Updated: 2013-04-12

On December 7, Atletico Madrid conceded a crucial goal from Brazilian striker Jardel to draw 1-1 away and reach the fourth round of the UEFA Cup with an aggregate score of 3-1 over two legs – that is, the last 16 of the UEFA Cup – with Spain occupying five spots in the round of 16 – a staggering ratio, with Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Rayo Vallecano, Alaves and a Celta de Vigo. 【Fengyun Reading Network. 】

In Serie A, there are three teams, Inter Milan, Roma and Parma, and only Liverpool is left in the Premier League, with Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart in the Bundesliga, Bordeaux and Nantes in Ligue 1, PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands, plus AEK from Greece and Slavia Prague from the Czech Republic, which just form the round of 16 of the UEFA Cup.

The draw ceremony for the top 16 began after the appearance of the top 16, of course, because the major European leagues are now in full swing, the draw ceremony did not allow the managers to participate - this is different from the Champions Cup, every time the draw of the Champions Cup, the head coaches of the participating clubs will participate - this is the difference between the League Cup and the Champions Cup, the Champions Cup is a feast, and the League Cup is a neglected existence.

It's just that the gold content of the round of 16 of the League Cup this time is not bad at all, Barcelona, Inter Milan, and Liverpool are all teams that are competitive in the Champions Cup, and now they will be mixed into the League Cup for various reasons......

This draw is good news for La Liga teams as they haven't bumped into each other, and of course there is bad news......

Atletico Madrid drew Inter Milan, one of the favourites to win the UEFA Cup, Barcelona did draw a good draw against AEK Athens, Rayo Vallecano against Bordeaux, Celta Vigo against Stuttgart, Alaves against Ligue 1 side Nantes - among other matchups, Liverpool also drew a good draw against Slavia Prague, Roma will face Kaiserslautern in Serie A and Bundesliga, and Parma will face PSV Eindhoven.

"It's Inter Milan...... Atletico Madrid are really unpopular in Europe. ”

Dick sighed in his heart, but he was not particularly worried, Inter Milan this season is a relatively weak season, Lippi was fired at the beginning of the season because of the Champions Cup qualifiers, and now there are quite a lot of problems in the team, and it is not impossible to deal with it, anyway, Dick doesn't remember how good Inter Milan has performed in the League Cup this season, even in the league they are average, and in the end it seems that they can only play League Cup games, until next season after Cooper takes over, Inter Milan's results stabilized.

Besides, the fourth round will not start until February next year, and now is not the time to think of countermeasures - there is still a winter break, with Inter Milan's current unstable style, maybe there will be a relatively large change in players after the winter break, and now preparing for the game against Inter Milan in advance will basically be in vain.

Dick's task now is to play the three league games before Christmas and the winter break against Zaragoza, Osasuna and Celta, all three of which are different - Zaragoza are now at the bottom of the table, Osasuna are surprisingly at the bottom of the table, and Celta are the top four teams at one time and are now in the top 10 after a dip, which can be regarded as representatives of other teams outside the big clubs - teams in any environment.

On December 10, Atletico welcomed Zaragoza at home.

Zaragoza is a far cry from last season, where they did well in the league and finished fourth, but under some pressure, they conceded the Champions League and went to the UEFA Cup – because Real Madrid won the Champions Cup but were only fifth in the league, UEFA didn't want five teams in one league to play in the Champions Cup, so let La Liga negotiate on its own – perhaps under pressure from the royal family. Zaragoza, who also hold the title of Royal, made a concession to allow Real Madrid, who can do better in the Champions Cup, to participate in the Champions Cup, which in some ways does make La Liga teams more competitive in Europe, but from their own point of view, this is quite unfavorable.

The reason is simple, Zaragoza's players worked hard for a season to qualify for the Champions League, which is a difficult thing for their players to encounter, but a season of hard work has given away the Champions League qualification because of the generosity of the club, how can the players not complain? Yugoslav Milosevic, the top scorer, immediately filed for a move at the end of that season, and then the top scorer, who scored 21 goals last season, moved to Parma, and the rest of the players were also unstable, as a direct consequence, Zaragoza, who won 16 league games and scored 60 goals last season, have become sick this season, winning only three of their 13 league games so far and scoring only 13 goals.

