The author solemnly declares: All the individuals, groups, and events I am involved in are fictitious and have nothing to do with any individuals, groups, or events in reality. Please do not take it personally!
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After Twain made a scene with the reporters in the hotel, his vacation did not come back. Instead, it got further and further away from him.
Because news of him angrily rebuking the China Football Association at the press conference and arguing with many reporters kept appearing in various media outlets. No matter where he went, he would meet reporters or fans. Some people were friendly to him, and some were eager for him to die.
It was said that the China Football Association was furious with Tony Twain's remarks and specifically called the Nottingham Forest Football Club to protest. But the Nottingham Forest Football Club's response was: "Mr. Tony Twain does not represent our club when he is on vacation. All the remarks he makes in his private capacity have nothing to do with our club."
Just like that, the China Football Association's anger was appeased.
But the Football Association had other ways to express their dissatisfaction. They had made it clear that in the future, everything related to Nottingham Forest coming to China to compete would not be allowed. They blocked the entire Nottingham Forest. How impressive! If possible, they even wanted to ban Tony Twain from entering the country.
Of course, doing so would only make the netizens and media scold them even more.
China had a phrase to express humility: "show one's incompetence." The Chinese Football Association did not "show one's incompetence." They were "flaunting one's incompetence." They spread their incompetence everywhere and thought the whole world was as stupid as them.
During this time, the China domestic media was unusually lively. There were those who scolded the Football Association, those who scolded Twain, those who cheered for Twain, and those who purely wanted to go against the above types of people. There were all kinds of people who came on stage. It was so exciting that the China fans seemed to be on steroids, wave after wave of climaxes.
Twain, on the other hand, had stirred up countless troubles. After throwing a heavy bomb into the originally calm pool of dead water, he had pulled himself out and left.
He definitely could not continue his vacation in China, so he had to go to Hong Kong. There, he had a corporate endorsement press conference to attend. Shania also had to shoot a commercial for a cosmetics brand she had previously signed with and attend a new product launch. In addition, the hosts held a small dinner to entertain him and Shania.
There would not be so much trouble in Hong Kong. No matter how bad the situation in the mainland was, it had nothing to do with Twain.
After a short stay in Hong Kong for a few days, Twain and Shania flew back to England.
Of course, he didn't forget to bring back a gift from China for Evan and Allan. This gift wasn't anything physical, but an intention to cooperate.
During his stay in Hong Kong, Tang En had once met Superman Li's eldest son, the Chairman of Cheung Kong Holdings, Li Zeju.
It was supposed to be a banquet, but Li Zeju came prepared.
When he was chatting with Tang En, he mentioned that he was very interested in the real estate development plan that the Forest Football Club had put aside.
He did not say much, but the intelligent Tang En already knew what he meant.
Currently, due to the impact of the two consecutive years of financial crisis, the British real estate market has been hit hard, housing prices and land prices have fallen sharply, almost falling to the bottom.
However, as a successful businessman, it was precisely at times like this that he could see the opportunity to make a fortune. Now that the UK's real estate market is in winter, doesn't that mean that spring is not far away?
If not for the financial crisis, the Nottingham Forest Football Club could have completed the entire Clifton development plan with one strike. Moreover, with the British housing market booming for several years in a row, they were guaranteed to make a profit. But in that case, it would be difficult for the Li Family far away in Hong Kong to get involved in the British real estate development market …
For Li Zeju's Cheung Kong Holdings, the financial crisis gave them a great opportunity to continue to expand into the overseas market.
Clifton was just a brick in Li Zeju's door to the UK.
However, Tang En did not care what these businessmen were planning. He only needed to pass the news to Allan Adams and Evan Doughty. He would let Allan handle the rest himself. If they could really negotiate this kind of cooperation, it would be a good thing for him. He would no longer have to worry about not having the money to buy players, and at the same time, he would have to constantly sell famous star players to fill that bottomless pit …
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Evan was very interested in the "gift" that Tang En brought back. If they really attracted funds from Hong Kong to invest in the development plan, it would obviously greatly reduce the financial burden of the club.
He did not care about monopolizing the profits now. In the current financial environment, he definitely could not eat such a big piece of cake alone.
Allan, on the other hand, was cautiously optimistic about the news that Tang En brought back. This was because he had previously taken the initiative to look for Li Zeju and expressed the intention to cooperate in the development. However, at that time, Li Zeju had directly rejected it after some consideration. Why did he suddenly change his mind a year later?
