Chapter 45: The Defending Champion of the Second Tier

Although Zhou Yi has entered the Greer Madi Convention Center, on the Internet in China, his photos and videos on the red carpet are still going viral, and everyone is hotly discussing his performance on the red carpet for the first time. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. biquge。 info

"I can't tell it's the first time, I'm not nervous at all. I remembered his first appearance in the Bundesliga, and he didn't feel nervous...... Is Zhou Yi's nickname 'not nervous'?"

"The first time I saw Zhou Yi wearing formal clothes, it was hard to imagine how Zhou Yi was such an unserious person wearing formal clothes, but I didn't expect to wear super handsome!"

"Looking at his smile, it's so fascinating! At first glance, I thought it was a movie star walking the Oscar red carpet!"

......

Whether it is male fans or fan girls, they are full of praise for Zhou Yi, and their eyes are full of red hearts.

In the past, this kind of evaluation of "handsome" has never appeared on Zhou Yi, and this time, I don't know if it is a rare formal outfit that adds points, or it has the aura of the top three best players in Europe......

The red carpet activities of the stars continued, Messi and Ribery both appeared one after another, and the screams on the scene were still continuous, and when Messi appeared, the screams were the loudest.

Seeing this scene, the Chinese reporters at the scene couldn't help but mutter: "Messi's influence is still the greatest, and this cheer is not the same as Zhou Yi just now......"

"What are you afraid of? Fortunately, this is the vote of reporters, not the head coach and captain of the national team, otherwise I would not have come to report - Zhou Yi must be a green leaf. ”

"Even if you don't get the first place, it's historic to be in the top three...... I mean, FIFA's Golden Ball Award, being able to enter the top three shows that Zhou Yi is already one of the top three figures in world football in terms of popularity......"

On the Internet, Chinese fans don't care much about the subsequent red carpet stars, and everyone is looking forward to the final award ceremony.

But no matter how much they care, they still have to wait patiently for all the procedures to be completed.

After the red carpet session, everyone entered the conference hall and took their seats, waiting for the Champions League draw to begin.

The draw for the Champions League group stage for the new season is the focus of everyone's attention every year, and this year is no exception. That is, in China, because of Zhou Yi, everyone is more concerned about the final award ceremony.

※※※

Before the start of the Champions League group stage draw ceremony, a short review of last season's Champions League final was played on the big screen, and the short film reviewed the history of Dortmunddo's Champions League trophy last season in the form of an art gallery, in which Zhou Yi had a lot of exits.

The Chinese fans who watched the live broadcast were very happy - is this kind of performance not worthy of one of the best players in Europe?

The final shot of the film is the moment when Dortmund lifted the Champions League trophy.

After the short film screening, McNeil, who once led the Scottish Celtic to a large number of Champions League trophies, walked into the draw ceremony with the trophy in hand.

Then the Champions League draw ceremony officially began.

The first guest to draw the lot was Portuguese legend and Champions League ambassador Luis Figo. UEFA Secretary General Gianni Infantino, who was the host of the Champions League draw, first introduced the rules of the draw: the 32 teams are divided into four tiers, evenly divided into eight groups, and the teams in the same group and the same league will not meet.

At this time, Chinese fans also began to temporarily divert their attention from the award ceremony and devoted themselves to the draw ceremony. It's going to be a process anyway, so it's better to take a good look and they want to know which group Dortmund will be placed in this season. Dortmund was placed in the group of death last season, but they turned the group of death into "someone else's group of death", took the lead in breaking through, and also passed all the way to win the Champions League. In this way, the group of death seems to have given Dortmund good luck......

Everyone thinks that Dortmund, as the defending champions, will definitely be seeded.

But it turned out that way.

According to UEFA's bracket rules, they rank 32 teams based on their European points from the past five years, with the top eight teams seeded and the ninth to sixteenth placed teams in Pot 2...... And so on.

So even if Borussia Dortmund won the Champions League last season, they have only played in three European seasons in the past five years, so the European points are not enough to avoid being a top-eight team, so they are not seeded.

The defending champions have become the second-tier team and could be relegated to the Group of Death......

This rule has made Dortmund FC quite unhappy, and Watzke talked about this rule in an interview with the media before coming to Monaco, believing that it is unfair to the defending champions, and this kind of deucing will also make the Champions League seeded teams uneven, and it is inevitable that there will be some team-up teams. As long as you participate in the Champions League steadily, you can rely on seniority to become a seeded team.

Watzke believes that last season's league winners and Champions League winners should be seeded teams, regardless of their past European points, and only such rules are worthy of the name "UEFA Champions League".

After all, it's the Champions League, not the "European League".

