The Eastern Giant Awakens
Remember in one second
After discovering that Gret is a man with a story, Wu Yun told Gao Wei about the situation. The two curious Chinese boys started investigating Gret's past under the pretext of getting to know their teammate better. From team captain Brigel and Tenonio, who was both a teacher and a friend to them, they learned some things about Gret's past.
Gretar was born in 1980 and came from Benfica's youth training camp. When he was young, he played for Manchester City for three years. In 2001, he witnessed the team captain Harland being maliciously fouled by former Manchester United captain Keane, which directly led to his retirement. From then on, he decided that he would never be weak on the field and wanted to be a "bad guy", hence his current fierce and ferocious playing style.
While Ge Lie saw his teammates being bullied, he would stand up for them every time. He stood up for Wu Yu because he had already considered Wu Yu as one of his own teammates in his heart.
And two years later, in 2003, Gretzky experienced the sudden death of his Cameroonian friend and teammate Marc-Vivien Foé during a Confederations Cup match, which made him question football. This also explains why Gretzky was so tense when he saw Gao Wei being knocked unconscious by Braga's goalkeeper.
After three years in Manchester, Gretz returned to Portugal, where he played for a SuperLiga team and started a family, having a son.
However, his 8-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 5 and has been fighting against the disease for three years. Grett did not complain, but continued to work hard on the pitch to earn treatment fees for his son. He is currently one of the highest-paid players in Maritimo's salary structure, and his performance is worth this salary.
After learning about Gret's past, Wu Yun and Gao Wei couldn't help but sigh in amazement. Who would have thought that a rough-looking villain like him actually had such a gentle side? This also changed their impression of Gret quite a bit.
And these investigations took Wu Yu and his team two months
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In the process of understanding Gret's past stories, Wu Yu and Gao Wei relied on their own strength and excellent performance on the field to secure Maridimo's main position. As the core midfielder, Wu Yu, with his handsome appearance and excellent ball skills, has also become a new favorite among Maridimo fans, and there are not a few fans who come to watch him train every day.
In these two months of home games, a song created by Monica with Wu Lei as the protagonist, "Let Him Play", also became one of the must-sing songs for fans at every game.
Wu Lei, as the core of the team, led Marítimo forward in these two months, defeating Benfica at home and achieving a 10-game unbeaten streak. After 12 rounds of the league, they ranked fourth in the Portuguese Super League with 23 points, only behind the top three teams in the Portuguese Super League, and only two points behind third-placed Benfica.
Such a ranking, even made Marítimo fans think that there is a possibility of advancing to the Champions League next season. Wu Lei's performance was also very outstanding, contributing 4 goals and 5 assists in 8 league matches, directly participating in two-thirds of the team's goals, and is considered the greatest contributor to Marítimo's rise.
Gao Wei's performance also gained recognition from fans, he squeezed out Igor and became the team's main central defender, partnering with Rosario. In 7 games, there were 4 games where they ensured the team did not concede a goal, their defense was quite solid. At the end of November in the second leg of the Portuguese League Cup playoffs, the two who had already become the main force took turns resting, and Marítimo also defeated their opponents, advancing smoothly to the regular season.
However, Gretzky made several low-level mistakes in these two months, and the team was tied in two games, both of which were due to his mistakes. This made the head coach very dissatisfied. However, the team is currently in good condition and no one blames him. Wu Yun and Gao Wei analyzed that Gretzky's son's illness affected his game state. It is said that his son's treatment has reached a critical stage.
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In these two months, several important things have happened in Chinese football.
Guangzhou Evergrande, under the leadership of Lippi, fought in the AFC Champions League final, away 1-1, home 2-0, with a total score of 3-1 defeated South Korea's Seoul FC team, won the 2013 AFC Champions League championship, this is the first time Chinese club to win the AFC Champions League trophy. At the same time, Guangzhou Evergrande also successfully defended their title in the league and FA Cup, achieving the great feat of three crowns. The official website of FIFA even wrote an article congratulating Guangzhou Evergrande on their outstanding performance this year, making the world football community take notice.
After winning the AFC Champions League, Guangzhou Evergrande's main right-back Zhang Linpeng hinted in an interview that he may leave Guangzhou Evergrande after the FIFA Club World Cup and transfer to Europe.
