Midfielder

Just like the reason why Mourinho chose to leave the game early, after the match between Chelsea and Monaco ended at 2:2, there was indeed no suspense.

Monaco, who beat their opponent 3:1 at home in the first round, did not make any more mistakes at Stamford Bridge. Although they fell behind twice, they also tied twice.

In fact, after Monaco scored the first goal, Chelsea was left to fight for honor, and it was basically impossible to advance to the final.

When the referee's whistle sounded, Stamford Bridge became a paradise for the French, and those French fans who came across the ocean cheered in celebration.

And Ranieri, the tragic old Italian man, could only leave Chelsea with a draw and an unfulfilled Champions League dream.

The Italian has tried his best. It is a miracle that he can lead a team that has been put together for less than a season to this point.

But the Russian tycoon and the tricky Peter Kenyon in the stands don't care about these, and will not pay attention to the fans' calls to keep Ranieri.

For them, Ranieri's work at Chelsea has ended. Failure to enter the Champions League final is the best reason for him to leave.

A coach left over from the Ken Bates era is finally going to unload his mission, which is not a bad thing for Abramovich.

Starting from next season, Chelsea's blue will be completely under the control of this Russian, including determining its final driver.

"I only need a winner." This was the last sentence Abramovich said to Peter Kenyon before leaving the VIP box.

Peter Kenyon knew very well what his boss wanted. The Champions League final has now become the examination room for Chelsea to select a head coach.

It's just that the two guys who are about to enter the examination room are still unclear about their future destinations, and they have been finalized by a Russian in one sentence.

However, Peter Kenyon seems to have forgotten one thing, that is, these two guys have not promised anything, including whether to come to coach.

This horror is not a problem that he can solve by spending a lot of money. Including Deschamps, Chelsea is not the only one who has set its sights on these two new coaches.

Juventus has already spread the word that it is ready to recruit Deschamps to return to Serie A, and the Frenchman seems to be more interested in this news.

After all, for a new coach, it is far more attractive to coach in a familiar environment than in an unfamiliar place.

And for a guy like Mourinho, many teams have also thrown their olive branches, and Chelsea's biggest attraction now is money.

It's just that the Chelsea team's butler is conceited and thinks that such a young coach will find it difficult to refuse the temptation of Chelsea's huge transfer funds.

After all, he can easily realize the idea of ​​building his own team, and Chelsea doesn't have so many championship titles on them.

Compared with those traditional giants, Chelsea has plenty of money and time to build its own super fleet, and the position of the navigator is very tempting.

Anyway, Peter Kenyon is not afraid that no one will respond to the check he waved in the air. Chelsea will definitely find a suitable helmsman in the summer.

The wrestling in the Champions League semi-finals has ended. The French and Portuguese have the last laugh. Aoqu Schalke in a month will belong to them.

Maybe Deschamps, like Mourinho, doesn't care who his next opponent is. For them, the only thing they care about is the final championship trophy.

The only difference may be that Deschamps has won too many honors when he was a player, from the World Cup to the European Championship, not to mention the club's honors. This guy is a banner of French football, but Mourinho is just a second-rate amateur player with mediocre results.

But the point that Mourinho is better than Deschamps is that he has lifted the UEFA Cup a year earlier. As a coach, he is one step ahead.

And the group of Porto people he led is now the object of pursuit by many media. This team's ability to control the situation on the field is too strong.

After the game with Deportivo La Coruna, someone once did a statistics. Porto rarely let the opponent's possession rate exceed 50% in the game.

Even Manchester United only barely reached the statistic of 50%. The rest of the time, Porto was firmly in control of the rhythm.

This is the terrifying part of these guys. They can use their skillful ball control to wear down the opponent's patience and penetrate into the opponent's defense line little by little.

As long as there is a gap in the opponent's defense line, they can catch it at the first time, and a pass can often make the opponent's goalkeeper collapse.

Porto and Monaco, two civilian teams, broke into the Champions League finals all the way. This is undoubtedly a strong irony for those traditional European giants who boast about how powerful they are, because the budgets of these two teams combined may not be as expensive as one of their stars.

For a player like Zidane, it is estimated that the annual budgets of Monaco and Porto would be added together to buy him from Real Madrid.

It was almost unimaginable at the beginning of this season that two European middleweight teams like Porto and Monaco could stop at the end and stage a peak showdown. Porto has only won the Champions League once in its history in 1987, and Monaco has reached the final of the event for the first time.

This is the first time since 1991 that the two teams participating in the final are not from the Spanish, Italian, English and German leagues.

Maybe Monaco is better than Porto. At any rate, it is also in Ligue 1, the last of the five major leagues, which is better than the Portuguese Super League.

