Chapter 767: Su Dong's Achilles' heel
As the first round of the Premier League came to an end, the Premier League teams had mixed feelings.
The two teams that performed worst in the warm-up matches became the most eye-catching teams in the first round of the league.
Manchester City beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 away, and Chelsea beat West Bromwich Albion 6-0 at home. These two teams, which were controversial before the start of the game, both showed superior strength.
On the last day of the Premier League, Manchester United beat Newcastle 3-0 at home and also got three points.
In comparison, Liverpool and Arsenal had a bit of a love-hate relationship, and they shook hands and made peace with a score of one to one.
After the first round, Chelsea jumped directly to the top of the standings with the advantage of goal difference.
Ancelotti's team has always been the number one favorite to win the Premier League title this season.
…
Although the league has already started, signings are still ongoing.
After Ancelotti publicly expressed his favor for Santos' talented young player Neymar at the post-match press conference, the outside world has been buzzing about Neymar's transfer.
Some media revealed that Chelsea has directly sent a sky-high price of 25 million euros to Santos, but Neymar's penalty for breach of contract with Santos is as high as 50 million euros. With only 25 million euros, it is really difficult to convince Santos to let him go.
In particular, teams such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City and others are all eyeing the game covetously, and will rush in as soon as Santos agrees.
In addition to Neymar, Santos has another young midfielder, Ganso, who has attracted the attention of many European top teams.
Neymar's playing style is a bit like Robinho's back then. In fact, he was also identified by Santos as the best candidate to succeed Robinho. Ganso's playing style is very similar to Zidane's back then.
Therefore, Neymar is being watched by European giants, and Ganso is equally unambiguous.
In the latest Brazilian national team roster, this young player is on the list, and he performed very well in the warm-up match against the United States, which made the outside world have high hopes for these two Brazilian internationals, and their value is also skyrocketing.
This seems to have become the norm for Brazilian players in recent years.
With Ronaldo's example in the past, players like Robinho and now Neymar all want to follow in Ronaldo's footsteps. Their clubs are unwilling to offer low prices, but instead, after a round of hype, allow more wealthy teams to enter the market and drive up the players' values.
It's not just the clubs, there are many agents and third-party owners fueling this.
As for whether the players can play well and meet the expectations of the outside world after arriving in Europe, who cares?
…
Manchester City is also interested in Neymar, but for Manchester City today, the most urgent thing is not to introduce foreign aid, but the Premier League's 17 plus 8 policy.
After the team played Tottenham Hotspur and returned to Manchester, Manchester City announced that they had signed local youth player Raheem Sterling from Queens Park Rangers for two million pounds, beating out teams such as Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. This player, who is not even sixteen years old, is a talent that the whole of England is paying attention to.
In an interview with the media, Sterling said that he chose Manchester City among many Premier League giants, and the main reason was that Manchester City has the best players in the world.
"When I first started playing football, my father asked me to watch Su Dong's games. He was still in Portugal at the time, but I was so impressed that I wanted to play like him."
Sterling said that he had almost reached an agreement with other teams, but after hearing that Su Dong had come to Manchester City, he changed his mind. "I hope to learn by his side. This will be a valuable asset for me."
The team that Sterling mentioned was very close to signing him was Liverpool.
For this reason, Liverpool had a quarrel with Manchester City, believing that Manchester City's actions violated the rules, but Manchester City refuted that they had not violated any rules and that it was the players themselves who chose to change their minds and join Manchester City.
Although Sterling was signed, the player would have to wait until the winter break before he could play for the first team, and he would have to be at least 16 years old, right? Therefore, after signing Sterling, Manchester City continued to look for many players.
In line with Guardiola's requirements, Manchester City has successively inspected Manchester United's youth training player Cleverley, Arsenal's youth training player Wilshere, Sunderland midfielder Jordan Henderson, and Everton player Rodwell, etc.
Among them, the first three players are players that Guardiola admires very much, but Cleverley is the most valued youth training gem of Manchester United Ferguson, and Wilshere is the potential stock of England's world-class midfielder in the future. How could they let him go easily? Jordan Henderson was Sunderland's best player last season and the best young player in the Premier League. Manchester City wanted to sign him, but Sunderland asked for too high a price and the two sides failed to reach an agreement.
This is actually no wonder.
