Lyon Football Club, which is directly controlled by the group, is a club with strong financial resources and strength. As one of the members of the first French football league, the Lyon football team has not achieved brilliant results in the history of French football, and the only outstanding thing is that it reached the semi-finals of the European Cup in the sixties, and reached the final of the French Cup and won the championship twice. However, such results are not satisfactory compared to having the French Olympic Group Lyon as a backer.

It is only in the last two seasons that they have shown signs of a gradual upswing, and it is fair to say that although Lyon are also strong, they are not so favourites in this group. The reason is simple: compared to the other teams in the same group, Lyon can be said to be the weakest team, although Lyon has been one of the best in Ligue 1 in the past two seasons, but in this era, Ligue 1 has always been regarded as a second-rate league in Europe.

Although there are five major leagues, it is the four major leagues that are more acceptable, and many people subconsciously do not accept the idea that Ligue 1 is in the same position as the other major leagues.

But in the second round of the Champions League group stage, where public opinion was mostly tilted towards Bayer Leverkusen's victory, Bayer Leverkusen fell behind from the start.

(End of chapter)

Chapter 176: A Journey to Lyon

Bayer Leverkusen conceded their first goal in just a few minutes, and in the next 90 minutes their normally solid goal was twice breached by Lyon's men in quick succession, and the score was fixed at 0.

Yes, Bayer Leverkusen not only did not score a goal in this game, but also lost the game with a score of 0, so the major media immediately exclaimed after a short stunned moment, saying that this game was the most incredible game in the group stage of this round of the Champions League. The German "Rheinische Evening News" was even more radical when he said: Bayer Leverkusen lost to a pair that could have won easily.

And such remarks also represent the opinion of most fans and media about this game.

It was only then that Kenny finally knew the reason for the defeat in this game, and that was to underestimate the enemy. Once upon a time, Bayer Leverkusen faced these European powerhouses with the strength of an underdog, but last season's runners-up and this season's arrival of Kani have gradually raised their status.

This reason is somewhat ridiculous to say, but it is. Last season's league journey naturally needs no need to be repeated, this season's Champions League, from the winter monster Spartak Moscow to Stadium of Light owner Sporting Lisbon, to the giants Real Madrid and Arsenal, it seems that Bayer Leverkusen has never fallen behind in the face of these opponents. And this has also created the Leverkusen people's underdog mentality, although after conceding the first goal, Leverkusen has reacted to the bad things, but the strong strength of the Lyon team is something they could not have expected.

Even Kenny didn't expect the Lyon team to be so strong at this time, standing on the pitch and looking at the bright red :0 on the display, he fell into confusion again, and he couldn't help but think of the scenes of the game.

No one expected that Lyon, who had the initiative after the start of the game, quickly instigated an attack and scored with this attack, and when the major media and commentators looked back at the game at the end of the game, they were shocked to find that the trend of the game fell into the rhythm of the Lyon team in the first minute, and fell into the planning of Lyon coach Jacques Santini.

As captain of the glorious Ligue 1 team of the decade, Saint-Etienne, he led the team to four league titles and two French Cups in the green jersey, which is why it was called the "Green Era" by avid Saint-Etienne fans. After retiring as a coach, Santini also achieved remarkable results, starting with his Toulouse side's 1986-8 UEFA Cup defeat of Maradona's Napoli side and then his lesser-known Ligue 1 side finishing first in the league.

It is not surprising that he achieved such results as a rookie coach in Ligue 1, so in 1995-199 Santini was specially approved to join the National Technical Steering Committee, which was then headed by Houllier, which was a "recharge" period for him, and in this French football "institute" and in the Alpine regional league, Santini greatly enriched his knowledge and ability in coaching and organization.

After two years of further training, Santini came to Lyon as technical director, and this is another year, from the perspective of later generations, these five years of precipitation is the most important period of his coaching career, which has also become a springboard for him to take over as the head coach of the Lyon team and the coach of the French team.

At this time, Santini, who had just taken over as the coach of Lyon, naturally came with a full of revenge, and he developed a set of tactics tailored for Lyon according to the characteristics of Leverkusen.

Do you know what it means to be "bang bang"?

