long live football

Now that I'm in London, I can't justify not visiting old friends.

Mourinho's house is near Holland Park in London. It is a mansion with a bit of Victorian style. As far as Carl knows, most of the other houses in this area have been converted into apartments. Single-family houses are very rare. They are often They all mean one word: expensive.

Carl took a brief tour of the house under the leadership of the owner. In the warm interior, Carl took off his coat and suit. He shrugged and said to Mourinho: "Don't tell me your heating bill."

Mourinho opened his mouth.

Carl shook his finger at him: "I told you not to tell me, otherwise I will definitely seek money and kill myself."

Mourinho raised his eyebrows and said: "I want to tell you that there is a house next door for sale, buy it and be my neighbor."

Carl calculated carefully: "The liquid funds on my credit card are probably only enough to buy a toilet."

"Then you can sleep in the bathtub." Mourinho smiled very maliciously.

Carl ignored his words and rubbed his hands: "There are not many lonely people like us during the Christmas holiday. What kind of dinner did you prepare for my distinguished guest?"

Mourinho solemnly took out a piece of paper from the pile of newspapers: "I have the best takeaway menu in London."

Carl's shoulders shrugged all of a sudden: "Are you sure these restaurants are really open tonight?"

"Otherwise, you can only cook." Mourinho smiled very sweetly: "There are a lot of ingredients in the refrigerator, please give full play to your cooking skills."

Carl touched his stomach: "I'm not hungry yet, maybe we can wait until the tenth call and no one answers, and then discuss what to do about dinner." He flipped through Mourinho's pile of newspapers , took out one of them: "Erickson is going to step down?"

Eriksson is the current head coach of the England national team. There have been scandals since he took office. At first, in 2004, he was exposed by the FA Secretary Irene. In July 05, "News of the World" sent an undercover reporter pretending to be the sheikh of the United Arab Emirates to call Eriksson. The reporter falsely claimed that he would buy the Premier League team Aston Villa and invite him to coach. Eriksson Kersen not only agreed, but also uttered wild words after drinking that he could bring Beckham and Owen to join together... After the scandal broke out, the "News of the World" became famous, and Eriksson was recognized by the whole of England as leaving the club. Stepping down is not far away.

And in the paper that Karl is currently reading, the British media is giving the FA advice, suggesting that they choose from Steve McLaren, Stuart Pierce, Sam Allardyce, Martin O'Neill, Seven coaches, including Wenger, Mourinho and Guus Hiddink, selected a successor for the England coach.

Interestingly, Carl was also mentioned in the "News of the World" report. Although he is not among the candidates, the last sentence of the article is "If you sort by appearance, Carl Oston must beat the above 7 candidate to be the undisputed England manager."

"After the World Cup in Germany, I'm afraid Eriksson's seat will be changed." Mourinho poked the newspaper and said suddenly: "People prefer you, Carl, the same report, they praise you, boast You, at best make fun of you. But to me, look how this sentence is written-'Although Mourinho has proved himself in the Premier League, his price is too high, and the FA will definitely not get it Pay £500 million a year to satisfy the voracious appetites of the Portuguese.' Tsk tsk tsk, these journalists are not friendly to me."

"Do you think I've been in the honeymoon period with them? It's just that I'm far enough away." Carl put down the newspaper: "Jose, you remind me of a fruit."

"What fruit?"

"Durian. Those who like it like it very much, and those who hate it hate it even more."

"That kind of tropical fruit?" Mourinho rubbed his chin: "I haven't tasted it. Is there any place in London that sells it?"

"There should be... in the supermarket." Carl said uncertainly.

Mourinho threw Carl's suit coat at him: "Hurry up and get dressed! I'm going to drive."

Carl was puzzled: "Where are we going?"

Mourinho has grabbed the car keys and is running downstairs: "Supermarket!"

Facts have proved that it is really not easy to find durian in the cold winter in London. Most of the supermarkets do not sell it, and some shopping guides have never heard of this fruit. They ran to three places and finally heard about it. A woman said: "The supermarkets run by Asians probably sell them."

So Carl and Mourinho moved to Chinatown, and finally found durians in a Chinese supermarket. The owner of the shop looked very strange when he saw two foreigners buying durians.

Mourinho was already attacked by the smell when he was three meters away from the fruit stand. He looked very worried: "It smells like a natural gas leak, and there are thorns all over the body. Are you sure it will really work?" eat?"

