novelraw Chapter 599 - 406: Champions League Quarterfinals Announced! King of Biting Big Eevee talks about Tang Long, and he laughed!
Chapter 599 - 406: Champions League Quarterfinals Announced! King of Biting Big Eevee talks about Tang Long, and he laughed!
Champions League quarter-finals are freshly unveiled!
Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Wolfsburg, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Benfica.
After the draw ceremony, the matchups are as follows:
Manchester City VS Paris Saint-Germain
Wolfsburg VS Real Madrid
Barcelona VS Benfica
Bayern VS Manchester United
Pellegrini seems quite satisfied with Manchester City’s draw.
In the Champions League quarter-final draw, there are no seeded teams, and no same league avoidance rules, any two teams could be drawn together.
Even though they didn’t draw relatively weaker teams like Benfica or Wolfsburg;
Manchester City also avoided strong rivals like Real Madrid, Barça, and Bayern.
Fans are also discussing this.
-[Manchester City’s draw is mid-tier, neither good nor bad]
-[This is mid-tier? It’s great, just look at their city rival Manchester United, Bayern is way tougher than Wolfsburg!]
-[No weak teams in the Champions League quarter-finals, at this stage, no team is easy to beat.]
-[I say if Manchester City wants to win the championship, the earlier they face Real, Barça, or Bayern, the better.]
-[Eevee vs Tang Long, that’s quite a spectacle!]
-[Haha, I want to see Big Eevee’s reaction, the King of Biting in football, does he have confidence against Manchester City?]
-[What King of Biting, that should be called God, okay?]
After a Ligue 1 match ended.
After staging a hat-trick blow against Monaco, Big Eevee was not only chosen as the man of the match but also brought his Ligue 1 goals tally for the season to 30, leading the scorer’s chart far ahead of his teammate Cavani with 15 goals.
Who’s the top striker in Ligue 1?
Goal count can explain everything!
However, during the post-match interview, there was a slight disharmonious incident.
Faced with the man of the match trophy brought by the host, Eevee waved dismissively, saying he was too lazy to want it, whoever wants it can take it.
"This trophy is scattered all over my home, I give them to my son to play with as toys. You guys can stop giving them to me, my son is tired of playing with them!"
"Champions League match against Manchester City? It’s a nice draw, I prefer playing such teams that aren’t very tall, so I can use my physique to crush and create space."
"Tang?"
Upon hearing the reporter mention Tang Long’s name, Eevee stroked his chin and smiled meaningfully.
"Tang is too young! Not even 20 years old, just a kid, what’s there to say?"
"I would rather talk about his agent Ronaldo, he is the greatest forward ever in the world, at a legendary level, and also my idol from when I was young."
"When I played in Serie A, I encountered Ronaldo, and even at that time when Ronaldo had only 20% of his peak power, he was still a terrifying person."
The reporter further asked:
"Do you look down on Manchester City? They just eliminated your former club Inter!"
Eevee picked his big nose and snorted coldly.
"What is Inter Milan? In Serie A, the only team I love is AC Milan; they are the kings of the Champions League, but Inter is far behind!"
...
Before the Champions League quarter-finals.
Manchester City has two Premier League matches to play.
They are against Swansea at home in the 31st round, and Norwich away in the 32nd round.
This season’s Premier League has only eight matches left before closing.
The title race has entered the sprint stage!
After beating Manchester United at home in the last round, Manchester City opened up the gap with them from two points to five points.
Five points, less than two matches, there’s absolutely no reason to relax.
For the arrangement of these two matches, Pellegrini decided not to rotate against Norwich, continuing with the starting lineup to settle the match in the first half, then rest the starters.
As for the away game against Swansea, they’ll use the rotating substitutes to conserve energy, and at that time naturally focus their attention on dealing with Paris Saint-Germain.
Two fronts, advancing simultaneously;
Grabbing with both hands!
"Rein, make more effort," Pellegrini encouraged his assistant coach, "We need to push for both the league and the Champions League, we not only want to conquer the Premier League but also reach the European Summit, I firmly believe, if we achieve this, even if Guardiola wants to coach Manchester City for free, the management won’t agree!"
"You’re absolutely right boss, in football, it’s all about results, we’ll fight one match at a time, no matter what, I’ll follow you!" Rein declared loyalty.
...
Premier League round 31 against Swansea.
Manchester City sent out their full lineup!
After enduring the cold and rain in Meazza’s potato field last round, the Blue Moon warriors, except for one rotated Sagna, started once more.
Even so, with the high spirits from reversing Inter, the players showed strong will from the very start of the match.
Tang Long, in his familiar attacking midfielder position, quickly got into the game state, and in the fifth minute, he provided Agüero with a brilliant assist to score a goal!
