Chapter 76 I want to ask Real Madrid to pay
While Yang Hao was in Brazil, far away in Spain, with the help of Paulo Futre, Atletico Madrid exchanged Solari for Argentine midfielder Cambiasso from Real Madrid.
This Argentine midfielder joined Real Madrid in 1996. After playing for the youth team for two seasons, he was loaned to Independiente, where he played for two seasons and performed very well, showing great potential.
But now Real Madrid is obviously not focusing on the team itself, but on the superstars.
Whether it is Florentino or Sanz, they are constantly playing the superstar card, and no one cares about Cambiasso at all.
As a major signing this summer, Real Madrid first spent 13.5 million euros to sign local striker Munitis from Racing Santander, and then negotiated with Atletico Madrid for Solari's transfer.
The Argentine decided to join Real Madrid early on, and before going to Brazil, Yang Hao instructed Paulo Futre to acquire Cambiasso in exchange.
Both are Argentines. Solari is a famous star and an Argentine international, while Cambiasso is a potential rookie. For Real Madrid, Solari is undoubtedly more attractive.
So, the two sides hit it off, and Atletico Madrid exchanged Solari for Cambiasso from Real Madrid.
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On the other hand, Real Sociedad head coach Javier Clemente had already taken a liking to Jordi Lardin, who was playing for Espanyol at the time, when he was coaching the Spanish national youth team. He not only selected him for the national youth team, but also later brought him into the Spanish national team.
Real Sociedad was nearly relegated last season, and Clement is interested in signing Jordi Lardin to strengthen the attack on the wing.
When Paul Futre called Yang Hao and talked about this matter, Yang Hao immediately instructed the sports director to use the exchange method to replace the young player Xavi Alonso with Jordi Lardin.
One is Clement's favorite player, and the other is a young player from the youth team whom Clement does not value. Moreover, Lardin is also a Spanish international. Comparing the two, Real Sociedad chose to make the deal at Clement's insistence.
Atletico Madrid also exchanged Jordi Lardin for Xabi Alonso.
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On the eve of Yang Hao's return to Europe, the difficult negotiations between Atletico Madrid and Chelsea finally came to a conclusion.
Both sides took a step back, and Chelsea signed Dutch striker Hasselbaink from Atletico Madrid for a high price of 30 million euros.
As the winner of the La Liga Golden Boot and also nominated for the official season's best team, Hasselbaink has performed very well for Atletico Madrid this season and is one of the few bright spots in Atletico Madrid's chaotic season.
More importantly, whether at Leeds United or Atletico Madrid, he has been consistently productive, which is very rare.
Chelsea desperately needs a super striker like Hasselbaink to take charge.
But Atletico Madrid's asking price was much higher than Chelsea's, which also scared off many teams including Leeds United. The two sides fell into a stalemate in negotiations. In the end, it even forced Hasselbaink to stand up and make it clear that he must return to the Premier League and wanted to go to Chelsea. This forced Atletico Madrid to make concessions.
30 million euros, the Dutch striker finally left!
Shortly afterwards, Premier League club Middlesbrough also announced that it had bought out Juninho for a transfer fee of 10 million euros.
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After selling a series of stars, Atletico Madrid had more money in hand and immediately launched an attack on Espanyol's main central defender Pochettino.
This is the player selected by Yang Hao.
It’s not because of Pochettino’s future achievements as a head coach, but because Pochettino studied under Bielsa, his technical characteristics are very consistent with Yang Hao’s tactical needs, and he is very experienced.
With only Lucio, Carvalho and Santi Denia, plus Gaspar, it is actually difficult for Yang Hao to feel at ease.
After all, the season is long, and who doesn’t have an injury?
Moreover, if Atletico Madrid wants to participate in the UEFA Cup, it is definitely impossible for them to only have these few central defenders.
If they want to vigorously cultivate Lucio and Carvalho, they certainly cannot introduce high-level central defenders, and high-level central defenders will not come to Atletico Madrid.
For example, Yang Hao asked Paul Futre to contact Ayala of AC Milan. What was the result?
They went to Valencia.
Ayala didn't even look at Atletico Madrid. He wanted to go to a team that could win the Champions League.
In this situation, Atletico Madrid had no choice but to settle for the second best and choose Pochettino.
This player's ability is not as good as Ayala, and he can't even reach the European first-line level, but he is more than capable of being a starter in La Liga and a substitute in the Champions League.
Not to mention, he is particularly in line with Yang Hao's tactics.
Pochettino's value was not high and Espanyol could not keep him, so they proposed to exchange him for Jose Luque.
After asking Yang Hao's opinion, Paul Futre agreed to the transfer.
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From Sevilla to Real Betis, from Real Madrid to Real Sociedad, and now to Espanyol...
The entire Spanish media is surprised by Atletico Madrid's transfer operations. What is going on?
