Chapter 231 The transfer market opens, a new round of arms race
The Brazilian team was eliminated, which was definitely a surprise.
After all, before the World Cup started, the Brazilian team was touted as the favorite to win the championship by the media, celebrities and fans.
With a number of big-name stars including the alien Ronaldo, the new Ballon d'Or winner Ronaldinho, Milan's God's son Kaka, Real Madrid's cycling prince Robinho and Inter Milan's talented striker Ade, the Brazilian team is extremely strong.
However, it was this five-star Brazil team that lost to the French team, which was in a slump and was questioned by many people.
Who could have imagined this?
What’s even more amazing is that the player who led the French team to defeat Brazil was a 34-year-old veteran who was about to retire after the World Cup.
All I can say is, maybe it’s true as rumored outside, that Zidane has a special attack weapon against Brazil!
With Brazil eliminated, the top four places in this World Cup are all taken by European teams.
This phenomenon seems to be the best evidence that European football dominates the world and South American football is slipping from its peak.
In fact, this trend has already appeared. With the growing strength of the five major leagues, more and more Latin American players are going to Europe to play football.
The loss of a large number of talents has caused the local leagues in Latin America to gradually weaken, and they are far behind the five major leagues in terms of influence.
The decline of the league will only lead to the loss of more stars. After all, the top five leagues can offer higher salaries, receive more endorsements, and the platform of the top five leagues themselves is higher than that of the Latin American leagues.
Players don’t have to think about how to choose between the top five leagues and their local leagues. As long as conditions permit, they will definitely choose the top five leagues.
Even if they cannot enter the top five leagues for the time being, playing in the Portuguese Super League as a springboard and solving the nationality issue at the same time has become the choice of more and more young Latin American players.
This phenomenon has even led to the emergence of black shops like Porto in the Portuguese Super League. Their way of survival is to send a large number of scouts to South America to look for outstanding young players, buy them at low prices, and then rent them out or keep them in their own team to train. When they are almost ready and attract the attention of the giants in the five major leagues, they will sell them at high prices and make a profit from the difference.
This phenomenon has existed for a long time and has become increasingly serious, but people in South American football have not realized the sense of crisis and are still immersed in the historical achievements of Latin football's brilliant performance in the World Cup.
Perhaps this time the elimination of the Brazilian team and the disastrous defeat of Latin football can wake them up, make them aware of the danger, and actively start to save themselves!
But Lin Feng is not optimistic about this, as the economic base determines the superstructure.
The commercial value of the top five leagues has far exceeded the sum of all other leagues in the world, which means that only the top five leagues can provide top stars with the best treatment, the highest commercial value, and the most suitable stage for them to perform.
Unless the power of the state is used, economic laws are ignored, and blood transfusions are forced into the domestic league, it will be difficult to reverse the trend of outstanding football talents gathering in Europe.
But I am afraid that except for the rich people in the Middle East, other countries will not do such a loss-making business because it is really not cost-effective.
……
After the World Cup semi-finals were announced, the European transfer market has also opened.
On July 7, the first day of the summer transfer window opening, AC Milan of Serie A and Chelsea of the Premier League announced on their official websites at the same time: AC Milan striker Shevchenko transferred to Chelsea for a transfer fee of 1 million euros.
As soon as the news was announced, it immediately attracted a lot of attention.
People were impressed by Abramovich's generosity, as he spent 4500 million euros to bring in his Slavic compatriot.
In addition, there were previous rumors that Chelsea was in contact with Germany's captain Ballack and Inter Milan's superstar Lin Feng, which made Chelsea fans very excited.
Many Blues fans are already guessing how many big-name stars will move to Stamford Bridge this summer.
The Blues fans are cheering, but AC Milan fans are worried.
Affected by the Calciopoli scandal, AC Milan encountered a serious crisis in the new season.
The court's first-instance ruling was that AC Milan would start the new season with a minus-15 point score and would be deducted 44 points from last season.
A 15-point deduction in the new season is not a big deal. AC Milan has focused its main efforts on the Champions League in recent years, and the team is united in wanting to wash away the shame of Istanbul Night.
The league penalty points will only affect their chances of winning the league title, but AC Milan is not aiming for the league. Moreover, with their strength, there is no need to worry about their relegation even if they are deducted 15 points. Even their Champions League spot in the next season may not be affected.