That's right, bang, bang, bang, bang! After the opening, the Lyon team launched a direct attack, running and passing in one go, five foot passes, without any hesitation, when the Leverkusen players were still intoxicated with a good sense of self, and before they entered the real game state, Lyon striker Kasralli had received a straight kick past the Leverkusen back line to hit the far corner of the goal.

When Carsrali put his right thumb into his mouth and sucked the goal to his newborn child with the frantic cheers of the Lyon fans, did the Leverkusen fans realize that their goal had been breached?

However, at this time, the Leverkusen players have not yet realized the seriousness of the problem, they only set off a counterattack frenzy after a short period of surprise, they are confident that they can equalize or even overtake the score with attack, of course, their self-confidence is not empty, they have the offensive firepower of the Bundesliga with an average of two goals per game, and they believe that the current lag is only temporary.

Kani is still active on the flanks, while Neuville on the other flank is also putting a lot of pressure on Lyon.

But what happened next almost drove them crazy, suppressing, non-stop suppressing the attack, although very good on the field, did not bring a fundamental change to the Leverkusen people, but in the fifteenth minute they were caught by the Lyon team to play a long-distance counterattack, a big foot made the Leverkusen players fall into despair, with speed in the high-speed dribble shake down the only remaining defender Bayer Leverkusen captain LaMelo, Lyon striker Caslari scored a brace.

Seeing this scene, the commentator who still said that Leverkusen would equalize soon after the commentator couldn't say anything anymore, because everyone saw the super high execution judgment and calm, sharp attack of the Lyon players after these two goals.

So people couldn't help but look at the slightly dark-skinned Lyon coach Santini standing on the sidelines, and they couldn't help but think of some French media's comments on this academic coach Santini: he has a strong personality, but he is also willing to listen to others' opinions, but at the same time he is very demanding, and pays great attention to the stability of the player's condition. In his eyes, there is neither an absolute main force, nor a "big-name player". A national team's main defender is unstable and often sits on the bench. This style of saying things and sometimes lacking complete communication has made him never like some people. Some members of the Lyon club board did not like him, so much so that when he first became the manager of Lyon, there were many news of his dissatisfaction with him, and some extreme fans often booed him at home.

Good night, ladies and gentlemen!

(End of chapter)

Chapter 177: Back to Lever

What is it like to be a manager to be booed by your own fans at home? If it's not the dismal results of the team he coaches, it's the public excesses that make the fans unhappy with the manager.

But for Santini at the moment, his situation is unique. The reason is very simple, although the Lyon team at this time has initially possessed the appearance of a dynasty, after all, it has not really reached the point of being as shocking as the later generations, so in the case of the club's journey to the championship and the Champions League, Santini's practice of pressing the big-name stars brought in by the club with a lot of money on the bench has undoubtedly caused strong dissatisfaction among fans.

Because even if the Lyon club has sufficient financial support, it will not be spent on recruitment, you must know that a series of projects such as youth training, maintenance, infrastructure construction and so on are all money-burning things. Rather than relying on large signings to achieve temporary success, shareholders are more concerned about the greater benefits of the club in establishing its own brand image over time.

Therefore, in addition to assigning one or two superstars to the team to attract the attention and exposure of the media, shareholders will not spend any more money to continue to recruit them, which is not worth the loss after all. During the same period, except for Real Madrid, under the leadership of the Buddha, who dared to follow the policy of one superstar a year, the rest of the big clubs also followed the same path as Lyon. Its most typical is the champion Manchester United, the famous and skyrocketing value of the 92 class is the representative of the Red Devils academy, and a Milan star Maldini, Liverpool Shuangou and Fowler, etc. are all from their own club's youth system.

It can be seen that the big-name stars in the financially strong Lyon team are also important and rare team staunls, and you can imagine how Lyon fans feel when they know that their Santini dad has pressed the stars they have spent a lot of money on the bench.

However, it was this stubborn and rigid manager who quickly stabilized the morale of the army after taking over Lyon, and made breakthroughs in the league and the Champions League.

