After Chelsea's defeat at the Lion King Stadium, the voice at Stamford Bridge was: When is Jose Mourinho out of class?

The best form of the new league season was in vain at the halfway point, with Millwall coming back from behind to leading Chelsea by a staggering 14 points!

Abou's patience with Mourinho is clearly exhausted.

However, if the manager is dismissed in the middle of the season, even if Abbu thinks that the league is basically out of play, Chelsea still have the Champions League, and the impact of the change of manager on Chelsea may be equivalent to completely burying all fronts this season.

After all, in this Chelsea team, not to mention Mourinho's descendants, there are main players like Carvalho Ferreira, but also the players he introduced after taking office, Drogba, Essien, Cech and other players have a lot to do with him, if Mourinho leaves, no matter who the next manager is, if he wants to control the dressing room, I am afraid it will be difficult to be perfect in a short time.

Millwall, under Aldridge's leadership, have been on their way to the best form for the new season, and the morale boost from the win over Chelsea was very clear, allowing them to win all of their Christmas fixtures without dropping a point!

Stepping into 2006, Aldridge's days were on track, and Millwall did not need to be reminded by the coaching staff to get into a preoccupied rhythm ahead of schedule.

More self-conscious than ever.

For Millwall, the goal for the season is very realistic, and although it may seem distant, the players have their sights set on it: a second treble in a Champions League competition!

There is the World Cup in the summer, and there will be a UEFA presidential election at the end of the year.

In January. The FA Cup begins. The bench lineup, which was rested and adjusted some time ago, began to explode. Since he first joined the FA Cup team, he has been like a bamboo, facing non-Premier League teams, and the big score games with a goal difference of more than 4 goals in a single game have frequently appeared!

Veterans such as Nedved and Larsson have led the maturing bench players, Veloso, Moutinho and Messi to grow and improve for all to see. Ahead of the Champions League knockout stages at the end of February, Millwall will have to allocate their fitness to the likes of Sergio Aguero, who will occasionally be called into the first team to play around 20 minutes.

Before the Champions League 1/8 finals, Millwall had extended their lead in the Premier League to 6 points, and in the last 6 Premier League games, Millwall won 3 and drew 3, which is not particularly good, and their terrifying winning streak that began in the middle of the first half of the season was also ended at this time, not enough for Chelsea, who are in second place in the table, as expected. During the start of the Africa Cup of Nations in January, the team's league results fluctuated. They have three wins, two draws and one defeat, with Millwall having one more draw than them, so the gap has widened by one point.

After the FIFA matchday in mid-February, England played an FA Cup fixture at the weekend, with Millwall sending out all their substitutes to win the game before waiting for their Champions League quarter-final opponents to visit the Lion King Stadium.

The results of the draw were revealed a long time ago.

Millwall vs Barcelona!

Most of the outside media commented on the draw results in anticipation of such a matchup of giants, but the Catalan media was a little aggrieved by Barcelona!

The Champions League itself is in the group stage draw system to protect the interests of the giants, as long as the giants get the results that match the strength, then the probability of meeting a strong team in the 1/8 knockout round will be relatively low.

Like, if Millwall won the group, they would not have drawn Barcelona who also won the group in the other group.

However, Millwall finished second in the group stage, allowing Inter Milan to win the group.

Millwall itself doesn't care, it doesn't matter who is drawn, just play as usual, this is not only Aldridge's mentality, but also the consensus of the whole Millwall team, such a mentality is shaped over the years from emphasis to persistence, after time precipitation.

So the Catalan media can't openly accuse Millwall of being unkind: it's a shame to have the strength to win the group, but not try their best to win the group!

They attacked Millwall with the same views and positions as UEFA, saying once again that Millwall lacked respect for the Champions League.

Damn, if you give it your all in the group stage, will Inter Milan win the group?

No kidding, if you don't get killed by Millwall, you're going to burn high incense!

Now, Barcelona will face the king of Europe, defending champion Millwall, in the 1/8 finals.

In the pre-match press conference, Aldridge only gave interviews on a routine basis and did not want to confront the media, regardless of the opponent's position.

In fact, in addition to the local media, that is, Fleet Street, Aldrich can ignore the media of other countries or regions.

After all, external attention is always momentary.

Just like the Catalan media is staring at Millwall now, what's the point of Aldridge pinching them?

