Fox in the Penalty Area

"Fox in the Forbidden Zone"

"Hu turned down the King of Madrid!"

Leeds City director of football Nevin Ball was very excited after knowing the result.

"Does this mean that he has changed his mind and wants to stay?!"

It is actually normal for such "reneges" to occur in the football world. After all, no one knows what will happen tomorrow.

There are times when players and clubs are at loggerheads, and there is a lot of noise in the media, and everyone thinks there must be a breakup and the players have to leave. If the next club fails to be negotiated, in the end the player will still have to hold his nose and return to the original club to continue playing football.

Say a few words like "What happened before was all misunderstandings caused by poor communication. I will always love the club." On the surface, everyone can pretend that nothing happened. And as long as the players are capable, they don't have to worry about not having a position when they return to the team, and they have to use them how they want.

The relationship between Hulay and Leeds City is certainly not like this.

But Leeds City Club must also be happy to see Hulay regret staying.

And they won't think that this is Hu Lai being "slapped in the face".

"While I hope what you are saying is true, I still think you are wishful thinking." Harry Bradley, the club's commercial director, ruthlessly popped Ball's "fantasy bubble."

"Okay..." Ball looked at the transfer offer email from Madrid Pirates and sighed, knowing that he was just daydreaming.

Hu Lai never lacked suitors.

Without the Madrid King, there is Catalonia United, the Blue and White Munich, the Turin Bulls, and now the Madrid Pirates...

Speaking of the Madrid Pirates, at first Nevin Ball thought they were here to cause trouble for the rivals in the same city, the Kings of Madrid. He followed the offer out of hatred for the rivals in the same city and wanted to disturb the good things of the Kings of Madrid or cause the opponent to bleed. of.

At the beginning, many clubs made bids for Hulay, and Madrid Pirates were among them, which was not conspicuous. After all, everyone is from a wealthy family.

But later, as the quotations increased, fewer and fewer clubs were still willing to bid.

Leeds City is holding on to the bottom line of 90 million euros, but they don't necessarily want to sell Hu Lai for more than 90 million euros. Of course, they hope to sell Hu Lai for as high a price as possible.

But no matter how rich other wealthy clubs are, they are still not successful. Leeds City will pay as much as they want.

Because of the principle of financial fairness, they also want to use as little money as possible to accomplish big things.

In this case, the Madrid Pirates stand out because they have been competing with the Madrid King in terms of quotations.

If the King of Madrid offers 70 million, they will offer 75 million; if the King of Madrid offers 80 million, they will offer 85 million; if the King of Madrid offers 90 million, they will offer 100 million - yes, Madrid The Pirates are the first club to offer Hulay 100 million euros.

Then the King of Madrid offered 110 million, and the Pirates of Madrid matched 110 million.

It wasn't until the Madrid King offered a transfer fee of 120 million euros that the Madrid Pirates stopped following.

At that time, Leeds City deliberately waited an extra day to see if the Madrid Pirates would continue to bid.

As a result, the other party didn't come out.

It seems that this quote has exceeded their budget.

Now they don't know from which channel they know that Hu Lai and the King of Madrid have broken down, and they made an offer immediately, and the price was 120 million, instead of raising it bit by bit like before.

This shows that they really want to get Hu Lai, not to cause trouble for their mortal enemy in the same city...

"Do you want to agree to the offer from Madrid Pirates?" Bradley asked Ball.

Nevin Ball is solely responsible for the team's transfer matters, so he wants to ask Ball for his opinion.

Ball shook his head: "Let's wait for the media to spread the news that the Madrid King was rejected by Hu, and see if there are other teams participating in the bid..."

Now that Hu Lai can no longer be retained, Ball still hopes to bring as much income to the club as possible.

※※※

Hu Lai met his Chinese national team teammate Zhou Zijing at Leeds City's training ground in Frankfurt.

"Do you want me to be your translator, elbow spirit?" Hu Lai enthusiastically showed off his big brother style.

But Zhou Zijing rejected his kindness: "No, I have been learning English."

Hu Lai nodded: "Okay."

Then he stepped aside and asked Lorenzo, the captain of the team, to come up and welcome Zhou Zijing.

"Hello, I am Lorenzo Esposito, an Italian and the captain of this team. You see, I am an Italian and can be the captain of an English team, so you don't have to worry at all. Integration issue, even though you are the only one in our team... uh, no, the second Chinese... We at Leeds City are a small team, and small teams have the advantages of small teams, that is, they are more tolerant. Everyone gets along better. I will introduce them to you one by one in a moment... There are English, Scottish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Cameroonian, Chinese, French, Japanese in our team... Now There is one more Chinese. This is good, world peace..."