Evergrande Guangzhou's boss Xu Jiayin also expressed his willingness to send promising players abroad to improve the level of Chinese football.
As for his next stop, whether he will appear in the league in Europe, Lippi also expressed in an interview that several Serie A teams are interested in introducing Zhang Linpeng, with a price of up to 30 million euros. Under the influence of Lippi in Italy, many Italian media reported this news.
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In 2013, the Super League ended, Shanghai East Asia's young striker Wu Lei ranked second in the Super League scorer list with 18 goals and was also the domestic scorer king. After the league ended, Bundesliga club Stuttgart officially announced that they would introduce Wu Lei in the winter transfer window for a price of 2 million euros.
This transfer is said to be the big shark of European football transfers, and was brokered by Mendes, the number one agent in today's football world. His intervention allowed Shanghai East Asia boss to relax his 3 million euro bottom line to 2 million euros, also making Stuttgart willing to raise their offer from the original 1 million euros to 2 million euros.
Mendes' negotiating skills were once again verified in this transfer, and people found that his tentacles had already stretched to China in Asia. Mendes' brokerage company is developing towards every place where there are people playing football around the world.
Zhang Linpeng and Wu Lei's ability to transfer to Europe, in addition to their own potential and outstanding performance in the Chinese Super League, China's national team's outstanding performance in the Asian Cup qualifiers also increased their value.
The national football team drew 1-1 with Indonesia away in the Asian Cup qualifiers, and then defeated the same opponent 4-1 at home, earning 7 points in the first four rounds, but the situation of qualifying is not optimistic.
In the crucial fifth round of matches, China won 2-0 at home against Saudi Arabia and advanced to the 2015 AFC Asian Cup with a record of 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss in 5 matches, accumulating 10 points.
Fu Bo led the team to win the game and gain recognition from fans with their beautiful controlling style of play. After China advanced, rumors about Lippi coaching the national team, which had been circulating widely, became close to reality thanks to the efforts of Chinese Football Association. Chinese football fans finally felt that the association did something right.
After the humiliating 1-5 loss to Thailand in the summer, China's team paid a huge penalty to dismiss Spanish coach Camacho and replaced him with local new coach Fu Bo, which unexpectedly turned things around and brought a concentrated outbreak period for Chinese football over the past two months.
FIFA's official website also reported on China's transformation over the past six months, believing that Chinese football is rising.
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Apart from this, Wen Yinghang and Shi Bojun, who had transferred to Manchester United and Real Madrid respectively in the summer, also appeared in people's sight in different forms after a period of silence.
Wen Yinghang performed well in Manchester United's reserve team, although he did not have a work permit and could not play for the first team. However, his performance has been recognized by the coaching staff.
Manchester United manager Moyes praised Wen Yinghang in a press conference, while also indicating that he would loan out Wen Yinghang during the winter transfer window to gain more playing experience. At one time, many teams outside of Britain were preparing to loan Wen Yinghang, causing a stir among British media.
Schürrle was then relegated to Real Madrid B after the transfer, fighting in the Spanish Segunda División. In this Real Madrid B team that once cultivated excellent shooters such as Soldado and Negredo, Schürrle did not get many opportunities at first, and also because of language problems, he could not integrate into the team for a long time.
After coming off the bench to score a winner in an unexpected substitute appearance, this young Chinese striker immediately found his scoring form and pushed the team's original main striker to the bench, firmly occupying the starting position. Before December arrived, he had already scored 9 goals to occupy fifth place on the Segunda División top scorer list, despite only starting 7 times in La Liga.
His outstanding performance has attracted many teams, seeking to take him away from Real Madrid's silver river warship one day.
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For a long time, Chinese football has been floating and sinking, but in the past two months, it has suddenly ushered in a concentrated outbreak. Whether it is the performance of clubs, national teams or Chinese players, they have all appeared in the center of the world football scene within a certain period of time, making fans around the world believe that Chinese football has shown signs of rising.
Gary Neville, the former Manchester United star who is now a commentator for Sky Sports in the UK, wrote an article analyzing the current phenomenon of Chinese football. He believes that Chinese football, a sleeping giant in the East, is finally about to wake up and that the world of football will have to undergo huge changes over the next few decades due to China's rise.
Although various media have different opinions on whether Chinese football can change the current world football pattern, they all believe that:
Chinese football, this sleeping Eastern giant, is about to wake up!
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