Chapter 501 Arrival in Madrid, a warm welcome from Real Madrid

"What? Barcelona wants to renew Messi's contract with an annual salary of 40 million. Isn't this nonsense?"

When Guardiola heard Lin Quan's words, he jumped up from the sofa in shock.

What is Laporta doing? If he renews Messi's contract for 40 million, won't Barcelona's salary system collapse?

The annual salary the two are talking about is after-tax annual salary. According to the Spanish tax rate, 40 million after-tax annual salary means that Barcelona spends 70 million euros on Messi's salary every year! What does this mean? Last year, the total salary expenditure of the entire Barcelona team was only 339 million euros, which means that Messi alone accounts for more than 20% of the total salary of the Barcelona team!

If this continues, Barcelona's financial system will surely collapse! Barcelona is not Manchester City. Manchester City is backed by a Middle Eastern consortium, while Barcelona relies solely on membership fees, sponsorship, broadcast revenue, tickets and other channels to generate income.

The financial resources of the two teams are not at the same level at all!

Even with the European Financial Fair Play Act, Manchester City's funds are still not comparable to Barcelona.

Therefore, Manchester City can afford to offer Lin Quan the world's highest annual salary, but for Barcelona, ​​if they really force Messi to pay such a high annual salary, they will sooner or later ruin themselves!

"Considering Messi's contribution to Barcelona, ​​this salary is reasonable. I don't think it's expensive!"

Lin Quan doesn't have any opinion on this. Messi deserves so much money.

With the departure of Neymar and the decline in form of Cristiano Ronaldo, Barcelona now really relies on Messi alone to carry the team.

However, Barcelona is different from ordinary teams. They have a lot of old players in their team, and many of them are players produced by their own youth training. This results in these players occupying the team's places, and there is no way to clear them out, and they have to continue to have their salaries increased.

After Messi’s salary increase, Alessandro Busquets, Pique and others will definitely also have their salaries increased.

As a result, the overall salary expenditure is very high.

In addition, since Neymar was poached from Barcelona, ​​the entire club, from the club president to ordinary fans, has lacked a sense of security.

Neymar is the core of the next ten years in the minds of Barcelona fans and the cornerstone of their team building.

However, such an important player was abducted by someone else.

This made everyone at Barcelona panic, and all their plans were disrupted.

Therefore, they are very eager to buy a star in the transfer market who can replace Neymar and carry the banner of Barcelona for the next ten years.

Nowadays, Barcelona's eager mentality is known to everyone. In addition, they received a 200 million euro penalty paid by Paris Saint-Germain, making Barcelona a rich and stupid player in the transfer market.

If any club's players are targeted by Barcelona, ​​they will be ripped off! Therefore, the money in Barcelona's hands may not be able to withstand the toss.

Lin Quan predicted that after FIFA lifted their transfer ban this summer, Barcelona would soon spend all their money, and even borrow money to buy players, owing a lot of foreign debt! After hearing Lin Quan's words, Guardiola sighed.

There is nothing he can do about Barcelona's current situation.

Barcelona now faces two major problems: reconstruction and clearance!

Rebuilding requires spending money to buy people, and you have to buy the right people! Clearing out means gradually replacing the old with the new in the team, giving young players more opportunities, gradually replacing the old players in the team, and freeing up the salary space occupied by the old players.

This is not an easy task. As a former six-time champion team, Barcelona still has many players from the Dream Team III dynasty in the team.

These players were all meritorious players of the time. They have long experience and high prestige, and their status in the Barcelona team is extraordinary.

Unless they leave on their own initiative, Barcelona is unlikely to clean them out.

Among them, the most difficult one to deal with is none other than Messi.

Messi is 29 years old this year. As long as he doesn't suffer any major injuries, given his condition, he will have no problem playing for Barcelona for another four or five years.

For Barcelona, ​​Messi is the most influential player in the team and has brought countless commercial benefits to the club.

Without Messi, Barcelona's commercial revenue would probably drop significantly.

