Football: The butcher in the midfield at the start, the magic bird stunned

Chapter 189

The UEFA Super League, on April 2021, 4 local time in Europe, was jointly announced by 18 clubs including Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus. .

This may be the biggest shock bomb in world football in recent years.

The topics and traffic generated by the UEFA Super League in those days surpassed anything else in the world.

However, no one expected that after the official announcement of the 12 clubs, UEFA was the first to issue a statement of objection, followed by the Football Associations of England, Spain and Italy.

They issued a clear statement that if the team participates in the UEFA Super League, the team will be banned from participating in the domestic league and European competitions, and the players will not be able to represent the national team in FIFA events.I would like to express my gratitude to the German and French clubs, and call on all players, fans and everyone who loves football to boycott this UEFA Super League that is based on the selfish interests of a few clubs.

Subsequently, FIFA also made an official announcement, expressing its support for the development of world football in a fair and united way, but opposed the establishment of a closed European independent league outside the international football structure, and called for dialogue among all parties.

After that, the two giants Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, which did not appear in the list of founding clubs of the UEFA, also expressed their opposition to the UEFA Super League.

After spreading outside the sports circle, British Prime Minister Johnson and French President Macron also publicly expressed severe opposition. What is more deadly is that the Spanish government submitted a statement of accusation to the European Court of Justice, supporting UEFA's prosecution of clubs related to the UEFA Super League. .

The European Super League company that operates the UEFA Super League is located in Madrid, Spain.

The Spanish government made the first move. The governments of 15 European countries, including Italy, France, Denmark, Portugal, and Iceland, successively submitted written documents to the European Court of Justice, opposing the establishment of the UEFA Super League.

Within 48 hours, the Premier League BIG6 took the lead in announcing its withdrawal, followed by the Milan duo and Atletico Madrid. So far, the UEFA Super League has completely existed in name only.

On May 2021, 5, the three clubs of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus issued a joint statement: insist on the UEFA Super League, we will not give in.

In November 2021, the European Parliament passed a comprehensive resolution against the establishment of the UEFA Super League.

Up to now, the three clubs are still in the court of the European Union regarding the legality of the UEFA Super League and the litigation against UEFA's monopoly.

How could Chen Xiaoliang not know about this.

He thought for a while before answering: "Strictly speaking, this is not a topic that players can discuss. It's not the first time it's happened."

Ferre: "You mean the G-14 group?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "Yes."

Ferre: "You know G-14?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "This concept was proposed by Berlusconi, the then chairman of AC Milan in 1998, and later established in 2000. At that time, he also proposed a concept similar to the UEFA Super League. In the end, in the game with UEFA, he chose each other. Compromised, disbanded in 2008 and replaced by the European Football Club Association."

Ferre: "Wait, if I remember correctly, you were not born in 2000, and in 2008, you were only 4 years old. This is a word that has long been forgotten by young people in Europe. How do you know? of?"

Forehead…

Chen Xiaoliang can't say, I knew it before time travel...

Chen Xiaoliang: "I like to watch all football news on the Internet, so I also know something about the past, just like the video of Maradona playing five players in a row in the 1986 World Cup, which has been watched by countless people until now. "

Ferre: "What do you think? For or against?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "I don't know the specific details and original intention of the UEFA Super League, and I don't know much about UEFA's existing intercontinental competition operation status and profit distribution method, but I generally feel that the UEFA Super League is opposing UEFA's monopoly. On the one hand, it is creating an even more extreme monopoly."

Ferre: "So it's objection?"

Chen Xiaoliang immediately replied: "Yes."

Ferre: "Just because of the monopoly, is there a more detailed reason? If, as you said, they are all monopoly, then why can only UEFA monopolize?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "Some things are not as good as they are. For example, the five major leagues. Why do most top leagues have 20 teams? Since the top leagues have better ratings, more audiences, and more profit distribution, why not expand To 40 teams to make more players and clubs money?
The answer is obvious. Once blindly expanded, it will lead to too dense games, players will be too tired, and it will affect the existing stable schedule.

Then there may be another voice, since it is not good to have more, why not reduce the number of teams, improve the quality of the league, and increase the income of a single game?The 18 teams in the Bundesliga are also running very stably.

Of course, there are 16 teams, 14 teams, and even the Soviet Super League where I was in last season. There are only 12 teams, and they are divided into championship groups and relegation groups, but they also have to play 38 league rounds.