After the 1/8 finals, no matter what the result is, they basically have not intersected with each other for a long time, and the battle of words is like a shrew scolding the street, meaningless.

However, due to the continuous influence of Fleet Street in the homeland, once Aldrich starts a war with the media, most of the time the opponent is Fleet Street, and there is no way to let Fleet Street continue to exert public opinion influence.

On February 23, the Lion King Stadium was packed.

With a cool breeze tonight and not particularly clear skies, Millwall host Barcelona to challenge.

Aldridge's heart is like water, and when he encounters today's Barcelona team, of course, there is no excitement about the "all-time dream two".

At least the current Barcelona lacks a core player in the original history: Ronaldo.

However, without Xiao Luo, it does not mean that the team is worthless, and the strength will have an impact in the same period, but the gap may be the distance between the peak and the first-class middle and upper, under the command of Black Swan Rijkaard, the new generation of Barcelona players he has vigorously cultivated is Iniesta.

Of course, there is a credit to Aldridge, on the one hand, Ronaldo is at Millwall, and on the other hand, many years ago, Aldridge tried to "solemnly" bring in Iniesta from Barcelona.

This made Barcelona very vigilant, in addition to rejecting Millwall's formal offer, but also more important to Iniesta, after Rijkaard took office, he began to train Iniesta as the main player, in the first team to play a more important role, more than two years of grinding, although the little white Iniesta has not yet reached the peak, but also has good combat effectiveness.

Rijkaard doesn't like London, having led his team to the city last season, just west of the Lion King Stadium, another of the city's most famous stadiums, where he led his team to a knockout match against Chelsea, which nearly ruined his wisdom and saddled him with the vicious charge of "influencing the referee to manipulate the game in secret".

Coming to the Lion King Stadium today, it is an unprecedented pressure haunting my heart.

Stepping into this top-class stadium and seeing the young marshal standing on the sideline and throwing a friendly look at him, Rijkaard involuntarily took the initiative to walk over, and the two stretched out their hands to each other, just a simple greeting and a polite conversation, but there was a sense of immediacy with a happy hand.

Aldridge has no grudges against Rijkaard, at least he doesn't hate Barcelona, and there's nothing wrong with welcoming guests with grace as a host.

Rijkaard is a rather regrettable character in his eyes, not specifically when the original historical dream II collapsed and the locker room was in chaos, but referring to Rijkaard's near-success at Euro 2000.

At that European Championship, the Netherlands, as one of the hosts, reached the semi-finals under the leadership of Rijkaard, and then, tragedy happened.

The Dutch player stood in front of the penalty spot 6 times and missed 5 penalties!

The result is the "Miracle of Santo Tordo".

The longer he has been in charge, the more Aldridge feels sorry for Rijkaard.

That situation really makes the head coach extremely helpless!

Six penalties, five penalties missed, and the chance to settle the battle in regular time allowed Italy to survive a miracle.

Aldridge returned to his familiar position in the stadium and waited for the game to begin.

Regarding the encounter with Barcelona, the pressure, there must be, Millwall is not strong enough to face Barcelona and still play the same mentality as a normal team, but the more pressure there is, the relative, the more exciting the players and the manager.

Abuse vegetables can't become gods!

The more the king, in fact, deep down, the more they look forward to a challenging game, which is their motivation to move forward, the difference is that perhaps when ordinary teams encounter this kind of pressure, although they will say how challenging it is on the surface, the motivation to stimulate themselves may be a kind of jealousy in the heart, and they are also cowardly on the court, and they are afraid to play poorly.

But after all, Rijkaard does not belong to one of Aldrich's most anticipated opponents in this era, his Barcelona coaching is more like a product of the same line of Dutch football philosophy, at best it is elegant and beautiful, offensive football, but it is not good to say, in fact, Rijkaard is a good hand of cards constantly trying to play strategies, and then found the best strategy, and then fixed it.

Barcelona in this period, despite their admirably beautiful elegance and attacking like clouds in the sky, were as ethereal as Rijkaard's football heights represented: that was it.

Compared with the later Guardiola, who was able to completely present the "advantage" on the football field to the world, bring subversive changes, and truly elevate the style of football to the essence of the concept, what is Rijkaard's style? It's just a popular definition that can be applied to other coaches.

This is Barcelona, which is by no means unchanged for 20 years, each period has different characteristics, and it is not really the inevitable qualitative change brought about by perseverance. (To be continued......)