Putting an OK on the David Silva matter, City moved on.

Manchester City travel to Portugal for the second time this season on 12 March, this time against a stronger opponent in the Portuguese Super League, Atletico Benfica.

Although they have been completely overshadowed by Porto in the Portuguese Super League for nearly two decades, Benfica are still the most popular club in Portugal, thanks to their brilliant record over the past 100 years, and in '06, Benfica also set a Guinness World Record for Intent, making them the club with the most paying members in the world with more than 160,000 paying members.

To this day, they are still the club with the most titles in the Portuguese Super League, with a total of 31 titles, and of course, it is their excellent performance in the European arena that has established Benfica's position in the hearts of Portuguese fans in one fell swoop, with a total of seven Champions League finals in their history, second only to Real Madrid, AC Milan and Bayern Munich. Of course, Benfica have only won twice of the seven Champions League finals, and the first two, which brings us to one of the most famous curses in world football today: the Goodman curse.

The so-called Goodman curse is that in 1962, when Goodman, then the head coach of Benfica, led the team to defeat Real Madrid led by superstars such as Di Stefano and Puskas in the Champions League final, he asked the Benfica board of directors for a salary increase, but was refused, and in a fit of anger, the Hungarian said a sentence when he left the team: From now on, Benfica will not be able to win the European championship in a hundred years.

No one took it seriously at the time, but the truth is, Goodman was a prophecy. Benfica then reached five Champions League finals without a win. On the most recent occasion, Benfica legend Eusebio even went to Goodman's grave to pray before the game, because Goodman had passed away at the time, but he still couldn't break the curse.

Lin Sen certainly didn't believe in any curses. However, Benfica's luck is so bad that it can be regarded as unprecedented. Benfica have challenged Goodman's curse once again this season, but for Linson, he clearly doesn't mind the curse continuing. Because the two teams are about to die, Linson did not have any verbal communication with Falcao and Di Maria before the game, of course, there will be some eye contact, look up and don't look down.

In fact, the current Benfica is more familiar to Falcao and Di Maria in Linsen's eyes. For example, Xavi Garcia, who later transferred to Manchester City, such as the future Portuguese national team's main left-hand Coenterau, and for example, the Brazilian midfielder Ramirez, who will transfer to Chelsea in the future, not to mention the "rabbit" Saviola and "Joker" Aimar, who have not completely disappeared from the sight of European fans at this time......

Even, Benfica's tactics Lin Sen is not "unfamiliar", at least in terms of personnel allocation, Benfica's head coach Gabriel Jesus's arrangement is unexpectedly similar to Redknapp, who has just met with Lin Sen. Four-four-two configuration, two strikers Falcao Gasaviola, two wingers Di Maria and Aimar, midfielders Xavi Garcia and Ramirez one attack and one defense......

Everything is similar. As a result, even the final score was similar: three to two. Manchester City wins.

Whether it is the score of the game or the process of the game, Lin Sen is very satisfied. Because as he joked at the press conference before he came to Portugal: it would have been better if Falcao and Di Maria had been good, but City had won the game in the end.

Falcao scored a goal and Di Maria provided an assist. But two geniuses can't win against a group of geniuses. The game belonged to Suarez as the Uruguayan scored his first hat-trick since arriving at Manchester City, assisted by David Silva, Arjen Robben and Vidal.

After the game, David Luiz and his former teammates caught up together, while Linson hugged Falcao, as for Di Maria, he and Linsen had never met before, but this did not prevent him from shaking hands with Linsen for the first time, of course, this scene looked at Benfica's head coach Jesus in the eyes, obviously not a taste, the two best people in his team are now the opponent's players, Falcao is okay, after all, he is on loan from the other side, but Di Maria ......

What is this called?

Returning to Manchester from Lisbon, three days later, Manchester City travelled to the north-east of England to challenge Sunderland, with goals from Bellamy and Javi Martinez, Manchester City won 2-0 away, although it was a light win, but in fact, throughout the game, Manchester City have been looking for opportunities to score, because their goal difference advantage over Chelsea is really not much, only two.

Chelsea beat West Ham United 4-1 at home to close the gap on goal difference to Manchester City to one.

On March 19th, it was also an away game, but this time Manchester City won not so easily, the final score was 2-1, which can only be regarded as a narrow victory, but this narrow victory allowed Manchester City to surpass Chelsea in points for the first time this season, because in the other game, Blackburn Rovers at home did Manchester City a big favor, they drew 1-1 with Carlo Ancelotti's side.

