When the first leg of the Dutch Cup final came to an end at the Amsterdam Athletics Stadium, the live audience got up and applauded. Only the home team Ajax fans were left. The Utrecht fans got up and left halfway through the second half. They could not watch anymore.
Ajax crushed Utrecht and left the field in a majestic manner. The fans cheered excitedly as if announcing that they had won the Dutch Cup!
Perhaps the final suspense only existed in theory.
The Utrecht team left dejectedly, knowing that their season was over.
The 5: 0 gap made a comeback in the second leg an unattainable hope!
Even if Ajax would not send out their strongest lineup in the next leg, the substitute lineup of Ajax could be said to be on par with Utrecht in terms of strength. Reversing a gap of five goals? How was it possible?
After the game, Qin Xiong did not return to the locker room immediately. He came to the edge of the stands and signed autographs for the fans who cheered for him. He seemed more patient than usual, not caring about the passage of time, and satisfied every fan's request.
No one realized that the China player who was seriously signing autographs for the fans and writing the two Chinese characters of Qin Xiong was actually bidding farewell to the fans in this way.
The stadium staff stayed by his side the whole time, fearing that there would be an accident. They also ensured that Qin Xiong could leave at any time. Qin Xiong took the initiative to walk up to the stands and continue to satisfy the fans' requests for autographs and photos.
When he met some Chinese fans and listened to them talk about their admiration and cheers for the Champions League final, Qin Xiong would always show a big boy's sunny smile.
No Ajax players proposed to relax after the wild victory. Everyone took a shower and changed their clothes tacitly, left the club, and went home to sleep!
The next day, they returned to the club for rehabilitation training. Ajax's preparation focused on the Champions League final.
At this stage, it was not suitable for high-intensity training. The coaching staff paid attention to the reasonable adjustment of the players' psychological and physical state.
Comain led the team players to watch and analyze the video of Porto's Champions League games in the tactical meeting room.
The coaching staff did not use the videos of Porto's matches in the league as a reference for their strength analysis.
Thinking about it from another perspective, when Porto studied Ajax, they would definitely not take into account Ajax's performance in the Eredivisie.
That really didn't mean much.
Because the strength of the two teams in the local league was in a transcendent position, their strength was too obvious. Only in the Champions League where the difference in strength between the opponent and the strength of the opponent was not big, whether it was strong or weak, would there be precious analysis value.
Recently, the most popular manager in European football was Young Marshal Mourinho, the manager of FC Porto!
First of all, his fame did not start from this season's Champions League results, but from leading FC Porto to win the UEFA Europa League last season. As a former assistant or translator to the manager of Barcelona, he was officially famous in the European football world as an independent manager.
This season, he had overcome all difficulties. In addition, when he commanded on the sidelines, he often had exaggerated and wild physical performances that attracted the attention of the media. This made him a star manager.
It was undeniable that Comain and Didier Deschamps had also achieved remarkable results this season, but in terms of the manager's attitude and aura, Mourinho was undoubtedly the most dazzling.
He became the manager that many powerhouse clubs vied for.
Real Madrid, Chelsea, and recently joined Liverpool.
Among them, the scandal between Chelsea and Mourinho was so widespread that it was rumored that they had already signed a contract. Mourinho would move to Stamford Bridge after the Champions League final. Chelsea's boss gave Mourinho a summer transfer budget that was a shocking 140 million pounds!
The revolutionary whirlwind that Chelsea stirred up swept through the entire European football world. The whole season was accompanied by their transfer scandal with world-class star players.
Ronaldo expressed his willingness to participate in Abramovich's football revolution at Stamford Bridge.
Rivaldo also expressed that he would not resist the transfer of Chelsea.
Chelsea had been planning to bring David Beckham back to London from Madrid in the middle of the season. Was it impossible? Abramovich had poached Kenyon from Manchester United. He had a good personal relationship with Beckham when he was at Manchester United. But at the end of the season, with Beckham's wife Victoria's high-profile announcement that she would take their children to settle in Madrid, it announced that Chelsea's plan had come to naught.
