After Mallorca tied Alaves with Alaves in the first leg of the Copa REE semifinals, Drogba returned in a depressed manner. Although Drogba scored two goals in the African Cup group stage, Côte d'Ivoire was still out of the group stage miserably. They were divided into Nigeria, South Africa and Monaco in a group, and finally ranked third. Nigeria and Monaco had two previous qualifiers, while Cameroon performed well. They were divided into Egypt, Algeria and Zimbabwe in a group, and won the first place in the group with one win, two draws and five points, and entered the quarterfinals.

Drogba is back, Mallorca has three forwards, and Jose does not need to adopt a single forward lineup for tactical changes. In the next round of the league, Jose still sent a forward combination of Torres and Guísa, and let Drogba rest on the bench. Drogba, who came on the bench in the second half, vented all his depression on Sevilla. His two goals helped Mallorca lead Sevilla three-to-two at one time, but Mallorca made a mistake in the defense. He scored a goal by the opponent before the end of the game, and encountered two consecutive three-to-three draws in three days.

However, the two consecutive draws did not stop Mallorca's progress. Next, they swept Alves four-one at home, advanced to the final of the Cup del Rey, and met Real Madrid in the final. In the next home game against Albacete, Torres and Drogba each scored a goal. Mallorca beat Albacete, a small town team who fought for relegation 2-0, and narrowed the disadvantage of falling behind first place to three points again.

After winning this game, Etoo and Cameni also returned - Cameroon lost to Nigeria 1-2 in the quarterfinals and missed the semi-finals. After hearing this news, Mallorca's fans were cheering. The main striker and main goalkeeper came back ten days in advance. This is definitely good news for Mallorca, who is about to start his Champions League journey!

Three young players went to participate in the World Youth Championship, Mallorca survived, and the three main players went to participate in the African Cup, Mallorca also survived. Now they have no players absent, and it is the time to achieve great success!

However, when Etoo and Carmeni came back and had not fully returned to the club's game state, and other players were relieved, they were hit by a blow. In the 16th round of the supplementary game, Mallorca lost 1-3 away to Malaga, losing the opportunity to tie the top Real Madrid with points, and also lost their second game in the league this season. In fact, this result is quite good. They are still the team with the least losses in La Liga. Real Madrid and Valencia both lost three games, and La Coruña lost five games recently.

Barcelona, ​​which won consecutive victories, lost six games. Generally speaking, according to the rules, it is difficult for a team to win the league championship if it loses more than five games. Mallorca lost a total of three league games last season - however, La Liga is an exceptional league. The season when La Coruna won the championship, they lost eleven games in the league, and the 69-point winning score is also the lowest single-season score of the La Liga champion team in the past decade. This is why for a long time, people thought that La Coruna was able to win that season's championship was just luck...

Jose was a little regretful to lose this game, but it was good that he was only three points behind the first place. The Champions League game was about to begin, and the pressure on the first place was even greater at this time. It was no big deal to be a chaser.

Because of the supplementary game, Mallorca basically has no time to rest. After the next round of the league, it will be the first leg of the Champions League match against Arsenal at home, so Jose asked Etoo and others to continue to rest, and at the same time hid a large number of main players such as Kaka, Ram, Beletti, and Nadal. Mallorca was finally tied 1-1 by Osasuna away, and the gap with Real Madrid widened to five points. Valencia lost to Barcelona in this round, and the points were tied by Mallorca.

In this case, Mallorca welcomed Arsenal at home!

Compared with Mallorca's recent situation in the league, Arsenal is quite comfortable. In the past round of the league, they defeated their strong rival Chelsea 2-1 away. Now they won 19 wins and 7 draws in the 26 Premier League rounds, leaving as many as seven points ahead of second place Manchester United, and have a series of brilliant results - winning the most, losing the least, scoring the most goals, conceding the least goals... It can be said to be a perfect performance!

Their attack power is strong. They scored 7 games in 26 rounds of the league, with goals reaching or exceeding three games, and their defense is stable. There are ten games in the 26 rounds of the league, and there are only one game that conceded more than one goal, that is, the game of defeating Newcastle at home, and their lineup is extremely perfect. The gun king Henry has scored 19 goals in the league this season, and his condition is very good. Arsenal is definitely not a team that relies on Henry to score goals alone. Borgkamp, ​​Pire, Ryonberg, Gilberto Silva, Vieira, Lauren, Ashley Cole... They all have a record of goal, and even central defender Campbell can often score successfully...

But for this game, Mallorca has two good news. The first is Arsenal midfielder Gilberto Silva missed the game because he was injured when playing for the national team. The other is that Borgkamp, ​​who was in the frontcourt, was unable to come to Mallorca to participate in this game because of flying phobia. From the UK to the European continent, you can pass the Eurostar underwater tunnel without having to take a plane. At worst, it is a little trouble. Anyway, Borgkamp himself is used to such troubles. However, from Spain to Mallorca, you can only take a plane - there is no underwater tunnel at all! So Borgkamp did not plan to come to Mallorca at all...

