Chapter 551: Fun before the Game
Ferdinand was born in West Ham United and was later bought by Leeds United for a record transfer fee. From then on, he embarked on the road to fame. In the summer of 2002, he moved to Manchester United and became the most expensive defender in England. At Manchester United, Ferdinand was an absolute defensive main force and was once considered the best central defender in the world.
Ferdinand first signed with West Ham United when he was only 14 years old. That year, he signed an apprenticeship contract with West Ham United. After leaving school at the age of 16, Ferdinand ignored the invitations of other clubs and decided to stay at West Ham. So he continued to renew his contract with West Ham United as an apprentice.
On January 25, 1997, Ferdinand started for West Ham United for the first time. In the same year, Ferdinand joined the England national team. The following year, Ferdinand, who was only 20 years old, became a member of the England World Cup squad.
Ferdinand has achieved such achievements at the age of 20. His strength should not be underestimated. His strong body makes him not afraid of any opponent on defense, and his tough style makes it difficult for opponents to get past Ferdinand. In addition, Ferdinand's offensive ability is also good. He has very good heading ability and is good at using his physical advantage to steal and intercept the ball.
In the world of football, there may be many 20-year-old forward stars, but every team is extremely short of defense, especially central defenders. Such a Ferdinand will certainly become the object of competition among many teams.
Until now, Ferdinand has joined Leeds United and Manchester United for extremely high transfer fees.
While playing for West Ham United, Ferdinand played 158 games and scored two goals. On November 26, 2000, he moved to Leeds United for £18 million. It is worth mentioning that Ferdinand's last game for West Ham was the away game on November 18, when they beat Leeds United 1-0.
At the time, the transfer fee of 18 million pounds was the highest transfer fee in English football. Five months later, Ferdinand led Leeds to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. He also scored three goals in his first season, which is a very impressive statistic for a central defender.
In Leeds United's second season, the team's performance was not very ideal. However, this did not affect Ferdinand's fame at all, because his personal performance has been improving. In the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Ferdinand's performance was even better. After the end of the tournament, he once became the hottest transfer figure. At that time, Ferdinand's transfer was even more popular than Barcelona captain Figo.
In the end, it was Manchester United, the treble winners of 1999, who won the financial competition with 30 million pounds, which allowed Ferdinand to once again surpass Du Lim, who was worth 22 million pounds, to become the world's most expensive defender.
After joining Manchester United, Ferdinand used his excellent footwork and ability to deal with aerial attacks to gradually stabilize Manchester United's defense. That season, Manchester United became the team with the fewest goals conceded in the Premier League.
Unfortunately, in the 2003/04 season, Ferdinand was severely punished by the English Football Association and suspended for 8 months for missing a drug test, which caused him to miss all the team's games in the second half of the season and missed the European Cup.
This may be a small regret.
For Ferdinand, who is in his prime, he still has many opportunities, such as this World Cup in Germany.
However, just when the World Cup group stage, in which England performed the strongest, was about to end, Ferdinand was injured. The reason for the injury was that he sprained his ankle while hiking.
After the entire England team returned to the hotel, every player had a bad expression on their face. Joe Cole and Rooney both lowered their heads and had gloomy faces, because it was these two people who initiated the suggestion of climbing the mountain.
As a result, a group of people went there, but Ferdinand was injured.
The injury of such a strong main central defender has at least reduced the overall defense ability of the England team by one level.
Of course, head coach McLaren heard the news and rushed from Nuremberg to Munich Hospital. An ankle sprain may be just a minor injury, but this injury can at least make Ferdinand miss half a month of games. If it is more serious, this backfielder who is more important than Tri may not be able to participate in the next World Cup.
This was a very serious blow both to Ferdinand himself and to the England team as a whole.
"It's okay, Leo will be fine." Seeing Rooney and Joe Cole's lost and annoyed expressions, Wang Li kept persuading them.
Wang Li and Ferdinand are not familiar with each other. They are just opponents in the Premier League. When Wang Li was in the England team, Ferdinand was directly banned.
And now, the two are in the England team together and Ferdinand is injured again.
The two of them really can't always play football together.
Wang Li admires Ferdinand very much. The two can be said to have known each other for a long time, at least that's what Wang Li thinks. Because among the defensive players Wang Li has seen, there are two opponents that he remembers clearly in his mind. One is Chelsea teammate Ricardo Carvalho. This Portuguese player once stole the ball from Wang Li in the European Cup, and his defense caused Wang Li a lot of trouble.
