Chapter 706 Best Friend
It was almost midnight after the FIFA awards ceremony.
Su Dong and his group left the Zurich Opera House and returned to the hotel. Instead of going back to sleep, they went straight into the second half and celebrated for Su Dong winning the World Footballer of the Year title in the hotel's bar.
This is the fourth time he has won both the Footballer of the Year and Player of the Year awards.
"Congratulations, brother!" Ronnie put his arm around Su Dong's shoulders affectionately, "One to four, just wait for me!"
Messi smiled helplessly and said, "Just be content, I'm still 0-4."
They are all good friends, and it is rare for them to have such an opportunity to get together, especially in the past two or three years. Not to mention getting together, sometimes it is difficult for them to even talk for a long time on the phone because they are all very busy.
Needless to say, Su Dong's daily schedule is packed, and he has to squeeze in sponsor activities whenever he can. Ronaldo and Messi are not much better. For stars of their level, they have very little time to fully utilize their own resources.
When it comes to the competition period, they are busy with training and competitions every day. Where do they find time for themselves?
So, it was a rare opportunity for us to get together, and we were all very happy.
Kaka and Xavi were familiar with them, but some of them had nothing to talk about, so they left after staying for a while.
Lucio refused very early on because there was a generation gap between him and this group of young people.
Only Su Dong, Ronaldo, Messi and Iniesta persevered to the end.
Moving from the bar to the open-air balcony, overlooking the beautiful night view of Zurich, it gave me a very familiar feeling, but I forgot when I had seen it before. It might be in the house in the Parque das Nacional in Lisbon, or in a villa halfway up the mountain in the western suburbs of Barcelona, or in Grinwald...
"Do you remember that year when I was in Barcelona and had just moved, you guys, as well as Pepe, David Silva, and many others, came to celebrate with me and ended up sleeping on the balcony." Su Dong suddenly remembered that shared experience.
"Of course I remember!" Ronnie stood up and looked at the night view. "At that time, you and Wang hadn't officially established a relationship yet. You tricked the girl into your home and acted cool over there. I said at the time that you were so heartless. Remember?"
Messi and Iniesta nodded hurriedly, this was indeed the case.
"It turns out that I was right about you. I can't hide your little thoughts from you." Ronnie looked proud of himself as Su Dong's best friend. "Wang is a good woman. You should be nice to her."
"I agree!" Iniesta was a man of few words and expressed his agreement directly.
Messi also nodded continuously.
"Oh, I remember something." Iniesta suddenly realized and looked at Ronnie. "I remember that you, Jose, and Pepe, the three of you seemed to be talking about something. Your wife was going to give birth to a child for Su Dong. How is that going?"
Everyone was stunned at first, and then burst into laughter.
This is the legend, marry Ronnie and give birth to a child for Su Dong.
Ronnie couldn't help laughing so hard that he fell backwards. He pushed Iniesta hard and blamed him for telling the embarrassing story of the year, but he didn't show any weakness in words. "I'm sure there's no problem. He can choose whichever one he likes."
"What counts as a girlfriend? She has to be married." Messi added just the right hint.
Everyone burst into laughter again.
In fact, Su Dong and Ronnie did a lot of ridiculous things back then.
For example, he instigated Pepe to write a love letter to the yoga instructor who was over 50 years old.
"By the way, what's the name of that female yoga instructor..." Su Dong frowned, thinking hard.
"Melissa," Ronnie remembered.
"Yes, Melissa, I remember you said that if you succeeded in yoga, you would come back to pursue her."
Ronnie jumped immediately and thought, “Oh shit, this is not a joke.”
"Did I say that?"
How could I be interested in a middle-aged woman in her forties?
"You said it, if you don't believe me, we can call Pepe." Su Dong had reasons.
Ronnie shook his head quickly. “I couldn’t have said anything like that. Don’t accuse me. Besides, Melissa shouldn’t be there anymore.”
But in the end, he himself felt guilty.
Su Dong and others laughed and threatened to find a chance to go to the Madeira Islands to look for Ronnie's first love.
"Oh my god, if this gets out, I won't be able to face anyone!"
Ronnie immediately threatened Su Dong and the other two not to tell anyone under any circumstances.
…
The biggest difference between professional players and entertainment stars is that professional players don’t need a persona and rely purely on their strength.
It doesn't even matter if we lose.
Didn’t someone say that the biggest taboo for professional players is to be timid. Being timid before the battle is a big taboo; the second is being bad, that is, lack of strength. Being bad is the original sin; the last is losing. Victory and defeat are common in the military.
So many times, in some important games, the players lose miserably and the fans think that there will be a big uproar, but in fact, it is not that serious, because as long as it is a game, there will always be winners and losers.
As long as you are not afraid and have tried your best, you can lose with a clear conscience.
