Chapter 383 Interview with Imperial Court TV Station

Unlike Chelsea's position in the league, AC Milan has encountered a crisis in Serie A.

In the Serie A on April 9, AC Milan drew with Brescia at the San Rossi Stadium, and the final result was 1:1. After this game, AC Milan's points have been surpassed by Roma and fell to second place in the league, while their other opponent, the old lady Juventus, is only 1 point behind AC Milan.

But this is not the focus of foreign media!

After the game, Brescia Club directly accused the referee of accepting bribes and unfairly enforcing the law. This accusation caused an uproar in Italy!

Italian football can be said to be the most special in Europe. For them, football is politics, and the teams in Serie A tend to have some political colors. For example, Roma and Fiorentina are the standard representatives of the Italian left, while AC Milan and Juventus are right-wing football.

The left wing in Italy is radical, while the right wing represents the interests of the nobles. Therefore, under the pressure of the Italian Football Association, the referees of Serie A will more or less favor AC Milan or Juventus.

From this point of view, Italian football is very dark.

In the past, many people were indignant about this kind of "bias", but no one directly "accused" the referee. Brescia, which was facing the crisis of relegation, was obviously angered!

Throughout the game, they were awarded two penalties for no reason, and AC Milan's only goal was an unreasonable penalty before the end of the game. According to the entire game process, the final result should have been at least 0:2, not 1:1. The consecutive penalties obviously angered Brescia.

After the incident, the referee on duty had to accept investigation, and AC Milan was also caught in the quagmire of suspected "bribing referees".

Although Brescia's accusation seems to be useful in the end, in reality, it is a lose-lose approach. The real high-level people will definitely be hostile to Brescia, and they will suffer more injustice in the future.

But Brescia, facing the crisis of relegation, was too angry to care about so much.

For the AC Milan players, they have no right to interfere in the affairs of the top management. After this game, even with the help of the referee, they were still overtaken in the league points. It is even very difficult for them to catch up with the points.

This season, Roma has exploded. The forward line composed of Roma Prince Totti, Little Plane Montella, and Cassano can be said to be unstoppable in Serie A. They even showed stronger offensive capabilities than the front line composed of Kaka, Shevchenko, and Crespo. In the Serie A league with solid defense, strong offensive capabilities almost mean better results.

Even Ancelotti had to admit this.

The fact that AC Milan had this problem before the big competition was by no means good news, as it put pressure on many players in the team. Under this pressure, all kinds of scandals and gossip broke out in the AC Milan locker room, causing discord within AC Milan.

"Sheva and Maldini had a big fight, and it turns out that the old captain is stronger!!"

"Crespo is in a relationship crisis and the countdown to breaking up with his ex-girlfriend has begun. Let's wait and see who will win the battle!!"

"Gattuso had an altercation with his teammates at the training ground because the former made too many moves in the training match!?"

...In short, negative news about AC Milan swept across Italy in one day, and then swept across England. Such news appearing two days before the big war was definitely not good news.

However, facing this game, AC Milan players are not as pessimistic as the outside world speculates. Facing media interviews, many players expressed their confidence in winning. When talking about this, right-back Brazilian captain Cafu said: "We will work hard to win and strive to advance. The atmosphere in the team is very good now. I don't know where you heard this news, but it must be a false accusation. We have a good relationship."

"The atmosphere in the locker room is very good now, and we will prove it with victory!!" Captain Paolo Maldini.

"I will try my best to score more goals. The team's qualifying situation is not optimistic, but we will not give up!!" Kaka.

...Although AC Milan seems to have some problems, some of which have been confirmed and some have not, Mourinho does not consider this at all. He just warns the players not to be disturbed by external factors and to play everything according to the formulated tactics. Now the team has a 3-goal advantage. If they cannot advance, it would be too unreasonable.

"This is their last Champions League game, they will definitely fight hard at home, you have to be careful, this team has a strong offensive capability right now, and we are away, those nasty fans won't be too friendly, don't be affected by them in the game, as long as we play at our normal strength, then we will definitely advance."

"...Don't think about having an advantage. What we need to do now is to have a balanced mentality. Remember, we don't have any advantage! Play with all your strength. After this game, we will be in the top four."

On the morning of the 11th, Mourinho was worried and invited a famous psychologist to help the players relax before the game. For Chelsea, most of the players really lacked experience in major competitions, and he was afraid that the players would not be able to withstand the pressure.

Of course, these have no effect on Wang Li, he is still doing his own thing.

In the past few days, he has been troubled by a special interview, that is, the court TV station of the ancient oriental country has applied to give him a live one-on-one interview.

