According to UEFA's rules, the day before each game, the away team will be arranged to the game venue for adaptive training, which is also the most opportunity for the away team to get access to the game venue before the game.

The game was held on Wednesday night, while Manchester City arrived in Madrid at noon on Tuesday, and on Tuesday afternoon, under the arrangement of UEFA, they came to the Bernabeu Stadium for adaptive training.

But as soon as they entered the Bernabeu Stadium, everyone in Manchester City immediately discovered a problem.

When Brian Kidd led the players to conduct adaptive training on the court, Gao Han was called to the sidelines by assistant coaches Sergio Garcia and Buenaventura, and saw Buenaventura kneeling on the grass, which made Gao Han very strange.

"What's going on?"

Buenaventura quickly compared a size with her hands, stood up and shook her head at Gao Han and said, "The lawn is too high."

"Too high?" Gao Han also squatted down, reached out and pressed the turf, and then gestured the height of the turf.

"Preliminary estimates are at least fifty millimeters," said Buenaventura.

Gao Han nodded, squatted on the grass, and looked up and saw that the turf of the huge Bernabeu stadium was very flat, needless to say, it must be all too long.

"But it doesn't make sense. They only played in the quarterfinals knockout stage before, and..." Sergio Garcia soon realized the problem. "Real Madrid's last round of league was away, and they had a few days."

Buenaventura nodded, "Yes, there is a forage growth agent now that only takes a few days to allow the turf to grow rapidly. If Real Madrid has been using this fertilizer in the past few days, it would not be surprising at all to 50 mm, and there may even be more than in some places."

According to UEFA regulations, the lawn height of the stadium is limited. Artificial turf should be between thirteen and thirty millimeters, and natural turf should not exceed thirty millimeters. But now, the turf of the Bernabeu stadium exceeds fifty millimeters.

It can be said that this is a very obvious violation.

"If I remember correctly, the turf at the Bernabeu Stadium should have been contracted to sis, right?" Gao Han asked.

Sergio Garcia nodded, "It's this one, yes." IS is a company specializing in laying and maintaining stadium turf. Many Premier League teams use their turf and contract them all for maintenance. The most famous thing about this company is that it can replace a complete set of turf within 24 hours, which makes their business so good.

After Gao Han took over, Manchester City now also used the turf of this company. Gao Han also dealt with them and knew the company's ability and the quality of their turf. There must be no problem in this regard.

That is to say, the only thing that can go wrong is Real Madrid.

In fact, most fans often only care about the stars or the stadium. If you go deeper, you may care about football or boots. Few people will care about the turf of the stadium.

In the eyes of ordinary fans, it is just a piece of green space. What is there to pay attention to?

But things often show extraordinaryness when they dig deep into the details.

Football matches are always completed on the lawn. The quality of a piece of lawn is also crucial to the football match itself. For example, teams who are good at passing and controlling the ball often like to have the lawn a little slippery and shorter, so that the ball can run on the lawn at the fastest speed.

But for defensive and counterattacking teams like Real Madrid, when facing teams like Barcelona and Manchester City with pass-and-control styles, they often like to have dryer lawns and longer, which can greatly slow down the passing speed and help them defend and deal with it.

It is precisely because different lawn conditions, height, slippery height, will affect the game, so UEFA strictly requires the implementation standards of the game venue, but it still cannot withstand the home team's various tricks.

For example, Manchester City, the teams coached by Gao Han often focus on passing and controlling play, so whether it is at home or in the training ground, the height of the lawn cannot exceed 23 mm, but is generally controlled between 20 and 23 mm. The stadium administrators also use this to perform daily maintenance.

Therefore, Manchester City often plays better in city stadiums because they not only adapt to the size of their home court, but also are familiar with the lawns, which allows them to exert their strength.

According to Gao Han, the Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona has similar requirements for turf.

But there are exceptions, such as Atletico Madrid.

During the high-altitude coaching period, the lawn height was always controlled within 23 mm, but during the Heinx coaching period, it was usually around 25 mm. After Simeone took office, the requirements were raised to 28 or even 30 mm, which proves that the requirements of the three head coaches of the Bedding Army were not the same.

But these are relatively good. Real Madrid directly spawned the lawn to 50 mm this time, which is definitely an excessive amount and far exceeds UEFA's requirements.

But the Galaxy Battleship must have made sufficient psychological preparations and can fully accept UEFA's warnings or even punishments.

"Murinho has been hollowing out his mind," Gao Han said with a sneer. "No need to say, and tomorrow they don't have to expect them to water and irrigate the lawn."

