Chapter 245 European Championship Qualifiers, Fighting France Again, China
On the morning of August 2007, 8, the roommate, the mixed-color beauty Olivia, looked at Sarafina with a face full of resentment as she went out to send her lover to the airport. After all, after listening to the live battlefield artillery sounds for two consecutive nights, anyone would feel unhappy. The scumbag Li is an athlete with long endurance and surging power. Olivia had expected it, but she didn't expect Sarafina, a goddess in front of everyone, to be so wild and open...
Without mentioning Olivia's resentment about not being able to eat grapes, Ricardo and Sarafina kissed goodbye in the departure hall of Heathrow Airport and boarded the flight back to Milan.
Sitting in the first class cabin, the scumbag Li pretended to open the newspaper to read the sports news, but in fact he was secretly glancing at the stewardess's long legs in black stockings...
Oh! There was still a piece of news in the sports section of today's Times, which drew Ricardo's attention away from the legs of the stewardess who was serving the passengers in the back seat. After all, if he stared at her any longer, he would turn his head away, and then the excuse of reading the newspaper would not work!
"On Tuesday, September 2007, 9, the International Federation of Football History and Statistics released the August rankings of world clubs. Sevilla topped the list with 4 points, becoming the first club in world football to spend a full year as the 'world's number one'.
去年10月，成功夺得05/06赛季欧洲联盟杯冠军与06/07赛季欧洲超级杯冠军的塞维利亚第一次在国际足球历史和统计联合会公布的世界俱乐部排行榜中位居榜首.
This brilliant achievement made Sevilla's president Del Nido so happy that he lost himself in the moment and declared that Sevilla was the best in the world and that if Ronaldinho joined Sevilla he would have to start as a substitute.
After a year, Del Nido and Sevilla fans have gradually gotten used to the title of the world's number one and become calm. But now, Del Nido and Sevilla fans are excited again, because Sevilla broke the record of Serie A Roma Club being the world's number one for 11 consecutive months and became the new king of world football.
In 1991, Roma topped the world club rankings for 11 consecutive months. 16 years later, this record was finally broken by Sevilla, and Sevilla has the opportunity to continue to refresh its own record and extend this record even longer.
In the latest world club rankings, ranked second is the Premier League powerhouse Chelsea with 291 points, ranked third is the Brazilian giants Santos, and AC Milan, which just defeated Sevilla in the European Super Cup, ranked seventh.
Although Sevilla has done well, the results of their Spanish counterparts are not satisfactory. In the standings, the Spanish club second only to Sevilla is Espanyol, the runner-up of last season's UEFA Cup, which ranks 11th. Due to poor performance last season, Barcelona, the champion of the 05/06 Champions League, can only rank 16th, and Real Madrid, the champion of last season's La Liga, performed even worse, ranking only 33rd..."
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After returning to Milan, Ricardo did not go home first, but reported to the Italian national team directly. Yes, the home stadium for the crucial match of Group B of the European Cup qualifiers against France was reserved by the Italian Football Association at the San Siro Stadium in Milan, so the training base was naturally rented again at the Milanello Sports Center of AC Milan.
However, Ricardo, whose home is in Milan, can check into the hotel where the national team is training one night before the game day. He can go home to spend time with his family on Wednesday and Thursday nights. He only needs to arrive at the training base on time in the evening to participate in the training.
As soon as I arrived at the national team, I found that the atmosphere was tense as everyone was discussing the upcoming Italy-France match. After all, in the second round of the European Cup qualifiers last September, Italy lost 9-1 to their World Cup final opponent France away from home, which could be considered a successful revenge by the French team.
This time it is Italy's turn to take revenge. For the media, football is a process of endless revenge.
However, compared to the last time when the media overwhelmingly favored France's revenge, this time the media was not optimistic about Italy's revenge. This was mainly because after winning the 2006 World Cup, the Italian national team's lineup was in the process of renewal, and affected by the previous Calciopoli incident, there was no particularly outstanding leader in the Italian team.
Totti is barely one of them, but the self-willed Roman prince has never been selected for Donadoni's national team. The current captain of the national team, Cannavaro, is obviously one of them, but as a central defender, he is less likely to affect the offensive organization in the midfield.
In addition, due to the lack of a leading local team in the league, the personnel composition of the Italian national team is somewhat complex and chaotic. Although it is evenly distributed, it has formed multiple factions.
For example, Inter Milan, the current champion of Serie A, did not even have a single player selected for the Italian national team after Materazzi was injured. It can only be said that they are worthy of being an international team...
Juventus, a traditional powerhouse, has 4 players, but they are perfectly evenly distributed in the four lines of goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward.
