Chapter 1 The most outrageous joke of the century
April 8, 2000, south of Madrid, the capital of Spain.
On the north bank of the Manzanares River, next to the M30 highway.
Yang Hao got out of the back seat of the taxi and turned around to see the magnificent Calderon Stadium spanning the M30 road.
Every day, a constant stream of traffic passes through the tunnel beneath this crawling giant. As long as everyone looks up, they can see the huge bronze logo of Atletico Madrid, just like Yang Hao is now.
In the early years, when Atletico Madrid's performance was booming, the team logo gave people a feeling of increasing majesty.
But in the past two years, especially now, everyone feels more like decline and desolation.
This is how it should be for teams in the relegation zone.
Yang Hao stood at the intersection, looking at the Atletico Madrid logo above the tunnel entrance from afar, and a sense of eagerness arose in his heart.
He straightened his suit slightly, tightened the briefcase in his hand, and walked towards the office door of the Calderon Stadium.
Today, he came to interview the head coach of Atletico Madrid.
…
Yang Hao never dared to believe that such an impossible thing as time travel would actually happen to him.
In his previous life, he was a little-known writer on the Chinese book website in 2023, who had been writing football novels for more than ten years.
Suddenly one day, he suddenly had the urge to write a novel about saving Chinese football. Needless to say, the result was a complete failure.
Even the dragons of Namek can't fulfill a wish, so mortals shouldn't even think about it.
The script for the Chinese national football team can never be written wrong.
The moment he decided to cut it off, he slapped himself hard a few times and really wanted to chop off a chicken to make his decision clear.
Feeling depressed, Yang Hao went to the park to relax. He sat on the stone railings of the pavilion in the middle of the lake to rest and thought about his new book which he had not yet finished. Unexpectedly, he accidentally fell .
At that moment, he kept swearing in his mind that he would never write in a sloppy way again.
I will definitely concentrate on writing, and work hard to ask for votes, collections, follow-up reading, and subscriptions...
Help, I can't swim!
God is indeed kind to those men who have reformed and are handsome, so he was rescued.
But who could have imagined that when he came ashore, it was already 2000 and he was in Madrid, the capital of Spain.
Yang Hao was wondering if this was a punishment for writing about the Chinese national football team?
As a veteran who had created many books in his previous life and read countless time-travel online novels, the first thing Yang Hao did after confirming that he had won the time-travel lottery was to look for a time-traveler gift package.
Commonly known as: Gold Finger.
But after waiting for a long time, he sadly discovered that he failed in writing books and failed even more in time travel.
A time traveler who doesn't even have a golden finger is like rushing to his grandma's house in the first round of trial push.
There is no way, people have already come through, what else can we do?
Fortunately, Yang Hao discovered that his new identity in this world was not bad. He actually had a coaching certificate that allowed him to coach in the top league, and he was also proficient in two foreign languages, English and Spanish.
This made him want to attack a Barcelona staff member.
We are kindred spirits.
After adapting to the identity of a time traveler, Yang Hao began to work on his coaching plan.
As a football fan himself, he has been writing football novels for more than ten years. He knows a lot about professional football in the past and in the future. After traveling through time, he also has a coaching certificate. Is there any job more suitable for him than being a coach?
…
Madrid in 2000 was in turmoil.
Real Madrid's performance was sluggish and head coach Toshack was sacked due to poor results. The second team head coach Bosque went to the first team for the third time to save the day. With no hope of winning the league, he led this precarious and debt-ridden team to struggle forward.
At present, Real Madrid only has two fronts left: the Champions League and the Copa del Rey.
Real Madrid president Sanz is plagued by controversy due to debts of hundreds of millions of euros. Opposition leader Florentino Perez is a well-known Spanish tycoon who is determined to overthrow Sanz in this summer's presidential election.
His campaign slogan is: pay off the debt and sign the world's top superstar, Barcelona star Luis Figo, for Real Madrid!
In everyone's opinion, this is a slogan that is too crazy to be achieved.
But as a time traveler, Yang Hao knew this script too well.
So he found a way to get into the Real Madrid Offensive Fan Club which Florentino had set up specifically for the campaign.
With the analytical ability and football knowledge accumulated from years of writing football novels, coupled with the advantage of being a time traveler and his repeated support for Bosque, Real Madrid has repeatedly defeated strong opponents in the Champions League, allowing Yang Hao to quickly stand out in the fan club.
Finally, he had the opportunity to communicate with Florentino face to face. He tactfully reminded Florentino that the superstar strategy had very fatal flaws and that some improvements were necessary.
In response to this, Yang Hao also prepared a complete plan and planned to have a good talk with Florentino.
But in the end, Florentino just thought he was just talking big and trying to shock people.
At this moment, Florentino was full of confidence and ambition about the grand plan he had outlined. He would not listen to any dissenting opinions at all. Not only that, he directly expelled Yang Hao from the Attack Fan Club.
The reason is both far-fetched and reasonable.
Yang Hao is not a member of Real Madrid.
…
When God closes a door for you, he often opens a window for you.
Although being turned away by Florentino, Yang Hao met Michel Angel Gil, the 37-year-old general manager of Atletico Madrid, known as Little Gil, in a bar in Madrid, who came to drown his sorrows in a drink.
Because Yang Hao cursed Florentino a few times and said that Real Madrid would suffer a great loss because of his superstar strategy, Hill, who had drunk a little wine, cheered for him and treated him to a drink.
The two got to know each other because of this.
