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As soon as the draw results came out, the major media paid a lot of attention to Hoffenheim. Although they are participating in the European Champions Cup for the first time www.biquge.info the Bundesliga title last season is still very loud.

As a promoted horse, they lifted the Bundesliga trophy in their first season, which was impressive. Now the whole of Europe wants to see what this dark horse is like.

So after the draw, Hoffenheim became the most mentioned word.

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson spoke highly of Hoffenheim after talking about the team, mainly because Hoffenheim had Chu Zhongtian, whom he was very optimistic about at the time.

“…… Hoffenheim are only a fourth-tier team, but that's not a true reflection of their quality. I think it's going to be very difficult against Hoffenheim. ”

"What do you know about Hoffenheim, Sir Alex Ferguson?" The reporter asked.

"I know they have a very good player in their squad – Chu. He's a dangerous guy and we have to be very careful about him. "Ferguson's evaluation of Chu Zhongtian is quite high, if it weren't for the fact that the Premier League labor certification could not be solved, he would have taken Chu Zhongtian away from Metz a long time ago, anyway, Manchester United must be more attractive than Hoffenheim, right?

It's a pity. Now he is still looking for a good midfielder to replace Roy. The void left behind after Keane's departure was never found. In his opinion, Chu Zhongtian is simply the perfect successor. Looking at Chu Zhongtian's achievements in Hoffenheim now, he firmly believes in his original opinion. In a small team like Hoffenheim, you can win the Bundesliga title, so when you come to Manchester United, isn't it a problem to win the Premier League and the Champions League?

In last season's Champions League final, Manchester United met Barcelona in Rome as the defending champions, and in that final, except for the beginning, the game completely fell into the rhythm of Barcelona, Barcelona's midfield was too strong, with Xavi and Iniesta, two of the best midfielders in Europe today, who played Manchester United around.

Sadly, United have not been able to come up with a solution at all. Ronaldo is a very good player, but he is not the kind of player who can lead the whole team to perform well, he needs the sacrifice of the whole team to make him play well. This kind of football is no problem against weaker opponents, but it is not good against Barcelona, who are good at playing and controlling the ball - the tempo is not on Manchester United's side at all, and there is no way to cooperate with Ronaldo.

Ferguson, who was in charge of the game from the dugout at the Olympic Stadium in Rome at the time, was thinking about how good it would be if he had Chu Zhongtian.

Everyone fights each other to control the rhythm. He believed that Chu Zhongtian was not weaker than Xavi and Iniesta in this regard. With Chu Zhongtian, Manchester United will become the first team to successfully defend their title after the Champions League restructuring.

※※※ In the TV show after the draw, the British BBC5 host specially showed the audience a king-size map of Germany to find out where Hoffenheim was.

On that very detailed map, the host took a magnifying glass and looked for a long time, then poked the map, motioned for the camera to pull over, and then he said: "This is Hoffenheim!" ”

The word that appears on the TV screen is "hockenheim".

The presenter, unaware of his mistake, pointed to Hockenheim and began to talk about his Hoffenheim situation: "This is a small village with a permanent population of only 3,300 people, and the German media call Hoffenheim a 'country team'. But it was this small team that created the greatest miracle in the history of German football, and they were even more magical than Kaiserslautern! Because their population is smaller than that of Kaiserslautern. The team supported by more than 3,000 people beat the likes of Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg and Schalke 04 to lift the German championship trophy, which is remarkable! ”

From this introduction full of errors and omissions, it can be seen that the host actually doesn't know Hoffenheim at all, so he just found some information casually, glanced at it and came to the show.

But he can't be blamed, before Hoffenheim rose like the rocket class, many Germans were not familiar with "Hoffenheim". If it weren't for the carpet bombing of Hoffenheim in the German media over the past year, how many people would still know that it is still not optimistic.

Actually, Hoffenheim and Hockenheim are two places, but these two places are not far apart, and it is indeed easy for people who are not familiar with them to get confused. With the famous German university town of Heidelberg as the center, the two places are respectively in the southeast and southwest of Heidelberg, and the two places are 25 kilometers apart.

Hoffenheim have made a name for themselves in football in the last year, but Hockenheim is even more famous than Hoffenheim because of the Formula 1 German circuit. Originally built as a racing circuit for Mercedes-Benz, it has hosted the German Formula 1 Grand Prix since 1986 and is the home of the McLaren team.

The moderator was able to confuse the two, which may not be the case for everyone, but it is enough to show how foreign Hoffenheim is to the whole of Europe. Although Hoffenheim and Bayern Munich were broadcast live in more than 150 countries around the world last season, more countries in Asia, the Americas and Eastern Europe, even if Hoffenheim won the Bundesliga title, German football is declining on the European continent, and other European countries are not very interested in this country's football, especially England, which is famous for its arrogance.

