Football King Bale

After playing the league game against Bolton, Manchester United returned to Manchester and quickly flew to Portugal. They will usher in the first match of the UEFA Champions League group stage of the new season on Wednesday night, challenging their first opponent away from home and the strongest opponent in the group, Benfica, the other giant in the Portuguese Super League besides Porto.

Benfica Club has achieved brilliant results in the past century. It has the largest number of fans in Portugal and the largest number of members in the Portuguese Super League. There are "Benfica Houses" in almost all cities in Portugal and has fans all over the world. In 2006 On November 10, 2019, Benfica was confirmed as the club with the most paying members in the world with 160,392 paying members, and was also selected into the Guinness World Records!

This Portuguese Super League giant also performed very well in the Champions League. As the second club in history to win the European Champions Cup, Benfica has reached the Champions League finals seven times after Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Bayern Munich. The super giants are on par with the two giants, Liverpool and Barcelona, ​​and even twice more than the Red Devils, Manchester United, who have dominated Europe in the past five years.

However, Benfica's glory in the Champions League is from an older era in the history of the Champions League. They have entered the Champions League finals seven times, five of which were in the 1960s, and the most recent one was 21 years ago in 1990.

When time entered the information age where economic strength has an increasingly critical impact on football, Benfica inevitably declined in the Champions League due to the weak overall strength of the Portuguese League, just like the once glorious Dutch League.

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This game is the 8th main match between the two clubs. Previously, Manchester United had an absolute advantage with 6 wins and 1 loss, scoring 19 goals and conceding 8 goals. The only defeat occurred in the 2005-2006 season, when the Red Devils played away from home. After being reversed at 1:2, they were eliminated at the bottom of the group. However, Manchester United, who visited the Stadium of Light again a year later, succeeded in revenge and won their first away victory in the Champions League in the past three years. The Red Devils have won 6 of the last 7 times they faced clubs from Portugal. 1 draw and no defeat. Of course, Benfica has won 9 of the last 10 European home games, and has only lost one of the last 7 home games against English clubs.

In this campaign, Ferdinand did not travel with the team and stayed in Manchester to avoid the battle together with Vidic, Rafael and Cleverley, who injured his ankle ligament last week.

Because the weekend is a league match with the Blues Chelsea, in this game, Ferguson made a significant rotation of the starting lineup. Compared with the five-goal victory over Bolton in the league last weekend, only Evans, Evra and Rooney were retained. Lin Degard, Fletcher, and Valencia all made their first appearances this season, while Giggs and Park Ji-sung received their first starting opportunities. The absolute main players of the team, including Bell, Nani, and Ashley Young, all Sitting on the bench; for Benfica, the Paraguayan forward who scored 8 goals in the last 7 club and national team games served as the single arrow, clown Aimar also started, and Saviola sat on the bench at the start.

At the beginning of the first half, the game started at a high pace with fast attack and defense transitions. Both sides went back and forth, fighting each other, and both got a lot of shooting opportunities. However, due to various reasons, both sides failed to seize the opportunity to score.

When the game reached the 24th minute, Benfica, who was still playing at home, took the lead to break the deadlock. Gaitan passed the ball, Cardoso took the ball and passed Evans, hitting the left corner of the goal with his right foot from 16 meters in the penalty area. Cardoso has scored 7 goals in the last 5 games against Premier League teams. This season He has scored 8 goals in 8 games for the club and the national team. Manchester United has conceded a goal for the first time in the past 7 Champions League away games.

Manchester United, which was lagging behind, immediately stepped up its attack.

Benfica was at a loss in front of the stronger Red Devils, and the situation was very embarrassing. But after resisting for nearly twenty minutes, the home team's city gate was still declared to have been lost.

In the 42nd minute, Giggs received a pass from Valencia and dribbled the ball from the right to the arc of the penalty area in the middle and shot with his left foot to equalize the score. Giggs, who continued to set the record for the oldest scorer in the Champions League, contributed 160 goals for Manchester United in the game. indivual.

After equalizing the score, Manchester United's morale increased greatly and they continued to besiege Benfica's goal. However, the remaining time was limited, and in the end the two sides could only enter the halftime break with a 1:1 draw.

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After the start of the second half, Manchester United, playing away from home, took the lead. Valencia made a breakthrough pass on the right side, and the ball passed in front of the goal. Rooney was interfered with the outflank and was unable to kick off.

Subsequently, the game reached a deadlock again. Although both sides were trying their best to score goals, they were unable to score.

Seeing that the game was about to enter the 70th minute, Ferguson could not sit still and began to make substitutions.

Sir Alex Ferguson's adjustment was very radical. He played all three cards in his hand at once, replacing Giggs with Bale, Nani replacing Valencia, and Hernandez replacing Fletcher changed the team's formation from the 4231 since the opening back to the traditional 442 formation, with Bell and Park Ji-sung partnering in the middle of the midfield.

