Chapter 120: Waves in the Waves, Summer of 06

Time flies and it is July 2006, 7. It has been more than a week since Italy lifted the World Cup in Berlin.

Laguna Beach, California in summer is like a vivid painting, showing unparalleled charm.

The setting sun shines on the golden beach, warm but not scorching, and the sand is fine and smooth, like carefully polished gold. The sea breeze blows gently, bringing the salty and humid breath of the ocean, intertwined with the fragrance of the palm trees in the distance, forming a unique summer atmosphere.

The sea sparkles, a few leisurely white clouds float in the blue sky, and occasionally seagulls hover low in the sky, making crisp calls. The waves gently hit the shore, making a "rustling" sound, as if telling the story of the sea.

On the beach, tourists are either lying leisurely in the sun, or playing, or building colorful sand castles. The laughter of children and the sound of waves interweave to form a summer symphony.

Here, time seems to slow down, making people forget the hustle and bustle of the city. Everyone is attracted by this beautiful beach and immersed in this tranquility and harmony. Whether strolling alone or spending time with family and friends, this is an ideal summer resort that makes people linger.

At this time, Ricardo was lying on a beach chair under a palm tree, wearing a pair of big sunglasses and pretending to read a newspaper, but in fact he was secretly looking at the various bikini beauties on the beach...

Well, although there are still several vixen who look like third- and fourth-tier stars with good figures, Chiara's figure is still the most suitable for her. The dark purple bikini set with a light purple mesh skirt sets off Chiara's fair skin and graceful curves, as if she is a work of art carefully carved by nature.

Her full but not cumbersome breasts are more upright against the bikini; her waist is slender with a slightly exposed waistline, as soft as a willow branch. Her long and well-proportioned legs exude a healthy luster in the sun, and every step she takes seems to show endless vitality in the beating melody. Her bright smile, intertwined with the sound of the waves and the laughter on the beach, forms a beautiful summer picture... It's really charming.

The page Ricardo opened was the sports section of the Los Angeles Times from three days ago, which was still reporting on the World Cup final that ended a week ago.

Actually, Ricardo is still confused. Although old Li Qi has known for a long time that the Italian team will win the championship, when he really went there in person and won the championship himself, he was infected by the atmosphere and was overwhelmed by the huge joy. Most normal people cannot accept it in a short time. Ricardo was also unable to accept it in a short time...especially Italian football has been shrouded in the phone-gate incident since May.

So Ricardo at the scene didn't even know how Grosso kicked the ball into the goal in the last penalty, because he didn't dare to look at it at all. He only felt that the captain in front of him and Pirlo beside him rushed out shouting, and then Ricardo realized that the Italian team had won the championship.

As for how they celebrated afterwards and what happened, Ricardo didn't remember much. He just felt like he was acting on his instincts and venting. According to old Li Qi's experience, it was a bit like Fan Jin passing the imperial examination. Oh, no, it was due to blacking out after drinking.

When the Italian team returned home to celebrate, Ricardo came to his senses and studied whether he had done anything stupid at the time through the TV broadcast replay and newspaper reports...

Grosso's final left-foot penalty hit the upper left corner of the goal, while Barthes, who had guessed the direction correctly the previous three times, guessed the wrong direction this time. However, even if he had guessed correctly, he might not have been able to prevent this penalty with great power and angle from entering the net.

After Grosso scored, the whole stadium seemed to be boiling as if the calm sea water was suddenly ignited. All the Italian players, coaches and staff rushed into the stadium, chasing around passionately and celebrating wildly, including the silly-looking Ricardo.

Fortunately, he didn't seem to have done anything too stupid at the time, or if he did, at least it was not engraved on the monument of history by the camera... At first, when he saw his teammates rushing out, Ricardo was waving his fists with a ferocious face and running after Brother Pirlo. Those who didn't know thought that Ricardo was collecting debts.

Then it seemed like he was hugging everyone one by one, including Lippi, the assistant coach, fitness coach Godino, the team doctor, and Dama... and finally he seemed to hug the captain and kiss him... This expression of true feelings is not shameful, right?

As for the situation when returning to the locker room, there was nothing special except that a half-naked photo of the whole team was found on Pirlo's mobile phone.

The Los Angeles Times began its summary of this World Cup with a large color photo of Italy holding the trophy after the game. Cannavaro, the Italian captain who had reached the milestone of 100 games, stood on the podium surrounded by the entire blue team, holding the World Cup high in his hands, with white ribbons fluttering behind him!

In the photo, Ricciardo is in the first row, wearing the Italian flag, cheering with his mouth open, looking very excited...

Then the Los Angeles Times began to report that Italy won another championship after 24 years.

