Chapter 5: The Agent's Visit and Ricardo's Path to Academic Excellence

On the morning of June 2005, 6, Ricardo woke up and had his morning training session just like the day before. However, after the morning training, Ricardo did not take a nap because he had an appointment with his agent to come to his house for a talk. Yes, it was the legendary Italian football agent Mino Raiola...

This year, Lapang has become a highly-regarded figure in the football world, and his shrewd business acumen and excellent negotiation skills are beginning to be known to the world. During the more than two years of cooperation between Ricardo and Lapang, Ricardo can feel that Lapang is a dynamic and ambitious person, and has an infinite love for football - although his football level is really not satisfactory, his understanding of football is still very good.

Therefore, in the communication and guidance with players including Ricardo, La Pang easily won the trust of the players through reasonable analysis and higher-level insights...

Shortly after Ricardo won the U17 European Youth Championship, La Pang took the initiative to find Ricardo's uncle Charles and recommend himself; in the past two years, he has also helped Ricardo successfully negotiate many professional and commercial contracts; except for the youth contract signed with Inter Milan at the beginning, which was handled by Charles, the subsequent transfer to the first team contract, transfer to Barcelona, ​​and endorsement contracts with Nike, Coca-Cola and others were all handled by La Pang.

Especially when Ricardo proposed to go to Barcelona, ​​Lapang completed the communication between the two clubs at an extremely efficient speed, and got Barcelona to agree to all of his excessive requests, such as joining the first team within half a year and registering for the Champions League next season... In general, so far, Ricardo is very satisfied with Lapang's service and even admires Lapang's ability a little.

Around 11 o'clock, Ricardo, who had washed up and changed into a clean indigo long training suit, saw Lapang getting out of his black Maybach through the window. From a distance, Lapang's round figure and chubby face were also very cute - he looked like a chinchilla. Today, Raiola wore a pair of small round-framed black sunglasses, a dark blue suit jacket, and a light blue shirt, which made him look a little tight.

Following behind him was his assistant, who I seemed to have seen before. Her name was Pimenta, and she was also a very attractive older sister. She was wearing all white, a white windbreaker, a white long skirt, and white high heels...

Ricardo hurried out to greet him: "Good morning, Uncle Mino."

Lapang: "Hey, Ricardo, you've grown taller and stronger again!"

At the door, he gave Lapang a big bear hug, and then kissed the beautiful sister Pimenta who followed closely behind him. Ricardo led the two into the living room. The servant brought the prepared Chinese tea, fruit snacks, etc. and then left...

Lapang: "Ricardo, I remember you are a little uncomfortable with coffee? This Chinese tea smells so good, what's the brand?"

Li Shou: "Yes, Uncle Mino, I tend to get diarrhea when I drink coffee. I prefer Chinese tea. This one seems to be brought back from China by my dad. It's jasmine tea... By the way, Uncle Mino, I heard that you recently signed a 12-year-old French genius? Congratulations!"

Lapang: "Oh? Ricardo, you also know Paul Pogba? Yes, he has the potential to become a great star. But in my opinion, he is still a lot worse than you..."

...First, they exchange some meaningless commercial flattery.

Then Lapang started to talk about business:

1、6月4日和6月5日，也就是明天和后天的周末两天分别有耐克和可口可乐的商业活动，里卡多要出席并参与拍照宣传等，都在上午10点30分左右，大概需要2-3小时；

2. I know that Ricardo has been appointed as the captain of the Italian U20 team in the World Youth Championship in the Netherlands. I hope Ricardo will perform well. Lapan has communicated with the head coach and the team leader and will take care of Ricardo. If you need anything in the Netherlands, call Pimenta directly. There are friends there who can provide assistance.

3. I am currently discussing advertising endorsements with Telecom Italia. The recent good performance will help this. Well, I know that Ricardo does not want to accept too many endorsement requests, but every industry has its own rules and relationships, right? Don't worry, Uncle Mino will take care of it. As long as it is a big brand and a big contract, any small endorsement will be declined.

4. You didn’t have many opportunities to play in Barcelona last season. Uncle Mino will have a good chat with Mr. Rijkaard before the start of next season. Of course, he will also make sure that they will register you in the Champions League list according to the contract;

5. If nothing unexpected happens, after the World Youth Championship, the Italian national team will call you up for a national team friendly match before the World Cup qualifiers start. The opponent should be Russia. Well, they saw that you went to Barcelona and are afraid that you will join the Spanish national team in a few years, so they locked you in in advance... Well, yes, I have communicated with you and will try my best to help you get a place in next year's World Cup, provided that your performance in the future is good enough...

There are also a lot of trivia that Pimenta is responsible for adding...

Then Ricardo also put forward some ideas and requirements:

6. Communicate with the corporate executives who sponsor the World Youth Championship and have good relationships with them. Yes, the target referee committee does not seek favoritism in every game, but seeks to be as fair and just as possible...

Lapang: "It seems that Ricardo knows that the social world of adults is very complicated. Haha, good things, good things... Okay, Uncle Mino will say hello to them."

7. Help find one or two private sports coaches in Spain, who are good at the cutting-edge American scientific training system, to help Ricardo recover after the game, train to improve his physical function, maintain his competitive state, reduce the risk of injury, and have systematic training during the off-season...

Lapang: "Well, this is not a low requirement. You may have to spend all your salary on this. Okay, Pimenta, remember to try to arrange for Ricardo to train in the preseason... No wonder Ricardo, you are so good at such a young age, what's wrong with your brain? Uncle Mino must let little Paul get close to you..."