But being deducted 44 points last season was really a death sentence!
If this judgment is really implemented, AC Milan will not be eligible to participate in the Champions League in the new season.
Without the chance to play in the Champions League, the team's big-name stars are likely to leave in large numbers, just like Juventus did. The news that Shevchenko left just as the transfer period began has further heightened the concerns of AC Milan fans.
Even Ukraine’s nuclear warheads have left, who will be the next to leave?
Pirlo?
Kaka?
Nesta?
Inzaghi?
Milan fans no longer dare to guess any further, the more they guess, the more anxious they become.
Real Madrid's new president Calderon has hinted that he wants to take away Milan's star player Kaka.
There are also many wealthy clubs eyeing Pirlo and Nesta. These players may leave Milan this summer and join other clubs. They may even join their city rivals Inter Milan like Vieri did last season.
Because the result of the first-instance judgment had a huge impact on teams such as AC Milan, they immediately appealed.
The result of the second-instance judgment will be announced in the middle of the month. This long half month is simply torture for AC Milan fans. The feeling of waiting for others to pronounce one's fate is simply terrible.
And the most troublesome thing is that because the result of this matter has not yet come out, AC Milan’s transfer work for the new season has been difficult to carry out, and even whether the existing players in the team can be retained is a problem.
If they really don't play in the Champions League and can't compete for the championship because of the points deduction, then their fate doesn't seem to be much better than Juventus.
Compared to AC Milan, which still has a glimmer of hope, Juventus is basically finished.
So basically those who should leave have to leave. As soon as the first-instance verdict was announced, Ibrahimovic expressed his intention to transfer to AC Milan. Later, when he saw that AC Milan was also in trouble, he changed his mind and said he wanted to go to another team.
His statement basically confirms that he will not stay in Juventus next season.
But Ibrahimovic's price is too high, and there are not many teams that can afford him. Moreover, he is quite picky. It seems that he was inspired by Arsenal that year. Ibrahimovic will not go to any other club except a top club. As a result, there is still no sign of Ibrahimovic's transfer.
Compared with Ibrahimovic, Juventus midfielder Emerson quickly finalized an agreement with Real Madrid after the transfer window opened and joined Real Madrid for 1600 million euros.
Zambrotta also chose to go to La Liga, but he made the opposite choice from Emerson and joined Real Madrid's arch-rival Barcelona for 1400 million euros.
These two teammates will meet on the field as opponents in the new season. Compared with these two, Vieira is in a worse situation.
He just joined Juventus last season, and this kind of thing happened in Juventus this season, which put him in a very embarrassing situation.
After France eliminated Brazil, it became the favorite to win the World Cup, causing the value of French players to skyrocket.
Although Vieira is over 30 years old and his value will not increase much, as a midfielder of the French team, he will not be reduced to playing in Serie B, right?
So between staying and transferring away, Vieira hesitated and did not make a decision for a while.
But judging from his performance, he will most likely leave.
After all, after Juventus was relegated, the salaries of the players in the team will be reduced.
A veteran like Vieira only has a few years left in his career and wanted to earn more pension. If his salary was cut again, he would definitely not be able to accept it.
Besides, he has only been in Juventus for a year and does not have much affection or loyalty to the team, so he will not have any psychological burden when he leaves.
In addition to these four people, Cannavaro, Thuram and Mutu have also expressed their intention to leave the team in public or private.
Among these players, except Mutu, Cannavaro and Thuram are relatively old. They have good strength, but the transfer fees will not be very high, so many teams are interested in them.
But after carefully weighing the pros and cons, taking into account personal treatment, league style and overall competitiveness, one of them chose to join Real Madrid and the other chose to join Barcelona. The transfer fees were 700 million euros and 500 million euros respectively. This price is really a bargain.
It can be seen from these transfers in early July that this summer, the two giants Chelsea and Real Madrid are the protagonists in the transfer market.
Chelsea's owner Abramovich is a wealthy man. Since he bought Chelsea, he has been spending money like water in the transfer market every year and buying players in large numbers.
Real Madrid has just experienced a change of chairman, and the decline of the Galacticos has caused the team to enter a rebuilding phase, so it has invested so much money in the transfer market.