Originally, Wang Li did not want to participate in this kind of TV interview, because Rita received various similar applications almost every day. Rita would directly reject ordinary invitations. However, she could not directly reject the interview with the ancient oriental court TV station this time. On the one hand, the conditions offered by the other party were really good, including a half-hour one-on-one Q&A and an appearance fee of 200,000 pounds. On the other hand, if she participated in this interview, it would really help to increase Wang Li's popularity in the East.

Among them, a competing Japanese TV station invested 500,000 pounds. Unfortunately, Rita knew that Wang Li had never had a good impression of this country, so she decisively refused.

Of course, this money was not much for Wang Li, but Rita knew that Wang Li would consider it whenever he encountered problems with the ancient Eastern country, so she told him about it.

Then, Wang Li’s troubles began.

He wanted to participate in this interview, but this time the Imperial TV station scheduled the program before the game with AC Milan - at 2 pm on April 11. There is a 7-hour difference between London and Yanjing, and 2 pm in London is exactly 9 pm in Yanjing time. The purpose of this arrangement is naturally to let Wang Li talk about his views on the upcoming battle.

But this problem stumped Wang Li, mainly because of Mourinho's tactical arrangements.

It's not that Wang Li can't play, but according to Mourinho's tactical arrangement, it's harder than climbing to the sky to play a beautiful football game. Although the game hasn't started yet, Wang Li already knows that this will definitely be a game that makes people sleepy, especially for Chelsea fans.

He couldn't reveal Chelsea's tactics in advance, but if he did, he would feel sorry for the fans waiting in front of the TV in the evening.

And this show will definitely attract a large number of audiences for the next games, which will make him feel even more guilty.

Finally, after thinking about it and consulting Rita, Wang Li decided to participate. “Why not just not talk about the competition…” That’s what he thought.

This interview program had been prepared for a long time by the ancient Eastern country's Imperial Court Sports Channel, but the crew did not hold out much hope that Wang Li would be able to participate. After all, a big-name star like Wang Li would have to deal with a lot of media, and within Europe, compared to these multinational media giants, the Imperial Court TV station only occupied some of the ancient country's media market, which was really nothing.

But surprisingly, Wang Li’s agent told them that he agreed, which was really a pleasant surprise.

These visitors were very efficient. In a commercial building in London, the staff of the Imperial Court had already prepared everything. At around 1:30 in the afternoon, everyone was waiting for Wang Li nervously.

They couldn't help but be nervous, this was a live broadcast! A live broadcast that had only been promoted for two days!

There is no chance for replay or deleted scenes. After two days of publicity, when people heard that Wang Li would appear on CCTV for a live interview, I don't know how many fans were waiting in front of the TV.

Finally, at 1:35, Wang Li and Rita appeared in the elevator, and the person who was following them hurried in to say hello.

After Wang Li walked into the temporarily rented venue, he found the environment here was not bad. He and Rita, led by the staff, went directly to the shooting site and discussed the following questions with the host, on-site director, and photography crew.

After this exchange, they found that Wang Li’s Chinese was not good at all! It was simply too good! He even had a local accent occasionally!

In confusion, they could only understand that Wang Li liked the ancient oriental country very much. At least in the interview with Chelsea, the young man in front of them was very caring towards the reporters from the ancient oriental country.

After a period of preparation, everything was in place. Wang Li sat in front of the camera casually, facing a group of flash lights. Thinking that there were tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of fans watching him, Wang Li was very calm. Even the host and the people present were amazed at his calmness - no matter what achievements he had made, after all, this young man in front of him was not even 19 years old! !

After the entire camera crew started working, the host, Ms. Zhang, smiled and asked, "Your English name is Alan, right? What should I call you?"

"Wang Li, I like people calling me this name."

After hearing this, everyone around him had a better impression of Wang Li. After all, this was a sign of not forgetting one's roots. At this time, Miss Zhang saw Wang Li's relaxed look and asked jokingly, "There are tens of millions of viewers watching the live broadcast now. Aren't you nervous at all?"

Wang Li smiled and said, "I am a professional football player. I have to keep a calm mind at all times. If I get excited all the time, I won't be able to play well."

"Well, Wang Li, this is your second season in the Premier League, and you have scored nearly 50 goals in the league. This data is really luxurious. Can you tell me the reason for your success?"

"The reason is hard work. Since I was a few years old when I went to Arsenal Football School, I insisted on training non-stop every day until I was 16, and I never stopped. Even now, I have to insist on training every day. You see, the time I have now is still obtained by asking for leave from the head coach. When I go back later, he will definitely not be in a good mood. The coach hates people asking for leave the most." Speaking of the reason for his success, Wang Li felt a little guilty. In fact, he felt that his success was arranged by God. Who made him know such a heaven-defying martial arts of the Xiaoyao School?