The other is Ferdinand. Although the game between Manchester United and Chelsea always ends with Chelsea's victory, Wang Li feels that Ferdinand's defense is at least as strong as that of two ordinary players.
It's such a pity that a player like this got injured.
It's just a pity.
Wang Li is not as worried as McLaren. He thinks that although Ferdinand's injury has affected the team's overall strength, if he can perform at his full potential, no team can challenge England in the World Cup.
He is very confident in his own abilities.
What if the defense is a little weak? As long as we score more goals than the opponent, we can win. This is Wang Li's point of view.
Of course, he would not say these, after all, Ferdinand is indeed the general of England's defense.
And McLaren has every reason to be angry and worried.
At the beginning of the World Cup, England was in good shape and had a good lineup of players. With the addition of several young players, the whole team had a sense of vitality and the team was indeed very strong.
After two rounds of the group stage, it was proved that the England team was indeed very strong. With their terrifying offensive ability of 14 goals in two games, they gained an absolute advantage and qualified from the group stage after two games, becoming the first team to advance to the round of 16.
But Lampard was injured, which is nothing. It is normal for one or two players to be injured in an official World Cup match, but Ferdinand was injured again.
If it was a normal injury, McLaren would just be worried, after all, there was nothing he could do about it, but it was an injury caused by climbing during the World Cup, which made him furious.
"From today until the end of the World Cup, all players are not allowed to leave the team without permission, no matter what time it is."
After returning to the hotel, McLaren directly issued such a strict rule and went to the press conference with the assistant coach and translator.
He had to announce this matter to the media because a lot of "rumors" had already spread and it had become a hot topic in the outside world.
At nine o'clock that evening, in the lobby of the hotel where the England team was staying, head coach McClaren held an impromptu press conference and told reporters that the team's main central defender was injured and would most likely be unable to participate in the upcoming World Cup matches.
However, McClaren only said that he was injured during the team's internal training. He would not let reporters know what happened within the England team, which would really damage the image of the England team.
This news sparked heated discussions in various media, mainly because Ferdinand is so important to England's defense.
If the English defense with Ferdinand can rank among the top five of the 32 World Cup teams, then the English defense without Ferdinand would probably only be ranked outside the top eight. After all, Ferdinand is too important, and his position cannot be replaced by veteran players such as Campbell, Carragher, and Phil Neville.
If McClaren was upset about this matter, another person was even more anxious, and that was Manchester United's head coach Sir Alex Ferguson.
After McClaren held a press conference that night, the old knight received the news of Ferdinand's injury. At that time, he directly smashed the porcelain cup on the table and shouted angrily: "...that nasty Englishman, I knew he would hurt Manchester United players, I shouldn't have agreed to Rio and Rooney to join the national team"
Then, the old knight called Ferdinand immediately, and half an hour later, Ferguson appeared in front of reporters with a smile on his face.
Why?
Because Ferdinand's injury is not serious, he will definitely recover after a month of rest. This month is just the World Cup, which will not affect Manchester United's games at all. The most important thing is that I heard from the doctor that this injury will not cause internal injuries and will not affect Ferdinand's future condition at all.
This kind of news is what makes Ferguson happy again.
“I always felt that England couldn’t do well and I always supported their opponents.”
In the subsequent interview, Ferguson gloated: "The Englishman (McLaren) was very lucky. After he took over from the Swede (Eriksson), the England team had many outstanding talents joining, those talents even I wanted. But now his bad luck has come. England team is always like this, but I am happy every time."
"Now it's just that Rio is injured. I think the situation of the England team is not very good. Without Rio, England's defensive ability will be much worse. Of course, this is what I hope to see."
"...I would rather see England go home after the round of 16." Ferguson said this at the end of the interview.
This statement made McLaren angry and helpless.
Everyone in England knows that Ferguson hates the England team the most. Now that Manchester United players are injured in the England team, the old Sir will definitely be sympathized by the media and fans for saying this, and all the responsibility seems to be on him.
If the England team is seriously affected by Ferdinand's injury, it must be all his fault as the head coach, but does it really have anything to do with McClaren?
It must matter, "Do I want Leo to get hurt?"
After returning to the hotel room, McLaren shouted that he finally realized that being the head coach of a national team was indeed an honor, but not an easy thing.
Fortunately, when he walked out of the room, he saw Wang Li.
Seeing the black-haired boy talking to Beckham as they walked into the room made McLaren feel much better.
Ferdinand is injured, but the team still has players to replace him. As long as this black-haired boy is there, England is guaranteed to score goals. Why should the team worry about not achieving good results?
