Su Dong Cage

Barcelona was frustrated.

After Real Madrid loaned Valdebebas to Bayern Munich, Barcelona could no longer find a suitable training ground.

Atlético Madrid's training ground was worse than Real Madrid's, but still somewhat better than those of Getafe and other teams. However, it was located in the far northwestern outskirts of the city, dozens of kilometers away, making the round trip extremely inconvenient.

After much deliberation, Barcelona ultimately chose to fly from Barcelona to Madrid only the day before the match.

It was the only option they had left.

Fortunately, the final was being held in Spain, so the journey was not too far.

Mourinho spent the entire trip studying Bayern's tactics with Faria. The two of them joined Barcelona's video analysts and others to discuss various aspects of the match, such as the targeted tactics each side might employ.

After flying from Barcelona to Madrid and arriving at the hotel, the players took a short rest while Mourinho and the coaching staff continued their research and discussion.

They had encountered an extremely troublesome problem, one that every opponent of Bayern would face.

Su Dong!

How could they restrain Su Dong?

This was surely a world-class problem.

He was too well-rounded, so well-rounded that he had almost no weaknesses. That allowed him to respond to his opponents in all sorts of ways on the field, while his opponents had no effective way to defend him.

In last season's Champions League final, Barcelona's two center-backs had been tormented terribly by Su Dong, especially Pique.

The Barcelona center-back had always been known for his overflowing confidence, but after that Champions League final, he had developed a slight psychological shadow concerning Su Dong. Mourinho was deeply worried that Pique would perform poorly in the match.

"We must learn from the defeat in last season's