Chapter 328 International Champions Cup, Manchester City Massacred AC Milan with 72!
The fact that Manchester City spent 10 million euros to take away a young defender from the Scottish Premiership did not attract much attention from the outside world.
After all, Manchester City used to spend tens of millions of euros to buy people, and it only cost 10 million euros to buy Van Dijk. In the eyes of reporters, this amount is too small.
How strong can a defender at this price be?
Compared to Van Dijk, they are still more concerned about the transfer of big-name stars in the Manchester City team.
However, as Lin Quan, Kroos and De Bruyne appeared on Manchester City's training ground one after another, the transfer rumors rumored by the outside world suddenly collapsed.
If these stars really want to transfer, they will not return to Manchester City for pre-season training.
After a short training camp, Manchester City set off non-stop to the United States to participate in the International Champions Cup.
The International Champions Cup is a commercial event held since 2009. Although it has a great name, it is a warm-up competition.
However, because most of the invited teams are wealthy teams, the participating teams will also receive a large amount of profits.
Therefore, in most cases, the teams that are invited will not refuse. After all, they can not only make money, but also take the opportunity to complete the warm-up training before the season. Why not do this kind of thing that kills two birds with one stone?
After being held for five consecutive years, the International Champions Cup has become more and more influential, and more and more TV stations are willing to purchase broadcast rights.
In particular, almost all of the eight participating teams this year are European giants, and there are no regional leagues participating to make up the numbers like before.
The eight participating teams are: Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Roma, Real Madrid and Olympiacos.
Except for Olympiacos, almost all other teams are wealthy.
Maybe Manchester City and Roma are slightly worse, but they are still at the quasi-rich level.
This allowed this year's game to attract a large number of fans to watch the game. The organizers have just started to pre-sale tickets, and the tickets for each game were immediately snapped up by enthusiastic fans.
Among them, the match between Real Madrid and Manchester City attracts the most attention.
After all, these two teams are the only ones with superstars.
The organizers also understand the market very well and specially scheduled the final to be held at the University of Michigan Stadium.
This stadium is large and can accommodate more than 100,000 people.
If it ends up being a final between Real Madrid and Manchester City, then the organizers will be able to make a fortune just by selling tickets!
According to the competition system, the eight participating teams are first divided into two groups. The top two teams in the group advance to the semi-finals, and the winner of the semi-finals advances to the finals.
As the two most popular teams in this competition, Real Madrid and Manchester City are divided into two different groups.
In the group where Manchester City is located, apart from Manchester City, the remaining three teams are: Liverpool, Olympiacos and AC Milan.
The four teams in Real Madrid's group are Real Madrid, Manchester United, Inter Milan and Roma.
In comparison, Real Madrid's team strength is more even.
Especially Manchester United, which has made crazy signings in the summer, has every chance to overthrow Real Madrid and grab the first place in the group.
As for the two Serie A teams, Inter Milan and Roma, due to the decline of Serie A, the outside world is not very optimistic about them.
As for the qualifying results of Manchester City's group, Manchester City will definitely qualify steadily, and Olympiacos, the weakest team, will most likely be eliminated.
As for who can advance between Liverpool and AC Milan, it depends on their performance against each other.
As the new Premier League and Champions League champions, Manchester City was scheduled for the opening game.
Their opponent is Serie A giant AC Milan.
Because it was a warm-up match, both sides arranged for many substitutes to come on.
The main players of the two teams sat on the bench, chatting and laughing while watching the substitutes work hard on the court.
In a warm-up match of this nature, there is no need to use all the main players right from the start.
Because there is no limit on substitutions for both sides, there is no limit on the number of people on the bench.
As long as you are willing, you can replace all 11 people on the field in one go.
But even with the substitute lineup, there is still a strength gap between the two teams' substitutes.
After the start, Manchester City played very proactively.
Only 11 minutes into the game, Jovetic took the lead in scoring.
2 minutes later, Sinclair scored another goal, Manchester City 2:0 AC Milan.
Although it was only a warm-up match, the team fell behind by two goals in the first 13 minutes, which made AC Milan's head coach Inzaghi a little worried.
Inzaghi began to stand up and shouted to the players on the field, asking them to play more proactively and proactively.