It looks like Chu Zhongtian said, this season they will use their football to let the whole of Europe know where Hoffenheim is, so that they don't have to use the map to find Hoffenheim, just like they did in Germany last season.

The day after the Champions League draw, the players saw Rangnick at the training ground, who had returned from Monaco. Speaking to his players, Rangnick said: "Everyone knows who we are against in the Champions League. I know you were very anxious about this some time ago, but now you can calm down, right? ”

Some laughed embarrassedly.

"The situation in this group is not particularly good for us, but it is not bad either. Our minimum goal is to qualify from the group, gentlemen. To that we must do more. I would like to remind you that the UEFA Champions League is a completely different competition than the domestic league. Now it's time to train. ”

After the training session, many media gathered outside the training ground, waiting to interview the players.

Chu Zhongtian, as the number one star in the team and the captain, was surrounded by the Chinese and German media as soon as he came out, wanting to hear what he thought about this draw grouping.

Chu Zhongtian's answer was neither humble nor arrogant: "We respect every opponent, but we are not afraid of them. ”

In any case, Hoffenheim are the champions of the Bundesliga, and such confidence is deserved.

Hoffenheim's first ever Champions League game will be on the evening of 15 September when they host CSKA Moscow.

With two league games to go before that, against Hannover 96 and Bochum, neither of them too strong, Hoffenheim could spare energy to prepare for the first Champions League game in the club's history.

Hoffenheim won 2-0 away at Hannover 96 on 28 August, with Eduardo and Obasi scoring two goals and Salihovic and Chu Zhongtian each providing an assist. Hoffenheim are unbeaten with three wins and one draw after four league games, but they remain in second place as first-placed Hamburg have also won and continue to sit top of the table on goal difference.

The bad news for Hoffenheim was that midfielder Weiss was confirmed to have suffered another knee injury on his left side after leaving the game with an injury. In fact, this is an old injury, and he took a break from his knee injury during the pre-season training camp. But Weiss is a very tenacious player, and even if he is injured, he chooses to persevere rather than have surgery. Later, during the race, my knee was hit many times, and I had occasional pain, and this time I finally couldn't hold on anymore.

He underwent endoscopic knee surgery on Monday, in which some muscle folds were removed and the cartilage in his knee was smoothed. But after the surgery, he will recuperate for four to six weeks. During this time, Eduardo will take his place.

Weiss's injury was a blow to the team, as he could not only attack but also defend on the right flank, while Eduardo would only attack and contribute quite little in defence.

And in the Champions League, Rangnick knows it's important to defend. Of course, he will not let Hoffenheim turn into a conservative team that defends 1-0, but at least his own defense cannot be turned into a sieve by the opponent.

It seems that Sana and Chu Zhongtian's task is heavier.

After the match against Hannover 96, it was the international break, and everyone left the club to return to their respective national teams to play in the national team competition.

Chu Zhongtian did not return to China because the Chinese national team did not schedule any matches on this match day. The Chinese national team also went to play in November, which was the qualifiers for the Asian Cup.

Chu Zhongtian, who did not participate in the national team competition, and other teammates who also did not have a national team game to play stayed in the club, trained with the first and second teams, and then played two warm-up games with the local amateur team, one 26:0 and the other 30:2, both of which were big wins. Playing a warm-up game with such an opponent is basically not to find any problems and run in the team, but to let everyone have a game to play and maintain their condition, so as not to wait for other players to come back, and find that the game is gone.

Of course, Chu Zhongtian is not all in the team, he also took the time to go to Paris, and his "Greater China" finally went out of the United States, rushed to Europe, and opened the first European branch in Paris. At present, he has 10 companies in Greater China, nine in North America and one in Europe. At the same time, his management team is still considering whether to return to China to open a business.

Chu Zhongtian is considered a person with business talent among the players, many players earn a lot when they play, but because they don't know how to manage money, they are handed over to the agent, and the result is that after retiring, he found that the money he could get was actually not much, and more money was eaten by the economist. Because the agent is in charge of the financial power of the star, many players would rather find their relatives to be agents, and the fat water does not flow to outsiders. Generally speaking, star financial management is to buy real estate, and all kinds of real estate are good choices.

Chu Zhongtian also bought real estate, but that was in China. He has no interest in the multimillion-dollar mansions abroad, and he basically does not buy mansions all over the world except for his own residence. More money is invested in his own business, in fact, the proportion of his annual income from the club is already very small, even if he does not play football, he can become a rich man just by doing business. To be honest, playing football has really become a hobby now.

