From 1955, when the Frenchman Gabriel Llano advocated the establishment of a fixed competition between European clubs — the UEFA Club Cup, to the 05-06 season, the UEFA Champions League had experienced exactly 50 years of history. In these 50 years, the Champions League grew from nothing, from the cup to the league, the name changed, the competition system was repeatedly adjusted, and it had undergone many changes. But what remained constant was that it was a competition that symbolized the highest honor among European football clubs.
There might be fans who often debated which country's league was the highest and which country's league was the best in Europe. But when it came to the club's highest honor, no one would question the authority of the Champions League.
A few years ago, even in the football world, there was even a saying that the World Cup was not as good as the UEFA Champions League in terms of viewing value, level, and authority. There was also an extreme saying that they hoped to cancel the World Cup and just watch the Champions League.
Of course, this was too absurd, and no one took it seriously.
But it showed the status of the Champions League.
For the current football clubs, participating in the Champions League was not just a matter of honor. It was more related to a club's financial budget for the new season. The large amount of ticket revenue, television broadcast dividends, and bonuses for each game made it the highest goal for many clubs to break into the Champions League. Many small teams in minor leagues could reap countless money as long as they could enter the Champions League once. It could even be said that if a team in deep financial crisis broke into the Champions League, it was likely to bring the team back from the dead. This was the power of money and the power of the Champions League.
Even for the current Forest team, this point still had a lot of appeal.
Evan Doughty was not Abramovich. He could not invest unlimited funds into the club. He did not have the ability to let the club lose 100 million pounds every year and still win the championship and live a comfortable life.
Participating in the Champions League was a very beneficial supplement for the Forest team's finances. The Forest team would have more funds to invest in the transfer market and into the club's daily operations and infrastructure construction.
In Allan's financial budget report to Evan, it was pointed out that as long as the team could enter the Champions League every season, the club's financial situation would continue to improve. The club would no longer need to rely on Evan's personal capital injection. The club would be self-sufficient and profitable.
There were two keys to the Champions League grouping. One was to determine the seeded teams to ensure that the strong teams would not meet prematurely. The other was that many people were well aware of but inconvenient to make public — artificially controlled the drawing of lots.
Was the drawing of lots fair? Not necessarily. The drawing of lots was also controlled by someone. This was first proposed for "political reasons", to avoid teams from politically strained countries being drawn into the same group. For example, the Soviet Union and Albania, Greece and Turkey. Later, political influence gradually faded, and artificial control became the main method to ensure box office and broadcast income.
Twain absolutely did not believe that it was a "coincidence" that Chelsea and Barcelona had met for three years in a row. Everyone liked to see the representative of artistic football, Barcelona, and the upstart Chelsea, who was in the limelight. The result of the draw also satisfied everyone's wish. Of course, the draw was not the draw for the group stage, but another draw after entering the knockout stage. Barcelona and Chelsea were drawn together for two consecutive times, and the third time, the two rival teams were directly placed in the same group.
This was the situation in Tang En's memory. In last season's Champions League, Chelsea eliminated Barcelona in two legs in the Round of 16 finals, and the two teams became enemies from then on. He could not remember the draw for this season's Champions League group stage. He could only sit here and wait quietly for the results to be produced.
The Champions League group stage was divided into eight groups, with the English letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H. Each group had a seeded team. The UEFA would divide the 32 teams into four groups. First, they would decide the seeded team for each group, and then draw four teams from each group according to the groups.
The seeded team in Group A was Serie A's "Old Lady" Juventus.
The seeded team in Group B was La Liga's powerhouse, Barcelona.
The seeded team in Group C was England's "Gunners" Arsenal.
The seeded team in Group D was La Liga's "Galácticos" Real Madrid, who had won the most Champions League titles.
The seeded team in Group E was Italy's powerhouse, AC Milan.
The seeded team in Group F was England's "Red Devils" Manchester United.
The seeded team in Group G was England's traditional powerhouse, Liverpool.
The seeded team in Group H was Italy's Milan — Inter Milan.
After the eight seeded teams in the group were determined, the other teams began to be drawn.
As the small balls were taken out of the glass tanks and opened, pieces of paper with the club's name were displayed in front of the television cameras, and then transmitted to the big screen in the stadium. There were constant sounds of exclamations, joy, and complaints.
Fate's hands fiddled with the small balls in the box, as well as the moods of all the coaches present.
Because the Forest team had broken into the Champions League for the first time in 24 years, no matter how glorious they had been 24 years ago, they could only be regarded as a fourth-tier team now. They would be the last to be drawn.
Mourinho's Chelsea was ranked as a second-tier team. When the person in charge of drawing the groups opened G, the next person pulled out a piece of paper with "Chelsea" written on it. For the first time, there was a large-scale uproar in the stadium.
In last season's Champions League, it was Liverpool who eliminated Chelsea in the semi-finals to break into the final and create that classic reversal. Unexpectedly, the two enemies met again today. Some whistled to gloat, while others watched the show with cold eyes. Mourinho's face was expressionless, while Benítez frowned.
Who could believe that the UEFA's draw was not manipulated?
At least, Mourinho and Benítez did not believe it now.
Tang En thought of what Mourinho had said to him before: "The chances of teams from the same country's league meeting in the same group are too small."
This was really a comedy. He also chuckled along with the others.
But Tang En's laughter did not last long. Soon, he also frowned.
The draw for the fourth-tier teams began. The first letter to be taken out was "D". Which unlucky bastard would be placed in the same group as Real Madrid, Benfica, and Lille, and become the target for them to steal points from?
The second person took out a small ball from the box, opened it, and took out a folded piece of paper. He glanced at it and flipped it to show it to the audience. At the same time, he announced the team's name:
"Nottingham Forest."
(To be continued. If you want to know what happened next, please log on to WWW. CMFU. com. More chapters. Support the author. Support original reading!)
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