In contrast, AC Milan, another home team besides Inter Milan, has 5 players selected, and they are more concentrated in the frontcourt. However, AC Milan overlaps with another powerful team in Serie A, Roma, which also has its own players selected for the national team this time, and three of them are concentrated in the midfield...
The different midfield football styles of AC Milan and Roma have always been a focus of debate in Donadoni's national team. Should the Milan system be built around Pirlo and Gattuso, or should the Roma system be built around De Rossi and Perrotta?
As for the young man Ricardo, although his performance in the national team and club was impressive, he still cannot make a big impact in the national team due to his seniority. Especially with the absence of former teammate Maresca and only one youth teammate Aquilani who also belongs to the Roma faction, the young new force represented by Ricardo has not been able to form a joint force for the time being...
Who is lagging behind between De Rossi and Pirlo, the Milan system or the Roma system, these are all superficial phenomena. What Italy in the Donadoni era lacks compared to the Azzurri in the Lippi era is team cohesion.
Just like in a warm-up match held at the Puskas Stadium in Budapest on the evening of August 8, Italy took the lead but conceded three goals in a row and was overturned by the home team Hungary.
Before this friendly match, Ricardo sprained his ankle in Manchester United's game against Portsmouth, so he was not called up.
In this friendly match, Donadoni's starting lineup included 7 World Cup champions. Luca Toni, who missed 2 national team games due to injury, also returned from injury, but Gattuso and Grosso did not play.
Although Italy played patiently throughout the game, it was the home team Hungary that had more ball possession time and offensive opportunities.
Although Italy broke the deadlock in the second half with substitute Di Natale, the midfield organization was in disarray, and the team was obviously fighting on their own. The Azzurri, who only wanted to show off themselves, were quickly chased by Hungary with three goals. If it weren't for Buffon's magical performance, Italy might even have lost 4-1 or 5-1 in the end...
Therefore, the media generally believed that Italy, with its unstable personnel, incomplete lineup and chaotic organization, would be in great danger against France this time.
Ricardo also agrees. After all, a team without a ball hog is not a good team. Of course, a team with too many ball hogs is definitely not a good team. It is best to have only one ball hog, such as Sir Alex Ferguson to Manchester United...
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However, it is not only the Italian team that has negative news. The French team also has unfavorable situations, but not at the player level, but at the head coach level.
On August 8, in response to French coach Domenech's attack on Italian football, UEFA suspended the astrologer for one game and fined him 27 Swiss francs.
After the punishment was issued, both Domenech himself and French Football Association President Escaret realized the seriousness of the situation. In order to allow Domenech to appear in the coaching booth at Milan's San Siro Stadium on September 9 to personally command France's away game against Italy in the 8 European Cup qualifiers, Domenech appealed to UEFA and asked for the hearing to be brought forward to September 2008. Escaret even apologized to the Italian Football Association in person and started mediation within UEFA.
Despite a lot of work, the result of the hearing still disappointed Domenech. UEFA still believed that Domenech's remarks about the Italian youth team bribing the referee before the match against the French youth team in 1999 were "inappropriate and completely in violation of relevant disciplines" and decided to maintain the original one-game suspension of Domenech, but cancelled the insignificant fine.
September 9th was the first day of the French team's intensive training. That morning, Domenech, accompanied by Escaret, rushed to the UEFA headquarters to make a hearing statement, then hurried to the French team training camp in Clairefontaine and attended the French team's press conference in the afternoon.
The head coach cannot direct the game, which will definitely have a certain impact on the French team. When announcing the results of the hearing, UEFA also emphasized: "Domenech will not be able to interfere in the game in any form. He cannot appear in the coaching seat or the locker room, cannot use headphones, cannot have any contact with the assistant coach, and cannot have any contact with the team from the moment he arrives at the stadium."
Domenech feels helpless about UEFA's heavy penalty. He has decided not to appeal to the higher-level Lausanne Sports Court. He can only make up for his regret of not being able to command on the spot through more detailed pre-match preparations.
Despite the lack of a head coach, most French players reacted calmly. French winger Scar Ribery said: "It will feel a bit strange, but it shouldn't have much impact on the performance. Old players like Thuram, Makelele, Vieira can all play the role of coaches on the field, not to mention that there is assistant coach Mankovsky on the sidelines."
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During the days when Milan was preparing for the match, Ricardo took the opportunity to go home and spend some time with his parents. He also had a quarrel with his beloved brother and abused him severely with the live football game, saying the legendary "I use the Chinese team, you can abuse me as you like"...
In the mornings of the next two days, Ricardo went to the Milan branch of UBS for meetings. First, he met his new account manager.
As expected, the bank knows the preferences of its big customers very well. This time, Ricardo was assigned to a mature young lady named Chiara who is not only beautiful but also has a good figure.
