At noon on August 12, London time, the entire Manchester City team went to Romania for an important pre-season game, an away challenge against Steaua Bucharest, their opponent in the first round of the Champions League play-offs.
Steaua Bucharest is a football club located in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
This was an incredible team, once.
The team won the Champions League in 1986.
Back then, Barcelona didn't pay much attention to this team from Romania. As a result, the two sides fought fiercely for 120 minutes but still did not score a goal.
In the penalty shootout, Bucharest star goalkeeper Helmut Ducatam miraculously saved all four Barcelona penalty kicks, defeated Barcelona with a score of 2-0 and won the Champions League championship. That was also Bucharest.
Star's most glorious period.
But this game against Manchester City was regarded by the European media as a game with no suspense at all.
Manchester City's promotion to the Champions League group stage is a sure thing.
Although Steaua Bucharest is the super overlord of Romania, they are no more than that when they leave Romania and enter the European arena. Calling them a second-rate team is just to give them face.
On August 13, at 2:30 a.m. BJ time, the live broadcast signal was connected to the live broadcast room of Xixi Kiwei Sports Channel 5 on time.
"... Audience friends, what you are watching now is the first leg of the 2016-17 Champions League play-offs between Steaua Bucharest and Manchester City..."
After He Wei's opening remarks, the live broadcast camera appeared in the player tunnel, and Chu Zheng's figure also appeared.
Seeing Chu Zheng, He Wei in the live broadcast room said with a normal expression: "Man City has played 8 warm-up matches from July to now. They won 6 and drew two, achieving an undefeated record.
Achievements."
"It is worth mentioning that Manchester City scored 28 goals in 8 warm-up games and only conceded 3 goals, showing a strong offensive power."
He Wei briefly talked about the results of Manchester City's warm-up match and ignored Chu Zheng. This was very inconsistent with He Wei's previous style of explaining Chu Zheng.
In the past, when He Wei narrated games involving Chu Zheng, he would always catch Chu Zheng and praise him fiercely. Sometimes the fans felt a little hot after hearing this.
No way, the recent coverage of Chu Zheng by domestic and European media has not been very good.
Because Chu Zheng performed very abnormally in the warm-up match.
Chu Zheng either started or played as a substitute in 7 of Manchester City's 8 warm-up matches, but did not score a goal, let alone an assist, which was completely opposite to his phenomenal performance at Leicester City.
Therefore, major European media have been talking a lot about Chu Zheng, who set a new transfer record in the summer transfer window this year.
Some European tabloids even publicly ridiculed Manchester City in their reports that they had been taken advantage of again and spent 100 million pounds to buy a parallel import, Meteor.
He also compared Chu Zheng with Manchester United's Pogba to highlight Chu Zheng's mediocrity in the warm-up match.
Pogba performed very well in Manchester United's four warm-up matches, scoring 2 goals and 3 assists, showing extraordinary efficiency.
Even some domestic media that like to attract attention have begun to follow suit, directly labeling Chu Zheng's performance in the warm-up match as unworthy of the name. His form has declined seriously, and the rookie wall came a little late, not as eye-catching as Pogba and others.
Label.
Some toilet tabloids even fabricated the news, saying that Chu Zheng snatched Aguero's No. 10 jersey when he arrived at Manchester City, which aroused Aguero's dissatisfaction. The two broke out in conflicts in the locker room many times, which was said to be both nose and eye.
The key is coupled with the picture of Chu Zheng sliding and tackling Aguero in Manchester City's offensive and defensive training match. Some people really believe it!
However, in fact this is not the case at all.
The focus of the pre-season warm-up match is not actually the winning or losing of the game or the number of goals scored.
The real purpose of the warm-up match is to help the team reach the best state at the beginning of the season, to help the players become familiar with coordination and tactics, to restore the competitive state of the players after a holiday, and to allow the head coach to test and experiment his own tactics and find shortcomings.
places to improve.