But for the long-term development of Barcelona, ​​they need to identify someone who can succeed Messi as soon as possible.

Barcelona can't always rely on Messi, but the problem is, it's so difficult to find Messi's successor! Even if they find one, in the state of Messi being the system, these people will never be able to truly replace Messi in Barcelona.

They may be the core on the field in their original teams, but when they come to Barcelona, ​​Messi is always the core, and these people have to help Messi and play supporting roles.

Asking Messi to give way to these people and assist them, not to mention Messi's own attitude, fans all over the world will not agree, and sponsors will not agree even more.

If he cannot become the new core of Barcelona, ​​there is no way he can replace Messi.

Therefore, even a player like Griezmann who is very suitable for Barcelona in all aspects will only return empty-handed after coming to Barcelona.

This problem is difficult to solve. Barcelona can either let Messi leave or ensure that Messi stays in the team until the end of his career and temporarily give up some requirements for results. While preserving commercial interests, it can also leave a good reputation for treating meritorious veterans well.

However, Barcelona chose the worst option - stabbing Messi in the back at the last moment when the transfer period was about to end, ending up losing both money and being burdened with huge infamy.

I really don’t know what they are thinking!

"Let's not talk about them anymore. You can think about the contract renewal yourself. During this time, concentrate on training and stand your ground. We can talk about other things later. Whether you decide to leave or stay, I will support you!"

Guardiola patted Lin Quan on the shoulder, said a few words, turned around and went upstairs to his study to continue studying tactics.

As the head coach, he should keep Lin Quan, because no one knows better than him how important Lin Quan is in Manchester City's tactical system.

But as a father, he has to consider his son's perspective.

Since Lin Quan has decided to leave Manchester City, it means he is not happy here.

Therefore, Guardiola will not intervene in this matter unless Lin Quan takes the initiative to ask for his opinion.

Lin Quan felt a little touched. The biggest obstacle preventing him from leaving was actually Guardiola.

He is very worried that his departure will have a huge impact on Manchester City, which will in turn affect Guardiola's coaching prospects.

But Guardiola himself doesn't care about these at all. Instead, he fully supports his decision.

Thinking of this, Lin Quan sighed and looked at the new contract in front of him again.

…

Although he encountered troubles with the contract renewal issue, these did not affect Lin Quan's condition.

Whether on the training ground or on the court, his performance is as stable as ever.

In the 36th round of the Premier League, Manchester City defeated Southampton 4:2 away. Although Lin Quan only played half the game, he was in hot form and completed a hat trick early in the first half.

Worried that his early start would affect his performance in the next Champions League semi-final, Guardiola put him on the bench during the halftime break and let him sit and watch the second half.

In the second half, Southampton launched a crazy counterattack. The opponent's star player Mane scored two goals in the 54th and 67th minutes, narrowing the gap to 1 goal.

At the critical moment, Iheanacho stood up and scored a beautiful long shot in the 78th minute, helping the team stabilize the situation and ultimately win the game.

After the game, the entire Manchester City team was ready to set off directly to Madrid, preparing to play against Atletico Madrid away.

…

Madrid is the capital of Spain and there are many football clubs in this city.

But there is obviously only one most famous one, and that is Real Madrid!

As Atletico's city rival, Real Madrid is very happy to give Atletico's opponents an easy win.

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In addition, Real Madrid will go away to challenge Bayern Munich in this round of games, so the entire Manchester City team moved directly into Real Madrid's training base to carry out final preparation training.

Considering that Real Madrid may also meet Manchester United in the Champions League, it will inevitably have to borrow Manchester City's training base at that time.

So this kind of thing is quite common among giants. However, when the entire Manchester City team arrived at the Real Madrid training base, they were warmly welcomed by the Real Madrid club.

The top management of Real Madrid Club enthusiastically led them to visit Real Madrid's training base.

The Valdebebas training base should be the highest training base in Europe. Although the terrain is relatively high, it is built very grandly and luxuriously.

