After this game, Atletico Madrid pays attention to being able to advance to the semi-finals, and when Atletico Madrid returns to Madrid, they also won their first championship trophy of the season.

Of course, the weight of this trophy is not comparable to the kind that people remembered before, and the value is very small, because this trophy is the International Toto Cup champion trophy.

Originally, when Atletico Madrid reached the quarterfinals of the International Toto Cup, Atletico Madrid could win the International Toto Cup trophy, but at that time the schedule was relatively dense.

Therefore, Atletico Madrid still hopes to postpone the award ceremony a little, and the senior executives of Atletico Madrid also hope to use the International Toto Cup trophy to stimulate the Atletico Madrid players on the road to the championship.

Compared with those warm-up trophys, the International Toto Cup championship trophy is real and there is no possibility of participating. Only teams that can win the quarterfinals of the League Cup can qualify for the Toto Cup championship.

Atletico Madrid is also the only team that qualified for the Toto Cup and entered the semi-finals, and is also the only team in the La Liga League Cup.

As long as Atletico Madrid can continue to win three games, it can win the League Cup, which should be the pride of the International Toto Cup.

It is also the pride of UEFA, because the International Toto Cup was originally held by FIFA and then taken over by UEFA. The International Toto Cup has always been questioned because the International Toto Cup game has greatly affected the players' status, and the teams that have appeared in the International Toto Cup have not even won the League Cup championship.

Some people have begun to question the UEFA Football Association. Many people think that there is no match in the International Toto Cup, and they should abandon this so-called UEFA profitable method.

However, within UEFA, those senior UEFA personnel still cannot bear to defend against the Toto Cup, because in their opinion, this should be an important means of profitability, because when the cup is held, the TV advertising and broadcasting share are quite a lot of revenue.

If this cup is given up, UEFA will lose a considerable amount of income. This is something they cannot accept for UEFA, which relies on football as a means of profit.

So at this time, Atletico Madrid can achieve such results, UEFA will naturally praise it, so the vice president of UEFA came to Madrid in person and then held an award ceremony for Atletico Madrid.

Atletico Madrid naturally hopes to please UEFA through this award ceremony, and at the same time, it also hopes to use this opportunity to attract more fans' support.

Therefore, Atletico Madrid also chose to hold the award ceremony at Calderon Stadium. Of course, this award ceremony will be held after the Espanyol.

So if Atletico Madrid in this game does not win the game in front of home fans, it will obviously be a very embarrassing thing.

If you had known the results for a long time, you would have chosen to be held before the game, such as the best player, and other award ceremony, which would usually be held before the game.

But such a game is different. Atletico Madrid does not present the awards as usual in order to let more fans be very excited when they see the awards ceremony.

But this is also accompanied by risks. If Atletico Madrid cannot win the game in this game, it is obvious that Atletico Madrid will not seem natural to win this trophy.

And the situation is not very good for Atletico Madrid, because Atletico Madrid participated in the League Cup match against Parma three days ago.

Although Atletico Madrid should have won easily in the Parma game, the physical condition of Atletico Madrid players is not very good when they are struggling to play away games.

Originally, Atletico Madrid did not have a good rest this season, and it was Atletico Madrid who was fighting on the third line, and its physical fitness reached a zero point.

If you are not careful, Atletico Madrid may have large-scale injuries, because players are very easily injured when they are extremely tired, so these Atletico Madrid players are also very tired. Fortunately, it is Cooper's defensive counterattack tactics.

Basically, two strikers from Atletico Madrid are attacking, and the rest of the players only need to concentrate on defense, so the consumption of physical fitness is not very large.

Otherwise, Atletico Madrid would have collapsed long ago. Although this game is very important, Cooper still insists on his rotation.

In Cooper's opinion, the players still need necessary rest, so Cooper also made some adjustments to the lineup to allow some players to play in rotation, while on the forward line, Mark and Torres still played together.

Because in the last round of the game, neither Mark nor Torres played the whole game, but only played for more than 60 minutes, and the physical energy consumption was not very large.

Moreover, in Cooper's opinion, Mark and Torres are becoming more and more skilled in cooperation, so Cooper feels that letting these two players play to impact the Espanyol's defense.

