Chapter 4: Declaring War on Superstars
"This is the manuscript prepared specifically for you by the Public Relations Department."
As soon as Gao Shen followed Raul to the administrative office of the Bernabeu Stadium, sports director Floro came to greet him.
Floro coached Real Madrid in 1939 and 1994, but was fired after he sweared at players in the locker room and was exposed by the media. After that, he coached many teams and once went to Japan. His coaching was not successful, but later he got the support of some people on the board of directors and was appointed as the sports director of Real Madrid.
Unlike the high-end, classy and star-studded Real Madrid in the eyes of most fans, the real Real Madrid is actually quite chaotic, and is full of various conflicts of interest.
Take the management system for example.
Under the club chairman there is a general manager and a little-known chairman's office, which is equivalent to the chairman's personal think tank and is usually led by the chairman's most trusted confidants. For example, Florentino's director of the presidential office is Manuel Redondo, his secretary who has been with him for decades.
The general manager is responsible for the daily operations of the club, and under him are several different departments, including the competitive department, which has a sports director. In theory, the sports director is in charge of all competitive affairs, including the basketball and football departments.
When Florentino took office as president, the sports director was former Real Madrid star Valdano, but later the results were poor and Valdano was blamed and stepped down. Florentino then hired world-class coach Sacchi to serve as technical director, who was directly responsible to the president.
In this way, the technical director is almost at the same level as the general manager, but since he is only responsible for the affairs of the football department, many competitive affairs need someone to be in charge, so Floro became the sports director.
But problems soon arose again.
Due to the team's poor performance, head coach Luxemburgo and technical director Sacchi were blamed and resigned. The technical director was taken over by vice-president Butragueno, who was also the head of the public relations department. He simply did not have the energy to worry about so many things, so he only took care of the first team, while the second team and the youth team were handed over to sports director Floro.
This situation lasted only three months before Florentino announced his resignation and new chairman Martin took office.
So now the internal management of Real Madrid is a mess.
The team lost 0-1 to Arsenal at home in the first leg of the Champions League, so the second leg at Highbury became crucial; before that, the city derby against Atletico Madrid at the weekend could not be lost, and the league results were also under great pressure.
It was at this time that the new chairman Martin fired Carlo and appointed Gao Shen, which made everyone even more anxious.
At this moment, everyone in the Real Madrid office is thinking about one thing, which is how to resolve the external public pressure.
To put it simply, it means helping the new chairman clean up his mess.
In any case, the new president also represents the image and interests of Real Madrid.
Therefore, no one would pay attention to Gao Shen.
After Frollo handed Gao Shen the manuscript prepared by the PR department, he just reminded him, "Don't be nervous when you go on stage later, just read it once according to the manuscript. As for the question-and-answer session, we have also arranged it."
In his opinion, Gao Shen is just a rookie who has just started out.
No one around paid any attention to Gao Shen either. No one from the public relations department even came to remind Gao Shen what he could and could not say when he went on stage.
Everyone treats him as a tool for reading scripts on stage!
Gao Shen knew that he was a nobody and his words had little influence, but he didn't take it to heart. He took the manuscript to a corner where no one was paying attention and took a look at it. He found that it was all empty talk without any substance.
With a manuscript of this caliber, if it had been before his time travel, he could have easily improvised it for half an hour without repeating himself.
This is the first time he faces the media as the head coach of Real Madrid. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to speak out, but he is just reading a script?
joke!
Gao Shen tore up the manuscript and threw it directly into the trash can next to him.
…
…
This press conference attracted many media reporters, but the process was the same as Gao Shen had guessed.
At the meeting, the new chairman Martin repeatedly emphasized that his choice of Gao Shen as the head coach was a well-considered decision. He said that he had been observing Gao Shen for a long time and he believed that Gao Shen had the ability and courage to lead Real Madrid out of the predicament.
He emphasized that Gao Shen graduated from Loughborough University, the top institution in the global sports world. Gao Shen had excellent academic performance during his time at school and also performed well during his internship at Real Madrid. He was promoted to the first team as an exception to accumulate experience with the team.
This made Gao Shen, who was sitting upright next to him, feel a little ashamed. He didn't know that he was so good and so valued by his leaders.
Come to think of it, it’s still too low-key.
This is still to blame on the Chinese national football team. They played so badly, which led to a serious lack of confidence among the Chinese people in football.
In short, Martin collected a lot of evidence to prove to everyone that he was serious about choosing Gao Shen and it was by no means a farce. The starting point was that he felt that Real Madrid needed to carry out an impulsive, drastic and drastic reform.
"From 2003 to now, we have not won a single championship, which is unacceptable in any way. We may even be eliminated in the last 16 of the Champions League for two consecutive seasons, which is also unsatisfactory."
"We all know that our team is sick, very sick, and our team needs surgery, a major surgery."
Martin then praised Gao Shen highly, saying that his youth and drive were exactly what Real Madrid needed most right now.
