Chapter 31 Is This the Group of Death? Ha!

After the match with Modena, Lazio got back on track, this time in the Champions League. They faced Dortmund, a third-tier team, at home in the second round of the Champions League group stage.  M

When Lazio was just assigned to this group, many people thought that UEFA was deliberately blackening Lazio and assigning them to the strongest death group, just to make Lazio die without a burial place.

As a result, in the first group match, Lazio faced the strongest team in the group, Real Madrid, and won easily!

This surprised many people and was totally unexpected.

So many people are now skeptical about whether Dortmund can successfully stop Lazio away from home.

Originally, everyone thought that Lazio was deeply trapped in the death group and would have a hard time playing. Even those who had confidence in Lazio thought that Lazio might be able to qualify, but they would have to pay a heavy price.

Unexpectedly, Lazio easily defeated Real Madrid 2:0 away from home in the first game.

All of a sudden, the atmosphere of this death group became a little weird.

After the first round of the group stage, UEFA also praised Lazio on its official website for being a veteran team and still playing well in the death group.

Many people saw the helplessness and depression of UEFA from this.

They actually hope that Real Madrid will beat Lazio.

As long as there is a little bit of Lazio that can be blackened in this game, UEFA will definitely not be polite.

But Lazio played very well in that game, tactically suppressed Real Madrid, and the players' performance was much better than that of Real Madrid players, so the final victory was a matter of course.

Such performance made UEFA unable to find an excuse even if they wanted to blacken Lazio.

So they could only praise Lazio's performance with a bitter face, after all, this was a game that all of Europe was watching. If UEFA did not express anything after this game. That would be too abnormal, and it would provide more evidence for those who were blackening UEFA and deliberately targeting Lazio.

So they had to pinch their noses and do things that made them very unhappy.

In the game against Dortmund, UEFA now has no expectations.

Lazio is such a nervous team.

They are like chicken blood when playing against strong teams, but they are up and down when playing against weak teams. If they know that they will not be assigned to any death group, they will be assigned to the weakest group. Then maybe Lazio's qualifying process will be more tortuous...

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Before the game with Lazio, Dortmund's head coach Rangnick took the lead in psychological warfare.

"Although it is an away game, we are fearless. There is nothing to be afraid of at Lazio's home court. This is just an ordinary game."

If this had been Changsheng in the previous two seasons. He would probably have disdained this level of psychological warfare.

But this time, he responded: "Yes, this is just an ordinary Champions League game. There is no special meaning. Even if you want to hype the gimmick between us and Dortmund, there is nothing to hype. We don't play against them many times, because most of the time we are in the Champions League."

At first, everyone thought that what Changsheng said was very ordinary, and even no different from nonsense. But when we heard his last sentence, we realized that Changsheng was still slandering Dortmund!

Doesn't that sentence mean that Dortmund's past performance was not good. They couldn't guarantee to participate in the Champions League every year, so Lazio had no chance to play against Dortmund?

Sure enough, Changsheng's words made the Dortmund media angry enough.

How could Dortmund be as bad as Changsheng said?

In the past ten years, Dortmund has participated in the Champions League for six seasons, and once reached the semi-finals. It's just that in recent seasons, Dortmund's performance has declined. Before that, they didn't make it to the Champions League for three consecutive seasons. This is also the reason why they were classified as a third-tier team this season.

Dortmund participated in the Champions League mostly under Klopp's coaching, which was Dortmund's golden age.

Later, with the departure of the players. The team fell apart, Klopp was no longer magical, and could only choose to leave, and Dortmund fell into a trough for a period of time.

Fortunately, they have made it back to the Champions League this time, which makes Dortmund fans full of hope for the team's future. They hope this is the beginning of another glorious Dortmund.

Changsheng's words are like rubbing salt into Dortmund's wounds.

Everyone hates the behavior of digging up old accounts the most.

The media were very angry, but Dortmund coach Rangnick kept silent.

He was not good at verbal battles. He just wanted to boost the morale of his team. After all, this was an away game, and the opponent was the old strong team Lazio, which had just defeated Real Madrid 2:0 away, which should not be underestimated.

But he found that he was far behind Changsheng in terms of verbal battle ability.

Instead of spending all his time on this, it is better to do what he is good at.

So he shut up.