Emily's mother Miranda is very satisfied with this, at least Chu Zhongtian is a little bit in line with the standard of Emily's husband in his mind - young and golden, and emotionally single-minded. She is now even beginning to consider whether to let Chu Zhongtian also come to Hollywood to develop. After watching it for a long time, she felt that this Chinese kid was also quite handsome, at least not ugly, and Hollywood movies were not just handsome guys and beauties.

Of course, Miranda's idea, Emily and Chu Zhongtian don't know yet. If Chu Zhongtian knew, I really don't know how he would feel - he never had the idea of entering the film and television industry, even if he shot a few commercials...... after the national team break, the players regrouped to prepare for the fifth round of the league, the home game against Bochum.

On 11 September, Hoffenheim played Bochum on their home turf.

A season ago, Hoffenheim might have seen Bochum as a very important opponent, but now they can deal with Bochum with ease.

It's actually quite relaxing.

Hoffenheim beat Bochum 3-0 on their home turf, and Chu Zhongtian scored his second goal of the season in the game. Not the signature long-range shot, but a header from a corner.

"Chu has scored! It was his second goal of the season! Looks like he's in great shape! I'm sure this must be good news for Rangnick, as Chu's form is a guarantee for Hoffenheim as the Champions League game is about to begin! ”

Chu Zhongtian's goal opened the scoring for Hoffenheim. Hoffenheim added another goal ten minutes later, this time by Ibisevic, who also scored his second goal, assisted by ...... Sana. Sana has finally shown that he can do more than just defend.

In the 79th minute, Salihovic took a free kick in front, and the unmarked central defender Simunic scored with a header in the small penalty area to set the score at 3:0. It was also his first goal for his new club.

Hoffenheim won the game by a big margin and no one was injured. The whole team is in good shape, which is really good news for Rangnick.

Another good news is that after this round, Hoffenheim finally managed to reach the top and sit on the top trade in the league. They have the same points as Hamburg, with four wins and one draw in five league games, all with 13 points, but Hoffenheim surpassed Hamburg's seven on goal difference of eight and thus also surpassed Hamburg in the rankings.

Hamburg scored fifteen goals and conceded eight in five league games, while Hoffenheim scored nine goals and conceded only one. Attackingly, Hoffenheim are not as frantic as they were at the start of last season, but Rangnick's defensive effort has paid off, conceding only against Bayern Munich and not conceding against Schalke 04 or Bayer Leverkusen.

Simunic is the main centre-back, he is excellent in defence, that is, full of speed, for which Rangnick is not equipped with Metzelde, but with Comper. The young Comper can still make up for Simunich in terms of speed. Metzelder and Comper compete for the role, and there are times when Rangnick can also play in the rotation. Another major reason for the improvement of the defense is Sana, who is a defender-focused midfielder, and his presence has added a layer of barrier to Hoffenheim's back line. Once the center of the game was in the sky last season, Hoffenheim's backline had to face the opposition's forwards and defenders directly. Once the opponent plays a quick counterattack, and Chu Zhongtian is in front again, he can't run as fast as a flying football...... The result is naturally that the opponent's two or three feet passed and tore apart the defense line.

Now with Sana, the opponent has never attacked the penalty area so easily. Most of the time, Sana moved laterally, running from the left side of the pitch to the right, sweeping and the opposition's attack was stopped by him. He can also suddenly step forward and participate in the attack when necessary, but such opportunities are too few. More often than not, he passes the football to Chu Zhongtian, and then follows behind Chu Zhongtian, keeping a suitable distance, if Chu Zhongtian loses the ball, he is ready to grab it at any time, and then hand it to Chu Zhongtian after snatching the football. This is called "protecting space when defending and protecting football when attacking". Of course, most of the time he doesn't have a chance to show it, because Chu Zhongtian rarely loses the ball, even if he loses the ball, he himself has super defensive ability, he is not the kind of player who is squeezed by the opponent and falls, and then after losing the ball, he only knows to spread his hands and complain that the referee does not protect the attack. People only saw Chu Zhongtian send the football to the danger zone again and again, praising his offensive talent, but they forgot that he was also a very dangerous defender. Sana knows this well.

Unbeaten in the league, they squeezed out Hamburg to the top of the table on goal difference. Chu Zhongtian and Ibisevic both scored...... Hoffenheim's recent form has been surprisingly good.

This form has also given the whole squad a lot of confidence in their first Champions League game. The opposition is not too strong, CSKA Moscow has never been an influential team in Europe, and such an opponent is a very suitable stepping stone for Hoffenheim to make history.

Three days before the Champions Cup matchday, the Rhein-Neckar newspaper published a headline that spoke to the hearts of the Hoffenheim people.

"Our first step!"

(To be continued)