Young Football Player

Dundee United eliminated the Paks village team from Hungary and successfully advanced to the Europa League qualifying play-offs this season.

According to the previous draw, Dundee United's opponent is the loser between the Chinese-Portuguese Super Benfica and the Turkish Super Trabzonspor in the third round of the Champions League qualifying round.

To be honest, this lottery is not a good one. Both teams are participating in the Champions League level, so no one is easy to mess with.

Especially Benfica, who are almost capable of reaching the knockout rounds in the Champions League every year. Even if they fall to the Europa League, they are at the level of a strong contender for the championship. Last season, Benfica reached the semi-finals of the Europa League. Lost to the same league opponent.

Even the Turkish team Trabzonspor was second in the Turkish Super League last season and is absolutely strong.

In fact, after Dundee United won a 4-0 victory in the first round, the Scottish media were considering opponents for the play-offs for Dundee United.

The media agreed that if Benfica loses in an upset, then Dundee United is basically cold. If Trabzonspor falls, Dundee United still has a chance, but the chance is definitely smaller than the other side.

In fact, Li Chenglong still agrees with this statement, mainly because the current problems in the Dundee United team have not been resolved.

If Dundee United can deal with the problems of team integration after the personnel change, then Li Chenglong feels that even if they meet Benfica, Dundee United can still wrestle with the opponent, but now the team is still in pain. Well, even Trabzonspor can't do it.

The UEFA Champions League matches are held earlier than the Europa League, so when Dundee United went to Hungary to play, the third round of the UEFA Champions League qualifying round was all over.

The stronger Benfica easily eliminated Trabzonspor with a score of 3:1, so Dundee United's opponent in the qualifying play-off is the Turkish team.

It is worth mentioning that Rangers, the only UEFA Champions League team in the Scottish Super League this season, lost 1:2 to the Swedish team Malmö in the third round of the UEFA Champions League qualifying round, and also dropped out to participate in the Europa League. Playoffs.

Therefore, there are currently three teams in the Scottish Premier League participating in the Europa League play-offs. According to the previous draw, Dundee United played against Trabzonspor in the Turkish League, Celtic played against Sion in the Swiss League, and Glasgow Rangers played against Maribor in the Slovenian League.

Among the three matchups, Dundee United is at a small disadvantage, while Rangers is in a 50-50 situation. After all, they are facing the dominant team in the Slovenian League, and Celtic is the only matchup with an advantage.

"As long as one of Rangers and Dundee United can qualify for the UEFA Europa League without the Celtics qualifying without accident, it should not be a big problem for the Scottish Super League to keep two Champions League places. "The Scottish media is calculating the European rankings again.

Last season, thanks to the efforts of the Rangers, the Scottish League barely overwhelmed the Swiss League, so that this season's Scottish Super League champions and runners-up can participate in the Champions League next season. Going over, then starting next season, the Soviet Super League will become only the champion to qualify for the Champions League.

And coincidentally, the Celtics actually met the Swiss team Sion directly in the playoffs, so the Celtics defeated the opponent not only to advance themselves, but also to allow one less team from the Swiss League to enter the European competition.

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After going to Hungary to play an away game, Dundee United had to rush back to Scotland non-stop to participate in the weekend league.

For now, the Europa League does not receive much attention. Many teams come to the Europa League to go through the motions. Among them, the Premier League teams and Serie A teams are more typical.

However, the Italians are the most poisonous. They only pay more attention to the Europa League when it is called the "Little World Cup". An ugly name of the game has been carried forward-the Loser's Cup.

As early as the era of the three major cup competitions, Beckenbauer said that the Europa League is the losers' cup, but at that time Beckenbauer said this on the premise that the domestic league champions would go to the Champions League, and the cup winners would go to the Champions League. Participate in the Cup Winners' Cup, and only the losers of the second and third places in the league will go to the Europa League.

However, this title was not carried forward in the early days. After all, there were few places in the European war in that era, and every European championship had a high gold content.

Later, after the restructuring of the European competition, the European competition quota was no longer so strict, and the gold content of the Europa League also dropped seriously. At this time, the Serie A team not only did not pay attention to the Europa League, but also found a good reason, because it was a failure. The winner cup.

The third place in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League will fall to participate in the Europa League knockout round, which means that they will no longer be able to participate in the most watched UEFA Champions League knockout round. What is that but a loser?

The loser's cup is naturally the loser's cup.

Of course, the Europa League is not popular, which is caused by a combination of various reasons, and one of the bigger ones is that games are played every Thursday.

Champions League games are scheduled on Tuesday or Wednesday nights, but all Europa League games are scheduled on Thursdays, which will make participating teams very rushed.

It was only on Thursday night that we played an away game in a distant foreign country, and we had to rush back to China non-stop to participate in the league on Saturday or Sunday. Not only did the team have no time to prepare for the league, but it was also very easy for Lauto to travel around. affect the state of the team.

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On Saturday, August 6th, the third round of the Scottish Premier League and two days after the Europa League match, Dundee United welcomed St. Mirren's challenge at home.

The Dundee United Club originally thought that Hungary's away game was just a formality and would not waste too much energy, so they did not apply for a postponement of the game until Sunday. There may be more games to be postponed to Sunday.

But after a lap in Hungary, the team's state was still affected.

Facing St. Mirren, a professional relegation player whose strength has not improved much at home, Dundee United has been unable to open the situation.

And in this game, Peter Houston promoted someone from the youth team to adjust the lineup. On the front line, the youth team forwards Ryan Dang and Joan Daly partnered to start, and the starting right back also became the newcomer Keith promoted by the youth team. ·Watson, the team cooperation has also been affected to a certain extent.

This is the case with a small team like Dundee United. The transfer is stuck every season. In most cases, the head coach and important people go to the youth team to pick and choose. If there is a suitable one, you use it. That can't be helped.

In the first half, the two teams scored a goalless draw. Ryan Dang, who was promoted from the youth team, did not necessarily perform better than Russell. Vardy was replaced at halftime.

Peter Houston doesn't seem to trust a striker from a regional league, and has always been quite cautious about using Vardy.

But Keith Watson was not satisfactory, at least he didn't make any mistakes in the whole first half, but Lee Chenglong didn't get much help from the full-back.

In the 64th minute, Conway made a free kick in the frontcourt. The position was good, but it was a bit too close to the penalty area line.

In such a position, Li Chenglong pulled out a standard large arc and spun the ball into the upper right corner of the goal.

"Bruce Lee scored another brilliant free-kick to help Dundee United break the deadlock."

"Since the start of the new season, the overall state of Dundee United is not very good, but fortunately, Li is in very good state. He has used consecutive goals and assists to push the team forward."

Jackie Chan's goal helped the team break the deadlock, and also caused St. Mirren's defense to be disintegrated. So in the 79th minute, Joan Daly received a pass from Moon Brother to make another victory, helping Dundee United to seal the victory.

In the end, Dundee United won St. Mirren 2:0 at home, avoiding a home rollover.