Fortunately, Arsenal is not short of people in the midfield position. After Adams retired, the captain Vieira is a top two in the midfield position. Although Gilberto Silva was injured, Arsenal still has Lauren to play in this position. Brazilian midfielder Edu is also a very powerful player, not to mention a 16-year-old genius boy, Fabregas!

In the forward position, Arsenal is not short of people, Borgkamp cannot come, Villott, and Spanish talented young man Reyes who transferred to Arsenal in winter, are all good candidates who can replace Borgkamp's position.

So in fact, these two good news cannot be called good news. Instead, it will easily make Mallorca lose its initiative in tactical arrangements and cannot make targeted arrangements. Therefore, a week ago, Jose had already focused on this game. He has always attached great importance to the Champions League, which is related to Mallorca's fame and financial gains.

"There will not be any changes in Arsenal's defense line. Goalkeeper Lehman, defenders Lauren, Campbell, Toure, Ashley Cole, this defense line cannot be broken. Lauren cannot go to the midfielder because there is no suitable candidate for Arsenal's right back, so basically we can rule out the possibility that Lauren will appear in the defender position." Natal said.

"Antonio is right. If Wenger dares to let Lauren play the midfielder, then we will focus on attacking their right." Jose raised his eyebrows and said, "Then they have only two options in the midfielder position, Edu and Fabregas. Fabregas is a genius, but he is too young and so young that it is incredible, so he will not be the main force now. Edu's offensive ability is quite good. I think Edu will be Arsenal's main midfielder, and his forward-surge offensive ability is good. We must pay attention to this."

"Jose is right. Edu is likely to be a midfielder with Vieira, and Arsenal does not have many choices." Ngonga also agreed with Jose's judgment. From a technical point of view, Vieira is a player with excellent offense and defense. He and Gilbert cooperate quite well. Edu himself is also a very capable player. Although he is not as deterrent as Gilbert, it is also a good choice. Compared with Fabregas, his attributes as an engineer are more suitable.

Fabregas is very outstanding, Mallorca's coaches know this, because when he was still in Barcelona, ​​Fabregas showed his talent. If Wenger had not captured the Spanish team, he would have to sign a formal contract with a player who was over 17 years old (England is 16 years old, and the Premier League club has used this missed score to poach a lot of people from Spain since this year, Fabregas and Pique are typical of them). And the Barcelona first team does not lack the status of the organizational midfielder, and he cannot poach Fabregas - you should know that Fabregas is an MVP player in the World Junior Championships!

Barcelona now Xavi has played the main force, plus Mota, who is more famous than in history. Even if Jose poached Iniesta, Fabregas could not see his hope of playing the main force in Barcelona, ​​so history still repeats itself. Under Wenger's temptation, Fabregas still fell into Arsenal's arms...

However, although Fabregas is outstanding, he is a core figure in the organization. He overlaps with Vieira in terms of ability and role. The midfield cannot have two cores of the back-end organization, which would be too scammed. Moreover, Fabregas, who is not strong, cannot help defend. In fact, Fabregas rose in Arsenal and seized the opportunity of Vieira's injury to lay his position in one fell swoop. After Vieira returned from injury, he had to share the organizational task with Fabregas. It was precisely because of Fabregas's excellence that Wenger lets Vieira go. So in this game, Edu will only match Vieira, not Fabregas.

"So what about the forward position? It is normal for Henry, Pire and Lungberg to occupy three main positions. Who could the other person be? Virtod or Reyes? Or Canu? Or even that young Bentley?" Natal asked.

"Bentley is impossible. He is closer to the wing, and he is not very good now. This possibility can be removed." Jose first eliminated a possibility: "Cannu is not in good shape now. His characteristics are similar to Henry and are far less fast than Henry. This possibility is eliminated... I think it would be Reyes who partnered with Henry on the front line."

"Why are they so sure?" The assistant coaches became curious. Although they also thought it might be Reyes, they would not be as sure as Jose.

"From a technical point of view, Reyes is better skilled and more suitable to fill the vacancy of Borgkamp. He is a forward who drags back and cooperates better with Henry... But the more important reason is..."

Jose glanced at the assistant coaches: "Reyes spent 10.5 million pounds on Arsenal. It's not easy for Arsenal to take out this money. If you don't play the main players, how can Wenger be willing to do so?"

The assistant coaches burst into laughter. Jose's words were obviously sarcastic to Wenger's stinginess. In fact, Jose is even more stingy than Wenger... At least Wenger has several signings of more than ten million now, and Jose's only signings of more than ten million was spending 12.5 million on Etoo twice...


Chapter completed!