Chapter 631: The World's No. 1 Defensive Midfielder

At the end of January and August every year, Hilton Hotel does not need to worry about the source of customers, because their rooms will be overcrowded in the latter part of these two months, and even the hotels around Hyde Park are also overcrowded.

All of this is the benefit brought by the Football Economic Forum of Moon Sports Services. This has become the largest football forum in the world. Almost all the football clubs with a little fame in the world hope to put up their own flags and put up a desk at this forum.

Today's Football Economic Forum has developed from the first floor to the banquet halls on the second to fifth floors of the Hilton Hotel as venues. The second and third floors are the European area, the fourth floor is the South American area, and the fifth floor is the mixed area of ​​Africa, Asia and North America. But even so, it is still overcrowded, which shows how big the scale is.

In addition, the forum has rented several floors to provide VIP customers and arrange meetings and negotiations with some well-known customers. In addition, the football associations of various countries have offices in the hotel. For example, England, Scotland, France, Spain, etc. have arranged special teams to settle in, and some other major countries are also the same. Even many small countries simply entrust Moon Sports Services to act as agents.

In other words, as long as you negotiate all the deals in this venue, you can register in the shortest time.

The closing time of the transfer market is nominally 23:00, but in fact, it is not so punctual. It will generally be slightly delayed for about half an hour. Moreover, after entering the night, the things that should be discussed have basically been discussed and the things that should be done have been done. Therefore, the venue has become very deserted, and more people are gathered in the negotiation room or conference hall.

The office area of ​​the English Football Association is arranged in a suite on the eighth floor of the Hilton Hotel. This time they arranged a working group of more than a dozen people to come in. These three days are almost all spent in the venue. Even many times they have to take turns to rest because the work is too much and too busy.

Many people say that winter transfers are not as good as summer transfers. This is true and not true, because summer transfers take longer to prepare and have more time to prepare, so there will definitely be more transfers and larger transaction amounts.

But the winter break is shorter and there is less time for operation, so many times transfers are concentrated in the last few days, especially after the establishment of the Football Economic Forum, the last three days have almost become an important channel for teams to recruit or lease.

In the last three days of this year, the number of transfers and leases in the Premier League alone reached 130, most of which were leases. This is also related to winter transfers. After all, the operation time is too short, and leasing is undoubtedly a more cost-effective transaction, and the risk is relatively small. If it is not suitable, it will be directly returned after half a year.

But this is just the Premier League. You know, England has four professional leagues, the Championship, League One and League Two, and there are even some professional teams in the amateur leagues. Their transfer needs are also very large, not inferior to the Premier League at all, so the player mobility is also very frequent.

To complete a transfer is not as simple as many ordinary fans imagine. If it is outside the economic forum, the procedures will be more complicated, and they need to run many departments. The advantage of the Football Economic Forum is that the English Football Association has arranged a working group. Each FA department has arranged personnel to join this group, and there are even labor certification reviewers from the Ministry of the Interior.

In other words, you used to need to run many departments, but now you don’t have to. You only need to go to the Football Economic Forum, a one-stop shop, and all the work can be done.

But even if so many links are saved, there are still a lot of things to do and materials to provide.

For example, La Liga’s Deportivo La Coruna wants to rent the striker Xisco who plays for Newcastle. If you want to complete this transfer, you must first involve the agent, and the agent must provide his agent certificate and the player’s authorization document, as well as the player’s own statement. In addition, Newcastle must show the club’s executives if they want to sell people, at least the signature document of the CEO, and Deportivo La Coruna must also provide the documents for renting players.

In addition to getting it done with the English Football Association and the Spanish Football Association, considering that it is a cross-border transaction, UEFA must also deal with it, so the whole process takes a lot of time, and these are all indispensable, because this is a transfer that involves players and two top league clubs, who dares to be careless?

With the Football Economic Forum, they can only run up and down the stairs, but if it was before, when there was no Football Economic Forum, the method they adopted was even more inefficient, and they could only use fax, and wait for news after sending it. Even every year, there are some reasons at the last moment of the transfer period, such as lack of fax paper or failure, or delayed response from the Football Association, which force the transfer to be cancelled.

This is why they are willing to participate in the Football Economic Forum. In addition to being a comprehensive forum here, it is also because it is more convenient and more efficient.

Paul Newman, CEO of Moon Sports Services, will appear at the Football Association office at the last moment of every Football Economic Forum. He will pay close attention to the trading volume, and Moon Sports Services will also have its own A file is retained for future analysis. This is also to provide better and more targeted services in the future, and also to improve some problems.

The time is already 23:25. Many working groups of the Football Association have finished their work and ended the busy three days. What awaits them next is leisurely work. They will not be busy again until the summer. .

But the FA still can't stop because they are still waiting for news.