This thought made McLaren feel much better.
Swedish team.
This team is an outstanding representative of the Nordic team, they come from the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Swedish team has always been an important force in European football.
In the 1958 World Cup held in Sweden, the Swedish team advanced all the way to the finals, but unfortunately lost to the then-powerful Brazilian team and finished second, which is the most impressive record in Swedish football history. In addition, the Swedish team also won the third place in the 1950 and 1994 World Cups.
In the past decade or so, the Swedes have incorporated advanced technical play into the traditional Nordic power football style, creating a precedent for the "New Nordic style".
At present, the Swedish team is full of technical players: the tall Ibrahimovic is said to be able to juggle a ping-pong ball, and his excellent ball sense can only be described as "terrifying"; Larsson, who participated in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, is invincible, and he and Ibrahimovic will form an invincible combination on the forward line; Ljungberg's personal skills have been verified in the Premier League, and his ability to break through on the wing is also a sharp weapon for the Swedish team to defeat the enemy.
In the last World Cup, Sweden finished 13th. In this World Cup, judging from the form of Group B, Sweden still has a good chance of advancing from the group stage - as long as they beat England.
But will England lose so easily?
No one knows, but everyone thinks that England will send out a substitute lineup, and McClaren is likely to train his players in the World Cup, so everyone is optimistic about the Swedish team, and fans don't care much about the other game.
Perhaps two days ago, McLaren was indeed considering training the team. He hoped to allow all the substitute players in the team to adapt to the atmosphere of the competition and let the main players get some rest.
But after the Ferdinand incident, McLaren changed his mind slightly. He let all the players follow the team to Cologne. After that, only a few "obedient" players were not included in the roster, including Wang Li.
McLaren was very confident about Wang Li.
Rooney and others are all included in the roster. It seems that McClaren wants these guys to behave themselves and not to cause trouble all the time, which will cause a lot of trouble to the team.
Of course, these have nothing to do with Wang Li, because on this day he left Cologne and went to Munich International Airport - because Angela came to Germany
Angela did not hide her identity this time. She came to Germany in a high-profile manner under the name of the little princess of the British royal family. This was obviously to prepare for their marriage in advance.
Wang Li also had to leave the team and go to the airport to pick up the player. Of course, more importantly, the England team no longer needed him, at least in the group stage.
As the little princess of the British royal family, she has a great influence in Europe. At least on the day of the airport pick-up, many people of status from all over the world came to the airport. After Angela and Wang Li met, they received a large number of invitations, most of which came from some wealthy people and influential families in Germany.
These made Wang Li feel very annoyed, so in order to reduce trouble, he and Angela went directly to Cologne in a special car prepared for them by the German government - he went there in the name of participating in a competition.
The England team became Wang Li's sanctuary.
As a member of the England team, Wang Li couldn't stay with Angela all the time. After arranging the hotel, etc., he returned to the England team's hotel a day later, because the next day was the match between England and Sweden.
Wang Li was not on the roster, so he had nothing to do the next day.
So, he and Angela came to the RheinEnergy Stadium together. As members of the England team and little princesses of the British royal family, the two were obviously privileged. Before the fans entered the stadium, they were led by the staff to a VIP box to enjoy the game.
Without being on the team roster, Wang Li watched the game completely as a spectator.
It is worth mentioning that during the waiting time, there were only Wang Li and Angela in the VIP box. Although they had just met yesterday, under the style of the British princess and with Cole as a light bulb, they obviously had no time to relieve the sorrow of missing each other together.
So, during the one-hour wait, the two of them couldn't help but complete a primitive human exercise on the sofa. Before watching the game live, doing such an exercise really made people feel happy.
When the two teams entered the venue, the two put on their upper clothes and Angela looked out from the box.
At this time, the stadium was surrounded by fans. This stadium can accommodate more than 60,000 fans. The scene was already filled with crazy fans. Outside Wang Li's box, some fans saw the faces of Angela and Wang Li, and they immediately shouted for a big victory in that direction.
The news spread quickly, and in a blink of an eye, all the fans in the stadium knew the location of the British princess and Wang Li's box, and they shouted desperately towards it. For Europeans, the influence of the British royal family is still very great. At least at the scene, there were even more fans shouting Angela's name than Wang Li.
So, Angela had no choice but to tidy up her clothes, put on her hat, stuck her head out of the window, smiled brightly outside, and waved to everyone.
But at this moment, Wang Li, who was standing behind Angela, had a wicked smile on his face, so he controlled "Little Wang Li" and thrust it in with a "swish" at the hole again...