It's no wonder that players don't do their best, but how can a player have the energy to give up a result that has been hard for a year for a club for other reasons? And this time the internal solution of La Liga has also brought a problem, that is, UEFA has not made up for the defects in this system - there are contradictions in their Champions Cup participation quota regulations, first of all, it stipulates that the Champions League winner qualifies for next season, and stipulates that the top three leagues in points, the top four qualify for the final of the Champions Cup, when the Champions Cup champion does not enter the top four of the league, it will cause this paradoxical situation - now it is solved within La Liga, but wait until a few years later, When Liverpool also won the Champions Cup in fifth place, UEFA also wanted Everton, who ranked fourth, to develop their style - as a result, Everton directly quit, and in the end, UEFA could only issue wild cards to Liverpool and license them to participate in the Champions Cup, but they had to start from the qualifiers, and after entering the Champions Cup, the rules for avoiding the group stage of the same league team did not apply to them - so in the group stage of the Champions Cup that season, Liverpool and Chelsea were in a group......

After that, UEFA made up for the flaw in this rule, announcing that the winner of the Champions League automatically qualified for next season's Champions League, but a maximum of four teams can participate in a league, and if the Champions League winner does not enter the Champions League area in their home league, then the number of teams in the Champions League area will be automatically reduced - so after Chelsea won the title in the 11-12 season, Tottenham, who finished fourth in the Premier League that year, was unlucky, because Chelsea failed to finish in the top four and won the Champions Cup. So apart from Chelsea, only the top three in the Premier League will be able to qualify for the Champions League......

The topic is far away, Zaragoza gave up the qualification for the Champions Cup, and they also suffered a serious blow this season, needless to say the poor results in the league, they were also eliminated early in the League Cup - they beat the Polish team Krakow 4-1 at home in the first leg of the first round, but also lost 1-4 on the road, and finally went out on penalties, and did not even break into the second round - La Liga has an unprecedented number of teams participating in the League Cup this season, and Zaragoza is the place that replaced Real Madrid, Alaves entered the UEFA Cup as sixth, Celta de Vigo in seventh place came out of the Toto Cup, Atletico Madrid entered as the winner of the Copa del Rey, Rayo Vallecano was only ninth, but won the best style award allocated by UEFA to La Liga this season and entered the League Cup with a wild card, the other four teams plus one Barcelona who were eliminated from the first group stage of the Champions Cup all entered the round of 16 of the League Cup, only Zaragoza was out early, and it has to be said that the spirit of this team has gone wrong.

In the face of such a Zaragoza team that is in a very low state and morale, although the results have been a little up and down recently, it is not difficult to win Atletico Madrid, which has high morale and is on the rise.

Jardel stopped his two-game run without a goal and scored twice in the game to help Atletico Madrid beat Zaragoza 2-0 at home, which was his fourth brace in the league this season, although after joining Atletico, he did not show his continuity, which is not yet suitable for La Liga style, but once he found his form, he was able to score twice, which also proved that Jardel is indeed a very good goalscorer.

These two goals are Jardel's 10th and 11th goals in the league, and these two goals put him in the top scorer list, one goal ahead of Alaves' homegrown goalscorer Moreno, while the likes of Raul, Rivaldo, Kluivert, and other previous outstanding goalscorers have scored seven or eight goals, while Tristan, who has a high-priced transfer to Deportivo La Coruna, has only six goals, or concentrated in three games, and the efficiency and continuity are obviously not as good as Jardel......

With the win, Atletico are level on points with Deportivo La Coruna, and now they and Valencia are tied for second place in the league with 28 points, while Real Madrid are top of the table with 29 points – these four teams have been the best teams since the start of the league, compared to them, Barcelona look a little more bleak, they are now only 23 points, and they have been thrown out of the top four by a considerable gap.

What makes Dick most wary is Real Madrid - when they were defeated by Atletico Madrid at home, they have been thrown off by Atletico Madrid by five points, but in the next five rounds of the league, Real Madrid won five consecutive victories in one go, while Atletico Madrid lost to Mallorca and Las Palmas successively, so that Real Madrid overtook by one point - if Atletico Madrid's problem of losing points on middle and lower teams is not solved, it is really difficult to compete with the increasingly stable Real Madrid for the league title......

"There's a long way to go."

Dick sighed in his heart, and then began to lead the team to train again - before the winter break, he only needs to lead the team to play in the league, which also eases the pressure on the Atletico players, but they also know in their hearts that the ease now means the difficulty after the winter break - the 22nd round of the league, the Copa del Rey, the League Cup...... All together, they are much more tired than they are now, and they have a much shorter holiday, which will not end until mid-June – playing in La Liga is easier, but the holiday is much shorter.

"Play the last two rounds of the league and go to a comfortable Christmas!"

Dick waved his fist on the training ground to cheer up the players, after this half season of coaching, he also felt tired, after all, it was his first full season, and he had a lot to learn, this is close to half a month of winter break, it is also a good opportunity for him to rest and recharge!