In any case, a team must guarantee 30-40 games a season. I believe this is the result of the gradual reform and evolution of European football.

20 teams and 38 league rounds may not be the most scientific, but it has been accepted by the vast majority of people, and it is also a model that everyone generally feels can divide the cake to the maximum.

Now the reason why those elite clubs oppose the Champions League is that there are too many teams participating in this competition, and at the same time they organize "unnecessary games" like the Europa League and outright "unnecessary games" like the Europa League. Tasteless'.

They are right about one thing. As the vast majority of neutral fans in the world, they naturally hope to always see Real Madrid playing Paris, Bayern playing Manchester City, Manchester United playing Barcelona and other giants against each other.

But now, in order to enter the Champions League knockout rounds, they have to play 6 group matches with what they consider third-rate clubs, such as Victory Pilsen, Dinamo Zagreb, and Copenhagen. They are not well-known, and the attendance rate is not high, so why not come up and have a strong dialogue? "

Ferre and Torsh listened very carefully. The 2-hour interview made them realize for the first time that the 17-year-old player in front of him not only greatly exceeded the expectations of the outside world on the court, but also off the court. The understanding of football, and even the understanding of social operation, has long surpassed the vast majority of active players.

"So in their view, UEFA forced to organize so many unnecessary games. In the end, the Champions League's top 16, top 8, and even the top 4 and the final were still performed by their 12 giant teams. Since the Champions League is a signboard, UEFA should distribute more of the money UEFA earns from hosting these events to them, rather than those third-rate clubs that accompany them and send points.

Ever since, the European Super League was born, and they obviously understand the successful experience and gold-lettered signs of the Premier League. They have attracted 6 Premier League clubs in one go, and they want to direct all the ratings and popularity of the first league to this new competition.

Why not 6 La Liga clubs?You must know that Sevilla and Villarreal's performance in European competitions is not lost to Tottenham and Arsenal in recent years.

Many fans are questioning, why is Tottenham called a giant, and why are they the founding club of the European Super League?
There is no other reason, because clubs like Arsenal and Tottenham can help the European Super League make money, but Sevilla and Villarreal cannot.

And the problem is precisely here.

The reason why Sevilla and Villarreal cannot make money is because there is already a Spanish Super League in La Liga. The two giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​have the right to sign external broadcasting rights separately. Most of the interests that should have belonged to the remaining 18 clubs in La Liga.

If in the Premier League, when the Premier League was established in 1992, Manchester United and Liverpool also signed such an agreement, then there would be no Chelsea and Manchester City later, because those oil capitals know that they invest in these clubs that are not eligible to share individual benefits No matter how much it is, in the end it is sending money to the two monopoly clubs.

I spent hundreds of millions to buy a bunch of football stars, and more people watched it, but most of the broadcast fees were taken by others. Which capital would make such an investment that was clearly worthless? "

Ferre: "So in your opinion, after the establishment of the European Super League, it will take away the interests of the leagues of various countries? But according to their public plan, all European Super League games will be played in the middle of the week. What will be replaced is only the Champions League. On weekends, each team Clubs will still play in national leagues, it doesn't really matter."

Chen Xiaoliang shook his head: "No, it has a great impact. Now there is a word in the English, Western, Italian and German four-nation leagues called 'fighting for four'. Why do you want to fight for the fourth, in order to enter the UEFA Champions League? Why do you want to enter the UEFA Champions League? Playing against the best team, you can also share huge benefits.

Now that the UEFA Champions League is born, the 15 founding clubs will participate regularly and will no longer participate in the UEFA Champions League. Even if these 15 teams rank 15th or 17th in the league, they will be a member of the UEFA Champions League next season. Even if the club grabs the top 4, it can only participate in a UEFA Champions League without most of the giants.

And teams like Everton, Roma, and Leverkusen, no matter how well they perform in the league, it is difficult to get the 15 non-fixed places in the UEFA Super League except for the 5 teams.

This method of monopolizing places instead of competing for qualifying will undoubtedly make those wealthy clubs focus on getting a better ranking in the UEFA Super League to win more UEFA broadcasting share. At that time, not only the UEFA Champions League will become tasteless , The five major leagues will become tasteless, not to mention the countries and their clubs outside the five major leagues.

In this way, sponsors, broadcasters, and fans will all withdraw and transfer to the UEFA Super League. Not only will the prosperity of the Premier League cease, but the top leagues such as La Liga and Serie A will also enter a cold winter.