Abramovich had recently watched the passion of the F1 race with AC Milan manager Adriano Galliani in Italy. Galliani later said that he and Abramovich only talked about racing and did not talk about football. Who would believe that? Most fans knew that Abramovich was obsessed with the Ukrainian nuclear warhead Andriy Shevchenko, who was also from Eastern Europe.
Ranieri lived in the embarrassing situation of being "humiliated" by Eriksson all season. The scandal between Chelsea and the England national team manager, Eriksson, had become a soap opera. As for Eriksson's private promise to move to Stamford Bridge and persuade his former disciple, Nedved, to join him, the scandals had been making Chelsea the focus of European football news.
But in terms of the selection of managers, Chelsea had actually fallen into a more awkward situation at the end of the season.
The more Eriksson was exposed by the media, the more difficult it was for him to move, especially from the position of England national team manager to the position of the domestic team Chelsea manager. In that way, he would be drowned by the saliva of countless England fans. And in a sense, he would also offend the Football Association.
There were actually not many world-class managers.
Ferguson, Wenger, Capello, Ancelotti, Lippi … These managers were either deeply rooted in the power of their original clubs and did not need to move to take the risk, or they were not willing to give up halfway before they achieved hegemony.
World-class players were not easy to poach, and of course, world-class managers were not easy to poach!
So Chelsea turned his eyes to the young forces, especially Abramovich, who also needed someone to share his pressure. There were many fans and media outside who wanted to see the failure of the Russian tycoon's revolution.
Didier Deschamps, Comain, and Mourinho were all candidates in the selection of managers.
But before the start of the Champions League semi-final, Didier Deschamps said this in response to the scandal: "My short one year with Chelsea was not a good one, but we won the FA Cup."
He had played for Chelsea at the end of his career, but his relationship with the manager, Villa, was very bad. Coupled with his wife's inability to adapt to life in London, it led to him leaving after only a year, which made him appear not to be particularly enthusiastic about Chelsea's invitation.
Comain was also one of the candidates, but the reason why he was not popular was very simple. One was that there was a precedent: Louis Van Gaal.
Louis Van Gaal's appearance at Stamford Bridge to watch the game was the fuse that caused him to be spurned by the fans. If Comain was still ambiguous in his response to the scandal, it would anger the Ajax fans and the board of directors even more!
This was simply abandoning the dignity of Ajax!
When Louis Van Gaal fell out with the club's top management, Comain received the support of the fans. The temperamental Comain was very decisive in his response to the scandal: he was not interested.
Another factor was the nature of comparison.
After all, Ajax was a more established and famous team than Porto, especially in terms of the long-term strength of the team's construction. Ajax's youth training was world-famous. Ajax was declining, but in the traditional impression, they had not completely fallen out of the scope of an elite club.
Therefore, Comain was more like a by-product of the success of Ajax's system. In other words, in the eyes of the outside world, perhaps if Van Basten were to coach the First Team, or Brinder, the results might be similar.
But Porto was different. The strength of the past two years under Mourinho's leadership was too shocking, and the impact was far greater than that of Comain.
Therefore, when Comain expressed that he was not interested in Chelsea's position, the scandal between Chelsea and Comain came to an abrupt end. Instead, it became the most popular voice for Mourinho.
In the Premier League ten days ago, Mourinho went to Stamford Bridge in a low-key manner. After being discovered by the reporters, he stated that he was only there to watch the game. However, Stamford Bridge was ready to welcome Mourinho. This was inseparable from the excellent public relations and communication skills of Mourinho's agent, Mendes, behind the scenes.
Qin Xiong usually did not pay much attention to the news, or it could be said that when he heard it, he would turn his head and forget it. In his impression, he did not think that Mourinho was particularly famous. After all, he had hardly heard any news about the Portuguese Super League. Therefore, the news about Porto came from the Champions League.
Now he might realize that Mourinho's limelight was so exaggerated.
He still did not take it to heart. He only hoped to calm down and seriously analyze and understand the style and characteristics of the Porto team.
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