At the entrance of the training base, there is a circular fountain with a large amount of green vegetation on both sides of the fountain. The trees are shady and full of vitality.

It is trimmed into the English words "Real Madrid" and erected at the entrance so that it can be seen at a glance.

When you enter the base, you can see a total of 11 training grounds of various sizes. The turf used in these grounds all meets international competition standards.

There are special people responsible for taking care of the grass. Even when a large number of players from the first team and youth team train here, no flaws can be seen on the grass. It is obvious that the grass is changed very frequently. According to staff from Real Madrid Club, these grasses are specially shipped from the Netherlands!

When Lin Quan and his team arrived at the training ground, there were still some players training there.

However, judging from their ages, most of them should be young players from Team B and the youth team.

When these people saw Lin Quan and others, their eyes lit up and they ran over to ask for autographs from the stars they admired.

As the most famous player in Manchester City, Lin Quan has the most "little fans" around him.

"Lin, can you sign an autograph for me?"

“I want a picture!”

"Can you give me a signed jersey?"

"Can you sign my football?"

"I have a friend who likes you very much. Can you sign an autograph for him, too?"

The young fans were talking in a flurry, chattering excitedly around Lin Quan.

Seeing this, the club staff nearby tried to stop these people to rescue Lin Quan.

Before he came, he received instructions from the club's chairman, Mr. Florentino, to entertain Manchester City players well, especially Lin Quan.

As one of Lin Quan's recognized pursuers in the football world, Real Madrid will naturally not miss the opportunity to get closer and improve their favorability.

"It's okay, no need to drive them away!"

Lin Quan saw that there were not many people asking for autographs and it wouldn't take too much time.

So Xiang met the requests of these special fans. After meeting the requests of these little fans, Lin Quan also borrowed some footballs from the Real Madrid Club. After signing his name on them, he gave one to each staff member present.

This approach won the favor of everyone present. Although many of them were just civilian employees and did not play football on weekdays, it was definitely an honor to receive a gift from the number one player in today's football world.

Real Madrid's training base facilities are very complete. After visiting the facilities outside, the staff of Real Madrid Club also took them to visit Real Madrid's tactical room, leisure room, guest rooms, catering center, fitness center, spa center, medical center and other places.

As expected of Real Madrid, the facilities at their training base are not only complete but also luxuriously configured, not inferior to those of Manchester City at all.

It is said that Real Madrid's training base cost 120 million euros. Judging from the expenditure, they spent no less money than Manchester City to build this base.

Of course, Manchester City’s training base is built in the city center, and the land price is more expensive.

After visiting Real Madrid's training base, Guardiola asked the players to rest early and adjust their condition before preparing for the next day's training.

Although many of the main players did not play in the game held during the day, even if they did, they only played half or most of the game, so the physical energy consumption was not that great.

However, considering their long journey and the high altitude here, the players may not be able to adapt for a while after arriving.

So he did not rush into training with the team, but waited until the team had recovered their strength and adjusted their condition before starting training at 10 o'clock the next morning.

Although the young players have seen a lot of Real Madrid first-team training on weekdays, when Manchester City started training, there were still many curious Real Madrid young players who ran over to watch.

There are even some girls among them, they look like they are from Real Madrid’s women’s football team?

The development of professional women's football in Europe is not early, and it has only started to take off in recent years, but the development speed is very fast.

Especially the women's football team in La Liga and the Premier League. However, in the field of women's football, the strongest team is neither Manchester City nor Real Madrid, but another team in the Spanish Premier League - Barcelona! Like the Barcelona men's team, the technically-oriented Barcelona women's team is simply unmatched in Spain. There is no team that can match them. Their dominance on the field is even more terrifying than that of the Barcelona Universe Team.

However, although the women's football team has developed rapidly, its competitive level is still not high and its commercial value is also low, so its salary and benefits cannot be compared with those of the men's football team.

(End of this chapter)