From the man behind the football king to the football king.

Chapter 911 UEFA Best Four Consecutive

The next award was for the best goalkeeper, which was unsurprisingly given to Manchester United goalkeeper De Gea.

After De Gea received the best goalkeeper award, the agenda entered the first stage of the draw for this season's Champions League group stage, which is to determine the grouping of the first-tier teams.

Last season's Champions League semi-finals were hailed as a Premier League civil war, with three of the four places occupied by Premier League teams.

In the past few seasons, the performance of Premier League teams in European competitions has been getting better and better. Manchester United has won 1 Europa League title and 4 Champions League titles in the past five years, and is already the undisputed king of Europe; and Premier League teams such as Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham have also performed very well, which has enabled the Premier League to overtake La Liga in the UEFA standings and firmly occupy the first place. The Premier League's position as the first league is becoming more and more solid.

This also means that the four Premier League teams participating in the Champions League this season, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, all ranked in the top eight in UEFA points.

If the ranking rules from ten years ago were followed, all four teams would be seeded teams.

However, according to the latest team rankings, the eight teams in the first tier of seeding will be the defending champions of the Champions League, the defending champions of the Europa League, and the champions of the top six leagues in the UEFA standings.

In the event that the champion of the top six UEFA leagues overlaps with the Champions League or Europa League champion, the champion of the seventh UEFA league will be the substitute as the first-tier seeded team.

As a result, this year's eight first-tier seeded teams are Champions League champion and Premier League champion Manchester United, Europa League champion Villarreal, Serie A champion Inter Milan, La Liga champion Atletico Madrid, Bundesliga champion Bayern Munich, Ligue 1 champion Lille, Portuguese Super League champion Sporting CP, and Eredivisie champion Ajax.

The two guests at the draw ceremony were the two captains of Manchester United who won the Champions League in 2008: Gary Neville, the team's first captain at the time, and Ferdinand, the on-field captain.

Gary Neville was the first to draw the name of his old club Manchester United, and then Ferdinand drew Manchester United into Group A.

This means that Manchester United is placed in Group A, which is not a big difference. The situation of the group will have to wait until the teams in the last three tiers are placed before we can see how difficult the group is.

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The best defender award was subsequently won by a Manchester United player, with Maguire defeating his defender partner Van Dijk to be successfully elected.

In the past few years, the partnership of Maguire and Van Dijk has been regarded as the top defense in Europe. They are also the cornerstone of Manchester United's dominance in England and Europe. The two have also won the UEFA Best Defender Award in recent years. This year, Maguire won the award. The English central defender was also the best defender in the past year.

Then it was time to determine the second tier of teams for the Champions League group stage draw.

Starting from the second tier of teams, the ranking will be based on the previous rules, that is, UEFA points.

Teams of this level are a gathering of the best, including the top three Premier League teams Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, the two Spanish Super League giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​the Serie A powerhouse Juventus, the Europa League champion Sevilla and the French Ligue 1 overlord Paris Saint-Germain.

In terms of team strength, the second-tier teams are obviously stronger than the first-tier teams.

It can be said that if we really look at the overall strength of the teams, among the first-tier teams, only Manchester United and Bayern Munich are truly worthy of the title.

Of these eight teams, Sevilla is slightly weaker. The remaining seven teams, whoever is drawn into Group A, will form a very strong group.

However, according to the avoidance rules of the group draw, the top three Premier League teams Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea will not face Manchester United during the group stage. Therefore, Manchester United's opponents will be Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​as well as Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain and Sevilla.

In the end, the two Manchester United legends drew Paris Saint-Germain into Group A.

This is a result that is neither good nor bad. After all, Manchester United avoided the three toughest opponents, the Spanish Super League duo and the Serie A giants, but also did not draw Sevilla, the weakest among the five potential opponents.

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Next up was the Best Midfielder award, which was the least suspenseful award. As for the Best Defender award, it was a duel between the Manchester United central defenders Maguire and Van Dijk. Neither Jorginho, Bruno's midfield partner Kante, nor Real Madrid midfielder Modric were able to compete with Bruno.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Bruno has won this award, and he has been elected five times in his career.

After Bruno received the best award, the evening moved on to the drawing of the third-tier team.

Generally speaking, the third tier teams are weaker, but this year's situation is a little different, because there are also strong teams in the third tier, such as the Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund, the Bundesliga upstart RB Leipzig that has performed well in the European arena in the past two years, Serie A Atalanta, and the Portuguese Super League giants Porto are also not easy to deal with.