"Does Mr. Mourinho have a bad temper? He will always be lenient towards such an excellent player like you, right?"

Wang Li was stunned for a moment, then reacted and said, "No, you are wrong. In the club, no matter how you perform, everyone is the same. There is no special person in the team. If there is, it can only be the head coach."

Miss Zhang turned her head to the center and said with emotion: "It seems that we should learn the philosophy of European football clubs. It is easy to say that everyone is equal, but at least there is some inequality in every place."

After hearing this, Miss Zhang immediately realized that something was wrong. She timidly glanced at the TV station executives next to her, then quickly turned her head and glanced at Wang Li, thinking: "Why am I so moved by his words?"

She straightened her expression and asked, "You have been studying at Arsenal Football School since you were a child? So why did you choose Chelsea now?"

"It's nothing, isn't it? I went to school there only because my home is in Holloway, which is closer to there." Wang Li said, waving his hand and saying, "I'm not an Arsenal fan."

"Then can you tell me which one you liked when you were a child..."

“…”

After the two chatted about some irrelevant topics, Ms. Zhang's questions gradually got to the point as she began to talk about Chinese football.

"How much do you know about Chinese football?"

Wang Li thought for a while and said, "I don't know much about it. Maybe they don't play very well, because I have never seen the Chinese team in every World Cup." In fact, when Wang Li was a Chinese, he still had some vague understanding of Chinese football, but after so many years, he had long forgotten his specific impression at the time. He only knew that it was not very good, football was always linked to money, and there were many cases of match-fixing and black whistles.

"You are right. Our national team's performance is indeed not very good. So, Wang Li, how do you think we can improve the strength of Chinese football?"

Wang Li waved his hand and said, "I heard someone say last time that Chinese football is very chaotic. It seems that the department is specially appointed by the state to manage it. I think this is not good. For example, the manager of English football is the English Football Association, which is also formed by various clubs and fan groups. Those officials were all people in the football industry when they were young. This is very good."

"...football in England belongs to the masses, to the fans, and has nothing to do with the British government. I think it will develop better this way."

"…I'm sorry for saying so much. Actually, I don't know much about this. I'm just an ordinary player."

After Wang Li finished speaking, Miss Zhang didn't feel anything, but the senior executive of the TV station next to her frowned. A state-owned TV station like Chaoting TV cannot broadcast such words, but now it is a live broadcast, and he has no other choice. He can't just force the group to stop the show.

"So do you think that if we professionally train a group of young players, will it be helpful to the development of the national team?" These questions are all limited, and the TV station is asking a world-class player's opinion on behalf of the fans.

Wang Li waved his hand and said, "Maybe, but I don't think it will help much. For example, I think I have great ability, but I am still rejected by the England team. Everyone has their own differences. Maybe the idea now is good, but who can tell after ten years?"

"Besides, people are not machines. If they are trained uniformly, I think those young people will have good skills, but they will lack creativity. Under this mechanism, they will not have the potential to become big-name stars."

"Creativity? What is that?"

Wang Li thought for a moment and said, "It can be said to be a kind of on-the-spot adaptability. For example, you have never thought of doing that before, but you thought of it during the game..."

After listening to Wang Li's point of view, the host nodded and changed the topic and asked, "The day after tomorrow is the match between Chelsea and AC Milan, what do you think of this match?"

When talking about this, Wang Li felt a little guilty. He put aside the topic of tactics and just said: "I think we will definitely win in the end."

"We have a three-goal advantage, and we are confident of winning even at the San Rossi Stadium. After the first round, we have a general understanding of AC Milan's style of play and the strength of their players. I think there is no suspense in the game."

"It seems that you are very confident?" Miss Zhang covered her mouth and smiled jokingly after hearing what Wang Li said.

Wang Li said nonchalantly: "Confidence is the key to victory. If you don't have the confidence to win, then you have already lost the game without even having to play."

"Well, I believe it will be an exciting match. I believe the audience in front of the TV will also be looking forward to it. At the end of the show, Wang Li, do you have anything to say to everyone?"

This was a question that had been prepared in advance, and Wang Li already knew the answer: "I will try my best to play well, strive to make every game exciting, and live up to everyone's expectations of me. Thank you!"

Wang Li practiced the Taoist "Small Wuxiang Gong" and his state of mind was already close to minor success. It was extremely important to follow one's heart, but when he said this, he thought of the tactics formulated by the head coach in the game the day after tomorrow, and he felt ashamed.

Fortunately, the interview is over now, and he doesn't have to feel bad about saying something against his will.

(To be continued)