Therefore, entertainment stars need a persona and need to please fans, but professional players do not. They only need to play well and do their job well. Even if you have a lot of gossips off the field, even if you have an affair like Kahn, you will still be forgiven in the end.
Ronnie is actually like that.
When they reach Su Dong's level, they no longer need to worry about their image. Their performance on the football field is their best image, so they can tease each other without restraint and dig up each other's embarrassing moments.
For them, this is more of a shared memory.
Of course, all of this is based on friendship.
…………
…………
After staying in Zurich for one night, Su Dong set off for Munich the next morning.
Ronaldo, Messi and others also returned to Spain.
The Bundesliga has been suspended, but this year's winter break will be shorter than in previous years, with the second half starting on January 15th.
This is also because of the World Cup in South Africa in the summer.
The shortened winter break may not be a bad thing for Bayern.
Ribery and Robben have both recovered from their injuries and are participating in team training. Bayern's winter break will still be arranged in Dubai in the Middle East for winter training, which is also a routine operation every year.
The transfer market during the winter break this year was a bit cold, and this was not only the case in the Bundesliga, but also in all major European leagues.
On the one hand, the winter break is not an important transfer window, and many major transfers will not be completed during the winter break because the operation time is limited. On the other hand, it can be clearly seen that with the outbreak of the US subprime mortgage crisis, teams in major European leagues have been deeply affected.
According to a survey by an authoritative organization, except for Bayern and Real Madrid, which grew against the trend, other top teams have basically experienced a slowdown in growth or even shrinkage, such as the Red Devils Manchester United.
The counter-cyclical growth of Bayern and Real Madrid is different. Real Madrid's business shrank so much during Calderon's administration that Florentino brought in a number of superstars at once this season, rebuilt Real Madrid's golden signboard, and achieved substantial growth in the business field.
Bayern, on the other hand, remains stable and is still growing every year, which is quite rare.
However, Bayern's current business strategy is a bit like storing food before hibernation. Everyone knows that Bayern has money, but the club is not willing to continue to invest in the transfer market. On the contrary, during the winter break, Bayern directly cleared out a group of players including Oteri and further streamlined the first-team's lineup.
It's the same old story, it's said that Hennes is thrifty and frugal, but now that he's been replaced by Nelinger, it's still the same.
Bayern's management has its own set of systems to constrain. They know exactly where to spend money and where to save money, so that the entire Bundesliga during this winter break was basically very quiet, with the majority of players relying on loans.
The same is true for other leagues.
If Barcelona's plan to poach Fabregas fails, the transfers during this winter break are likely to be less than 10 million euros, because so far, the most likely deal to be completed is Liverpool's Dossena's transfer to Napoli, with an estimated transfer fee of 5 million euros, which is likely to become the highest transfer fee during the winter break.
Teams with money to buy players, including Manchester United's Ferguson, have come forward many times and made it clear that they will not recruit players during the winter break.
Originally, Manchester City's performance in the first half was not good, and many people thought that they would recruit new players. However, Guardiola and Begiristain both came out and said that Manchester City would not make any moves during the winter break, which was quite surprising.
Even Manchester City, which owns a mine, is not buying players anymore. What can other teams use to buy players?
This should be the most depressed winter transfer period that Su Dong has experienced since he entered the European football scene.
The entire transfer market is bleak, and it even makes people wonder whether next year's summer transfer market will continue to be depressed?
…
In January, amidst the bleak situation, Bayern set off for Dubai, Middle East, and began their winter training in a low-key manner.
In ten days, Bayern came to the Middle East twice and was still warmly welcomed by Dubai fans.
Last time it was in Abu Dhabi and this time it was in Dubai.
Staying in familiar hotels and renting familiar training grounds, Bayern has been training in the Middle East for many years. However, due to the shorter winter break this year, Bayern only plans to play a warm-up match in the Middle East and then return to Europe.
The second warm-up match was in Switzerland, away to Basel.
The team's performance is good and the training atmosphere is good. Heynckes even lifted the curfew and allowed players to stay up past 12:00, but there is one requirement, that is, everyone must act collectively and not act on their own.
That is to say, after a while, if you still want to go out and have fun, you can, bring the whole team with you.
This move immediately activated the atmosphere of the entire team and all the players welcomed it.
Being thousands of miles away from home and undergoing tough training, it would be beneficial for the players to relax their body and mind appropriately.
Heynckes obviously also hopes that the team can combine work and rest, gain news in training, and strive to play in better condition in the second half, especially for seriously injured players such as Ribery and Robben.
Both of them missed too many games in the first half.
The miracle doctor Wolfart received a task during the winter training camp, focusing on training Ribery and Robben to keep them away from injuries.
Otherwise, Bayern will be under greater pressure when it comes to the knockout stage.
(End of this chapter)
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