Changsheng was too lazy to pursue him relentlessly. Rangnick was not the kind of person who was good at spitting. Even if he won by a large margin, he would not feel any sense of accomplishment in a war of words with him. Changsheng could not feel the pleasure of completely defeating a strong opponent.

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Dortmund faced Nottingham Forest at home in the first round of the group stage, and the result was a 0:0 draw with Nottingham Forest, which was considered a minor upset.

If Lazio hadn't easily defeated Real Madrid 2-0 away at the same time, Dortmund would have been on the front page.

Nottingham Forest's defensive counterattack made it difficult for Dortmund.

Facing the fourth-tier team and failing to win, Dortmund will be under greater pressure if they want to qualify.

So Dortmund must win this game.

That's why Rangnick wanted to cheer up the team by playing against Chang Sheng before the game.

But the effect doesn't seem to be very good.

After the game started, Lazio launched a fierce attack on Dortmund's goal at their home court.

This is Lazio's home court, and Lazio won't play any defensive counterattacks or huddle up on defense here.

This is true no matter what opponent you face.

Lazio has such confidence.

Dortmund did not expect Lazio to maintain such offensive intensity from the first start of the game, which made them a little at a loss.

Chang Sheng is right. Dortmund has rarely played against Lazio. Even if they can break into the Champions League, they will rarely encounter Lazio.

Lazio is chasing the championship, and it would be great if Dortmund can get through the group stage.

The two teams are simply not on the same level.

So Dortmund doesn't know Lazio well. Especially since they were not eligible to participate in the Champions League in the first three seasons.

They were ill-prepared to face Lazio.

As soon as they came up, they were stunned by Lazio's fierce offensive.

In the 27th minute, Lazio took the lead and took the lead at home.

This goal turned the Wanda Stadium into a sea of ​​joy.

Dortmund is under tremendous pressure on the road.

Lazio scored another goal in the second half and led Dortmund 2:0!

Although Dortmund pulled a goal back ten minutes later.

But five minutes later, Lazio doubted the color and scored another goal!

In the end, Lazio defeated Dortmund at home 3:1.

The two most powerful opponents in the Group of Death were both easily defeated by Lazio. This is something that many people did not expect after the group results came out.

It was originally a death group that wanted to trap Lazio, but unexpectedly it turned into a stage that set off Lazio's brilliance...

UEFA must be very unhappy now, right?

What made UEFA even more unhappy was Chang Sheng's speech at the post-match press conference.

A reporter stood up and asked Chang Sheng what he thought of winning so easily in the death group.

Chang Sheng asked in reply: "You said this is the group of death?"

Then he laughed.

"I really don't think this is a group of death. If this is a group of death, then please allow me to laugh for three minutes."

Chang Sheng didn't really laugh for three minutes, he just laughed for three seconds.

But these three seconds were already a slap in the face of UEFA.

But this has not been forgotten.

After laughing, Chang Sheng told reporters: "After the group drawing ceremony, you asked me to talk about my views, but I didn't talk about it. Why didn't I talk about it? That's the reason. I don't think I need to talk about an ordinary person. What opinions do you want from the group? Just win!”

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The day after the game, major European media prominently published photos of Chang Sheng at the post-match press conference, and then placed Chang Sheng's words next to the picture, which was very eye-catching.

Some media even directly used Chang Sheng’s words as a headline.

"Is this the group of death?"

"...Chang's rhetorical question was filled with deep disdain. I think he did do this, because the so-called strongest group of death allowed Lazio to easily win two consecutive games, the strongest group in the group. The two teams lost to Lazio one after another..."

"The concept of 'Group of Death' has indeed become a joke now. In the most powerful group of death, Lazio is far ahead with two consecutive victories. I think the first qualifying spot in this group must be Lazio, and other teams It is impossible for the team to threaten their status..."

UEFA published another article praising Lazio's performance in this game again.

This is really heartbreaking to see - if you don’t want to praise, then don’t praise, why do you do such an unintentional thing? Look at you, look at you, how stiff your smile is, how sour your words are...

If you had known now, why bother then?

Don’t you still know the winning temper?

He is a spring. The more pressure you put on him, the harder he will resist!

You assigned him to the death group. Didn't you make it clear that you wanted Chang Sheng to embarrass you?