Evan, on the other hand, felt that it was normal. A year ago, they had not hit rock bottom. Naturally, they would wait until they hit rock bottom before making a move. This way, they would have to pay less of a price. After all, he was a businessman. This bit of cunning was necessary.
Just like that, while Tang En was having a headache over who to buy and who to sell in the new season, Allan Adams personally flew to Hong Kong to discuss the specific details of the cooperation between the two clubs with Li Zeju.
Who knew that this discussion would take a whole year. It was not until September 2011 that the two sides finally signed the cooperation agreement. The new stadium finally welcomed the god of fortune from the East. The construction site that had been idle for three years could be restarted. Of course, this was all for later. Let's not talk about it for now.
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By the time Dunn returned to Nottingham alone from China, half of June had passed. For Tang En and Dunn, the summer of 2010 had just begun.
This summer, traveling to China and helping the club to cooperate with the Li family were all small matters for Tang En as a manager. The main event was not the war of words with the Chinese media, but in South Africa.
The World Cup had begun.
In previous World Cups, many popular star players would appear. It was also a great opportunity for all the managers to observe the state and performance of their own players, as well as the strength of potential players.
Knowing that Cheung Kong Holdings wanted to jointly develop Clifton with the club. Evan Doughty allocated 50 million pounds from the club's finances for Tang En's transfer budget for the summer.
With the money, Tang En pulled Dunn onto a plane to Johannesburg, the capital of South Africa.
The treasure hunt had begun!
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"Before I came, I was worried that I would see a scene of white snow during the flight. Now, it looks like I've seen too little. "After getting off the plane, Tang En said to Dunn beside him as he looked at the clear blue sky outside.
As the host country of the southern hemisphere, while the northern hemisphere was currently in the height of summer, South Africa was currently in winter.
However, although it was winter, it was not a "cold winter." Johannesburg was also one of the venues for the World Cup in South Africa. Right now, the average daily temperature was as high as 18 ° C. Such a temperature was very suitable for outdoor sports.
Tang En's main job in South Africa this time was, of course, to be a guest commentator for BBC5 during the World Cup. Following the World Cup in Germany and the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland, he had long established his own unique commentating style. He was quite popular among the audience, and many people liked to listen to his commentary. On the internet, he already had his own fan site. These people went around collecting all the wonderful comments he had said during the competition broadcasts, be it words, videos, or audio recordings … In short, they found everything they could find and put it on the internet for others to browse and download to spread his influence. In China, there were also his fans who called these things "Tony Twain's Sayings."
There were even Chinese netizens who suggested that China Central Television should simply invite Tang En to be a guest commentator after Tang En angrily rebuked the China Football Association. After all, his words about China were smooth!
Of course, this was just the imagination of netizens and fans. It did not really come true. However, it could be seen that even if Tang En did not want to be a football manager one day, with his reputation, it would be enough for him to switch to being a football commentator.
Dunn, on the other hand, continued to observe the players participating in the World Cup with the other Kerslake and scouts who had arrived earlier. They provided first-hand information and reference for Tang En's transfer operation. At the same time, they focused on the players already on Tang En's transfer list to see if their state and performance were really qualified to be bought by Forest. In addition, as the team's assistant manager, he might also need to frequently meet with the various agents who were wandering around the World Cup in South Africa. Some of them were there to promote their players to Nottingham Forest, who had returned to the European arena, while others needed Dunn to take the initiative to find.
After they parted at the airport, Tang En followed the BBC staff to the hotel where they were staying. Meanwhile, Dunn contacted the scouts who had long been scattered around the various competition cities in South Africa and the team's training grounds. They also began their work.
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The World Cup in South Africa was inevitably impacted by the global financial crisis. However, the South African government hoped to use this World Cup as an opportunity to reinvigorate their economy, so this World Cup looked quite lively.
Tang En did not care about that. Other than participating in the commentary work for the live broadcast of the match, he also found time to write special articles for the four British media outlets and one Chinese media outlet that had signed a contract with him. The rest of his energy was focused on searching for the few players he was most interested in among the many players.
As a guest commentator in charge of the live broadcast of England's matches, it was natural for him to observe England's players. Moreover, Tang En had been paying attention to placing his sights on England's homegrown players since the first two seasons. That was because the policy of "the ratio of homegrown players to the number of foreign players" that FIFA had introduced a few years ago was about to be implemented.