In some ways, Lyon and Bayer Leverkusen at this time have a lot of similarities, they are both on the rise, the same head coach is appointed by club officials, and they are both companies behind them, with strong financial resources, but they are also sparse big-name stars in the team. It is believed that if Bayer Leverkusen coach Worrall pressed Ballack or Kirsten on the bench, he would also get the same treatment as Santini.

You must know that the courage to seize the big stars in the team who are not in good shape and decisively send substitutes to start many games to replace their positions is not something that everyone can have.

So at this time, Leverkusen faced Lyon was actually a team with a high degree of execution and combat discipline under the tutelage of Santini.

If this match had been a month ago, Bayer Leverkusen would probably have won, after all, the strength of the two teams is also evenly matched, and Bayer Leverkusen is even better.

But now, when Lyon's Arthur announced that they had breached the Leverkusen goal for the first time with a free-kick, all the Leverkusen players, including Kani, knew the game was over. Because it is clear that the Lyon team under the tutelage of Santini is not a dog like a dog.

On the same day, when they flew back to Bayer Leverkusen under the pressure of public opinion, they were greeted by Worrall, who had been bruised along the way. This is also the first time that Worrall, who is gentle and gentlemanly on weekdays, has been angry in front of everyone.

All the players know that it will be a huge blow for Worrall, who have the ambition to bring in a number of new signings and want to make a splash in the Champions League at this time.

With the new signings unable to play in the Champions League, their only contribution to Leverkusen's European competition has been to give Leverkusen's main players plenty of rest in the league through rotation.

But even after recuperating his batteries, his Bayer Leverkusen was still bloodied by Lyon away from home, how could Worrall accept this?

Worrall could imagine how the outside media would criticize him at this time, so he vented all his anger on the Leverkusen players, and the strength of this game undoubtedly made Leverkusen fall into passivity! This is not alarmist, in this group of death, every team is walking on thin ice and does not dare to be careless, but the Bayer Leverkusen team went wrong at this time and gave the rest of the team a chance!

All the players of the second leg against Arsenal know that it is a tough battle, and today Lyon also used the game to teach Leverkusen a good lesson, you can imagine how difficult this bone will be when they return to the home field to face this pair again! What's more, when the situation of these two second legs is unclear, there will be a home and away game against Bayern, how can this not make Worrall angry!

Sitting in the dressing room and listening to coach Worrall's harsh criticism, how dare the players be dissatisfied? They had nothing to say, and it wasn't until after the game that they realized how ridiculous it was to underestimate a pair of their own strength.

However, fortunately, the news came from Highbury Stadium, in the meeting between Bayern and Arsenal ended in a 2:2 draw, which also made Leverkusen not open up the point difference with Bayern, so after two rounds, Bayern Munich ranked first with four points with one win and one draw, Lyon and Bayer Leverkusen both scored points with one win and one loss, and the Lyon team ranked second with a goal difference advantage over Leverkusen, while the Premier League giants Arsenal ranked fourth with one point.

This means that Bayer Leverkusen will have to give their best in the next four games, at least to win to guarantee absolute qualification. So without Worrall's urging, the players spontaneously put in high-intensity training, and they don't make the same mistake twice.

In the 21st round of the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen sat at home to face the old opponent Cologne, and in this game Worrall still made a large number of rotations, bringing Lucio on the field to replace the defender Barberto, and Basturk also started again in place of Hap.

This time, perhaps due to the bloody defeat in the away game against Lyon, Bayer Leverkusen showed a super offensive ** in a voice of doubt, and they won the game with a score of 4:1 in the face of the strong team Cologne, completing the season double against Cologne!

(End of chapter)

Chapter 178: Galliani's call

In this game, the attacking fork of Keni, Ballack and Neuville combined to cover all four goals, showing their firepower to the Bundesliga. Keni and Ballack scored one goal each, and Neuville's two goals alone were the best of the match.

After scoring these four goals, the people have scored 1 goal in the league, plus 9 goals in the Champions League, which is only 4 goals away from the total number of goals 0 goals released by the system before the main line of the new fork task, and Kenny's personal goals have also reached 9 goals in the league and 4 goals in the Champions League, and there are only 2 goals left from the personal goal of 15 goals. It can be said that as long as it is not accidental