The whole world knows that Manchester City is in urgent need of local players, and everyone knows that Manchester City is rich, so wouldn't everyone want to rip Manchester City off?
After several unsuccessful negotiations, Begiristain shifted his target and brought in the versatile Milner from Aston Villa.
Milner's skills are considered good among English players, but he is still far behind David Silva and others.
Manchester City considered many aspects to sign him.
One is that Milner is 24 years old and has many years of Premier League experience. Second, he is a rare all-rounder who can play in many different positions, which is a very good choice in a team.
Although Milner is not a well-known figure, his value is very high, as high as 30 million euros. This price is basically enough to sign Yaya Toure from Barcelona and David Silva back then.
In comparison, the younger and more famous German talented midfielder Toni Kroos is only worth more than 10 million euros, only half of Milner's, which is a model of good value for money.
But there is no way. After the new policy came out, the household registration book in England has become more valuable.
By signing Milner, and adding Trippier, Micah Richards, Michael Johnson and others who were promoted from the youth team, Manchester City has barely managed to fill the quota of eight local players.
However, Begiristain has already proposed a plan. In the next few years, Manchester City will scout young players from outside to enrich its own youth training camp. After three years of training, these players will become local youth training in England, and can perfectly avoid the new policy.
Not only Manchester City does this, but teams such as Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool all do this.
The Premier League’s current strong purchasing power is not only reflected in adult players, but also in youth teams.
…
As the captain of the team and one of the first new players brought in after taking office, Su Dong fully played the role of captain.
He first called the two new players in advance to learn about their situation and the help they would need after arriving in Manchester, such as housing, transportation, food and so on.
The club has dedicated personnel in charge, but Su Dong personally took care of it, showing his concern for the new players, which will be of great help in the subsequent management of the locker room and helping the new players integrate into the team.
Among them, Sterling's request was more special. He wanted to get a set of signed jerseys from Su Dong, saying that he wanted to collect them.
Su Dong was generous and gave him a set as a gift for their first meeting.
As for helping the new players integrate into the team, this is a long process.
Although he is the captain, Su Dong is busy with competitions and has heavy tasks to complete, so it is impossible for him to take care of every detail.
…………
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On the third day after the match against Tottenham Hotspur, which was the second day after Milner and Sterling joined the team, the entire Manchester City team set out together and flew a long distance to Romania.
This is the first leg of the fourth qualifying round of the Europa League.
Manchester City entered the Europa League as the sixth place in the Premier League. According to the rules, they should participate in the final round of qualifiers.
The opponent is the Romanian team, Timişoara.
This is a little-known team, which ranked fifth in the Romanian First Division last season. There are no well-known players in the team, and many of the players' names are particularly difficult to pronounce. Su Dong can't even pronounce them, so he can only use their jersey numbers instead.
However, there is someone in this team that Su Dong is very familiar with.
That is Timisoara's head coach, Vladimir Petrovich.
When you first hear this name, I guess many Chinese fans won’t recognize him, because in China, he has another name.
Forlan! At first, Su Dong had no impression of him at all, but when he got Forlan's resume, he found out that he had coached the Dalian team and the Chinese national team, which surprised him.
After comparing the time, Su Dong confirmed that Timisoara's head coach was the former Chinese national football coach Forado. Before the game, Forado had a special conversation with Su Dong.
The only common topic between the two was the national team.
Forlan said that when he was coaching the Chinese national football team, he had tried many times to recruit Su Dong into the national team. He even wrote Su Dong's name on the training list for each period, but was rejected by his superiors on the grounds of non-compliance.
"I believe that if you were there, the Chinese team would definitely be able to make it to the World Cup."
Su Dong maintained a polite smile in response to these words.
Where does if come from in this world?
…
Although they had a good talk off the court and Forlan frequently tried to do favors for Su Dong, when the game really started, Su Dong did not hold back. In the 30th minute, he scored directly from a free kick opportunity created by David Silva.
After the second half, Su Dong first assisted David Silva to score another goal, and then he received a cross from Di Maria and scored his second goal. In the stoppage time, Gareth Barry's long shot penetrated the opponent's goal.
In the end, Manchester City won 4-0 away against Timişoara.
This made Forlan very depressed.
It turns out that all my talking and playing the emotional card before the game were of no use at all!
How could Forlan know that mentioning the Chinese national football team in front of Su Dong would be like provoking him?
(End of this chapter)
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