Zhou Zijing listened to the other party speaking very fast and with a strong Italian accent in English. Even though he was guessing, he still couldn't fully understand what the other party said. And sometimes his attention would be attracted by Lorenzo's hand that was about to wave away as an afterimage, and he completely forgot to listen to what the Italian said...

However, he glanced at Hu Lai who was watching the show next to him, and he couldn't bear to ask for help from the audience outside the venue.

If he surrendered to Hu Lai on his first day in Leeds City, what qualifications did he have to say that he would defeat him?

Besides, even basic communication depends on Hu Lai as a translator, so how will I deal with myself after Hu Lai leaves in a few days?

So Zhou Zijing put a smile on his face, pretended that he understood, and nodded repeatedly.

Lorenzo didn't know that Zhou Zijing didn't understand much, so he took Zhou Zijing to greet his teammates one by one.

When it was Hu Lai's turn, the other party asked him in Mandarin: "Actually, you don't understand, do you?"

Zhou Zijing hummed: "How is that possible? Of course I understand!"

"Awesome." Hu Lai gave him a thumbs up, but didn't expose his lie. “Welcome to Leeds City!”

Zhou Zijing shook hands with him, turned around and walked to the next teammate.

When the Leeds City players saw Zhou Zijing, they actually had mixed emotions.

Because this means that there is not much time left before Hu Lai leaves the team.

The reason why the club signed another Chinese player so quickly is of course to continue Leeds City's influence in the Chinese market and in the minds of Chinese fans.

If Hu Lai is in the team, why is it necessary to sign Zhou Zijing?

"Hello, I'm Zhou Zijing!" Zhou Zijing stretched out his hand to Charlie Potter.

The latter just touched Zhou Zijing lightly and said perfunctorily: "Charlie Potter."

Kamala, who was next to her, also seemed relatively cold.

After holding hands for a while, Zhou Zijing could already feel the attitude of his teammates.

To say it's unfriendly, I'm definitely not.

But when it comes to being friendly...not at all.

As for why this happened, he was not stupid and could naturally guess it.

It must still be related to Hu Lai.

He is very popular on this team and everyone likes him. Now that his arrival means Hu Lai is leaving, how many people can become enthusiastic about him?

Although it has just been his first day on this team, Zhou Zijing has already felt the shadow that is everywhere in this team...

He didn't feel frustrated, on the contrary, he became more energetic.

Sure enough... the game between me and Hu Lai has already begun!

※※※

"Although today is Zhou's first training session, his performance was pretty good and exceeded our expectations..."

After the day's training, the Leeds City coaches gathered in head coach Clark's room again, drinking tea and summarizing the exchange.

"His body is stronger than we imagined, which makes me optimistic about his prospects of adapting to the Premier League and integrating into the team. When Hu joined, he spent almost a month on physical strength training. But Zhou doesn’t have to at all. He just needs to understand and adapt to our tactics..."

Sam Randill sighed: "To be honest, after watching today's training, I am even more reluctant to leave Hu... If Zhou and Hu partner up on the front line, they will be more powerful than before... By then Kamara will Playing with Lasky on the wing, and Hu and Zhou in the middle, they will definitely push our offensive firepower to a new peak... What a pity!"

He spoke out the thoughts of many coaches.

such a pity!

Although it was only one day of training, during the team's confrontation drills, Zhou Zijing's role as the offensive fulcrum in the frontcourt was fully demonstrated, and Hu Lai surrounded him to capture opportunities, which also made the defense miserable and difficult to defend.

This was the first training, and only Hu Lai and Zhou Zijing had the best cooperation.

If he can train more and integrate Zhou Zijing into the team's offensive tactics, his offensive firepower will only be stronger.

But the fact is obvious, Hu Lai will not stay.

This super powerful offensive combination can only remain in training and everyone's imagination.

"Don't think about it now." Matt said, "The club has already agreed to the bids from Madrid Pirates, Catalonia United and Turin Bulls. I think this time it will be decided where Hu will go..."

When Matt said this, the room suddenly fell silent.

Because everyone realized that the countdown to Hu Lai's departure had begun.

We may meet again in the future, perhaps on the playing field, as opponents.

And the thought of having to compete with such a person gave everyone a headache.

They all turned their attention to the person who had the biggest headache.

Tony Clark waved his hand: "Let's first consider how to integrate Zhou into our tactics..."