However, his shouting not only had no effect, but also made the players a little overwhelmed.
In the 23rd minute, Navas scored another goal and Manchester City expanded its lead to 3 goals.
4 minutes later, Manchester City once again expanded the score, and the score on the field had become 4:0.
Not to mention, in the 32nd minute, Jovetic scored another goal, Manchester City 5:0 AC Milan.
Seeing that the team was about to suffer a tragedy, Inzaghi couldn't sit still.
He replaced four main players in one go in an attempt to reverse the situation.
However, the effect of this substitution was not good. Center back Van Dijk and goalkeeper Navas, who played for Manchester City for the first time, performed well in this game and resolved AC Milan's offense many times.
Especially Navas, his divine save made AC Milan players almost doubt their life.
Fortunately, Muntari successfully pulled a goal back in the 42nd minute, allowing AC Milan to save a little face.
But after the start of the second half, Manchester City also began to make substitutions.
David Silva, Cross, Aguero and De Bruyne and other main players began to appear one after another.
After these people came on the field, the situation on the field immediately changed drastically. From AC Milan besieging Manchester City before, it became Manchester City besieging AC Milan.
AC Milan immediately made personnel adjustments. Inzaghi once again replaced four main players. At this time, AC Milan on the field had almost the entire main lineup.
As for Manchester City, at least half of the main players are still sitting on the bench!
The fans who came to the scene saw more and more stars playing, and the games became more and more exciting.
Everyone's emotions were aroused, and the cheers and cheers began to become enthusiastic.
However, the atmosphere at the scene has not yet reached its peak, because more than 50,000 fans are looking forward to the appearance of that man!
"Change to Emperor Lin!"
"Let Huang Lin come on!"
"We want to see Emperor Lin!"
Seeing that the 70th minute of the game was approaching, Manchester City still refused to let Lin Quan appear, and the fans at the scene were unhappy.
They began to shout Lin Quan's name at the top of their lungs to put pressure on the tournament organizers and the Manchester City coaching staff.
The team took a big lead and completely suppressed AC Milan on the field.
This made Manchester City coach Pellegrini feel very happy. After hearing the shouts of the fans, he turned his head to the side with a smile and asked:
"Lin, do you want to go out and warm up?"
Lin Quan nodded. Although the overall situation of the game has been decided, as a fanatic, he always takes good care of his fans.
So, in the 75th minute, Lin Quan was replaced.
Seeing Lin Quan finally appear on the stage, the fans at the scene gave a warm cheer.
"Forest!"
"Forest!"
More than 50,000 fans in the audience chanted Lin Quan's name uniformly. This movement felt like they were welcoming their football emperor!
The fans were so supportive that Lin Quan couldn't help but express his feelings.
After he came on the field, he scored directly with a free kick, helping the team further expand the score.
At the last moment of the game, Lin Quan received the ball from the wing and avoided the interceptions of many AC Milan defensive players.
He almost reviewed AC Milan's entire back line, then broke into the penalty area and calmly completed the goal!
This goal completely set off the audience, and the fans were all impressed by Lin Quan's wonderful performance!
In the end, Manchester City bloodbathed AC Milan with a score of 7:2 in the opening game.
Although it was a warm-up match, the point difference was still too outrageous.
During the handshake session after the game, AC Milan's new coach Inzaghi looked ugly when shaking hands with Pellegrini.
His predecessor Seedorf was fired by AC Milan because of his poor performance in leading the team. He had just taken office when such a tragedy happened.
This makes Inzaghi feel a little pessimistic about his coaching prospects in AC Milan!
This Milan is so different from the Milan when I was playing!
The Milan duo are all unlucky together!
Manchester City had just beaten AC Milan, and on the other side, Inter Milan also fell at the feet of Real Madrid.
However, compared to AC Milan's fragile defeat, Inter Milan fought until the last minute. Unfortunately, they were unlucky and fell in the penalty shootout.
There are no draws in the International Cup. After a tie, it will enter a penalty shootout.
In other games, Manchester United defeated Roma 3:2 and Liverpool defeated Olympiacos 1:0.
The Premier League team has won all three games and remains unbeaten.
The Serie A teams lost all three games, showing their decline.
