host must win

Chapter 207 UEFA Awards Ceremony and Draw
法国当地时间2003年8月28日晚，摩纳哥蒙特卡洛格里马尔迪会展中心灯火通明，高朋满座。2002-2003赛季欧足联颁奖盛典暨2003-2004赛季欧冠小组赛抽签仪式正在这里进行。

Ferguson and many Manchester United players participated in the awards ceremony.As last season's Champions League champion and Premier League champion, many players in Manchester United's team were the best candidates for UEFA last season, and even the favorites for awards.Among them, Ruud van Nistelrooy has basically locked up the best striker, while Yin Jun is a strong contender for the two awards of best midfielder and most valuable player. Ferguson is also very likely to win the best head coach of last season .

The first to be announced was the best goalkeeper. Juventus goalkeeper Buffon defeated all competitors and won the award.

Although Juventus stopped in the semi-finals of the Champions League last season, there is no doubt that without Buffon's outstanding performance, there would be no left and right blocks in the quarter-finals against Barcelona when he played less and played more , Without his single-riding savior who saved Real Madrid's penalty kick in the semi-finals, the old lady would not have even made it to the semi-finals.In the domestic league, Buffon's stable performance also ensured that Juventus can win the Serie A championship in advance.

Not long ago, the 25-year-old world's most valuable goalkeeper just won the honor of the best goalkeeper in the Champions League.At today's party, he also successively took over the best goalkeeper award from former Manchester United star George Best.

Immediately after the selection of the best defender, Real Madrid's left-back Roberto Carlos was elected.In fact, Roberto Carlos’ performance last season was not very good, especially in the two matchups between the Champions League quarter-finals and Manchester United. Still passable performance, he finally won the award.

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Subsequently, Yin Jun took away the award of the best midfielder last season.

Manchester United was able to beat Real Madrid, Juventus and AC Milan all the way last season, the most powerful teams in the world, and almost undisputedly won the third place in team history. Yin Jun can be said to have contributed a lot to the Champions League champion.This talented teenager who played in the Champions League for the first time in his career, scored 13 goals in 13 Champions League games last season, shared the Champions League Golden Boot last season with teammate Ruud van Nistelrooy, and he also sent 8 assists, Became the assist leader in the Champions League last season.

It is especially worth mentioning that after Manchester United entered the quarter-finals, Yin Jun sent out an extraordinary record of 5 goals and 7 assists in 2 games against the three major teams of Real Madrid, Juventus and AC Milan. Shocked the football world.

Yin Jun's achievements in these 5 games alone are the achievements that the vast majority of stars participating in the Champions League can hardly achieve in a season.

In the Champions League final at Old Trafford, he scored twice and instigated Manchester United's first goal. It can be said that he defeated the mighty AC Milan on his own.

With such outstanding performance, Yin Jun defeated Juventus midfielder Pavel Nedved, Real Madrid midfielder Zidane, teammate Scholes and many other midfield superstars, and won the trophy of the best midfielder .

With 13 goals in the Champions League, Manchester United's Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy was voted the best striker in Europe.

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Finally, in the selection of the most important award, Yin Jun took the stage again and lifted the European Most Valuable Player trophy last season.

In the first year of joining Manchester United, Yin Jun not only shocked the world football world with his performance in the Champions League, he was also omnipotent in the Premier League, with an excellent report card of 18 goals and 14 assists. It is one of the important contributors to Manchester United's ability to regain the Premier League title from Arsenal after a lapse of one year.

Ferguson led Manchester United to the top of Europe again after a lapse of four years. At the same time, he also won the Premier League and the League Cup. He was once again elected as the best coach of UEFA.The head coach of Porto, who won the UEFA Cup, won the award together with Ferguson.

AC Milan captain Paolo Maldini set an unprecedented record of 17 years of loyalty to AC Milan, and his record will continue.Coupled with the major achievements he made during this period, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Maldini became the European No.1 who received this honor.

In addition, the Dutch striker Ma Kai, who is currently playing for Bayern, won the European Golden Boot for his 29 goals in La Liga last season; the Fair Play Award was awarded to the UEFA Cup runner-up Scottish Celtic.Although they lost 2:3 to the Portuguese Porto team in the final, the Celtic fans showed great football spirit during the game. Applaud and applaud for the performance.

UEFA also handed out some special awards at the awards ceremony: Portuguese star Luis Figo won the award for his stunning goal in the Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United in the first leg. Goal Award; former Lazio Dutch midfielder Wendt received a special tribute award for his efforts to fight racial discrimination.

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And at this evening, another focus of the world's attention, the UEFA Champions League group stage draw, also had results under the new rules.

Since the important restructuring in 1992, the former Champions Cup has been constantly making changes, each time to conform to the trend of the times. In the 1999-2000 season, the UEFA Champions League implemented a two-stage group stage. While increasing the number of games and protecting the interests of the powerful, it also created too many "chicken games".Under the pressure of the TV station, the UEFA Champions League began to "return to tradition" in the 2003-2004 season, canceling the second stage of the group stage, and starting the knockout round from the top 16.

Under the new draw rules, as UEFA's top eight teams in the past five seasons, Manchester United was listed as one of the eight seeded teams.In the end, they were drawn in Group E with Stuttgart in the Bundesliga, Glasgow Rangers in the Scottish Premier League and Panathinaikos in the Greek Premier League.

For Manchester United, this is a very good draw result.Although the Glasgow Rangers are one of the two superpowers in the Soviet Super League, Panathinaikos is also a giant in the Greek Super League, but they are not in the five major leagues. Their strength is limited.

Although Stuttgart was the runner-up of the Bundesliga last season, they have always been a mid-range team in the Bundesliga before, and their strength is not too strong.

In general, in this group, Manchester United has almost locked in a qualifying place, and the Stuttgart three teams can only work hard for another qualifying place.

(End of this chapter)