Let's think about it in another way. For Barcelona, ​​playing Pilsen Victory may be a kind of torture, but for the players and fans of Pilsen Victory, entering the Champions League and playing for a giant like Barcelona is what they worked hard to rank in the league last season. Maximum power at the forefront.

For Barcelona, ​​the money they got from playing Pilsen Victory in the Champions League group stage is not worth mentioning, but for Pilsen Victory, this money is a big number that can affect the entire financial year.

After the opening of the European Super League, teams like this will never be given the last five non-fixed places. "

Ferre: "There is a voice that the reason why European football can have such a prosperity is actually driven by these giant clubs. The giants earn more money and still buy people from small and medium clubs.

Those small and medium-sized leagues themselves are not watched. Even if they enter the Champions League, they will be eliminated in the group stage, so whether there is a Champions League has little impact on the whole. "

Chen Xiaoliang: "In my country, when fans talk about European football, they often envy the league classifications in places like Germany and England. There are as many as eighth and ninth leagues and a large number of amateur club competitions. There are a steady stream of children who have places to play and learn to play football.

This is a football environment and football culture that has been formed over time.

In our country, the second-tier leagues are already scarce, let alone the third-tier leagues and amateur leagues.

From another perspective, Ibrahimovic came from the youth training in Malmö, Sweden, Lewandowski became famous from the Polish C League, and Jorginho's first club in Europe was San Francisco in the second group of the Italian C League. Bonifacio and Mbappé came from the Clairefontaine youth academy.

There are too many such examples. Nowadays, a large number of stars are cultivated by the so-called small football countries and the youth training system of clubs.

These clubs can not only make money from selling people, FIFA and UEFA have also specially set up a youth training compensation mechanism, which can also charge a fixed percentage of fees in the future transfer process of players.

How many players can the 12 giants of the European Super League buy?Even if there are only 3 youth players in each team, the rest are all bought from other clubs. Each team buys 20 people, which adds up to 240 players. The actual number will only be less than this. What about the remaining players?They all went to clubs like Aston Villa, Lazio, Lille, and even Celtic and Alkmaar.

Now, the departure of 12 clubs has taken away a large amount of dividends from the Champions League and national leagues, making clubs in the five major leagues only get very little money, and those smaller clubs and leagues that send players to them, Originally, they could rely on the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League to get a small part of the funds and sell people to maintain their own development. Now that this part of the money is gone, and the money for the mid-range clubs to buy people has also decreased, so what do they rely on to cultivate? Youth training?

The reason why these 12 giants in the European Super League can prosper is because they stand at the top of the European football pyramid, but if the base of this pyramid collapses, their prosperity will cease to exist.

Just imagine, it is precisely because of the fair distribution of the Premier League that the relegated teams can get more than 1 million pounds of funds, which greatly increases the purchasing power of the entire league. It is easy to spend 5000 million to buy a strong player, which has created the prosperity of the entire league, which has attracted capital investment in Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Wolves, and then Newcastle. "

Ferre: "The last view is that intensive duels between giants can increase the speed of football progress. They think that a large number of games against low-level teams is a waste of time and will only create more barbaric, useless football. Technically backward football."

Chen Xiaoliang: "If the level of football can be improved by working behind closed doors, then football in the red country should have entered the World Cup as early as the era of the national system."

Ferre: "You said a lot of reasons, but I thought of what a late writer in your country once said, 'It's always been like this, right?', the five major leagues, the Champions League, and the embarrassment? It's always been the same. What exists doesn’t have to be right, does it?”

Chen Xiaoliang was surprised that the editor-in-chief of a French football magazine would know this famous saying: "In fact, the writer you mentioned has another sentence-"The brave are angry, and draw their blades towards the stronger; the cowardly are angry, and draw their blades towards the weaker." .'"

Ferre: "Aren't those clubs challenging UEFA, which is stronger than them?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "They are not challenging UEFA, they are just sucking the blood of small and medium-sized clubs. What is challenging UEFA? It is to unite football associations and clubs in most countries and formulate a system that is more perfect and fairer than UEFA. A more scientific and reasonable event system will replace the current method.

Instead of abandoning their poor friends because they feel that they are given too little money, they form a small circle and play by themselves behind closed doors.

So this set of things is destined not to succeed, G14 will not succeed, and the European Super League will not succeed, because it is unpopular, and too many countries, football associations and clubs will oppose it.

