After the FA Cup with Birmingham, everyone, whether it's the media or the fans, or the players, the club president, the manager, everyone who is linked to football, everyone who follows football, all the attention is on the Champions League.

The first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals will officially start on March 29.

The match between Liverpool and Barcelona will be played on the second matchday, March 30, and Liverpool will take on Barcelona at Anfield.

In fact, regarding the preparation of the Champions League, Liverpool has been carried out for a long time.

It's a headache for any team in the world to meet Barcelona now, because Barcelona are so strong, and although they fell to Chelsea in the Champions League last season, they have amazing quality this season.

They can be described as swept in La Liga.

So far, they have eleven more points than second-placed Real Madrid, with the rest of La Liga teams left to look up.

Barcelona's strength has only started in the summer.

In fact, Barcelona last season did not have such a feared strength, but the strength of a team is growing little by little, and it is unrealistic to want to directly smash a team like Chelsea, even if Chelsea and Abramovich spend 200 million euros, they can only run rampant in the Premier League, and that is still in the case of Manchester United and Arsenal encountering crises in the past two years and being relatively weak.

In contrast, Barcelona started at the beginning of the century and started as much as Chelsea now.

At that time, Real Madrid was in full swing, and it could be described as a sweep in Europe, and the dominance of the powerful Real Madrid in La Liga can be imagined, even so. Barcelona also had the ability to challenge Real Madrid at the time.

That was just the beginning for Barcelona.

Barcelona has been famous in international football for hiring big-name stars at high prices since its history, such as Kubala in the 50s, Cruyff in the 70s, Maradona in the 80s, Romario and Ronaldo in the 90s, and Ronaldo Jr. in the 21st century.

Miguili. Sanchez, Carrasco, Schuster, Uruti, Maradona, Subisareta, Lineker, Barquero, Begiristan. Amor, Koeman, Laudrup, Ferrer, Stoichkov, Guardiola, Romario, Sergi. Abelardo, Ronaldo. Louis. Enrique, Figo, Rivaldo, Kluivert, Puyol, Saviola...... These names are the epitome of Barcelona's splendour.

But Barcelona haven't been at the top. It has to do with their style, Barcelona football is pleasing to the eye, there are countless fans around the world who like Barcelona, but they don't like them because of Barcelona's results. It's because of Barcelona football.

If the world has the closest thing to an art football, it is Barcelona, and even in the era of Real Madrid, Barcelona has no intention of changing the style of the team.

At the same time, they are xenophobic.

This kind of xenophobia is incomprehensible to many teams in other countries, and even feels that Barcelona is not a professional football club, but like a group of Nazis gathered together, but there is no doubt about the nobility of Barcelona.

However, in the 21st century, under the leadership of the new president Laporta, Barcelona began to adopt a pragmatic attitude, and the xenophobia was not so strict, and they took the initiative to introduce the stars they needed, whether he was in line with Barcelona or not, whether he had Catalan ancestry, or whether Barcelona cared, in short, as long as this player could help the team's results, then Barcelona would extend an olive branch to him.

This was the beginning of Barcelona's strength.

In the five years since the beginning of the century, Barcelona has become very strong, they introduced the new generation of Brazilian "football king" Ronaldinho, and invited the Dutch coach Rijkaard to coach, and in the 2003-2004 season created a miracle - in the league came from behind to surpass Real Madrid in second place.

Before the start of the new season, Barça's spending on the transfer market reached 50 million euros.

Barcelona has the second-highest transfer fee of any club in Europe, behind Chelsea. The team has successively introduced eight high-level players such as Deco, Gyuli, Larsson, Eto'o, Silvinho, Belletti, Edmilson, Navarro and so on.

At the same time, the accumulation of last season, coupled with the strengthening of this season, under the combination of Rijkaard, the new Barcelona was born, they are simply too strong, there are many media comments on Barcelona, 'pleasing to the eye', 'full of charm, but also 'desperate', 'full of control', the front is praise, the back is the feeling of the opponent.

Perhaps the words of the teams that played against Barcelona were the most convincing.

For example, in the just-concluded La Liga, Real Sociedad coach Toles, who lost 0:4 to Barcelona, said, "We lost from the first minute of the game. "It's a voice of despair.

Barcelona were in control of the game in the first minute, dominating the football with a constant pass and writing the score with sudden attacks.

The dazzling coordination, the sudden and fatal blow, this is Barcelona's attack.