This matter has indeed caused extensive discussion in the European media, but the Chinese media and fans are more concerned about whether Zhou Yi can win the award, and they do not pay enough attention to this part and ignore it.

Now seeing that Dortmund is not a seeded team, many Chinese fans in front of the TV are surprised.

The TV broadcast swept Zhou Yi and Watzke, and Watzke was chatting with Zhou Yi about something.

No one knew what they were talking about, because both of them covered their mouths with their hands, and it was impossible to guess by reading the lip language.

In fact, Watzke is complaining to Zhou Yi about this classification rule, or the same cliché he complained about to reporters.

"If we were seeded, we would have a good chance of avoiding being placed in a group of death......

And Zhou Yi was comforting him: "Don't worry too much, Mr. Watzke." I think it's a good thing to be put in the death group. ”

"Huh?" Watzke didn't understand whether Zhou Yi was ironic or serious.

"Didn't we get into the Bracket of Death last season, and we were supposedly comparable to the Bracket of Death in 1999, and we won the championship. So I think the group of death may be a sign of good luck for us?" Zhou Yi laughed.

Watzke looked at Zhou Yi with some surprise, and felt that this kid's thinking was really different from ordinary people, and bad things could be said to be good things. This kind of self-confidence is really beyond the reach of ordinary people, especially in a twenty-two-year-old young man, it is even more rare. For Dortmund's self-confidence, to be honest, even he, the CEO, may not be able to do this, after all, Dortmund has lost Gotze and Lewandowski this season, and the damage is actually greater than people think, can Mark and Aubameyang support the vacancy after Lewandowski's departure? Can Mkhitaryan make up for the position left by Gotze? These are not easy to say......

After being interrupted by Zhou Yi, Watzke had no time to continue to think about the seeding team, and the Champions League draw had already begun.

※※※

McNeil and Figo have drawn seeds Arsenal to Group F, Chelsea to Group E, Real Madrid to Group B, Bayern Munich to Group D, Barcelona to Group H and Benfica to Group C......

As Benfica was drawn, Watzke snorted.

Apparently he is unhappy that Benfica can be seeded and Borussia Dortmund can only play second pot. A team like Benfica has become a seeded team because they are in a small league country like Portugal and can often have the opportunity to play in the Champions League, and they have more points than Borussia Dortmund......

The other Portuguese side, Porto, have been drawn to Group G, while Manchester United have been drawn to Group A.

The draw for the teams in the first pot of the Champions League has been completed.

The draw for Pot 2 was made by Dutch legend Cruyff, who and Figo were in charge of the draw for the Pot 2 teams.

When the second team drew lots, many Chinese fans paid special attention, and Watzke and Zorke, who were sitting in the seats, also adjusted their sitting postures, and some of them sat upright.

Because Borussia Dortmund is in the second tier of the team.

The first to be drawn was Marseille, who was placed in Group B, alongside Real Madrid. AC Milan were then drawn to Group H and met Barcelona. Schalke 04 have been drawn to Group E, alongside Chelsea.

This result made Chinese fans a little excited - Sun Pan's Chelsea and Yang Muge's Schalke 04 were divided into a group, and you can see two Chinese derbies in the group stage alone!

Paris Saint-Germain was placed in Group C, and He Ying was bought out by Paris Saint-Germain this summer, and he completely left Barcelona and became a member of Paris Saint-Germain.

In the second half of last season, He Ying performed very well after moving to Paris Saint-Germain, which made Barcelona Club regret that they allowed Paris Saint-Germain to set a right of first refusal in He Ying's loan contract......

At that time, they may not be very optimistic about He Ying's future in Barcelona, thinking that it would be good to be able to exchange a sum of money.

As a result, He Ying's performance was so good that Barcelona regretted it again.

Only this time, regret is useless. At the end of the season, Paris Saint-Germain activated the right of first refusal to keep He Ying.

At this time, the only thing that can stop Paris Saint-Germain is the will of the player himself, if He Ying himself is not willing to go to Paris Saint-Germain, then the right of first refusal is useless.

So FC Barcelona sent someone to lobby He Ying and painted a wonderful picture for him to stay in the Barcelona first team. But this time, He Ying didn't even hesitate at all, and directly rejected Barcelona's lobby. He'd made a mistake before, and he didn't want to be wrong again.

In this way, He Ying became a member of Paris Saint-Germain. Playing in Ligue 1, which is at the bottom of the top five leagues, seems to be a low point for He Ying. But He Ying himself is looking forward to the beginning of a new journey, he is full of hope for the future, and he firmly believes that with his feet, even in Ligue 1, he can play a brilliant future!