long live football

"This is where you live?"

After inspecting Carl's rented apartment with critical eyes, Ronaldo sat down on the sofa: "It's too small." He pouted.Indeed, compared with Ronaldo's apartment in Manchester, Karl's house is a little cramped.

"Don't despise my middle-class life from your rich eyes." Carl opened the refrigerator and handed him a can of milk: "If my annual salary is several million pounds, do you think I dare not buy a mansion?"

"I don't want milk, bring me a bottle of juice." Ronaldo frowned and pushed the milk to Carl, and then said a little proudly: "Who made you a coach instead of a player? It’s not as high as the superstars, even my salary is increasing every year, if you want to catch up with me, it’s probably going to take decades.”

"After decades, you will say goodbye to football, and I can continue to earn money. Sometimes the older the coach, the more popular he is. I can work until I am 70. How about you? You will have to retire at 40 at the latest." Carl sharply After fighting back, he pushed the milk back: "I don't have juice at home, go drink your milk."

"Then I want a Coke."

"No."

"beer?"

Karl raised his eyebrows and looked at him: "Are you sure?" Even at the dinner held for Manchester United at Munich 1860 tonight, the Red Devils players did not dare to let themselves get drunk, because Ferguson, who occasionally had a glass of white wine, kept drinking. Watching from the side, to see who drank too much, an unusually sharp white eyeball flew over.

Ronaldo wanted to stick to his choice, but then he thought about it, the Manchester United team had to catch a flight back to Manchester tomorrow morning, so he gave up: "Give me a cup of tea."

The British cannot do without tea.Carl and Ronaldo, who have lived in the UK for a long time, are also used to drinking tea every day. Carl's tea making skills are not bad, and he even has several sets of tea sets brought back from London in his apartment, so he nodded and turned into the kitchen.

"Hey, I'm hungry." Ronaldo yelled at Carl, who was busy boiling water, lying on the sofa like a master.

"What about the things you ate tonight?"

"I didn't eat much." Ronaldo patted his belly leisurely, and started looking for the remote control to turn on the TV: "Besides, I digested all of that."

"Understood." Carl replied from the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, Carl emerged from the kitchen with a tray: a pot of tea, two cups, milk and sugar, and two sausage sandwiches.

"After arriving in Munich, you were assimilated by German sausages? Obviously you used to like to make bacon sandwiches." Ronaldo cast a scrutinizing gaze on the sandwich: "I want to eat pastrami."

"Don't pick and choose if you have something to eat." Carl handed him the cutlery, and said impatiently, "You should be lucky that there are still a few sausages left in the refrigerator. When I'm busy at work, I always order takeout." , I seldom cook by myself, and I forgot when I went to the supermarket last time.”

Ronaldo stopped taking his second bite, and asked with a stiff expression, "Then when did you buy these sausages..."

"You can rest assured that the sausage was given to me by Mrs. Auer the day before yesterday, and it is guaranteed to be all high-quality meat." Carl said with a smile: "Mr. Auer, the chairman of the club, runs a meat factory at home, and I can enjoy some from time to time Special offer." However, the bread for the sandwiches is a bit stale, and the expiration date is tomorrow, and to make it taste better, Karl specially toasted it a little bit.

Ronaldo began to chew with confidence, and within a short while he wiped out a palm-sized sandwich. He licked his lips, and glanced at the other with unfinished thoughts.

Carl pushed the plate to him: "Both are for you."

"are you not hungry?"

Carl shook his head, with a look of anticipation, and a bit of weirdness as he watched Ronaldo wipe out the other sandwich like a storm.

"Well, evaluation?"

Ronaldo sucked his index finger and said with satisfaction: "It tastes good." After a pause, he added: "But I still prefer bacon."

Carl stood up in relief and walked to the study.

Half an hour later, he stood by the door of the study and looked at Ronaldo lying on the sofa with a relaxed expression on his face. He was drinking tea and watching TV. gone back.

After another half an hour, Ronaldo turned off the TV, stood up from the sofa and stretched, first ran to the bedroom to read it, and then came to the study. After carefully looking around, he frowned and said: " There's only one bed in your apartment."

Carl looked up from the book: "I live alone, only one bed, of course."

"But I'm not the only guest in your house." Ronaldo pointed out sharply: "Jose Mourinho stayed here."

Carl was taken aback: "Ah, yes, that's right."

Ronaldo stared at him: "How did you sleep at night?"

"I sleep on the sofa and he lives in the bedroom."

"You are the owner of this house." Ronaldo said eccentrically, "And you are much taller than him."