Among the seven warm-up games, Chu Zheng played the longest one for only 45 minutes, and his position has never been fixed.
Guardiola didn't know what he was thinking about. He asked Chu Zheng to play as a winger today, an attacking midfielder tomorrow, a full-back the day after tomorrow, and a center back and defensive midfielder the day after tomorrow. From the frontcourt to the backcourt, Chu Zheng was the only goalkeeper.
I have never played the center position.
Therefore, it is actually normal that Chu Zheng's performance is not as dazzling as in the past.
Anyone who knows football can see that the constant changes to the starting lineup in the warm-up matches and the crazy substitutions of Guardiola are trying to find a set of tactics that are most suitable for Manchester City's current player configuration.
And Chu Zheng was not completely lacking in performance.
He actually did an excellent job in offensive organization and midfield arrangement in the warm-up match. Even David Silva couldn't do as well as Chu Zheng in this regard.
It's just that the media with ulterior motives deliberately ignored Chu Zheng's performance in this aspect, and some fans were also led astray.
In addition, the warm and friendly attitude of Manchester City fans towards Chu Zheng is also evidence that Chu Zheng is performing well.
Given the piss-poor nature of English fans, if Chu Zheng was really in a terrible state, there would definitely be loud boos.
In the players tunnel, Chu Zheng, standing in the Manchester City queue, would jump on the spot from time to time.
He is very excited now.
The Champions League is a brand new stage for Chu Zheng, giving Chu Zheng even the same excitement he felt when he first set foot on the Bundesliga two years ago.
During this period, Chu Zheng was not unaware of the criticism he received from some European media, but he did not pay much attention to it.
If he had to pay attention to every bad report about him, he would be afraid that he would be busy to death.
And it's not like that.
Chu Zheng is quite happy to frequently appear in different positions in the warm-up matches.
Behind Chu Zheng, David Silva looked at Chu Zheng with complicated eyes.
After getting along with each other for this period of time, he finally experienced the magical feeling that De Bruyne mentioned.
This magic comes from Chu Zheng's unique vision of the court.
Many times David Silva, who is experienced in the game, even has to wait for Chu Zheng to give the ball out before he realizes, oh! It turns out there is a hidden offensive gap there.
Sometimes when Chu Zheng's performance shocked David Silva, he really wanted to open Chu Zheng's skull to see if the brain inside looked different from theirs.
Also on the defensive end, Chu Zheng's attitude and performance made David Silva very fond of him.
Compared with the lazy Yaya Toure, Chu Zheng is like a hard-working bee on the court.
Sometimes Chu Zheng's running range even amazed David Silva.
The defensive ability is not inferior to that of Fernandinho and Yaya Toure. David Silva even feels that Chu Zheng is better than those two.
Especially in the two aspects of anticipation and steals, Chu Zheng's data is higher than that of all Manchester City players.
Having such a teammate makes me feel at ease and happy, and I can't hate him at all.
And after getting along with him for this period of time, Chu Zheng's character is also very lovable.
It looked quiet, but I didn't expect that once I got to know him, he was a crazy person, and he could chat with anyone and have fun.
You can tell how popular Chu Zheng is by looking at the good relationship he maintains with everyone in the Manchester City team.
At this point, Yaya Toure was instantly killed again. His foul-mouthed and calculating personality really made people dislike him.
The subtle relationship between Chu Zheng and Yaya Toure in the team was also exposed in the repeated confrontations between the two, and the Manchester City players were all aware of it.
Therefore, Yaya Toure's recent isolation is obvious.
At Manchester City, Guardiola's love for Chu Zheng is seen by everyone, and he will have a private meeting with Chu Zheng before and after every training session.
Guardiola's every move tells everyone that Chu Zheng is the core of his tactics.
Therefore, it is not difficult for Manchester City players to make a choice. As long as they are human and know how to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, they will automatically lean towards Chu Zheng.
In addition, Yaya Toure has a really bad character, so his isolation is actually his own fault.