Paul Newman would raise the watch on his left wrist from time to time and look at it almost several times a minute.

"Will it succeed?" The people from the Football Association seemed a little impatient.

If they can succeed, it doesn't matter if they wait, but if the negotiations break down, then their waiting will be completely in vain. Moreover, you must know that according to regulations, twenty-three o'clock is the transfer deadline, but it is now more than half When the time comes, they have every reason to just throw away their hands and leave.

After hearing this, Paul Newman chuckled and said, "Don't worry, it should be done. I'll ask the hotel to send hot coffee. Let's take a rest first. Don't worry, it should be done soon!"

Moon Sports Services does not draw any commission from the transfer. This is the purpose of the player database and the Football Economic Forum. Therefore, whether the transaction is completed or not will not have a big impact on Moon Sports Services. However, the impact of this transaction is One side is Tottenham Hotspur. Strictly speaking, Tottenham Hotspur and Moon Sports Services are brothers, and they are both Ye Qiu's properties.

Time passed minute by minute, and soon the time skipped thirty minutes.

"Let's go, we probably can't negotiate!" People from the Football Association are usually very bureaucratic. How have they ever waited for someone like this? If the other party wasn't Ye Qiu's Tottenham Hotspur, plus With Paul Newman around, they had already dropped their burdens and left.

Just when they were about to pack their things, they heard an urgent knock on the door from outside.

"Here it comes!" Paul Newman chuckled, breathed a sigh of relief, and walked over to open the door himself.

I saw Yaya Toure's agent Dimitri Seluk walking outside panting. Although this guy looked like he was about to run out of breath, his expression was extremely happy, and this expression almost never happened. You can see it on the face of every agent who walks into the room.

Because when they walked into this room, when they walked out, they no longer knew how much money they had made.

"What on earth did you do? You were half an hour late, and you are here now? No way!" These employees of the Football Association did not dare to be angry with Paul Newman, nor did they dare to offend the Premier League bosses, and even some No big-name agent dares to offend him, but Dimitri Seluk is obviously not in this category.

Therefore, these normally bossy men from the Football Association are now venting their frustration on Seluk.

Paul Newman also knows the situation. The FA is different from the Premier League. The former is a typical bureaucracy, while the latter adopts a modern corporate system for management. Unfortunately, many things in the Premier League have to go through the FA. , such as labor certificates, schedule arrangements and adjustments, red and yellow cards, disciplinary violations, etc.

"Go, prepare all the materials, and get it done quickly!" Paul Newman also felt that Seluk was quite unlucky, so he was a little sympathetic on the surface, but he knew very well in his heart that this guy encouraged Yaya Toure to change jobs and transfer. I don't know how much commission I will take from this transaction, so I deserve to be scolded.

Soon, representatives from Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City also entered the room one after another with materials. On the Tottenham Hotspur side were CEO Peter Kenyon and COO Ron Gurley signed the document, and for Manchester City, club chairman Mubarak personally negotiated at the Hilton Hotel.

"Wow!" When the people from the Football Association got the transfer documents, as usual, their first reaction was to first see who was transferring, and then to see how much the transfer fee was. When they saw this, they all A little surprised.

The price of 55 million euros is indeed not high for Tottenham Hotspur who are accustomed to selling their stars at high prices. But the problem is that this contract has other additional clauses, that is If Manchester City can finish in the top four of the league this season and Yaya Toure reaches double digits in appearances, another five million euros will be paid.

In other words, this is a transfer fee of only 55 million euros, but if all the additional terms are met, then this transfer will reach 60 million euros, which is almost the price Chelsea paid to introduce Torres. , and for a midfielder, this is simply a sky-high price.

Yaya Toure has indeed become very popular in recent years, especially after Tottenham Hotspur sold Mascherano. Real Madrid and other wealthy teams have successively pursued him. Manchester City has also I wanted to get him, but at that time Yaya Toure was worth about 30 million euros at most. But the problem was that he had just won the African Footballer of the Year and had performed at a high level for three consecutive seasons. In his playing years, these have become the reasons for his high price.

Now, by switching to Manchester City at such an astonishingly high price, he is bound to solidify his title as the world's number one defensive midfielder.

Seeing the surprised look of the FA officials, Seluk also laughed. He could take a commission of 10% from this transaction, which is 5.5 million euros. This commission will be paid by Manchester City, which means that Manchester City paid a higher fee than Torres to introduce Yaya Toure.

Of course, no one knows how much the agent took in Torres' transfer and how it was taken.

Seluk himself does not have an agent certificate, so he asked one of his agent friends to act as an agent to complete this transfer.

After several hours of intense negotiations, Tottenham Hotspur's main midfielder Yaya Toure finally transferred to Manchester City!