"That's right." Carl shrugged: "But the sofa is a bit narrow, and it's not comfortable to sleep on. A friend is here to stay. How can I have the nerve to let someone sleep on the sofa?"

"so……"

Carl wondered: "So what?"

Ronaldo threw a pillow from behind: "You sleep on the sofa tonight."

……

The friendly match between 1860 Munich and Manchester United was also reported by many media in Europe. Most of them believed that although the Lions lost a glorious defeat, the score of 2:5 can be called a disastrous defeat. The spirit of not admitting defeat and persisting in hard work is worthy of recognition.

The Munich 1860 club also held a luxurious dinner after the game to welcome Manchester United, a distant guest, and invited many celebrities to accompany them. The two clubs will presumably strike up a friendship from now on.Although the Lions are small, they have a long history, and having multiple friends in other leagues is not a bad thing.

However, the country with the largest number of people paying attention to this warm-up match and the highest enthusiasm is not in Europe, but in China.

The reason is simple, Shao Jiayi.

As the most outstanding representative of Chinese overseas players, Shao Jiayi has always been concerned by the Chinese domestic media.

However, the evaluation of him in China is becoming more and more polarized. One is the advocacy group. They believe that Shao Jiayi's strength has reached the first-level level in Asia, and the level gap with the Japanese and South Korean internationals studying abroad is not very big. , being able to become the main force in Munich 1860 is the best proof.Although he is 25 years old, there are many examples of players who are late bloomers. Shao Jiayi's strength has grown significantly in the past two years. In addition, he has a long career life as a midfielder. In time, he will definitely become a first-class player.

The other is the detractors. They seem to have decided that Chinese football is absolutely hopeless. They feel that as long as China's current policies remain unchanged, it will never be possible for domestic players to be compared with top European players.Shao Jiayi's fame is definitely blown out, and it's all because of domestic media hype. He is not well-known in Europe at all. Munich 1860 gave him the main position to consider the Chinese market, and Shao Jiayi will never be compared with European players. It is not as good as Nakata Hidetoshi and Park Ji-sung, representatives of Japanese and Korean overseas students.

Under the strong exaggeration of the two extreme fans, even if some media continue to use the summarized statistics of Shao Jiayi to prove him, there are still very few people who can really maintain an objective attitude towards Shao Jiayi and make objective evaluations. Will wear colored glasses, although the glasses are good and bad.

The match between Munich 1860 and Manchester United can be said to be a match in which Shao Jiayi washed his reputation in China and was reborn from the ashes.

One goal and one assist, whether such a result is excellent or mediocre depends on who the opponent is - the European giants Red Devils Manchester United, or the main force Manchester United. The gold content of this statistic is undoubtedly extremely high!

The detractors were slapped in the face, the advocacy faction climaxed collectively, and the neutral faction also turned in favor of Shao Jiayi.

"Shao Jiayi: Working hard to be a world-class player" ("Sports Weekly")

"Shao Jiayi shines at the Allianz Stadium and still passes and shoots against Manchester United" ("Football")

The collective voice of the two largest newspapers in football in China pushed this wave to the highest point.

As for whether the consequences of these public opinions on Shao Jiayi are good or bad, we will have to wait for several years to see the outcome.

Another person who received widespread attention due to this game is Huang Jianxiang. His passionate commentary caused a lot of controversy. Many fans thought he was "not dignified enough", "not like CCTV", and "especially hysterical". Many fans understand him and like him, thinking that "a different wind has finally blown in the uniform CCTV commentary army".

……

"Oston is undoubtedly a head coach who is very good at training players. Although he is young, perhaps it is for this reason that the Bundesliga players under him are becoming more and more energetic and have the spirit of fighting hard. Alright... Whether the relationship between the coach and the players is harmonious is obviously a key point that can affect the team's game performance. According to the situation obtained from the author's interview with Shao Jiayi last time, the relationship between Auston and his players is very close. And he is loved in the locker room..." ("Sports Weekly" August 8st issue)

Perhaps it is due to the pleasant cooperation in the last interview. "Sports Weekly" has been sparing no effort to promote Munich 1860 to Chinese fans, promoting the club's "German coach who is very fluent in Chinese". After being the head coach of a foreign club with the highest attention in the media other than Milu, his popularity in China is also expanding step by step.

Fame is admittedly illusory, but it can sometimes become very intuitive—for example, into money.

"Is there a Chinese company looking for my endorsement?" When receiving a call from Jorge Mendes, Karl was very surprised: "Is it really a Chinese company?"