8. Finally, please help me keep an eye on other clubs in Spain, preferably Sevilla... Ricardo means the season after next, the 06-07 season...

Lapang: "Hmm? So early? Okay, I see. Prepare for a rainy day, right? I will make contact secretly."

…………

After seeing off Lapang and Pimenta, Ricardo couldn't help but sigh that talking to smart people is very efficient. It took so much time to talk about business, but the whole business was finished in half an hour. He also understood the subtlety of serving tea and seeing off guests, and was polite enough not to stay for lunch...

Ricardo was still thinking, "Well, this won't affect my lunch break. Then I'll email the professors in the school when I wake up in the afternoon. Summer classes may conflict with the national team's call-up and pre-season preparations. If I have to train overseas, I'll have to miss classes. Homework should be handled by email..."

"I have to try to get my master's degree next summer. What if I have to go to Sevilla next season? It will be inconvenient for me to go to school."

Yes, Ricardo, who will soon be 19 years old, has completed his first year of graduate studies at the University of Barcelona. His major is connected with his undergraduate major, software engineering, and his research direction is artificial intelligence.

After Ricardo's aphasia period, although his brain blocked a lot of future knowledge and information from old Richie for self-protection, this did not prevent the young Ricardo from discovering some extra talents and the fearless spirit of exploration like a newborn calf... Why do I say that?

Because Ricardo discovered that the information blocked by the brain, as long as some related or similar scenes are repeated, or a little stimulation is added, the brain will have some related "new" information and "new" knowledge. It may be that a large paragraph suddenly appears, causing the brain to lose consciousness for a while, or it may be just a few words and a fragment of a picture... Fortunately, nothing serious has happened...

For example, in order to find out the truth and specific process of soul travel, Ricardo repeatedly went deep into the full bathtub to find out the truth... If his parents hadn't discovered it early, the book might have ended after the introduction was written - instead, it would have been replaced by an inconspicuous local news in Milan: "Suicidal boy suspected of drowning in the bathtub at home"...

In addition to bathtub diving, there is also the stair skateboard flying over the trash can... After several months of doing this, Ricardo finally got it! He found that he could gain more by spending half a day in the library...

Ricardo entered the elementary school library. He originally wanted to find "Captain Tsubasa" to learn some tricks. He just checked the catalog to see which row of the bookshelf it was placed on... Oh my god, Ricardo suddenly found that just by seeing some book names, some strange yet familiar memories began to revive...

"Oh my god, are all Chinese people so arrogant? Are they persecuting primary school students?" ... I don't know if it was because of fear or tiredness, but Ricardo's face was pale and he spent the whole afternoon beside the search catalog on the bookshelf. Fortunately, there were not many people coming to the library of the Italian primary school at that time...

From then on, Ricardo began to love hanging out in the library, and he never got tired of it. After school, he would either play football or hang out in restaurants. This made Ricardo's teachers and parents very happy, as they thought he had finally gotten the hang of it. However, it was hard for Andre, who was in middle school: other families would always compare how good the children next door were, but this time they had to compare their own family...

Could it be that Andre's sharp tongue was developed at this time? !

How can you not love reading? If you find that with many books, you can automatically obtain a lot of information and knowledge by just looking at the title and table of contents, and it is not easy to forget, this superpower is amazing...

So Ricardo was obsessed. After the primary school library, he went to the middle school library, then to the city library and the university library...

Although old Li Qi didn't know many books and knowledge, Ricardo, who had already entered the state, didn't notice it. He received + self-study + memorized it by guessing... After all, he was standing on the shoulders of another PhD who studied in the United States and struggled all his life, so he could see far!

In the process of actively or passively receiving knowledge through reading, Ricardo also discovered that his calculation ability, memory, spatial imagination and logical thinking ability were far superior to those of his peers; was it an additional function developed by the brain receiving excess information, or was it inherited from old Richie's mental strength?

Ricardo couldn’t tell either… Anyway, it’s a good thing!

This is obviously cheating! Little Ricardo would often place his favorite Ultraman cards on the desk in his little room in the dead of night, sprinkle rice on them, add a bowl of water, and imitate some mysterious oriental worship rituals to express his sincere gratitude to old Li Qi for his unremitting efforts and struggles when he was young, middle-aged, and in his prime, so that he could now inherit his legacy and complete his unfinished business...

Although the ceremony seemed to be wrong and a bit out of place, Ricardo's heart was sincere and honest. Those were his favorite Ultraman cards, and they all flashed...

Therefore, there is a reasonable explanation for Ricardo's rapid progress in mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, geography and other subjects. If he loves eating out so much, how can he not study?

Later on, he quickly mastered computer programming and gained a scientific understanding. Ricardo is a genius. Isn't it normal for geniuses to accept new things quickly?

In order to fully display his own characteristics and strengths, Ricardo had to be patient and sacrifice countless weekends and nights, asking his mother to fill his spare time by signing him up for violin interest classes, table tennis training packages, badminton training packages, and Taekwondo training packages (after all, little Ricardo didn't really understand the misunderstanding of Chinese Kung Fu)... There were also Chinese, Cantonese, and English training packages...

As for Spanish… I didn’t apply. It’s a Latin language that is very similar to Italian. Ricardo, who is already very good at it, basically mastered it by himself in less than 3 months. He has no problem communicating. Graduate students write in English, and professors prefer it. This is in line with international standards…