Football's No. 1 Prodigal Son

After returning from the international match day, Manchester City started a double match for a week. After playing against Deportivo La Coruna, Manchester City welcomed the Premier League away game against Newcastle three days later. Although Newcastle's strength has declined, it is still an opponent that cannot be underestimated. Especially when the physical condition of Manchester City players is not very good now. This season, Newcastle introduced Nicky Butt, a member of the Class of 92, in the midfield, and their midfield strength has also been strengthened. And they also recruited Kluivert, and it seems that they want to do a big job. But ideals are full, and reality has given them a blow. Although they are doing OK in the League Cup, they have not been able to find their form in the league.

The biggest reason for this is Alan Shearer's aging.

As the greatest local striker in the Premier League, he is now 34 years old and no longer the same as before.

Injuries and age have slowed him down. His efficiency has dropped sharply in the Premier League this season, which has had a great impact on Newcastle.

Competitive sports have always been like this, passionate and cruel.

October 24, 2004, St. James Park.

In this game, Ronaldinho, who had rested for a game, returned and appeared in the team's starting lineup.

His partners were Wright Phillips, Robben and Torres.

Ronaldinho was in very good form in this game. Just five minutes into the game, he knocked on the opponent's door with a beautiful long shot.

In the 17th minute, he broke through the middle and sent a straight pass. Wright Phillips dribbled the ball to the bottom and passed it across the goal, assisting Torres to expand the score.

In less than 20 minutes, Manchester City took a 2-0 lead.

I thought this game would be a relatively easy one, but Kompany, who started the game, made a low-level mistake in the 27th minute.

His clearance was passed to Alan Shearer's feet. How could the English center miss such a good opportunity? He chose to shoot hard, and Cech was caught off guard and couldn't catch the ball at all.

1-2, Newcastle scored a goal.

Newcastle's morale was boosted after scoring a goal. They began to speed up the offensive rhythm and strive to equalize the score as soon as possible.

And their efforts paid off.

In the 37th minute, they equalized the score through a front-court set-piece, and Bart scored a header.

This goal made the fans in the stadium boil.

They all clamored, hoping that the home team could score the third goal quickly and reverse the score!

But Manchester City is not a weak chicken. Newcastle usually doesn't end well when they attack them.

Sure enough, at the end of the first half, Manchester City played a beautiful counterattack.

Ronaldinho dribbled the ball from the midfield and quickly left Bart behind.

Then he passed the ball to Robben, who cut into the penalty area with the ball and passed it to Ronaldinho. Ronaldinho chose to push the ball near the penalty area line, and the football went into the lower left corner of the goal along the grass!

3 to 2, Manchester City surpassed again!

In the second half of the game, Newcastle's defense line, which was eager to equalize the score, also frequently appeared.

Ronaldinho naturally would not miss this opportunity. He turned the tide in Newcastle's frontcourt. In addition to sending a straight pass to help Ronaldo, who came on as a substitute, score, he also completed a hat trick with a penalty kick he created in the 71st minute.

Since then, Manchester City has been far ahead with 5 to 2, almost locking the victory.

Newcastle only scored one goal at the last minute, and the final score was fixed at 3-5, and Newcastle, who played at home, lost.

This game was played thoroughly, and many spectators were very excited, but the focus of this round of games was not on this game, but on Manchester United vs. Arsenal, which started an hour later.

Before this, Arsenal had completed the feat of 49 consecutive unbeaten games, which is unique in the entire history of the Premier League.

Although Manchester United's record this season is average, the magic of Old Trafford makes any team that comes here as a guest terrified.

Yang Luo naturally would not miss this good show, so he sneaked into Old Trafford again and became an ordinary fan.

Of course, this time he brought Fiona with him.

In his memory, this game was really a moth

A game with frequent mistakes.

Especially when he knew before the game that the referee of this game would still be Michael Riley.

In Yang Luo's career of watching football, he only remembered a few representative games of certain referees, Moreno in the 2002 World Cup between South Korea and Italy, Henning in the 2009 Stamford Bridge tragedy, and Michael Riley in this game.

Of course, he is not qualified to be compared with the first two.

After the game started, it was relatively normal at the beginning. Except for Phil Neville's bad hand to Reyes, there was no problem with the others.

But in the 18th minute of the game, Ljungberg was knocked down by Ferdinand from the side and back when he was about to form a single knife, but the referee did not say anything.

Fiona in the stands couldn't help but whisper to Yang Luo: "This should be a red card!"

Yang Luo carefully looked at the red sea around him and whispered: "This is Old Trafford!"

After a while, Reyes got the ball in the frontcourt. Just when he passed Gary Neville and was about to break through with the ball, he was tackled from behind by Gary Neville!

This was quite cruel, but Riley still only blew an ordinary foul and didn't even give a yellow card.

Fiona frowned: "This referee... is a bit biased."

Yang Luo patted her hand and agreed with her.

A few minutes later, Van Nistelrooy stepped on Ashley Cole's instep again when he was grabbing the ball!

But the referee still didn't say anything.

Looking at the furious Wenger and the angry Arsenal players, Yang Luo sighed and whispered: "Arsenal is in danger in this game."

At the end of the first half, the two sides tied 0-0.

After the second half, Arsenal had the upper hand and had more chances than Manchester United.

Fiona whispered, "Come on, Arsenal!"

Anyway, she used Chinese, and the Manchester United fans around her couldn't understand.

Yang Luo was calm, because the trend was almost the same as he remembered.

Sure enough, in the 72nd minute of the game, Rooney got the ball in the penalty area. Facing Campbell's defense, he made an extremely exaggerated fall, and the referee Michael Riley did not hesitate to award a penalty!

The Arsenal players were not happy with this and surrounded the referee to ask for an explanation.

But Riley didn't care about their protests at all and insisted on awarding a penalty.

Anyway, there is no VAR now, he is the biggest authority!

After calming down the commotion, Van Nistelrooy took the penalty.

He made it in one fell swoop, turning the score on the field to one to zero.

Yang Luo in the stands sighed: "Arsenal's unbeaten record is about to be interrupted!"