"Don't be too surprised, my friend, as far as I know, your reputation in China is not low." Mendes said with a smile: "It seems that the Chinese media like you very much, and they always report things related to you in the newspapers. News, so the fans are familiar with you. If this is the case, isn’t it logical that some manufacturers want to find you to advertise?”

Compared to Carl, Mendes doesn't think this is so surprising. It is not only the players and coaches of wealthy clubs who are favored by advertisers. You must know that there are so many teams in Europe, and those teams with excellent results also have Local manufacturers come to their door - milk, supermarkets, shopping malls, laundry detergent, restaurants, and even cleaning companies and intermediary companies have many looking for players as endorsements. In Karl's case, at most, a brand from an Asian country came to Europe It's rare for the head coach of the team to do the endorsement.

"Okay. But what product endorsement?"

"A candy called Golden Throat." Mendes flipped through the information in his hand: "The manufacturer is Guangxi Golden Throat Group. Many Chinese companies are related to the government, and this one seems to be no exception. Their last spokesperson was... Ronaldo? Yes, that Ronaldo of Real Madrid.” As if to make it easier for Carl to distinguish, he repeated: “It’s not Ronaldinho or Ronaldinho, it’s Ronaldo Luis Nazario da Lima .”

Hearing this, Carl was a little messed up.

"Since they can afford Ronaldo, the endorsement fee must be very generous." Mendes clicked his tongue twice, and then said: "This group wants to find the entire 1860 first-team endorsement, but also wants to invite you to shoot a separate advertisement , because it is two contracts, so I contacted me first, I guess someone will contact your club in the next two days. For the advertisement, they agreed to send people to Europe to shoot, but you also need to cooperate with the manufacturer to participate in several activities in China... ..."

"Jorge." Carl said with difficulty, "This ad..."

"Why, still don't want to accept it?!" Mendes has a keen intuition: "I've never seen you pushing money out again and again! What's the reason? I want a reason! You can't discriminate against Chinese companies for no reason!"

"Do you have a computer at hand?" Carl rubbed his eyebrows: "I'll send you a website."

Mendes immediately opened the laptop at hand.

Thanks to the unrestricted access to the German Internet, Karl quickly found the advertisement for Ronaldo's golden voice, which was very popular in China, and he emailed the address to Mendes.

And Jorge Mendes in Portugal... After replaying the commercial for three times in a row on the computer screen, he finally felt sorry for Ronaldo, who was showing his big white teeth and smirking, and the clumsy special effects of the commercial. , and the sonorous and powerful Chinese background sound impressed...

"This." Mendes swallowed, "It's the golden-throated candy commercial shot by Ronaldo?" It looked like a high school student who knew how to play a computer shot it with a DV, and then spent 500 euros on post-production.

"That's right. And Golden Throat is not a kind of candy, but a health medicine, which is used to protect the throat."

So it's medicine and not candy?Mendes hesitated a bit. It is always easy for celebrities to get into trouble when they are involved in the endorsement of health products, especially the medicines they take. In case of a medical accident, the image of the spokesperson will be greatly affected.

"Can you imagine me shooting this kind of commercial with a smirk like Ronaldo?" Anyway, Carl couldn't stand his image being shaped like this, and then played in front of hundreds of millions of people.

Mendes replaced Ronaldo's face in the ad with Carl, and he shivered: "No! The route I designed for you is not like this! Alright, I'm the master, don't accept this ad."

Carl flattered: "You are the most moral agent I have ever seen!"

"..." Unable to tell whether this was a compliment or a sarcasm, Mendes simply changed the subject and said, "What about the golden voice asking the first team of Munich 1860 to endorse? Will you push it together?"

"If anyone wants to shoot, let them shoot." Carl shrugged: "I am a bachelor with no shortage of money, but there are still many people in the team who have to support their families. They should be happy to accept this endorsement , as long as the pay is high enough."

Mendes exchanged a few more pleasantries with Carl before hanging up.

Staring at the "end call" phone screen, Mendes couldn't help smiling and muttering: "What a picky guy."

……

The 2005-06 season of the Bundesliga also kicked off after the German Football Association's pre-season opening tournament and the German League Cup came to an end.

On August 8, 6 Munich ushered in the No.1860 league opponent at the Allianz Arena, which was the Bundesliga powerhouse Bayer Leverkusen.

Leverkusen is the Bundesliga champion in the 01-02 season, and the league result last season was sixth.

The match between Munich 1860 and them is destined to be a tough battle.