhongtian who was already standing behind the bar and said.

"Are I famous again?" Chu Zhongtian lowered his head and responded casually.

"I tell you, you are famous this time!" This sentence has become Xu Xiaodi's catchphrase in the past few days. Chu Zhongtian has heard it countless times.

"Hehe, no, but it's almost the same. You will be more famous this time than the last time, Xiao Chu." Xu Xiaodi shook the beer in the glass, then pointed at Chu Zhongtian and said, "The news I just received. Sports stations of local satellite TV stations in China have decided to broadcast the FA Cup you participated in! Do you know what this means?" He was excited and opened his arms. "Conservatively estimated that at least 100 million people in the country will watch this game! 100 million people! Can you imagine, Chu?"

Chu Zhongtian looked up at him.

"Now, satellite TV stations everywhere are building momentum for this game! Do you know how they promote it?" Xu Xiaodi coughed, and then imitated the tone of the promotional video on the TV and said: "Can the Dark Horse Prince create a miracle? The magical Chinese students are fighting in the FA Cup again! This time they face a stronger opponent! This is the most popular legend of dragon-slaying in the history of the FA Cup!"

"Your back appears in the TV promotional video... I really want to see what it looks like..." In the end, Xu Xiaodi reminisces alone.
To be continued...