At the end of 31 league games, Manchester City, with one game less, is two points ahead of Chelsea with 69 points, followed by Chelsea and Arsenal with 67 and 66 points, and Manchester United with one more game on 66 points...... The Premier League title race is heating up, and interestingly, all four teams are currently fighting on two fronts.

Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League by Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan but still reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, while Manchester United and Arsenal both knocked out of the domestic cup competition but both beat their respective rivals in the Champions League, with Manchester United beating former rivals AC Milan 7-2 on aggregate and Arsenal beating Portuguese Super League side Porto 6-2.

March 22, Manchester City Stadium, Europa League quarter-final second leg.

When the stadium radio introduced the names of Falcao and Di Maria, the Manchester City fans in the stands welcomed the two "away" players with applause, which also caused the two players to suffer from happy troubles, which will be their turf next season, but now they have to face their future team-mates in a do-or-die match.

For this qiē, Jesus can only choose to ignore, for him, this game Benfica has no way back, 2-3 at home, means that Benfica either have to get a win with more than three goals, or both score two more goals, considering that Manchester City's last Europa League opponent Twente with a 3-1 advantage tried to rely on defense to win and finally lost, Benfica actually only have one way to attack.

However, if it were so easy to get down, this season's City Stadium would not have been dubbed the Devil's home stadium by the English media. So far this season, Manchester City have suffered occasional defeats, but they have not tasted defeat at the City Stadium.

Gabriel Jesus' suicidal attack strategy worked, and in the 21st minute, Javi Garcia gave Benfica a glimmer of hope of qualifying away from home thanks to a corner kick from Di Maria, however, their enthusiasm lasted only two minutes before being poured cold water on the head, Suarez made the ball, Vidal shot from distance, and Benfica's goalkeeper Cesar was helpless. Ten minutes later, City were back in the open, with Arjen Robben on the right flanking high-speed counter-attacking and the ball in front of goal, where Suarez, who had scored a hat-trick in the previous game, scored with ease.

It's 2-1, and now, Benfica need to score two more goals to get the game back on the same page, but Benfica haven't given up yet.

In the 51st minute, Di Maria put on a spectacular solo show, first past Vidal in midfield and then unceremoniously past Richards on the wing, but his final pass did not reach Falcao's feet, but to the head of another striker, Cardoso, who was weak in a hurry under the watchful eye of former team-mate David Luiz.

Five minutes later, a solo show from another genius ended the suspense of the match. Bale used a 60-metre run to tell the City fans who were still immersed in Di Maria's show that he would not give up his place even next season.

The two super individual shows made Manchester City fans fall into happy troubles in an instant. Yes, who will be on the left side of Manchester City next season? Bel? Or Di Maria? Don't forget, at this time, on the Manchester City bench, there are still Reus and Petrov...... Even, you have to count Robinho, who was loaned back to Santos in Brazil at this time.

The live broadcast of the game was given to Lin Sen on the sidelines, obviously, the director in charge of the live broadcast also thought of the thoughts of Manchester City fans, in the face of so many choices, can Lin Sen really deal with the problem of playing?

Lin Sen in the camera, his expression was indifferent, he had thought about this problem for a long time, the solution was very simple, he could even let the first three play at the same time, Reus could go to the middle, and the Bale and Di Maria in memory were never players who stuck to the left side.

Gabriel Jesus bowed his head on the sidelines after Gareth Bale had scored the third, three goals down on aggregate, and there was still time to play, but the game was over.

Goodman's curse will continue to haunt Benfica.

Two days later, UEFA headquarters in Nyon.

Hosted by UEFA Tournament Manager Marchetti and guest guest by Ambassador Schiller from Hamburg, Germany, the host of the final, the draw for the quarter-finals of the Europa League was also held an hour after the draw for the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Half an hour later, the draw was completed and the civil war was born.

There are four matches in the quarterfinals, three civil wars, with the only exception being Belgium's Standard Liege vs. France's Marseille. The other three civil wars: Wolfsburg vs. Hamburg in Germany, Atletico Madrid vs. Valencia in Spain, and England Civil War: Liverpool, who knocked out Ligue 1 Lille 3-1 on aggregate, crashed into Manchester City. (To be continued......)

PS: Alas, I fall into the pit and climb the pit every day, and the collection also follows the push-ups, which always feels too reluctant