This makes Serie A fans watching the game extremely sad, especially those old fans who have experienced the most glorious era of Serie A:
Alas, it seems that Serie A is really in decline!
The grand occasion of the Little World Cup no longer exists!
After three days of rest, the second round of competition began soon.
In this round, Manchester City ushered in a Premier League civil war. Their opponent was the Red Army Liverpool.
There was a lot of grievances between the two teams, so the game was full of tension from the beginning.
In order to win this game, Pellegrini arranged a semi-main lineup.
Van Dijk and Navas continued to start, and players such as Milner, Fernandinho, Kolarov, Jovetic, and Aguero also played.
The situation on Liverpool's side is similar, neither side wants to lose.
The game was very tense, with neither side scoring a goal in the first half.
Jovetic took the lead in the 53rd minute of the second half and finally broke the deadlock.
However, Manchester City's lead could not last long. In the 57th minute, Henderson's goal helped Liverpool equalize the score.
Subsequently, the two teams began to make substitutions.
In less than ten minutes, all the players on the field were replaced by the main lineups of both sides.
However, on Manchester City's side, Van Dijk was still left on the field by Pellegrini.
The Chilean engineers seemed to have high hopes for this young man and did not hesitate to use such pressure exercises to accelerate his growth.
"Is this really good? If he makes a mistake during the game and we lose, it may greatly damage his confidence!"
The assistant coach said with some worry that he felt that Van Dyke should not be put under such pressure so early.
"It doesn't matter, it's just a warm-up match. If you can't withstand the pressure of this kind of game, will you be able to withstand it in the league and the Champions League?"
Pellegrini explained while staring at Van Dijk, wanting to see what kind of surprise he could bring to him.
Unlike goalkeeper Navas, Van Dijk has not played in the five major leagues before.
The intensity of this game has undoubtedly reached or even exceeded the intensity of the five major leagues.
Moreover, all the teammates around him are main players, and he is the only one who is a substitute, and he is still a newcomer who has just joined the team.
This made Van Dyke feel a lot of pressure and quite nervous.
But he is not the kind of person who is timid!
In the face of huge pressure, Van Dijk's performance not only did not decline, but actually played better and better.
In several defenses, he not only froze Sturridge, but also froze Balotelli.
Although Balotelli's head is not normal, he is world-class from the head down.
With his strong physical fitness, ordinary defenders may not be able to handle it.
But in front of Van Dijk, Balotelli did not take any advantage and was guarded to death!
Seeing Van Dijk's solid performance, Manchester City's coaching staff breathed a sigh of relief.
On the other side, Liverpool head coach Rodgers was confused.
Where did Manchester City's big defender come from?
Why doesn't he have any impression?
After asking the assistant about it, I found out that Manchester City had just bought it from the Celtics not long ago.
And it only cost 10 million euros!
Can 10 million euros buy a defender of this level?
In Rogers' heart, there were ten thousand grass-mud horses galloping past!
Why can’t such a good thing happen to us, Liverpool?
If he had known earlier that the Celtics had such an excellent defender, let alone 10 million euros, he would have grabbed it even if it was 15 million or even 20 million euros!
There are really fewer and fewer good defenders nowadays, and they are getting more and more expensive!
It's all the fault of that idiot from Paris Saint-Germain. Each of the three defenders he bought was more expensive than the last, which directly raised the value of defenders in the transfer market!
After the defense withstood the opponent's offensive pressure, Manchester City's powerful midfield and frontcourt began to show off!
Under the successive attacks of Lin Quan, Aguero, De Bruyne and others, Liverpool's defense collapsed.
In the 67th minute, Lin Quan scored and helped the team regain the lead.
Eight minutes later, Aguero received another goal from De Bruyne's through ball, and Manchester City sealed the victory.
At the last moment of the game, Liverpool tried to launch a counterattack, but was quickly counterattacked by Manchester City. Lin Quan assisted David Silva and scored another goal, setting the score at 4:1.
In two consecutive games, Manchester City scored big wins, allowing them to qualify from the group one round ahead of schedule.
And with 11 goals scored in two games, this terrifying offensive firepower also made other participating teams feel terrified!
Manchester City's strength has not declined at all, but has become stronger!