"Try it and you'll know." Carl handed the money to the shopkeeper and asked him to open the durian.

Mourinho picked up a piece of yellow flesh, hesitating to pinch his nose with his other hand.

Carl pokes the piece of flesh into his mouth.

Mourinho held his breath and chewed. After a while, he murmured: "Well, it's still delicious to eat."

Carl laughed and said, "So I said, you feel like a durian to me."

……

After Christmas, the New Year is approaching, and the winter transfer window in European football is about to open.

After confirming with Justin Brandon that his wallet is full, Karl began to care about the financial problems of Munich 1860.

After all, modern football depends on money to play well. There are not a few clubs in Europe that are downgraded or even bankrupt every year due to debt problems.

Although 1860 Munich got rid of the bankruptcy crisis due to the team's outstanding performance and its finances have returned to a healthy state, there is indeed not much money left on the books.

As the head coach of the team, Karl has no access to the club's accounts, but he can calculate the accounts for Munich 1860 from the club's income, and by the way, estimate how much the club can pay for himself in each season. He can also help to a certain extent when he is wrangling with Orr for money.

Most of the club's income per season comes from the following channels: TV broadcast fees, corporate sponsorship, ticket sales and commercial development.

The first is the TV broadcasting fee. Except for those giant teams with sky-high sponsors, most small and medium-sized teams value the TV broadcasting income most in terms of income.

Germany is divided according to the clearing ratio. Currently, the Bundesliga’s TV broadcast fee is 4.12 million euros per season. Last season, the team with the highest income can get 2300 million euros, and the team with the lowest income can get 1170 million euros.

If a team can enter the European Cup, the minimum guarantee for the European Champions Cup is nearly 720 million euros, up to 6000 million euros, the minimum guarantee for the UEFA Cup is 100 million euros, and the champion can get 1900 million euros.

It is also the reason why although the club's requirement for the team this season is to maintain the top ten, Carl has always wanted to enter the European competition. The European cup competitions are really amazingly profitable.

Secondly, corporate sponsorship is the big head, which is divided into jersey sponsorship and chest advertising sponsorship.

Adidas is a German company, and the Bundesliga is equivalent to Adidas' rear. However, Adidas does not sponsor many Bundesliga teams. Currently, there are only three teams in Bayern, Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke 04.Among them, Bayern and Adidas have cooperated for the longest time. In 2001, Adidas even acquired 10% of Bayern Munich's estimated score and became one of Bayern's shareholders.

As the biggest competitor of Adidas, Nike has always wanted to enter the German market, and it seems that as long as it is the rival of Bayern, Adidas will sponsor it. Currently, Adidas sponsors four teams in the Bundesliga, namely Munich 1860, Hamburg, and Hertha Berlin. The enmity with Bochum, Nike and Adidas can also be seen from the sponsorship fees that Nike gave to several teams-Munich 1860, as a newly promoted Bundesliga, because it is a rival with Bayern in the same city, the sponsorship fees received from Nike Leverkusen is even more. Leverkusen's current sponsorship fee is 100 million euros per year, and Munich 1860 is 125 million euros.

It’s just that Nike’s reputation in Germany is not very good at present, because they have been Dortmund’s sponsors for a few years ago, but in 2000, a German laboratory detected that Nike’s jersey specially made for Dortmund contained an extremely toxic substance. Strong heavy metal compound TBT, which caused the partnership between Dortmund and Nike to break down for a while, and Nike's reputation in Germany has also become extremely poor.

But for Munich 1860, the money is sent to the door by the uncle, and they have no reason to push it out.

As for chest ads and other types of sponsorship, Munich 1860 is even worse than its city rival Bayern Munich. Behind Bayern are almost all the large conglomerates in Germany, and Munich 1860 has not yet found a chest advertising sponsor, let alone car sponsorship. or something like that.

The third item is ticket revenue. The average ticket revenue of the Bundesliga last season was about 1860 million. Because [-] Munich is located in the economically developed Bavaria state, the attendance rate of the Allianz Arena is high, and the revenue is a little higher than the average.

The fourth item is product development, including the sale of peripherals, jerseys, fan shops, stadium use rights and other investments, etc., because 30% to 50% of the proceeds from the sale of jerseys will be returned to the sponsoring company (Nike), so this part of business development It is difficult to bring large profits to the club.