After learning about Yang Hao's relationship with Florentino, and listening to Yang Hao's analysis of Real Madrid's problems and Florentino's various analyses of superstar strategy, Hill was greatly impressed and invited him to analyze Atletico Madrid.
This season, Atletico Madrid has had a much harder time than Real Madrid.
Real Madrid's performance was poor. Although its ranking once dropped to around 10th in the standings, they have a strong foundation and bounced back immediately. They are now working hard to qualify for the Champions League next season.
More importantly, Bosque's team has repeatedly performed well in the Champions League and advanced all the way.
But Atletico Madrid is different.
This season, under the coaching of Italian tinkerer Ranieri, the team's results have been very poor, especially after the club's president Jesus Gil was imprisoned at the end of December, the team's debt of more than 70 million euros was exposed, and the government took over Atletico Madrid.
Including Vice Chairman Cerezo and General Manager Hill Jr., all have been suspended from their posts.
During the winter break, under the auspices of interim trustee Luis Rubi Blanco, in order to improve the team's financial situation, Spanish golden boy Jose Mari was sold to Serie A giants AC Milan for 19 million euros.
Then he sold Argentine central defender Jose Chamot to the Rossoneri for 3 million euros.
The two transactions brought in 22 million euros, but the team's overall strength was affected. The trusteeship group was heavily condemned by the Spanish media, and Atletico Madrid fans continued to protest against the trusteeship group's decisions through marches and other means.
Although Ranieri refused to agree with the media and fans, the team's performance went from bad to worse and fell directly into the relegation zone. The Italian finally submitted his resignation on March 3, and the trusteeship group temporarily appointed Atletico Madrid's former coach Antic to take over the team.
Just like the number of times Bosque took over Real Madrid, Antić also returned three times.
But unlike his affirmation of Bosque, Yang Hao bluntly asserted that Antic could not save Atletico Madrid.
" On the contrary, he will lead Atletico Madrid into the abyss of relegation!"
"No matter how many years pass, the world will find Atletico Madrid this season incredible and unbelievable, because with Atletico's star lineup, they should not be relegated in any case."
Who does Atletico Madrid have now?
Spanish Prince Quico, Dutch super scorer Hasselbaink, Spanish talented midfielder Valeron, Brazilian talented midfielder Juninho (on loan at Middlesbrough), Argentine winger Solari, Portuguese talented midfielder Hugo Leal, Uruguayan midfielder Pablo Garcia, Spanish midfielder Baraja, local left-back Capdevila, goalkeeper Molina...
Not to mention that Atletico Madrid itself has a group of strong core players, such as Tony Munoz, Santi, Jose Luque, Gamara, Celso Ayala, Gaspar, Aguilera...
No matter from which angle you look at it, the current Atletico Madrid team can be said to be full of stars and talents, and is definitely aiming for the top three, or even the league championship. It is impossible for them to perform so badly and even be relegated.
Even in 2023, countless people are still puzzled by Atletico Madrid's relegation.
Many people blamed Ranieri for his poor coaching, some blamed Hill's imprisonment for the huge impact it had on Atletico Madrid, and some believed it was due to the club's financial crisis...
Yang Hao told Xiao Hill that these are the problems of this season, but Atletico Madrid has had a very deep and fatal problem over the years, which is the most fatal.
"If this problem is not solved, no one can save Atletico Madrid, including Antic, who once brought Atletico Madrid the double championship!"
And the facts have proved that Yang Hao was right.
Since the 27th round of the league, Atletico Madrid's performance has not improved under the coaching of Antic.
1:1 draw with Real Betis, 0:1 loss to Valladolid, 1:1 home draw with Real Madrid, 0:3 loss to Numancia, 1:2 loss to Athletic Bilbao...
Then last night, in the 32nd round of La Liga, we suffered a crushing 1:4 away defeat to Deportivo La Coruña.
Under the leadership of Antic, Atletico Madrid not only failed to break out of the relegation zone, but its ranking continued to decline.
Now ranked 19th in La Liga, only slightly better than the bottom-ranked Sevilla, but already 4 points behind Real Betis, led by Guus Hiddink, which is 17th outside the relegation zone.
With six rounds left in the league, this is a situation that is almost impossible to reverse.
The whole of Spain, the entire European football world, and even fans all over the world have unanimously concluded that Atletico Madrid's relegation is a foregone conclusion!
Even Atletico Madrid fans began to accept this judgment, so after losing to Deportivo La Coruña away, they organized a more massive protest march, forcing the government to compromise, suspend the trusteeship, and invite back Hill Sr., Cerezo and Hill Jr.
Obviously, neither the government nor the trustee group wants to bear the blame for Atletico Madrid's relegation!
With so many stars, they were relegated in the end. This would be the most outrageous joke of the century in the history of the four major leagues!
…
Reinforcements are like putting out a fire.
As soon as the father and son Hill returned to the Calderon Stadium, Hill Jr. immediately advocated for a coaching change.
After the contact over the past two or three months and many in-depth conversations, he has complete faith in Yang Hao.
He firmly believed that if anyone could save Atletico Madrid from the dire situation, that person must be Yang Hao.
So, the day after the crushing defeat to Deportivo La Coruña, Yang Hao walked into the Calderon Stadium and stood in front of Old Hill, Cerezo and Young Hill.
When both Hill and Cerezo were surprised at his youth, he made a promise with a resounding voice.
"Only I can help Atletico Madrid avoid relegation and become the strongest team in Spain and even Europe in the next few years!"