Itihad was boiling once again!
Perhaps it’s because there’s no worry about relegation and no hope for European War;
Or perhaps it’s the shock from Manchester City’s strong offensive desire at the start, here on Swansea’s side, there’s almost no high-intensity resistance.
Coach Monk is also very sensible, not intending to compete with Manchester City.
In his pre-match arrangements, he didn’t even make targeted deployments, just followed the routine team tactics.
Quickly, in the 41st minute of the first half, Sterling received a cross from Sabaleta on the right and scored again with a pushing shot!
The score of 2 to 0, along with the opponent’s lack of strong desire to win, gave Pellegrini ample space for rotation in the second half, allowing key players to rest.
This is also a reflection of Tian Ji’s Horse Racing during a long season.
For a strong team like Manchester City, some Premier League coaches choose to surrender psychologically before the match even starts, shifting the focus to other teams.
The first to be substituted off is Tang Long.
In the 60th minute of the second half, Tang Long was substituted off, and Delph was brought on.
The 30 minutes of rest were exceptionally precious for Tang Long, as he’s been playing full matches consecutively for many games now.
Then, Sterling and Agüero were also substituted off one after another.
These three are the backbone from the midfield to the forward line for Manchester City, heavily relied on by Pellegrini.
During the garbage time, Bony performed very actively.
The match entered the injury-time stage, and Bony scored a header from a corner kick, finally breaking the goal drought of several matches.
Despite facing many strong opponents in the past month, Pellegrini still trusted Agüero more;
But Bony was holding a grudge in his heart, never relaxing even in training, always waiting for the arrival of scoring opportunities, so after the match ended, while others went to shower, Bony still held onto Tang Long.
"Tang, do you think there were any issues with my positioning during the 15 minutes I was on the pitch? Could you kindly help analyze it for me?"
Tang Long pondered slightly and demonstrated for Bony directly on the tactical board in the dressing room.
"Delph playing as the attacking midfielder today was temporary, but he made two decent through passes. The reason you didn’t connect with him stems from here, look..."
Premier League Round 32.
Manchester City away against Norwich.
This is the last Premier League match before the Champions League semifinals against Paris Saint-Germain.
Only four days after the match ends, they will head to Paris.
Consecutive away games will naturally be exhausting.
Therefore, Pellegrini made extensive rotations!
Key players like Tang Long, Agüero, Kompany, Sterling, and Toure all rested.
Only keeping key center back Ranocchia, key wing back Navas, and key left back Kolarov and others.
However, poor Joe Hart still didn’t get a starting position.
The goalkeeper isn’t subject to rotation, although Caballero is short, his form this season is far better than "goal frame background" Joe Hart.
Bony started!
Holding a five-point advantage, Pellegrig wanted to gamble this match, the baseline being a draw.
Just grabbing one point is acceptable.
Really, losing one game isn’t a matter, after all, the foundation is here.
However, the development was beyond the expectations of the Chilean old coach!
Bony seemed enlightened and linked twice with Delph, who temporarily played as the attacking midfielder, consecutively in the first half and scored twice!
Even Delph himself was quite surprised.
How Bony’s positioning suddenly became much smarter, besides the signature diagonal insertion behind two center backs, also came with snake-like runs.
Especially Bony’s second goal, Delph casually passed, precisely and unexpectedly bypassing the defender, and Bony predicted the ball’s path, truly amazing.
Seeing Bony’s excited appearance.
Agüero on the bench couldn’t sit still!
"Boss, give me more time in the second half, I don’t want my feet to get cold before playing against Paris!"
Pellegrig naturally knew what Agüero was thinking, he didn’t want his starting center forward position to be taken by Bony.
The Chilean was pleased to see such healthy competition in the team’s forward line.
In the 65th minute, he made two substitutions, Bony was substituted off for Agüero, and Delph was substituted off for Tang Long.
"Tang, let’s put more energy into it and warm up our feet!"
The two went all out!
Agüero scored a hat-trick within twenty minutes!
Taking the score to 5-0!
All three assists came from Tang Long, with two exploiting the space behind Japanese full-back Yuto Nagatomo.
Yuto Nagatomo was also full of dissatisfaction but could only watch the backs of Tang Long and Agüero celebrating.
Especially Agüero’s third goal, which was particularly brilliant!
After 11 consecutive passes in the middle.
Tang Long faced Sabaleta’s return on the wing with a direct through pass without stopping, the change in rhythm caught Yuto Nagatomo off guard, watching helplessly as Agüero penetrated behind and bombarded the far corner.
This wave of scoring also shocked Pellegrini on the sidelines, quickly shouting:
"You two, ease up, ease up! Don’t show form too early, conserve your strength for the Champions League!"