Even if, I’m just saying that even if the European Court of Justice decides that UEFA cannot sanction the UEFA Super League, we know that the UK has already left the EU, and the judgment of the European Court of Justice will not affect the British government and the FA. Absolutely can't play.

What's more, UEFA and the governments of various countries have ways to avoid judgments to "rectify" those clubs and participating players, and the judgment of the European Court of Justice will not have much effect on FIFA. "

Ferre: "Aren't you worried that what you said today will affect your entry into those giants?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "I'm just a player. As you said, I'm not even a European player. What I say will not change any status quo. Roma is not a participant in the European Super League, so the club has never done anything to the players. Restrictions on external speech, in short, what I say now, only represents a football practitioner, the decision is in the hands of those very few people, what I can do is the same as 99% of people, just wait and see."

Ferre: "What do you think about Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain not joining the UEFA Super League?"

Chen Xiaoliang: "Let's talk about PSG first. Their chairman is not only a member of UEFA's board of directors, but his bein media group also owns the broadcast rights of the UEFA Champions League. Will lift a rock to drop itself in the foot.

Then the two clubs have an obvious feature. They have achieved absolute dominance in their home leagues. They hardly need to consider the risk of not being able to enter the Champions League, and they don’t have any financial difficulties. Although their methods of achieving financial balance are different, However, the current model of the national league plus the Champions League is sufficient to meet their operational needs. "

Ferre: "Thank you for accepting our interview today. Can you express your feelings in Rome in one sentence? Treat it as a gift to yourself."

Chen Xiaoliang thought about it, and he couldn't help but smile knowingly: "I don't have it for myself, but there is just one thing for the head coach."

Ferre and Torsh looked at each other and became interested immediately.

Chen Xiaoliang: "Traveling all over the green mountains is still young, and the scenery here is unique."

Ferre, who has studied the literature of the Red Kingdom, smiled and shook his head slightly, and couldn't help applauding.

After the photographer turned off the camera, Ferre and Torsh told Chen Xiaoliang very sincerely that they have spent most of their lives dealing with players, but today's interview is definitely one of the most memorable.

At the end of the interview, both of them almost forgot that they were interviewing a 17-year-old young player, as if they were communicating with a senior official of UEFA or a big club, or as if they were communicating with a long-standing The legendary players who have retired for many years and have been tempered are chatting, and the scope of the discussion has gone far beyond the regular interview topics in games and training, and entered into football development and even the rules of operation.

In the end, Ferre said that he had already thought about it, so he used the phrase "Traveling all over the green mountains, people are not old, and the scenery here is unique" as the title of this interview and put it in the next issue of "French Football".

Word quickly reached Mourinho's office.

He immediately searched the meaning of this poem on the computer.

Even the Portuguese had heard of the great man, but for the first time he knew that the great man was a Romantic poet.

Looking at the detailed explanation, Mourinho immediately understood what Chen Xiaoliang said to himself.

"This kid, can you actually see my inner state?"

"Or, my fatigue has been discovered by the team members?"

He turned off the poem explanation, leaned on the back of the chair, folded his hands on his chest, and was in a daze.

He thought of Porto's Champions League miracle, Chelsea's Premier League dominance, Inter Milan's treble triumph, and the earth derby between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

I also thought of the Europa League in Manchester United's difficult time and the League Cup final of Tottenham, which failed to lead the team.

After being stunned for a while, after returning to reality, the real-time league standings on the computer desktop came into view dazzlingly.

Foti was knocking on the door outside the office at this time.

"what's up?"

"Jose, you asked me to come at 3 o'clock to get tomorrow's training plan."

"Oh, yes." The training of the players who didn't play yesterday ended at 3 o'clock, and it was time for Foti, as an assistant coach, to prepare for tomorrow's matters.

Mourinho switched to the training schedule that had already been prepared, clicked the "Send" button, then turned off the computer, stood up, and patted Foti on the back:
"Finish it early and go back to rest early, good days are to come."

Foti was taken aback. Since he became an assistant coach, he has always been cautious and respectful when facing this boss with a full of personality. He was afraid of repeating the same mistakes as Joao. Why is the head coach in such a good mood today?
But no matter how suspicious he was, he still happily replied: "Okay, leave the scene to me, and you should go back to rest earlier."

Mourinho didn't know whether to answer Foti or said to himself: "I'm getting older, I should take more rest, otherwise how can I work for another ten or eight years?"

(End of this chapter)