Although Torres is not a power-type center like Vieri, Torres's health is also good among La Liga players. In addition, Mark's endurance and speed are also a weapon for frontcourt offense.

However, Espanyol is also very conservative. Perhaps after the last time they played against Atletico Madrid, they also knew that Atletico Madrid's defense was very strong, and Atletico Madrid's defensive counterattack was also very sharp.

So they also adopted a defensive counterattack tactic in this game. Their goal in this game is to score a point, so the tone of this game has been set, that is, defense first.

The scenes of the two teams on the stadium are destined to be very good-looking, but the game is like a war, and the game pays attention to the results. When the league is coming to an end, who should pay attention to whether the scene is good-looking or not?

Moreover, Espanyol is ranked sixth in the league at this time, and they also retain the opportunity to qualify for the Champions League, so Espanyol is destined to not let go of the crowd in this game.

Sure enough, after the start of the game, Mark discovered that the defensive team of Espanyol was indeed different from before. In fact, in the last encounter with Espanyol, Mark served as a full-back, not a forward, so the defensive pressure Mark was naturally not able to be taken seriously like a forward.

After the opening game, almost everyone pressed him around Mark. Almost wherever Mark went, he would be taken seriously by the Espanyol defensive players.

In fact, this is because Mark's recent state has been a little too hot. Not only did Mark score consecutive goals in the league, but he also made people recognise his strength in the League Cup.

Therefore, Espanyol coach Lotina is also a very capable head coach. Naturally, he has conducted a lot of research on Mark, so he also found the secret to defend Mark after his research.

Although this secret is not sure that you can defend Mark completely, because after all, this is a defensive theory. You have to go to the court to verify whether Lotina's idea is correct.

But Lotina is also very confident. His secret to defend Mark is to use the advantage of numbers to defend Mark. There are always two players around Mark who are one in front and one behind to defend.

Even if Mark wants to break through the defensive player, after breaking through one, there will be a second one. Moreover, Mark's breakthrough ability is still very average. Mark's breakthrough is all about taking advantage of speed or changing directions in running to make breakthrough moves. Mark basically does not have the kind of breakthrough action that is dazzlingly fake under his feet.

Cooper actually regarded Mark as an important player on the front line. In Lotina's view, if he could defend Mark, he would be able to suppress Atletico Madrid's offensive system.

Although Torres' personal skills are very good, Torres basically conducts activities in the penalty area. If no one helps him, there should be no good chance of shooting directly.

Torres also has two Espanyol defensive players who are interfering with him. Espanyol is determined to play a defensive counterattack at Atletico Madrid's home court.

They should be very satisfied with one of them in this game. If they can really take advantage of the opportunity to counterattack, it would be a surprise.

And Lotina also calculated very clearly. He felt that Cooper would not be willing to score a point at home. As the game progressed, Atletico Madrid would definitely put on the offense.

However, Espanyol's luck in this game was also very good. In more than 20 minutes of the first half, Espanyol got a free kick. Dela Pena took the free kick and shot the football hit Baboro, and then changed the angle and flew into the goal.

Even if Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Franco reacted quickly, he had no choice but to take this shot. He could only watch the football flew into the net helplessly.

This should be something that Atletico Madrid fans did not expect. They did not expect that Atletico Madrid would be the first to fall behind at home.

The UEFA officials in the stands also showed a hint of embarrassment. At this time, they thought that if Atletico Madrid lost in this game, the atmosphere of the award ceremony would probably be greatly affected.

After seeing the Spanish team's goal at this time, Mark seemed very helpless because Mark was still in the midfield at this time, and Espanyol won a direct free kick.

Mark basically couldn't help much. This time the goal was not because Atletico Madrid was not lucky, but because Espanyol was a little lucky.

After scoring the goal, the Espanyol players also seemed very excited. Although they also wanted to win this game, most people probably didn't expect that they would actually lead Atletico Madrid away, although they scored with such a very lucky football.

After Cooper saw Espanyol score, he did not get angry. He just shook his head helplessly. In Cooper's opinion, this goal also means that Atletico Madrid cannot rely on defensive counterattacks to play the game, and he must also change the game's tactics.