Sergio Garcia couldn't help laughing, "You should laugh if you don't pour sand into the lawn, this guy is really..."

At the end, the Spanish felt speechless. It was rare to see such unscrupulous ways to win.

"Why would you like to complain to the referee team?" Buenaventura suggested.

According to the game process, tomorrow morning, the referee will lead the referee team to inspect the home court. If Manchester City protests, and the lawn on the scene is indeed too high, the referee team can completely require Real Madrid to mow the lawn until it meets UEFA's game requirements.

"Complaint?" Sergio Garcia shook his head and said sarcastically: "If the complaint is useful, they will not do such a thing blatantly. Anyway, he is giving it his best this time."

Gao Han agrees with Sergio Garcia's judgment. Whether it is the referee group or UEFA, it is impossible for such a world-renowned focus battle to be shelved because the lawn is too high. This will bring huge losses to major sponsors and UEFA cannot afford it. Therefore, even if Manchester City complains and Real Madrid does not execute it, the game will still have to continue.

At best, Manchester City can only wait until after the game is over, and there is no other way.

"However, although we know that the complaint is useless, we can do whatever we should do. Follow the process and protest to UEFA. In addition, we asked UEFA to squirt the lawn before and during the halftime break, so that they could check it."

As soon as Gao Han finished speaking, Sergio Garcia and Buenaventura looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

“Is this request useful?”

"Whether it is useful or not, follow the process first. If Real Madrid really violates the rules, then we will file a written protest after the game and demand the punishment of Real Madrid." Gao Han said this and laughed, "Why do we Chinese say the old saying? I suddenly can't remember it."

"Instead of having the intention of doing these messy little moves, it is better to use your brain more on the technical and tactical level."

…………

…………

"He really asked UEFA to mow the lawn?"

After Manchester City finished their adaptive training and left the Bernabeu, Mourinho soon received a call from the stadium administrator.

On the phone, he reported to Mourinho about Manchester City's adaptive training, including several training sessions, how long, where and what positions to cooperate, etc., and reported to Mourinho in detail.

But what really interested the Portuguese in the process really came from an action after training.

"It's true, but UEFA officials at that time said that the specific situation would have to wait until tomorrow morning and the referee team inspected the stadium before deciding, so they did not give a reply on the spot."

After hearing this, Mourinho hummed and smiled. Of course, all this was within his expectations.

He has coached the Champions League for so many years, and he knows everything about UEFA's related procedures.

He believed that Gao Han should also be very clear, and putting forward pruning opinions is just a formal process, which is better than nothing.

"What else did he say?" Mourinho asked in a deep voice.

"I also heard him say that we hope we will water and irrigate the lawn before the game and during the halftime tomorrow to avoid being too dry and stiff." The stadium administrator replied on the other side of the phone.

Mourinho said, obviously he had expected this.

"He is really straightforward and follows the process."

"What should we do now?" asked the stadium administrator.

"What should I do?" Mourinho sneered, "Don't pay attention to them, don't squirt!"

"But UEFA will definitely ask."

"If they are really impatient, then we will spray it. But when to turn on the faucet, we have the final say. At that time, we can just find a reason, just say that the faucet is broken, or another excuse. Anyway, we have to drag it until the game before we start spraying water, and just spray it casually."

"You have to understand that UEFA has regulations saying that water should be sprayed, but when to spray, how to spray, and how much to spray, these are not rigid regulations. We have the final say?"

Mourinho smiled, isn’t this the so-called home court advantage?

"But there is one thing you have to remember that the lawn must not be trimmed, at least until the game is over."

This was something he had done for a lot of energy. If it was trimmed before the game, wouldn’t he have to waste all his previous efforts?

"What if the referee team is dissatisfied?"

"It's up to them. If you want to punish them after the game, can they still be suspended?"

Mourinho has made up his mind, anyway, this time he wants to fight Gao Han’s Manchester City to the end.

Not only do we have to compete on the court, but we must also strive for everything outside the court.

After Mourinho took over the Bernabeu, he successively won the power of Atletico Madrid. Especially this season, Mourinho defeated General Manager Bardano in the internal struggle of the team, and let the latter step down, and he successfully took over the team's power at the competitive level.

The best proof is the spending a lot of money on introducing Felipe Melo and Moutinho during the winter break.

Now, Mourinho has the final say in the competitive affairs of Real Madrid, but no one dares to violate any orders he made.
Chapter completed!