第18届世界杯决赛于2006年7月9日晚间，在柏林奥林匹克球场打响。意大利在120分钟的时间内1比1战平法国，并在点球大战中5比3胜出。

In this way, Italy ended the fate of losing in penalty shootouts in the previous three World Cups. The Italian national team led by Lippi won the championship with a record of 3 games unbeaten and won the World Cup for the fourth time.

At the post-match press conference, Lippi admitted that Italy was blessed by God: "This was a very special game. From the penalty kick scored by the French team, to the equalizer, we never lost hope. Even when facing the greatest players, we remained calm. Indeed, the French team performed better than us today, but this time we won the World Cup at a disadvantage."

France coach Domenech could not hide his huge disappointment: "After careful preparation before the game, we have reached our best condition. Our team became stronger and stronger during the game, which was all planned before the game. Zidane's red card was the turning point of the game, and Vieira also left the field due to injury... Unfortunately, the goddess of luck was not on our side in the end."

……

Italy has won the World Cup three times in 1934, 1938 and 1982. By defeating France this time, Italy became the second team to win the championship four times. Currently, Brazil is the five-time champion and Germany has won the cup three times.

Italy's core midfielder Pirlo was named the best player in the final, but the World Cup Golden Ball was given to France's Zidane, and the World Cup Golden Boot was won by German Klose who scored 5 goals.

However, Italy almost swept all other awards in this World Cup.

Buffon was voted the best goalkeeper for his superb performance of conceding only two goals in seven games, while Ricardo Lich also won the best newcomer award, beating Podolski, Ronaldo and Messi, with one goal and one assist, as well as a wonderful duel with Zidane in the final.

In addition, captain Cannavaro also ranked second in the Ballon d'Or with a high number of votes and was named the best defender; Zambrotta, Materazzi, Gattuso and others were selected into the World Cup's best team.

However, the magical Wei Yi Zuo Grosso was unanimously selected as the most magical player award by many media because he "killed" three teams - Australia, Germany and France.

……

The 2006 World Cup in Germany has finally come to an end. The World Cup is the cradle of newcomers and the station where veterans bid farewell. After the tragic and comedic scenes on the green field, there are always teams that make people's blood boil and go home early, and there are always some heroes who are regarded as idols and haunted by fans and bid farewell to us with smiles or tears.

In addition to the 34-year-old midfield master Zidane, this World Cup is also the farewell performance of 36-year-old Dutch goalkeeper Van der Sar, 33-year-old earth-shattering Roberto Carlos, 36-year-old Brazilian defender Cafu, 34-year-old winger legend Figo, 34-year-old Czech iron man Nedved, and 35-year-old Swedish striker Larsson.

……

At the end of the article, the Los Angeles Times specifically named and praised Ricardo, the new World Cup Best Newcomer: "Li Qi has reaped huge rewards this summer. He helped the Barcelona team win the Spanish Super Cup, La Liga and Champions League treble, and then won the coveted World Cup with the Italian national team.

If we trace back to last summer, Ricardo also led the team to win the World Youth Championship in the Netherlands as captain, winning the Golden Boot, Assist King and Golden Ball. It can be said that Li Qi, who just turned 20, is already the best among the younger generation of players. "

So Ricardo took this edition of the newspaper off the plane and kept it as a treasure. In the past few days, he read the last paragraph repeatedly: "Hehehe, hehehe, it's really well written..."

……

Because the Italian team reached the World Cup final, Ricciardo was approved by the club to have an extra week of vacation, but in total, it was only a little more than three weeks of vacation.

So after Ricardo returned to Rome, Italy with the team for a day of parade celebration, he only rested at home for one night. Before his parents had time to catch up with Ricardo to have a good chat about life philosophy and family affairs, Ricardo immediately took Sarafina back to the University of Barcelona to attend the graduation ceremony and receive his master's degree certificate.

Afterwards, Ricardo left his agent team to deal with the endorsement contract and negotiate with the club for the next season, and then took Chiara to California for vacation. Of course, vacation was just a side job, and the main purpose was to deal with Ricardo's plan to expand his treasury.

Of course, in addition to Chiara, the UBS VIP client Ricardo is also served by the UBS team in California, USA and the team from UBS Milan, Italy.

However, the UBS team in Milan, Italy, will not come to California to meet up with Ricardo until two days later, and will go to UBS's California branch to handle related investment business.

The main reason is that Ricardo is very busy these two days. Tomorrow he will say goodbye to the scenic Laguna Beach Villa and take Chiara to visit California Disneyland, one of the most popular theme parks in the world.

However, the day after tomorrow, Ricardo will arrive in Silicon Valley, south of the San Francisco Bay Area, to conduct a round of corporate inspections first...