But if you want to change your tactics, it is not enough to use Atletico Madrid's on-court players, and he needs to replace more offensive players to play.

But if the players were replaced in more than 20 minutes of the first half, the coach would be crazy, that would be too dissatisfied with the players on the court. Although Cooper was also a little dissatisfied with Atletico Madrid players, what was dissatisfied was why Atletico Madrid gave Espanyol such a good free kick.

If there was no free kick, there would be no next goal for De La Pena, but Cooper could not completely blame the Atletico Madrid players, because Atletico Madrid players have tried their best to control the fouls during defense, and they all know that De La Pena's free kick style is very good.

But sometimes it is not something you can control and avoid fouls. Fouls can only be reduced, not completely gone. If a player does not have fouls at all, it will definitely not be a team on earth.

Although there is no substitution at this time, Cooper also asked some Atletico Madrid offensive players to try their best to attack, and Atletico Madrid also made some offenses on the stadium.

However, Espanyol's defense is still very good. Under Lotina's training, they also showed the strength of a defensive team.

In the remaining twenty minutes of the first half, Espanyol also controlled Atletico Madrid's offense well, and they also used the opportunity to counterattack to create some threats to Atletico Madrid's goal.

So during the halftime break, the scores of both sides remained at one-to-zero scores, and Atletico Madrid temporarily lag behind in this game.

During the halftime break, Cooper also made important arrangements for the offense, and then replaced two offensive players, Glenshare and Jorge. He also hoped that these two offensive players could transform Atletico Madrid's offensive advantage into a winning streak.

However, after the second half of the game began, Atletico Madrid still suppressed Espanyol in the game, but it just couldn't send football into Espanyol's goal.

Lotina was very proud of the situation on the court. He felt that his tactics were very correct in this game, and he successfully won the tactics.

And the tactical victory was also reflected in the score. At this time, the second half lasted for more than ten minutes, and the Espanyol still maintained the victory of the game.

And luck was on the side of the Espanyol team. At this time, Lotina felt that the prayers of his two nun sisters must have worked. God must have heard the prayers and stood on his side.

However, Lotina soon discovered that he seemed to have been wrong, and Espanyol's good luck seemed to have ended.

In the 70th minute, Atletico Madrid won the opportunity to have a free kick in the frontcourt, and Mark once again stood before the football. Originally, Mark had already taken direct free kicks many times in this game, but he was unable to kick the football into the goal.

This also made the Espanyol players look a little bit of contempt for Mark, because these Spanish players all think that Mark must have not brought goal boots in this game.

Because football matches are very strange, even if you take a free kick, sometimes it takes luck. If a player is still unlucky, even if he is a world-class free kick master, he will have several records of no free kicks scoring.

In the eyes of Espanyol players, although Mark's free kick level is very good, it seems that he has not reached the level of a world-class free kick master.

At this time, even the goalkeeper of Espanyol had this feeling, but Mark quickly used this free kick to tell the goalkeeper and could not relax his vigilance against him at any time.

Mark likes to take free kicks very much, because in this game, Mark was defended very closely by Espanyol players and basically did not get any good opportunities.

So this free kick is also the best chance to score under Mark's unguarded defense. The previous free kicks were Mark's luck, because Mark's free kick shot was also a chance.

But this time Mark felt that he would shoot the football into the net. After measuring the distance of the football, Mark started running up, and then Mark kicked directly onto the football.

The football drifted through the wall with a strong arc and then flew directly into the net. The goalkeeper of the Espanyol seemed to be stupid all of a sudden, without any reaction at all, and stood in the goal.

"gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!" Mark's excellent free kick, beautiful arc, speed of speed, and perfect free kick, the Spanish goalkeeper was stunned.

Atletico Madrid goalkeeper can also shout happily in this game, and he used the shout to celebrate the birth of the goal.

At this time, the Calderon Stadium was also suddenly boiling. The fans of Atletico Madrid, who had already made the drowsy game in this game, jumped up all of a sudden.

Although Mark only equalized the score, if Mark scored such a wonderful goal, will the next goal be far away?


Chapter completed!