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The next day, major European newspapers were all about the last crazy reports of the winter transfer market the day before, especially reports on Premier League teams, because in the entire winter transfer, several Premier League teams were the most active.

In other leagues, Mourinho's Inter Milan also introduced several players including Pazzini and Ranocchia to further strengthen its strength. In Mourinho's words, it is not only to challenge the Serie A championship, but also to continue to attack the Champions League.

When the entire European football world paid attention to the crazy transfer of the Premier League during the winter break, the players of Tottenham Hotspur also heard the news of Yaya Toure's transfer to Manchester City. For them, this is not a surprising thing, after all, Yaya Toure mentioned it to them before.

However, it is more or less a pity, after all, the strength of the Ivorian is indeed very good.

Without him in the team, who can be trusted in the defensive midfielder position?

The next day, some of the first-team players gathered at Theobald were worried, and some were happy. After all, Yaya Toure's departure is an opportunity for many people, an opportunity to gain a foothold in the first team, or even a chance to play as a main player.

Ye Qiu announced this news to the players before the morning training session. At the same time, the club's official website and mobile APP also pushed this news to fans all over the world in the morning. Ye Qiu also told everyone that Yaya Toure's departure was regrettable, but Tottenham Hotspur will continue to be strong!

In the first training session that followed, everyone clearly felt Ye Qiu's test of them. After all, tomorrow will be the 25th round of the Premier League. Who will replace Yaya Toure? All the competitive players are full of fighting spirit.

During the training, Ye Qiu tried three players, Ramsey, Phil Jones and Pogba.

Among the three players, Pogba is the youngest, only 17 years old, and the least competitive one. After all, his age is there. Ramsey is the most competitive because his original running and covering ability are excellent, but his defense seems to be more focused on fighting and shovels.

In the final analysis, as a midfielder, if Ramsey wants to play as a defensive midfielder, his body is at a disadvantage. Many times, the reason why he makes a tackle is because the opponent wants to break through his defense, so he can only make a tackle when he has no choice, which is itself caused by a defensive failure.

Phil Jones is very good in terms of defensive ability, physical fitness, speed and physical confrontation, and is also very suitable for playing this defensive midfielder. Although he is only 18 years old, this kid is full of fighting spirit and has a strong desire to fight. He is the typical young Englishman who is eager to learn.

But after all, he is young and reckless. He has a rush, but he can release it but not hold it back. It will take a long time to polish it.

After Ye Qiu tested Ramsey in the morning, he pulled Phil Jones out for special training in the afternoon.

First, let Phil Jones be a defensive player, facing various offensive routines of the main players in one-third of the field, and then Mauro Tassotti, who is responsible for defensive training and skill polishing, personally supervised him, and immediately stopped him when there was a problem, reminding and teaching him how to run and stand, and how to protect the defense behind him.

In addition to Phil Jones, Ramsey, Pogba and even other midfielders were on the side or on the field during the whole process. They also received some analysis and guidance from Mauro Tassotti.

The whole tactical training lasted for an hour, and then Phil Jones was arranged to go to the practice room for special training. He was arranged to not only be able to stop the ball steadily at any time and in any situation, facing the ball from any direction, but also to be able to pass the ball to the most suitable place in the shortest time.

Moniz and Meulensteen were personally responsible for his sculpting in the practice room, especially passing and stopping the ball.

In addition to Phil Jones being valued by the coaching staff, Pogba is also the focus of the coaching staff. After all, the position of the defensive midfielder is urgently needed now, and both of them are the team's key reliance objects. People like Beckham, Ramsey and Varane can only be regarded as guest appearances at best.

The players have no objection to the coaching staff giving special training to Phil Jones and Pogba, because if they are willing to practice more, they can also get relevant treatment from the coaching staff, just not as good as that received by Phil Jones and Pogba. However, this also has to take into account the team's current shortage of defensive midfielders.

During the entire winter transfer, in addition to selling Yaya Toure, Tottenham Hotspur also sent Thorgan Hazard to play for Southampton in the English Championship. This Belgian player may not be as talented as his brother Eden Hazard, but his strength is still very good. He can't play in Tottenham Hotspur and can only go to Southampton.

With Tottenham Hotspur selling Yaya Toure at a high price, the future prospects of the North London team have also been questioned. After all, Yaya Toure plays the position of defensive midfielder, which is an important part of defense. Although Tottenham Hotspur is passively selling people, selling the main defensive midfielder still has a great impact.

Many bookmakers have lowered Tottenham Hotspur's expectations for winning the championship, especially in the Champions League. The odds of winning the championship of teams including Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid, Inter Milan, etc. have begun to catch up with Tottenham Hotspur. However, in the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur is still the top favorite to win the championship with its strong lead.

Interestingly, in the 25th round of the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur will challenge Blackburn Rovers away.

This is Phil Jones' old club!