But after experiencing the Chiara incident, Ricardo also discovered a cruel fact, that is, although he had the life experience of old Li Qi, he was busy with training and competitions, and he was simple and kind by nature and really could not resist the favored girls like investment bankers.
Fortunately, Uncle Charles and Raiola took the initiative to work together to help me out of the predicament, otherwise I would definitely be the one who was sold and helped others count the money, and would end up in a mess.
Besides, Ricardo is playing in the Premier League, not far from Sarafina, and he doesn't want to be caught cheating on by his first girlfriend. His second girlfriend is helping him connect with the physical therapy and rehabilitation center project, so he can't offend her. He has to fill Julian's emptiness when he has time, and in the short term, he doesn't have time for a third party to get involved...
So this time, Ricardo kept his distance from the new beautiful lady account manager, which made the new female account manager doubt her life: What? How am I not as good as the previous slut who was available to everyone? No! Master Li Qi must discover my charm. I know a lot...
The second thing was that Ricardo had to confirm the status of his trust fund and the progress of reducing his large holdings of Google shares.
However, just as old Li Qi is well aware of historical developments, as the U.S. stock market continued to improve, Google's stock price also rose, and naturally received enthusiastic pursuit in the market.
UBS has also identified the buyer and has basically finalized the transaction plan. It is just waiting for Ricardo's lock-up period to be lifted before the transaction can be carried out.
The buyer, UBS, naturally would not reveal it directly to Ricardo, after all, a large amount of commissions and relationships were involved. However, Ricardo also heard indirectly that there were three buyers, all from North America, a well-known investment bank, a hedge fund, and a sovereign investment fund.
They all have strong capital and like to invest for the long term and hold technology innovation stocks. They are not worried about short- to medium-term stock price fluctuations. When they find that Ricardo has a large number of high-quality Google chips and can get a certain market price discount, they are naturally willing to take over.
The initial plan was to use the average stock price of the 90 days before the transaction as the base price, and then give a 4% discount, plus the transaction commission given to UBS. This condition was much higher than the 8% market price discount that Ricardo had given at the beginning, so Ricardo was naturally happy to accept it.
However, in keeping with the tradition of never accepting the first offer at the negotiating table, Ricardo still made a counter-offer, which was that the transaction must be completed within the second week of November, which was exactly the week before Thanksgiving, and the base price of the transaction should be the average of the daily closing prices in September and October. The discount price, including UBS's transaction commission, should not exceed 11%.
Although the new conditions offered by Ricardo were more stringent than the previous instructions, the newly promoted head of UBS Milan Branch, who was it? Oh, yes, the middle-aged uncle director named Douglas, was a little unhappy.
But the situation is stronger than people, isn't it? Who has made Google's stock rise this year? And the market is unanimously optimistic about US stocks. In a seller's market, sellers naturally have the final say, right?
Douglas also estimated that there was still room for the buyer to lower the price. Anyway, the commissions and commissions from UBS and himself would not be much less, so he just did what Master Li Qi said! After all, this was a big deal worth more than 3 million US dollars! Before the commissions and commissions were received, the king of heaven came, and Master Li Qi was right...
Thinking of this, Douglas kept giving the newly assigned female account manager a look: Come on over! Be more proactive! Damn it, is the neckline not low enough today, or the skirt not short enough? I remember Chiara was wearing gray stockings at the time. Allocate some special funds for her to buy and dress up...
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Before he had the chance to go to his own sports fashion brand store to instruct the work, Ricardo had to return to the hotel for closed management, because tomorrow is the focus battle of Group B of the European Cup qualifiers - the match between Italy and France!
However, in the training session the day before the game, the starting lineup announced by head coach Donadoni surprised Ricardo a little, but it was not completely unexpected, because although Ricardo was not selected as one of the starting eleven, he was still included in the starting bench.
Donadoni's official response was that in the match against Sunderland last weekend, Ricardo was kicked in his old ankle before being substituted. Although it no longer affected training and games, he was just slightly uncomfortable. However, in order to protect young players, Ricardo was arranged to watch the game on the bench first...
Back at the hotel, I shared a room with De Rossi again. Oh no, it was my roommate. Ricardo thought about it for a moment and understood Donadoni's arrangement: the old injury excuse was totally untenable. He was just kicked a week ago, and he didn't even need a shot. How could I not know the cause and effect? It was just an excuse for being late on the day I reported.
On the surface, Donadoni was seeking stability. Facing the strongest opponent in the group stage, France, the starting lineup was full of experienced veterans; but in fact, Donadoni was seeking to balance the factional conflicts within the team. After all, in such a high-profile game, it is still necessary to let the older brothers and the princes with backgrounds be exposed more in the spotlight...
As for putting himself on the bench, isn't it just a backup plan to take the blame depending on how the situation develops on the field?
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