Manchester United's luck is still not very good. Although they did not draw the strongest Dortmund, they encountered RB Leipzig. Manchester United is not unfamiliar with this team, because the Red Devils' opponent in the Champions League semi-finals in the 201-2020 season was RB Leipzig. Although Manchester United eventually defeated their opponent 3:0 in the first single-game semi-final in history, RB Leipzig's ability to reach the Champions League semi-finals shows that they are not easy to deal with.

Last season, RB Leipzig once again reached the knockout stage of the Champions League.

They have reached the knockout stage of the Champions League twice and even the semi-finals once, which shows the strength of this new Bundesliga team.

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After looking at the draw result, Bruno, who was sitting in the front row, turned around and smiled bitterly at Harry Kane and others behind him.

"It seems that our luck is really good, as they are all old rivals," Bruno said.

Harry Kane nodded and said: "Old opponents are good, we won't feel unfamiliar when we play against each other."

He seemed eager to try.

In fact, for a team that has participated in the Champions League for many consecutive years, most of the opponents are familiar, especially the strong first and second tier teams. After all, there are only a few teams that can win the championship in the major European leagues, and there are even fewer teams that can rank at the top based on UEFA points.

For example, among the eight teams in the second tier this time, Manchester United has basically encountered them in the past few seasons. In the 2017-2018 season, Manchester United faced Manchester City in the semi-finals and Real Madrid in the final; in the 2018-2019 season, they faced Barcelona in the quarter-finals and Liverpool in the final; in the 2019-2020 season, they faced Real Madrid and Juventus, and last season they faced Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City and Chelsea in one go.

Last season, Manchester United won the Champions League for the fourth time in a row, which was very valuable. After getting through Ajax, Atalanta and Midtjylland in the group stage, they faced the powerful Paris Saint-Germain in the first round of the knockout stage, Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, Manchester City derby in the semi-finals, and Chelsea in the final, all of which are the strongest teams in European football today.

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Before the fourth pot was drawn, the award ceremony entered the most suspenseful part of the game, which was the award for the best forward.

Harry Kane, Lewandowski and Cristiano Ronaldo are evenly matched. Lewandowski broke the Bundesliga record last season, scoring 41 goals in a single season, not only winning the Bundesliga top scorer, but also defeating Bruno to win the European Golden Boot; Ronaldo won the Golden Boot in Serie A, which is known for its defense, at the age of 36, and collected the top scorers of the three top leagues of the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A; although Harry Kane did not gain much in terms of personal honors, he won seven championships with Manchester United in the season, and his personal performance was not bad.

It can be said that each of the three has his or her own strengths, and whoever wins the award in the end is convincing enough.

"The winner of the 2020-2021 season's best forward award is..."

As Ceferin spoke, the atmosphere in the venue became extremely tense. Some people even held their breath and looked intently at the three people on the podium, especially Ceferin.

He will announce the final winner, who is...

"Harry Kane!"

Following Ceferin's shout, the audience burst into warm applause and cheers.

Obviously, Harry Kane still had the last laugh thanks to Manchester United's outstanding team performance. Although Lewandowski and Ronaldo both performed well individually, Bayern Munich and Juventus' performances were not outstanding. Juventus was eliminated in the round of 16, and Bayern Munich was eliminated by Manchester United in the quarterfinals.

Both teams were eliminated early in the Champions League, which also led to poor statistics for Ronaldo and Lewandowski in the Champions League. Lewandowski scored 6 goals in 5 games, Ronaldo scored 6 goals and 4 assists in 2 games, but Harry Kane scored 11 goals and 8 assists in 4 Champions League games without making a fuss, ranking third in both the scorer list and the assist list.

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With Harry Kane beating Ronaldo and Lewandowski to win the best striker award, it also meant that Manchester United won all the games tonight.

Sure enough, after the draw for the fourth-tier teams, Bruno won the best player award without any surprise.

Just like Manchester United won all seven championships last season, the five awards announced tonight were all won by Manchester United players, with no award missed.

In comparison, Manchester United's draw results were not satisfactory.

In fact, it is not just Manchester United. The European giants who made trouble in the summer and wanted to establish the European Super League all had unsatisfactory draw results. UEFA’s warning and crackdown on these giants through this draw ceremony is like a louse on a bald head, it is obvious!
(End of this chapter)