Manchester United, who replaced three sharp knives, quickly took control of the situation on the field and once again completely suppressed Benfica. Although reluctant, the gap in strength forced Benfica into a comprehensive defense.

But even so, they couldn't hold on.

In the 77th minute, Bell passed the ball to the right from the midfielder. Nani took the ball and cut inside, forcing the Benfica defender to foul. Manchester United received a free kick 22 meters from the right. Bell once again showed his versatility in free kicks. He fired a full-moon scimitar with an almost perfect arc with his left foot. The ball hit the top corner of the far post. Although Arthur fought hard to save, he was unable to prevent the ball from entering the net.

2:1, Manchester United reversed the score!

At the last moment of the game, although Benfica launched a wave of offensive and even threatened Manchester United's goal, especially in the 87th minute, Nani failed to defend and tackle, and Nolito got a chance to hit the goal in the small penalty area, but they failed to equalize in the end. score.

In the end, with Giggs' goal and Bell's direct free kick, Manchester United won 2:1 in the away game, which can be regarded as revenge for six years ago.

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Manchester United's game is already the second match day of the first round of the group stage. After the game, the first round of the group stage is completely over.

Since the start of the major European leagues in the new season, the wealthy teams have always given people an unstoppable impression, constantly beating their opponents with big scores in their respective leagues. However, in the Champions League group stage, this momentum came to an abrupt end. Not to mention winning by a big score, even "economic victory" has become rare.

In fact, in the first round of the group stage, the only top teams that won 16 games were Manchester United, Chelsea, Bayern and Real Madrid, while Barcelona, ​​AC Milan, Dortmund, Arsenal, Manchester City, Benfica, and Ajax A high-profile team like Lyon could only score 1 point. Inter Milan even lost at home to Trabzonspor, who was shortlisted for the Champions League for the first time as substitute Fenerbahce, creating the first major upset in the Champions League in the new season. Unpopular.

Of course, the hard-to-win result for the giants is also related to this season's Champions League schedule. There were more dialogues between the top teams in the first game, so the game was naturally difficult to resolve.

It’s hard to win, let alone score. Manchester City scored 15 goals in 4 rounds of the Premier League in the new season, but in the first round of the Champions League, they only drew 1:1 with Naples (who scored 3 goals in the first round of Serie A); Manchester United scored 23 goals in 4 rounds of the Premier League, and the first round of the Champions League was only 2:1. Reversal of Benfica; Ajax scored 18 goals in 5 games in the Eredivisie in the new season, but had a goalless draw with Lyon in the first round of the Champions League; Real Madrid scored 10 goals in 2 games in La Liga in the new season, but could only beat Zagreb 1:0 in the Champions League group stage Budinamo...

In comparison, Bayern, which scored 15 goals in the previous three rounds of the Bundesliga, defeated Villarreal 2:0 in the first round of the Champions League, and Barcelona, ​​which scored 7 goals in the first two rounds of La Liga, tied with AC Milan 2:2. Continued firepower.

The giant teams with heavy weapons stalled, and goals in the Champions League have certainly become scarce. After 16 games, there were only 33 goals in total, which is a huge difference compared to the 45 goals in the first round of the Champions League last season.

Only 9 of the 16 games in this round have a winner, and among the games that have a winner, only 4 have won at home, while 5 teams have won away from home.

It is worth mentioning that the winning teams in this round are from Greece, Portugal, France, England, Germany, Turkey, Switzerland and Spain. Except for England, no league can win more than two games. It can be said that this is also the case. A rare balance of power. Of course, this also confirms the strength of the English team on the other hand.

Of course, there are still slight differences between the five major leagues. The Premier League team has the best results with 2 wins and 2 draws, followed by Ligue 1 with 1 win and 2 draws, La Liga with 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss, and the Bundesliga with 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss. Serie A has the worst results with 2 draws and 1 loss.

AC Milan's away draw with Barcelona and Naples' away draw with Manchester City are good, but Inter Milan's home loss to Trabzonspor is a big letdown.

You know, Inter Milan has not only lost all official games since the start of the new season, but the loss to Trabzon also created a series of history - this is the first time a Turkish team has won from the Apennine Peninsula in the Champions League. Trabzonspor participated in the Champions League for the first time and got off to a good start.

AC Milan played away to Barcelona, ​​and Pato became the focus. His goal 24 seconds into the game was the fifth fastest goal in the history of the Champions League, second only to Mackay's 10.2 seconds, Gilberto Silva's 20.07 seconds, Del Piero's 20.12 seconds and Seedorf's 21.06 seconds.

In addition, this was the fastest goal in the history of the Nou Camp. Pato recorded himself in the history of the Nou Camp with a lightning goal.

Pato is the fastest, Giggs is the oldest. Manchester United played against Benfica away from home. Giggs equalized the score for the Red Devils in the 42nd minute. He also raised his own record for the oldest goalscorer in the Champions League to 37 years and 289 days. The only one who wants to surpass Giggs seems to be Giggs himself.

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