Blackburn Rovers will host Juventus in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals on 23 April. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

For Blackburn, it was undoubtedly a "battle of life and death".

Blackburn, who participated in the Champions League for the first time in recent seasons, performed amazingly, after a strong breakthrough in the first stage of the Champions League group stage, the second round of the group stage only got one point in the first two rounds, with two wins over the Bundesliga powerhouse Bayer Leverkusen and the reversal of the strong rival Inter Milan, won three consecutive wins, and in the last group stage, and Barcelona has already locked the group in advance 0:0 to draw hands, beating Inter Milan to successfully qualify.

However, in the quarter-finals, Blackburn's opponent is the Serie A giants. Facing the opponent in the same group in the first stage of the group stage, Blackburn Rovers struggled away in the quarter-finals, not only did the players on the field show their immature side, Mourinho was also slow to deal with the old and spicy Lippi, and finally suffered a 0:2 defeat away.

Blackburn have won three consecutive Premier League games after beating Fulham 3-0 last weekend, and are now four points clear of their chasers Manchester United, and there are already experts discussing Blackburn's prospects of winning the Premier League title this season and when they will defend their title as soon as possible.

However, the league is in a Champions League dilemma, and Blackburn's situation in the Champions League is quite not optimistic. Next week's game against Juventus, who have maintained a strong momentum on all fronts, coach Jose Mourinho was full of confidence, speaking strongly to the media: "We want to reverse the previous decline with a good performance." ”

A 1-0 win in the quarter-finals against Juventus was not enough for Blackburn, with only a score of 2-0 or more to continue their Champions League campaign this season.

Jose Mourinho also said that attacking is the only way out.

The former England legend Lineker also shouted to Mourinho, "If you don't play Juventus with the strongest team, then you might as well stay at home!" ”

Why does Lineker put a lot of emphasis on the strongest lineup?

Because before the second leg of the quarter-final against Juventus, Blackburn will have the most terrifying schedule.

The second leg of the quarter-finals between Blackburn Rovers and Juventus is on April 23.

Prior to this match, on April 19, Blackburn Rovers faced Manchester United, who were only four points away from them, in the round of 34 of the Premier League.

To add insult to injury, on April 21, the 35th round of the Premier League will arrive as scheduled, and Blackburn will travel to challenge Bolton Wanderers away.

Three races in five days!

The match against Juventus will determine the fate of Blackburn's Champions League this season.

Matches against Manchester United and Bolton Wanderers will affect whether Blackburn can successfully defend their title.

……

"Arthur, what do you think?" In the chairman's office, there were only two people, Arthur and Jose Mourinho, both frowning, and the conversation between the two was about Blackburn's plan for three matches in five days in the coming week.

League matches?

Champions?

Fight for the league and the Champions League?

"I want the fish, and the bear's paw is what I want, and I can't have both, give up the fish and take the bear's paw." Arthur was muttering about the writings of the sages he had studied in his previous life, but it was difficult to choose for a while.

Arthur certainly knows the best outcome would be a run of three wins in a row, Champions League promotion and Premier League defending, but that is unrealistic, Blackburn Rovers are not that strong yet.

The ideal situation is not to lose to Manchester United, ignore the game with Bolton, and eliminate Juventus, but there are too many variables in this, because even if they save the main physical strength and stick to the defense line with all their might, Blackburn is not sure that they will not lose to Manchester United, not to mention that it is impossible to control Juventus in a situation of 0:2 behind.

If they lose to Manchester United and cannot turn Juventus around, then even if Blackburn Rovers are still ahead of Manchester United in the standings, how can they resist the final impact of the Red Devils when their morale has been dropped, and it is very likely that they will collapse at the end.

So...... Do you want to gamble?

"Jose, what do you think?" Arthur wanted to hear Mourinho's advice first.

"To be honest, I'm not sure." Mourinho shook his head, it was extremely rare for him to be unconfident, "because both Lippi and Alex Ferguson are opponents who require me to put 100 per cent focus to fight, and if I think too much, then there are very likely situations that I can't control." ”

"Okay, I see." Arthur sighed, knowing that Mourinho was putting the problem entirely on his own.

That, though, is Arthur's responsibility.

Blackburn, this is Arthur's team, and the fate of the team can only be decided by him.

At this time, the atmosphere in the office was low and somewhat depressing.

"Jose, if you give up the Champions League, how sure are you that you will be able to defend it?" After a moment of silence, Arthur finally asked again.

"One hundred percent!" Mourinho understood that Arthur had made his choice, and his tone of voice in his reply was confident and determined.