In European football, they can be regarded as middleweight players at best. Compared with those traditional giants, they obviously lack some foundation.

When the Champions League group stage kicked off, the betting companies gave the same winning odds. Monaco's odds were 80 to 1, and Porto's odds were 40 to 1.

It can be said that in the eyes of gambling companies, they are just a group of foils who go to the Champions League to go through the motions. No one would have thought that they could reach the finals.

However, these two supporting roles in the eyes of others have overturned strong teams one after another, and this is indeed a European Champions Cup where dark horses are rampant.

But fans who bet on them before the game can now ask bookmakers to pay a sum of money. No matter who wins, they will be unlucky.

"The history of the European Champions Cup, after entering the 21st century, ushered in the rarest dark horse showdown in the entire history!"

This is how most of the media evaluated the two teams in the final. Two extremely dark horses. This is truly a final that can be written into the history of the Champions League.

A purely civilian war, now no one dares to easily predict who will win the final championship, because both teams are too dark.

There are more than one or two football experts who have been tricked by them. Porto and Monaco have already swollen the faces of many commentators with their facts.

"These are two teams full of lunatics. If you don't want to be slapped in the face again by the final result, it's best not to make this prediction easily."

No one is willing to take this risk again. All the forecasters interviewed are doing Tai Chi. No matter who wins, it is not surprising to them.

The Monaco team got through the obstacles of Real Madrid and Chelsea, while the Porto team also stepped on the bodies of Manchester United and Deportivo to enter the final. The hands of these two teams were stained. The blood of those traditional wealthy families is definitely not easy to mess with.

A month later, the trip to the Schalke Stadium will be a battlefield between Deschamps and Mourinho, where they will use the score to prove who is the strongest.

However, the war between the media of the two countries has already started from the moment the two teams entered the final. Everyone thinks that they are the final winner.

The French, who have always been self-deprecating, elegant and graceful, did not show politeness this time. They expressed their desire for the Champions League trophy very straightforwardly.

And they believe that Deschamps will definitely lead Monaco to win the final. When this guy was a player, he was the kind of person who rarely made mistakes.

He will never repeat the mistakes of Lyon and Marseille, and Morientes, who has been in crazy form recently, is also the most promising killer of these French people.

"There are always great players in important games, and Morientes is such a player. Without him, we would not have reached the final. He is definitely a world-class player and has scored many decisive goals. . With him around, other teammates can feel at ease.”

It can be seen that after Monaco eliminated Real Madrid, the most grateful thing was Florentino personally sending Morientes to Monaco.

Even though Monaco is very disappointed with Morientes' annual salary of 4 million euros, they have not erased the Spaniard's achievements.

Without the Spaniard's strong play, perhaps Monaco would have been eliminated by now. That guy is simply an angel.

And all French people believe that this magical guy will definitely continue his strong form in the final and kill the Portuguese.

However, the Portuguese media responded in a more direct way, "Can Ruud van Nistelrooy and Drogba fail to break down the defense, let you score?"

"After defeating Marseille and Lyon, Monaco will be the third French team to be defeated by Porto. We have never been afraid of the French."

Moreover, Monaco had lost to Lyon and Marseille in the league this season, which was an opportunity for ridicule by the Portuguese media.

"Your defense can't even stop Marseille and Lyon. Why are you so arrogant that you can stop Porto?"

Indeed, Porto's offense is not only sharp, their ability to instantly see through holes in the opponent's defense is too strong.

Especially the strong and stable midfield combination, whether playing as a single forward or as a double forward, they will set off a continuous wave of attacks.

The pair of beasts, Deco and Lin Yi, occupy the top two in assists in the Champions League respectively. They are the transportation lines that every striker longs for.

Moreover, the offensive abilities of McCarthy and Dallay are no worse than Morientes. Although the number of goals scored is not as many as their opponents, their effectiveness has always been stable.

They also have a young man like Alberto on the bench. The Brazilian boy's recent hot scoring form is also a threat to the French.

The most important thing is that Porto's players who can threaten the opponent's goal are not only the forwards, but their midfielder's scoring ability is also very strong.

Maniche's long shot, Alenichev's inward cut, Costinha's back-row insertion, and Deco's free kick are all Porto's trump cards.

But the most fatal thing is Lin Yi's ghostly breakthrough. Now even the French media are looking for a good way to kill that kid for Monaco.

But that was a madman that even Keane had never stopped. Except for Deportivo La Coruna who successfully knocked him down with a rough foul, no one else had done it.

"It's best not to expect to intercept him in a one-on-one way, because too many teams have suffered from this." This is the advice of the Lyon team.

Look at Diarra's depressed state after facing that kid, you can know that the kid not only destroys the defense line, but also destroys confidence.