All kinds of income, excluding the club's operating costs and the salaries of coaches and players, Karl unfortunately finds that it is still difficult for him to start with high-priced stars during the winter transfer period, unless 1860 Munich can sign a big-spending sponsor before next season, such as Deutsche Telekom Emirates Aviation Qatar Foundation or something...

Moreover, if Munich 1860 wants to rise in Germany, it must first win the support of its own consortiums. Given that these consortiums have been quietly contributing behind Bayern, the Lions must take food from Bayern if they want to become a giant.

It's such a lofty and daunting...goal that Karl isn't even sure the club's shareholders have thought that far into the future.

After making an estimate, before the transfer window opened, Karl submitted his expected signing list to the club, and then he waited for the club's answer while buying air tickets to various countries. It’s not as long as in Germany. Karl plans to use this time to go abroad to watch a few games, and by the way, observe the players he likes.

……

On December 12th, Manchester United played against Bolton at home in the last game of 30.

In the player's box at Old Trafford, there is an extra figure that is very familiar to Manchester United fans.

The commentator Andy Gray spotted him so easily: "Karl Alston! Our old friend for a long time. Since he left, the number of female fans in the West Stand of Old Trafford has increased every week. reduce."

At this time, there was an attack at the Manchester United Stadium on the pitch. Andy Gray temporarily turned his attention to the game, but after 3 minutes, his topic ran to Carl again: "Auston appeared at Old Trafford to watch In the game, and sitting in the stands of the players' families, is he trying to inspect the players and poach some of them? Or, is he here to comfort Ferguson's old heart?"

Manchester United's performance in the past two seasons has been sluggish. In the league, they encountered Chelsea's sniping. In the Champions League, they didn't even make it to the group stage-Manchester United, Lille, Benfica, and Villarreal were in the same Champions League group, but in the end Manchester United won. The bottom of the group, not even qualifying for the UEFA Cup, can be called the biggest upset before the knockout round of this year's Champions League.

So around Christmas, many British media were speculating about Ferguson's retirement, even though the other side's contract with Manchester United still has at least two seasons left.

However, although various media unanimously bad-mouthed Manchester United, at this time in the league, Ferguson's situation is still better than that of his old rival Wenger. Currently, in the Premier League standings, Manchester United is second with 40 points. With only 29 points, he was overwhelmed by six teams.

After the game, Carl waited at the door of Manchester United's dressing room with a bottle of wine. When he saw Ferguson, he hugged him: "Happy New Year, Uncle Alex."

"Happy New Year, Carl." Ferguson held up the red wine to look at the label: "Italian Barolo wine, ha, my favorite!" He pushed his reading glasses, looked at Carl and said, "During the game, I heard What the fans say about you behind you, tell me, who do you fancy and want to poach from me?"

Carl raised his hands to show his innocence: "To be honest, I have my eyes on a lot of people, but I can't afford any of them now. So I just came to see you today. You can't misunderstand me."

Ferguson stared at him and said, "Then you think I'm old and useless, so you came to comfort my old heart?"

"No, you are not old at all, really! I am not those unscrupulous reporters, I believe you will lead Manchester United to continue to create glory." Carl opened his innocent eyes: "Didn't you always want to go back to the United States before you retire?" Win a Champions League? I think you will definitely get what you want."

"It's a good flattering." Ferguson smiled happily: "It would be even better if you are a magic stick who can predict."

Most of what Carl said was to please Ferguson, but there was also a bit of sincerity in it: Manchester United's Champions League performance in the past two or three seasons has not been bright, and it is inseparable from the team's change of blood, and now the Red Devils have basically completed the change. , Rooney, Fletcher and other new main players have all grown up, and although Ferguson is old, he is a person who is constantly pursuing improvement and is very good at reflection. As long as his heart is not old, Manchester United cannot be true. of being knocked out of the top of Europe.

A few years later, the two recalled this chat again, and Carl was surprised to find that he had really been a magic stick for a while—after the trough, the peak of Manchester United came again. Although Manchester United did not qualify for the Champions League group stage in the 05-06 season, in the next season, they reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. They won the championship in 08 and reached the final in 09. In addition, they won three consecutive Premier League titles in 07, 08 and 09. .

And Ferguson has also developed a habit since then. When Manchester United he led fell into a trough, he would call Carl and let the other party continue to flatter him.This may be the superstition unique to the old Scottish lord.