But apart from these two teams, Inter Milan, which has always been rich and stupid, seems particularly quiet this summer.
"It seems that the impact of the Calciopoli scandal on Serie A is greater than expected. Juventus is in trouble, AC Milan is half dead, and even Inter Milan doesn't dare to invest big money!"
"Who says it's not true? With so many stars leaving Serie A, the viewing value of Serie A in the new season will probably drop significantly!"
"Alas, I'm used to watching Serie A and I'm familiar with these stars. If they leave, I really don't know which league to watch in the new season!"
"My friend upstairs, come watch the Premier League with me. The competition in the league is fierce. Not only are there exciting games in every round, but the game time is also very considerate of the domestic situation. Can you believe that you can watch the Manchester United and Liverpool clash at the prime time at 9 o'clock?"
"How about watching La Liga? Many Serie A stars have gone to La Liga, and the game style of La Liga is more entertaining. It is definitely the best choice for fans who appreciate technical styles!"
"La Liga games are really good to watch, but the game time is too weird. Almost every game is played in the early morning or even at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. Who would stay up late to watch the game? When the game is over, it's already daybreak. You don't have to sleep and can go straight to work!"
"Indeed, the La Liga match schedule is too late. Even a night owl like me can't stand it. I mostly watch replays and rarely watch La Liga live!"
"Haha, what's so interesting about the replay? We all know the result of the game, and it doesn't feel that exciting anymore!"
"Yes, I heard that La Liga's main audience is the Spanish-speaking population in South America, so in order to cater to the market over there, this time period was specially arranged. As a result, it is hard for our fans in East Asia!"
These days, Serie A has the largest fan base in the country.
But the impact of the phone-gate scandal in the new season was huge, causing Serie A to lose a large number of viewers, most of whom were attracted to the Premier League and La Liga.
A small number of people have become fans of the Bundesliga. As for Ligue 1?
Apart from a few Chinese players in Ligue 1, Chinese fans generally do not pay much attention to Ligue 1 games. The reason is very simple: there are no giants in Ligue 1.
……
Lin Feng has been keeping an eye on the transfer market this summer. In addition to considering a transfer himself, he is more concerned about Inter Milan's recruitment trends.
But to his disappointment, Inter Milan did not seem to take any action.
At the end of last season, the conflict between Mancini and Ade had become public. In the new season, one of Ade and Mancini will definitely leave. In this case, unless Moratti can invite Mourinho, there is a high probability that Ade will leave.
Knowing that Ade is leaving the team, Inter Milan urgently needs to strengthen its forward line.
But the team has not taken any action at the moment, which is really a bit abnormal.
In fact, Inter Milan has already taken action, but because of its previous image of having a lot of money and stupid people, Inter Milan is ripped off by other teams every time they buy players.
Therefore, Inter Milan was extremely low-key when recruiting players this summer. They tried to keep the contact with the players as confidential as possible and did not hang their hands on one tree. They contacted multiple players at the same time and chose the most suitable and cost-effective players.
To this end, Inter Milan chairman Facchetti dragged his ailing body and ran around to contact Berbatov of Leverkusen, Van Nistelrooy of Manchester United, Klose of Werder Bremen, and even went to Argentina to contact Aguero, the young striker of Independiente.
These forwards are all very strong and have similar market values, ranging from 2000 to 3500 million euros.
This price is naturally nothing for Inter Milan. Moratti is rich and willful. He spent 5000 million to buy players seven or eight years ago. What is the big deal about spending or million euros to buy an excellent shooter now?
Originally, among these four, Facchetti was more optimistic about Klose and Berbatov.
Van Nistelrooy is good, but he is a bit old. Real Madrid is also competing for him. Facchetti is afraid that if Inter Milan joins, they will be slaughtered again.
But when Leverkusen and Werder Bremen learned that Inter Milan had taken a fancy to their own striker, they all made high demands.
Leverkusen asked for a transfer fee of 3200 million euros, and Werder Bremen simply offered 4000 million.
This is treating Inter Milan like fools. If these two players were transferred to other teams, the price would definitely not exceed 3000 million.
This is really outrageous!
Just when Facchetti was annoyed by the other party's exorbitant asking price, Ibrahimovic's agent Raiola suddenly came to him.
The other party came straight to the point:
"Do you want Zlatan?"
(End of this chapter)