Anyway, the players of the two teams are now privately ready for the decisive battle, and no one wants to lose this final.

"This is no longer just a decisive chess game between two coaches, but a duel between two teams who want to kill each other." This is the title of the article written by the media who sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight on their newspapers and magazines, but this time their mentality seems very relaxed.

Especially those newspapers and magazines that usually serve as the mouthpieces of traditional giants, this time, they can comment on everything about these two teams as bystanders.

But they may also feel a little bitter in their hearts. You know, this should have been their stage, but now, Monaco and Porto have wiped out the extravagant hopes of the fans and supporters of those giants with a black record. This is really a very bad feeling.

Compared with those emotional media, Mourinho and Deschamps seemed to be very frugal this time and did not show their edge in the interview.

However, even if these two guys are quiet, they will reveal the smell of gunpowder before the war in their words. One sentence each, but it is enough.

When talking about Porto's dangerous players, Deschamps told reporters, "They have players who can turn the game around with their personal skills at any time, such as Dallay and McCarthy, but the most dangerous ones are Lin Yi and Deco, but I think I can find a way to limit Deco and Lin Yi."

For Deschamps' words, Mourinho admitted that the opponent will definitely focus on his core defense, "Monaco's coach will definitely think of various ways to stop Lin Yi and Deco, but I have also found a way for them to play their full role."

Each person said a word, but the gunpowder smell was strong enough. The two young coaches would never let the final decisive battle become a performance stage for the other party.

Deschamps was very targeted. He was undoubtedly saying that if he wanted to defeat Porto, he had to completely kill Lin Yi and Deco, the two core players of Porto.

Want to trap that pair of beasts? There are already too many people who want to do this, but their final ending is to leave the court with a painful lesson.

And now it is still a question whether Lin Yi can play, which is what makes those French people worried, after all, that kid is really a big worry.

Especially those French football journalists, they have not forgotten that Marseille and Lyon were knocked to the ground by that kid when they were at home.

If that black-haired kid really missed the final due to a leg injury, they would definitely be very grateful to Deportivo La Coruna for everything they did.

However, Porto kept Lin Yi's injury a secret, and the Portuguese media even threw all kinds of smoke bombs, which made the French very melancholy.

Some media said that the kid might be injured this season, and some people said that Lin Yi had begun to resume normal training.

Such true and false news made the French dizzy, and they could no longer tell which news was true.

However, whether it can be confirmed whether Lin Yi will play in the game is indeed the information that Monaco needs most now. I am afraid that this is also what Deschamps wants to know most at this moment. After all, the tactical difference between Porto's single front midfielder and double front midfielder in the midfield is still a bit big.

Deschamps will not ignore the performance of the black-haired kid throughout the Champions League. He is definitely a very dangerous guy.

Now he is not the only one who thinks so. Too many critics have also set their sights on this black-haired kid, and most of them are expressing their appreciation.

Yes, after all, there are few idiots in the world who would question the vision of old men like Ferguson and Wenger. Even the people they are optimistic about, how could they be wrong?

"He is only sixteen years old. If he can continue to grow, as long as God does not want to destroy him, then his achievements will be terrible."

This is what Wenger said in an interview with the French media. As a Frenchman, he must stand on the side of the club of his motherland.

But at the same time, this wise old guy also reminded Deschamps and his Monaco team not to underestimate this kid who is still recovering from injury.

"My old opponent has proved it with the failure of two games. If you underestimate that little guy, you will pay a very painful price."

The professor is the professor. While raising Lin Yi's value, he did not forget to step on Manchester United. The grudge between these two old guys is indeed deep enough.

The decisive battle between the media is already burning, but the game will not come for another month, and both teams will continue to fight.

The competition between Monaco and Lyon for the French Ligue 1 title has not yet ended. In the next four rounds of the league, they will have to continue to scramble for points.

But Porto's life will be much easier. The league has already won the championship in advance, which gives them too much time to adjust the players' physical fitness and injuries.

Mourinho can now make large-scale rotations. The only game that can still be considered a tough battle is the cup final against Benfica.

Before that, Mourinho can at least give his main players about two weeks of adjustment time to recover their physical fitness.

The solid bench players can completely complete the league game tasks during this period, and winning or losing is not a big deal for Porto.

Da Costa has promised on the plane back home that all winning bonuses will be paid regardless of whether the next few rounds of games can be won.

The team is busy preparing for the game, and the little guy who is still in the hospital is also sweating profusely doing recovery training under the guidance of the doctor.

"This is my first Champions League final. I don't want to be absent when the feast is served. If that happens, I will definitely die."

The final, wow, what a dazzling stage it will be. . . Lin Yi doesn't want to be the one who misses this football feast. . .