The project was said to be introduced by a friend, but in fact it was Twitter, which Ricardo had asked Pimenta to contact in advance. Although Ricardo knew what was going on, he had to give UBS a logical explanation, so he had to do some research before investing, right? After all, Twitter was a new company that was just established in March this year.

Of course, several other startups were also arranged to serve as a cover...

However, investigating new investment targets is not the main task of this trip to the United States. For this reason, UBS's Milan branch in Italy will not send a small team to accompany the trip, and also asked Chiara to come on a paid tour a few days in advance; the main purpose is that one of the three projects invested in last year has already received an acquisition offer.

YouTube, the first project that UBS successfully invested in on behalf of Ricardo last year, received a 100% acquisition offer from an unknown listed company from investment bank Goldman Sachs last month. After the first round of exploratory bids, the latest second round offer was for US$6.15 million.

This offer has made YouTube's shareholders uneasy, and they have begun to seriously consider selling the company as a whole.

As a not-so-small shareholder of YouTube, UBS Trust naturally came to the meeting - after all, the $600 million investment may have increased by more than ten times, and there will be a large performance commission here. Ricardo, as the real financial backer and beneficiary behind the scenes, naturally came in person as a partner of UBS Trust to give feedback.

Although Goldman Sachs has not yet disclosed the identity of the listed company that initiated the acquisition offer, UBS and YouTube have already made a rough guess that it is either Yahoo or Google.

Ricardo learned from old Li Qi that the company that would acquire YouTube this time would be none other than Google, and the final acquisition price would be an astronomical figure that no one could refuse.

So Ricardo came this time to warn YouTube shareholders - don't sell it cheaply, Google has plenty of money. What's more, the YouTube in this time and space is better developed than the original YouTube in history.

原本历史上的油管只在2005年底才千辛万苦的从红杉资本那里获得了350万美元的融资。而在现在的这个时空，里卡多主动寻求合作就给出了600万美元的投资。之后瑞银也还是将红杉拉了进来，不过投资额也从原本历史上的350万美元变成了400万美元。

And because it was UBS that took the initiative, YouTube received three times the original investment at almost the same cost (30% of the shares were diluted in total), and it was also one month earlier. As a result, YouTube has developed more rapidly in this time and space (its main competitor Google Video has been reduced to only 3% of the market share), and it is not short of money at present.

……

A few days later, after joining the UBS Milan and UBS San Francisco teams, Ricardo personally made a brief report to the YouTube shareholders meeting as a representative of UBS:

"Ladies and gentlemen... According to our UBS valuation and calculations, the sale price of the pipeline company should not be less than 20 billion US dollars..."

(“Two billion dollars…” The founder of YouTube, representatives of UBS and Sequoia all had their heads buzzing, “Isn’t this blond handsome guy too boastful? But if the deal is really reached at this price, then won’t it take off? Anyway, we are not short of money for the time being, so let’s take a chance first…”)

"We should strive for an all-cash or at least a partial cash and partial stock acquisition plan, and the stock lock-up period should not exceed 12 months..."

(Ricardo thought: By the end of 08, any stock can be bought back at the floor price! I must have more cash!)

"If the other party is sincere, the acquisition and execution must be completed before October this year! Otherwise, we should continue to increase the price! We are the absolute number one in the market, and our leading advantage will become more solid with each passing day!"

(More than 70% market share gives Ricardo the confidence to raise the price. Historically, Google would complete the acquisition of YouTube in September with a stock price of US$9 billion. If the time is not right, it will be too late to sell it for cash before the end of 16.5 if there is a limited sale period...)

……

Seeing Ricardo talking nonsense with high spirits, oh no, it was an impassioned speech, Chiara's eyes were almost full of small money $$, oh no, it was full of love...

In fact, Ricardo has been thinking these days whether he should let Chiara resign to help him manage his assets; but he finally gave up the idea. Professional matters should be handled by professionals, and Chiara should continue to provide logistical support on weekends - otherwise, how can he have three harems and six courtyards if she follows him every day?

"So, let Uncle Francis help set up a professional investment team to manage the offshore company's assets. This wave of turmoil in 08 is more complicated than the previous ones. I have to train and compete, so I don't have time to monitor the market and deal with it."

"Also, I heard that quantitative trading is the newest secondary market tool. As an IT guy, I can definitely lead a team to develop it..."

Ricardo, who originally planned to let Chiara take charge of secondary market investment, also changed his original intention and decided to separate the business segments; the offshore company group cooperating with his cousin will continue to be mainly responsible for secondary market investment, while UBS Trust will continue to be responsible for primary market investment.

……