After the president and technical director Butragueno, Gao Shen also spoke for the first time as Real Madrid head coach.
Actually it's just memorizing the script.
The entire speech expounded on Gao Shen's views on the current situation of Real Madrid and his envisioned solutions, but it was full of empty talk and evasion of the main issues, and none of them was down to earth.
After Gao Shen finished reciting, the reactions of the media reporters on the scene were also very indifferent.
These people are well-informed and are good at writing. How could they not know whether there is useful information or not?
After Gao Shen finished reciting the script, he entered the free question session.
Although there are many people raising their hands, there is obviously a routine. For example, the first person to be named is a reporter from Real Madrid TV, one of ours. The second one is a reporter from AS, also one of ours. The third one is a reporter from Marca, also one of ours. The fourth one is a reporter from El País, still one of ours…
The reporters asked questions in a serious tone, and the people on the stage answered them in a serious tone.
Gao Shen was not in a hurry and waited patiently for his opportunity.
He believed that given the cunningness of media reporters, they would ask him questions sooner or later.
Sure enough, the subsequent rounds of questions became increasingly sharp, with one reporter even asking directly about what Martin had said at the board meeting, that more than half of the incompetent players would be fired.
But this time Martin was obviously scared and he turned a blind eye.
Of course the media reporters were not satisfied, so they turned their target to Gao Shen who was standing next to him.
Young people are prone to being impulsive.
First there were two light questions in a row, such as how he felt about coaching Real Madrid, which were all expected.
But soon, trouble came.
"Gao, I'm a reporter from the Catalan daily sports newspaper. Chairman Martin said at the board meeting that more than half of Real Madrid's players failed to perform and should be cleared out. As the executor of this policy, you have great expectations from the chairman and management. How do you plan to implement this policy? How do you lead Real Madrid out of its current predicament?"
As soon as this question came out, there was an uproar at the scene, and the media reporters in the audience became excited as if they had been injected with chicken blood.
Gao Shen is not a rookie who just graduated from school, how could he not see the trap in the words?
He pretended to be silent and secretly turned to look at the press officer, who secretly winked at him and shook his head, indicating that he should not answer directly. Even Butragueno on the side smelled something wrong. He thought Gao Shen could not handle such a situation and was afraid that he would say something wrong, so he wanted to resolve the dilemma first.
But at this moment, Gao Shen spoke.
"Although I have only been at Real Madrid for seven months, I have already felt the history of this club."
Gao Shen's opening was quite satisfactory, but the topic soon changed.
"I know that the performance of the first team is not ideal now. Some players even make us doubt whether they are qualified to wear the Real Madrid jersey. In our youth team, there is a group of very outstanding, very young and energetic players who are very loyal to the club. I know them and I hope to give them more opportunities."
Gao Shen's words surprised Martin, Butragueno and others sitting on the podium. This was not in the speech. What did he want to do?
Who gave him the courage to do such a reckless thing?
But Gao Shen continues.
"I will use facts to prove that the reason why Real Madrid is Real Madrid is because of unity and the spirit of Juanito who fought to the last breath, not because of one person or some people in the team! I always insist that in Real Madrid, all players are equal and no one is qualified to be special, no matter who he is!"
Gao Shen's words were so powerful that they immediately caused an uproar in the press conference hall.
All the media reporters read too much information from these few short sentences.
Is this a declaration of war against the superstars?
Compared to the excitement of the media, the Real Madrid players at the scene, including Raul, Butragueno, and Martin, were all stunned and even a little frightened. Is it okay to say such words? Is it okay to say them in front of so many media?
Six years!
The superstar policy has always been the political correctness of Real Madrid!
Now, the head coach of Real Madrid, even though he is only acting, has publicly declared war on the superstars. Is he trying to subvert the game?
If the media reporters just wanted to get a bullet from Gao Shen's mouth before, Gao Shen now directly dropped a missile, making everyone dizzy.
The new chairman, Martin, was so shocked that he turned to Butragueno, as if asking: What happened to your PR department? Didn't you reconcile the lines with him before?
Butragueno was also stunned. Gao Shen's sudden move caught them off guard.
After sensing the new chairman's anger, Butragueno turned to Floro and asked, "What did you tell him? Didn't you say to read from the script? Why did you say so much without a script?"
Floro was also confused. He didn't expect Gao Shen to be so bold as to declare war on a superstar in front of so many media reporters. What did he want to do?
Is this kid crazy?
Martin saw the expressions of Butragueno and Floro, and he understood. Then he looked at Gao Shen, and his eyes became different.
It’s a pity that this kid acted like a taciturn person before. It turns out that he was just pretending to be a pig and eating the tiger, waiting for this opportunity!
Now, his words have directly poked a hole in the sky, and everything has been laid on the table. He has even kidnapped me and forced me to stand up and endorse him.
Putting aside other things, if he now comes out to say that Gao Shen’s words were not instructed by him, who would believe him?
I have been playing with eagles all my life, but now my eyes have been pecked by a sparrow.
Miscalculated!