Obviously, they sold a lot of players and received a lot of transfer fees, but why are they just exchanging players?
Have you never thought about recruiting new players?
The answer was soon revealed.
On the day Yang Hao returned to Europe, Atletico Madrid officially announced that it had signed Danish midfielder Thomas Gravesen from Bundesliga Hamburg for 2.5 million euros.
The 24-year-old midfielder has played for Hamburg for three seasons. Although he has always been a starter and helped Hamburg finish third in the Bundesliga last season, his role has never been taken seriously.
As Yang Hao said before, the entire European football world now seriously underestimates organizing midfielders.
Although Gravesen was selected into Kicker magazine's list of the best foreign players of the season, he was not taken seriously and had problems with the contract renewal with the team. After Atletico Madrid intervened, especially after Yang Hao made a phone call, Gravesen agreed to transfer to Atletico Madrid, and the transfer fee was only 2.5 million euros.
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Unlike when he left in a low-key manner, when Yang Hao returned to Spain this time and arrived at the Capital Airport, someone leaked the news and he was actually surrounded and blocked by many Spanish media.
One of their biggest concerns is that Atletico Madrid has only signed two players so far.
One is Levante's winger Vincent, and the other is Hamburg's Gravesen.
"It's already late June. Does that mean Atletico Madrid has no plans to recruit any more players?"
Yang Hao had just experienced a long-distance flight and was physically and mentally exhausted, but he still cheered himself up and dealt with the media reporters in front of him.
"I want to say that our transfer investment this summer will not be small. Many transfers are in progress, but they have not yet reached the stage of being announced to the public. What I can guarantee is that we will introduce younger and more competitive players."
Using the old to bring up the new is Yang Hao’s team-building strategy.
"Mr. Yang, I heard that Valencia recently intends to further increase its offer for Ruben Baraja. What do you think?" a reporter asked with concern.
Yang Hao laughed. "I have always kept in close contact with Reuben. We have had several phone calls and discussed many things. I understand his concerns and considerations, and I respect his opinions."
"I have to be clear that we have never actively sold a player."
Yang Hao said that many media outlets outside have accused Atletico Madrid of selling players indiscriminately, which has seriously misled Atletico Madrid 's fans.
"Including this time with Ruben, I told him very clearly that both I and the team need him to stay. Even if Valencia offers a higher price, as long as he is willing to stay and keep the team going, we will refuse it ."
"In fact, as everyone noticed a few days ago, we have just signed a shirt advertising sponsorship contract, which will earn us €3 million per season from our sponsor, Emirates Airlines."
"Our colleagues in the marketing department are also actively recruiting investors. Our team's overall operating income will see a significant increase. Therefore, we don't need to rely on selling players to survive. On the contrary, we need to retain players to ensure our competitiveness."
But Yang Hao said that he regretted not being able to keep all the players.
The media reporter also asked another question, which was a hot topic in Spain this summer, the Real Madrid election.
What’s interesting is that, whether it’s due to media publicity or the war of words between the two major candidates, many media and fans have gradually shifted their attention to Yang Hao.
The cause of the incident was very interesting. Sanz accused Florentino of not understanding football.
Because before this, Florentino publicly ridiculed Yang Hao as a big liar, but what was the result?
Yang Hao led Atletico Madrid to a miraculous relegation.
This is undoubtedly exposing Florentino's scars and attacking his weaknesses at the same time. Florentino is not a pushover either . On the one hand, he has introduced his running mate Valdano, a world-class coach and a veteran of Real Madrid.
On the other hand, Florentino accused Sanz of incompetence. It was because of the lack of competitiveness of Real Madrid under his coaching that Real Madrid lost to their city rivals Atletico Madrid in the King's Cup final.
"Even now, I still stick to my point of view. Yang Hao is a big liar. Maybe he led Atletico Madrid to avoid relegation, but he has never truly proven himself. The distance between him and success is almost as far as the distance from Spain to the capital of China."
Florentino said that if he were to manage Real Madrid, he would never make the same mistake as Sanz.
"We are Real Madrid, the best team in the world, and we should have the best players in the world, like Luis Figo, or Zinedine Zidane, or Ronaldo."
"We should invite the best players in the world to the Bernabéu to play the most beautiful football for us. This is Real Madrid!"
In this way, Real Madrid's two major candidates kept pulling back and forth and attacking repeatedly around the topic of Yang Hao.
Yang Hao was in Brazil at the time and heard some news, but he never expected it to cause such a big stir in Spain and Europe.
When the media reporters asked him at the airport, he was speechless and said, "Can I charge them for the portrait rights?"
Yang Hao knew that the media reporters wanted him to get involved, which would make things more lively, but he didn't fall for it.
"I want to say that whether the next president of Real Madrid is Florentino Perez or Sanz, it is the same for me and Atletico, because our goal has never changed, even if they won the Champions League."
"In the new La Liga season, we will perform better than Real Madrid!"