"Okay, then take Manchester United first, go all out, and as for the ......Champions League," Arthur said with regret, "Let's play with our momentum." ”

……

April 19, Ewood Park.

Blackburn Rovers hosted Manchester United and unexpectedly fielded the strongest main line-up.

Facing the Red Devils, who have just finished a tough league game with Arsenal and will face the Galaxy of Real Madrid at home, Blackburn Rovers have shown extremely strong and pressing.

Blackburn took the lead in the 25th minute when Giuli's cross from the right was headed home by Ibrahimovic from the edge of the six-yard box for his 16th league goal of the season and continued his pursuit of the top two scorers, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry.

Manchester United goalkeeper Butters was back in the butter hand and almost made a mistake to give a gift at the start of the second half, but Rio Ferdinand was lucky to get the ball first.

Frank Lampard's free-kick from 20 yards was then high, Duff's powerful shot from the edge of the box was saved by Butters, and Ruud van Nistelrooy's long-range shot was saved by Friedel.

In the 83rd minute, United had a good chance to equalise when David Beckham's powerful shot from the right side of the box deflected off and bounced off the near post.

In the end, Blackburn Rovers won this crucial game 1-0, widening the gap with Manchester United to 7 points!

On April 21, Ewood Park, in the 35th round of the Premier League, Blackburn faced Bolton.

In this game, Mourinho unexpectedly sent the main line-up, except for the rotation of individual positions, and did not reserve for the second leg of the Champions League two days later.

Larsson opened the scoring and set up Benayoun's goal. In the second half, Frank Lampard scored the world with a long-range shot to end a goalscoring drought of nearly three months. Ashley Cole contributed an assist and caused an own goal to make it 4:0, which was also the final score of this game.

After 35 rounds of Premier League games this season, Blackburn Rovers topped the league standings with 78 points, seven points ahead of second-place Manchester United, and can basically defend their title with only three rounds of the league!

However, on the football field, there is always something to give.

On April 29, with the end of nearly seven minutes of super-long stoppage time, the curtain fell on Blackburn's Champions League journey this season.

In the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final with Juventus, Blackburn played their own momentum according to Arthur.

In the game, Ibrahimovic and Larsson made contributions successively, but thanks to the goal of Piero the Bianconeri prince, the winning Blackburn Rovers won and were still out of the tournament.

In fact, before this round of matches, most people expected that Blackburn would not be able to advance to the semi-finals, after all, Juventus had a two-goal advantage, even if Blackburn was at home to successfully turn the tables into the unlikely situation, and to take their fate into their own hands, Blackburn would have to beat their opponents 2-0 at Ewood Park or beat Juventus by more than 3 goals, everything seems to be just on paper.

But as the English media have put it, the door to the Champions League semi-finals from Ewood Park has been somewhat illusory.

When Larsson turned and volleyed past Buffon's 10-finger mark, Blackburn, who rotated the line-up, stubbornly held the aggregate score at 1-2 and needed one more goal to tie the aggregate.

However, if it hadn't been for Piero's volley at the start of the second half, it wouldn't have sent Blackburn Rovers into despair – after all, if they want to knock out an opponent who has an away goal, they will have to score two more goals without making sure they don't score.

As a result, Blackburn, who participated in the Champions League for the first time in recent seasons, could only fall in front of the Serie A champions.

Perhaps, whether Blackburn advanced to the quarterfinals or not, as Lu Mengzheng, who served as the three prime ministers of the Northern Song Dynasty Taizong and Zhenzong Dynasty, said, is "time and fate".

If it weren't for the devil's schedule of three games in five days, and if it wasn't for the all-out effort to defend the league title, then Blackburn Rovers might not have been able to complete the feat of home comeback.

However, in his post-match interview, Mourinho admitted that Blackburn had no excuses for being eliminated from the Champions League, but promised his side would learn the lessons of this competition for the rest of the season.

'We're very disappointed but we don't make any excuses for not qualifying.' Mourinho said in his post-match press conference: "We are disappointed with the result and we didn't play well. We can't complain. They are a very good team and they have a lot of experience in the Champions League. They are the top names in Italian football and regularly compete in the Champions League. So they came with a lot of experience and they deserved to be in the semi-finals. ”

'We didn't play well enough in the first leg of the knockout round, so we have to accept defeat. This experience has been a lesson for each of us and we will do our best because we have come a long way in the last two years or so. We have learned a lot from the group stage of the Champions League this year and we will work hard to fight again next year. ”