Offensively, Barcelona is also very active, and defensively Barcelona is also very active, no one has to expect Barcelona to put up an iron bucket formation or anything, their defense starts from the opponent's half.

People who don't know will think that Barcelona has a front formation and there will be a lot of holes in the backfield, but in fact, Barcelona is the team that has conceded the fewest goals this season, and so far, they have only conceded 11 goals in 27 rounds of the league, but scored 69 goals, such a gorgeous number, who dares to say that Barcelona's defense is not good?

This is Barça now.

In the face of such Barcelona, Liverpool must prepare early, as early as two weeks ago, Liverpool began to prepare, and even Liverpool did some tactical training for the game.

Almost every day, Benitez organizes his players to watch videos of Barcelona's games, and he wants everyone to understand Barcelona's style of play and adapt to Barcelona's attacking style when they get to the field.

When playing against Newcastle, Benitez's change of formation, in fact, also wanted to try whether the 352 formation could be successful, with the general 442 formation against Barcelona's technology, excellent team is too much of a loss, look at the game between Chelsea and Barcelona to know, Chelsea can be said to be passive from beginning to end, although their iron bucket defense has a great impact on Barcelona, but in fact, Chelsea did not have a good chance throughout the game.

Only when the two teams are very different in strength will it be found that one side can only defend passively.

You can see how strong Barcelona is!

The Champions League quarter-finals are four matchups, with Liverpool and Barcelona the most closely watched matchup, with Liverpool the defending champions and Barcelona arguably one of the best teams in the world.

In public opinion, Liverpool does not have an advantage.

No, it should be said that no one is optimistic that they can beat Barcelona, not even the English media, although Liverpool have Zhang Tiehan, Zhang Tiehan has scored two goals in the first three rounds of the league and an FA Cup, and Zhang Tiehan is also very good against Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and other league powerhouses, but so what?

Now Liverpool are facing Barcelona......

Looking at the odds of European bookmakers, Liverpool have 4.27 odds to win, while Barcelona are only 2.39, and you can see which team is stronger in the hearts of fans.

I think it was the "Sun" commented, "Even if Zhang can score two goals, it will be difficult for Liverpool to win", this is the public opinion.

Naturally, the Liverpool players are also concerned about these points.

The two teams are about to play, and their own club is also a world powerhouse, as a result, everyone is optimistic about each other, they are naturally very unhappy, in the face of the interview, other Liverpool fans are still very modest, Zhang Tiehan is directly asked, "Why can't we win?" ”

Then a reporter explained it to him.

Zhang Tiehan didn't bother to listen to it at all, it wasn't that he was arrogant, but that he had already seen these things more than once, "You said we would definitely lose, but I said we won, what do you think?" ”

The reporter was a little confused when asked.

"You say they can win, I say we can win, and if you are very sure that you are right, you can go and put all your wealth on them, then your gains will definitely be not small." Zhang Tiehan analyzed seriously, "They have odds of more than two points, this is double the odds, why don't you try it?" ”

The reporter finally reacted and asked, "Why don't you go and try it?" ”

Zhang Tiehan shrugged his shoulders and gave him a 'look at the idiot', "I'm a Liverpool player, if I can't do this." ”

The journalist had nothing more to say.

Zhang Tiehan continued to tease him, "Go and try it, double the income!" ”

"I don't like gambling!"

"No, it's not gambling." Zhang Tiehan said seriously, "This is a 100% victory, 100% not a gambling ......"

The reporter was annoyed and angry by what he said, and he found that Zhang Tiehan was still chattering, and he didn't let him go at all, and the other reporters around him were happy to watch the jokes, and there were still people recording something, they must want to write it down and publish it, and I am afraid that they will become a joke at that time.

So he simply didn't do anything and flashed directly.

Zhang Tiehan happily looked at the departing figure of this guy, glanced at the other reporters, and asked, "Who still has questions about Barcelona's victory?"

Everyone immediately shook their heads.

Zhang Tiehan nodded with satisfaction, "Then I'll go, bye!" ”

At this time, the reporters remembered that even if they didn't ask 'Barcelona must win', they had to ask some other questions, but when they reacted, Zhang Tiehan had already returned to the club with Gerrard, and Gerrard kept giving Zhang Tiehan a thumbs up along the way, "It's the first time I've seen someone who can drive reporters away." (To be continued......)