Blatter's rule to limit the number of foreign players in each country's league officially came into effect from the 2010 to 2011 season. The first to be implemented was the "4 + 7" ratio, which meant that a team could have up to seven foreign players and four local players in the starting eleven for each game. The 2011 to 2012 season implemented the second step of "5 + 6", reducing the number of foreign players to six, and increasing the number of local players to five, but still slightly behind the number of foreign players. In the 2012-2013 season, the ratio of local players to foreign players became "6 + 5", with local players exceeding the number of foreign players.
The purpose of this policy was to curb the growing trend of "multinational forces" and "internationalization" by many clubs. The aim was to provide more opportunities for domestic players, thereby promoting the improvement of the level of football in each country.
However, the policy was strongly protested by the European Commission as soon as it was proposed. They believed that FIFA's move was a hindrance to the normal flow of talent, and that the use of policy to forcibly interfere was a violation of human rights.
Until now, both sides still had their own arguments and did not give in to each other. Although the European Union did not nod in agreement, the implementation of the new policy in the new season was already the general trend.
Among them, the policy had the biggest impact on the Premier League teams. Because the Premier League's unique work permit system had created an absolute advantage in the number of foreign players in many Premier League teams — as long as you could pass the Ministry of Labour's review and obtain a work permit, you could play in the Premier League without restrictions, regardless of your nationality. It was not like La Liga, which only allowed three non-EU players per team. Therefore, the Premier League relied on its wealth to collect national footballers from all over the world — one of the requirements to obtain a work permit was that they had to represent their country's national team in international A-level competitions within a year and have a 75% appearance rate. At the same time, the national team must be within the 68th place in the FIFA rankings.
With such restrictions, the quality and quantity of foreign players in the Premier League were guaranteed. As a result, the Premier League became one of the most successful leagues in the world and quickly replaced Serie A, which was known as the "mini World Cup" in the early 1990s, to become the top of the five major leagues in Europe.
However, there was a serious consequence of this: although the Premier League was the highest level, the strength of the England national team was appalling. On one hand, the English media trumpeted how powerful and talented their young geniuses were. On the other hand, the major Premier League clubs were unwilling to give more opportunities to their local youngsters. They were more willing to spend money to chase after those long-established foreign national footballers. England's talented youths and young talents, who lacked competition training, gradually sank in this way, and each and every one of them was "forever injured."
FIFA's regulations made Wenger very helpless, but he could only accept it. Tang En did not have that worry. Since two years ago, he had focused on collecting England's outstanding players and youngsters, waiting for this day to come.
With the current lineup in his team, it was not a big problem to satisfy the "4 + 7." However, considering that the restriction was mainly limited to "eleven players," he still needed to continue to observe England's local players.
This season, Tang En was basically determined to pursue Tottenham Hotspur's right winger, David Bentley. After Beckham's departure, the Forest team's right wing was always short of players. One Lennon was simply not enough. Therefore, he took a fancy to the player who had the same name as the world-famous car, "Bentley." Ever since Beckham's departure, the competition for the England national team's right wing had been very fierce. Aaron Lennon and Walcott were successively crowned with the title of "the second Beckham." However, in this World Cup's starting lineup, David Bentley from Tottenham Hotspur had defeated many opponents and surpassed Lennon and Walcott to become Capello's first choice.
Tang En was also very optimistic about this midfielder, who could break through, pass, and shoot. He decided to focus on Bentley's performance in the World Cup.
The other target that he needed to focus on was not because he wanted to bring him in, because he was already in the Nottingham Forest team.
As a player that he had personally picked up from the slums, Tang En's attention to George Wood had already surpassed the scope of a manager's attention to a player.
In the World Cup in Germany, George Wood did not get a single minute of playing time. In the four years from 2006 to 2010, George Wood had undergone a complete transformation. He became the captain of the team that lifted the UEFA Champions League twice in a row. Every season, he would definitely have a place in the English Premier League's best midfield lineup. His performance attracted worldwide attention. Every summer, faxes hoping to buy him flew to Tang En's desk like snowflakes. In the FM series of games, he was the steel midfielder that almost every player wanted to poach for their team at all costs.
In the summer of 2010, could George Wood, whose club career was at its peak, reap his first major experience for the national team?
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