The Era of Emerald

ps: This is the first update today, and the 5 recommended updates will be released later in the evening.

On the night of August 8, after arranging for the players to rest, Zhuang Mingge and Capello rushed to the scene of the UEFA Champions League group draw ceremony.

"Isn't this Coach Ferguson? I'm glad to see you here." As soon as he entered the venue, Zhuang Mingge saw an old Scottish man with a red nose, and immediately went up to chat with him.

This is also impossible. Although Serie A won three seats this time due to the relationship between the defending champion Fiorentina, the teams that won the league runner-up and third place were AC Milan and Juventus, and the Rossoneri came to participate this time. The representative of the lottery ceremony was Sacchi, who had a "deep feud" with Fiorentina. His general manager Galliani was unable to attend for some reason, and Zhuang Mingge naturally would not rush to touch Sacchi's bad luck.

Not to mention Juventus. The Bianconeri itself has a bad relationship with Fiorentina. Lippi also fell into an unstable position because of losing to Fiorentina several times in the game. Naturally, he will not have a good look at Fiorentina.

The two representatives of La Liga are the chairman of Atletico Madrid, Jesús Hill, and the head coach of Valencia, Luis Aragones (nicknamed "Smart Man"), who later led the Spanish national team to win the European Cup. The head coach), Zhuang Mingge has no friendship with these two, and these two are quite famous for their tough personalities. Zhuang Mingge doesn't think that he will get any benefits by going up.

The two representatives from the Bundesliga are Borussia Dortmund's Hitzfeld and Bayern Munich's Trapattoni. Zhuang Mingge wanted to chat with them, especially his compatriot Trapattoni, but the former was there when Zhuang Mingge arrived What is being discussed with Newcastle United's head coach "Mickey Mouse" Kevin Keegan (because Keegan played in the Bundesliga during his player days), and the latter has not yet arrived at the venue, so Ferguson is the only one who can who to talk to.

"Chairman Corleone, I really envy Florence's current player configuration." At this time, although Ferguson had gained some fame in European football by virtue of his outstanding performance in the Premier League, the name of Florence's Triple Crown Obviously much louder than Manchester United, which has won three Premier League titles.

Ferguson was telling the truth. Although the current Manchester United vaguely has some shadows of the "Red Devils" under Busby's command back then, it is still far inferior to a team of Fiorentina's level in terms of player allocation.

Among other things, let's just talk about the current striker configuration of the two. Some people think that the combination of Andy Cole, Cantona and Solskjaer is better than the configuration of Batty, Vieri, Ronaldo and Inzaghi. Is there a deterrent?

Of course, if there are friends who think that Manchester United's striker is better, I have nothing to say, and seek common ground while reserving differences.

"Haha, Coach Ferguson, you deserve the award." Zhuang Mingge was also full of respect for the old Scottish man who had devoted almost his entire coaching career to Manchester United, "I believe that under your leadership, Manchester United will grow into a great giant sooner or later. .”

"Hehe, then I will borrow your good words, Chairman Corleone." Of course Ferguson, who is not a time traveler, did not know that Zhuang Mingge was telling the truth, and thought that the other party was just being polite.

During the conversation between Zhuang Mingge and Ferguson, the remaining club representatives also came to the venue one after another. 24 club representatives participating in the Champions League match gathered together, which means that, 1996-97 The group draw ceremony for the Season Champions Cup has officially begun!

Due to the expansion of the Champions League, the number of teams entering the Champions League has increased from the previous 16 to 24. Therefore, this time the Champions League grouping is quite different from the past. According to the regulations announced by UEFA, there are six teams in the Champions League group stage. In each group, the first place in each group and the two best-performing group runners-up can directly get a place to advance to the rematch, which means that the Champions League group stage this season will be more intense.

After all, in the past, getting the top two in the group was enough to guarantee qualifying, but now no one wants to accidentally find out that their team loses the promotion because the points are not as high as other teams after working hard to get the second place in the group. Chance.

Unlike last season, Zhuang Mingge was quite inconspicuous during the whole grouping ceremony last year. After all, at that time, Fiorentina did not have the confidence to compete with a strong European team. The eye-catching presence in the entire venue, countless cameras were aimed at Zhuang Mingge and Capello, and even before the draw ceremony, UEFA specially arranged for him to give a speech on stage.

However, Zhuang Mingge will not really make long speeches. He knows that this is a face given to him by UEFA.

So, after saying a few words on the stage, Zhuang Mingge stepped off the stage, returned to his seat, and waited for the lottery ceremony to begin.

On the way back to his place, representatives of the club kept greeting him cordially, and he completely lost the feeling of being unaccompanied at this time last year.

This world is often like this, when you have impressive strength, all honors and praises will follow.

It's just that Florence's current scenery naturally has to pay a certain price for it.

Zhuang Mingge is also well aware of this. Although he and Johansson have a good personal relationship due to some previous incidents, this does not mean that Fiorentina will have a smooth road in the future European games. After all, UEFA does not want The emergence of a team that has long occupied the Champions League title, because this is likely to make the Champions League less attractive to fans, which is something UEFA does not want to see.

This time the Champions League grouping has not yet adopted the later form of drawing lots based on the points of the European War in the past five years. However, under the secret promotion of Zhuang Mingge, Johansson also began to make certain reforms to the grouping method, making this grouping possible. Some shadows of later generations.

Before the start of the draw ceremony, UEFA first announced the 6 seed teams, which are the champions of the four major leagues and Ligue [-] champions Monaco, and the Dutch overlord Ajax. These six teams will be the first batch. The seeded teams are divided into six different groups.

However, UEFA immediately announced the other six teams as the second batch of seeded teams, which were equally distributed among each group. It was called to ensure the excitement of the Champions Cup. In fact, everyone present knew it well. , This is just a set of insurance measures UEFA has put in place to ensure that most strong teams will not be eliminated prematurely in the group stage.

After announcing the two batches of seed teams, the UEFA Champions League group draw ceremony is finally on track!