Godfather Of Champions

Tang En is not from Ningbo, nor from Zhejiang. Before crossing, he had only visited three places in the huge China-his hometown, a small town in southern Sichuan; where he went to university was Beijing, the capital of China; where he graduated and worked in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan .

Although Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou belong to China, they are like another world to him. There is a language he doesn't understand, and he eats dishes that don't suit his taste. There is a world of difference in customs and culture. He never thought that one day he would have the idea of ​​traveling there.

But now, thanks to the blessing of being possessed by the soul, he got the opportunity to "tour on public funds" and came to a place that was just a name symbol for him before—Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province.

Of course, he didn't really come here for a vacation. In fact, when he came to China this time, there was no quirky and lovely Shania by his side, but he followed a large group of men.

Yes, they are all members of the Nottingham Forest Club.

A year ago, Nottingham Forest Club acquired a large piece of land in Clifton, southwest of Nottingham city, to build a new stadium. The city government gave strong support and allowed them to buy the land at a lower price. Of course, there is no free lunch. In return, they must do something for the Nottingham City Council.

Now is the time to give back to the government.

In essence, this trip to Nottingham Forest is a naked gold panning trip and a business man's pursuit of profit. But the publicity aspect has to be higher.

In fact, this is a cultural trip between Nottingham, England and Ningbo, China. The friendly atmosphere of Nottingham Cultural Promotion Week will be fully launched with the visit of the European champion Nottingham Forest. Chinese people in Ningbo don’t have to travel far away on the mainland. At one end of Britain, you can appreciate the most original English culture and British customs.

The relationship between Nottingham and Ningbo dates back to 2005. In this year, the two cities signed a contract and formally became sister cities. As a gift, the University of Nottingham, which is well-known in the United Kingdom, cooperated with the Ningbo Municipal Government to clone the university as a whole to Ningbo. A completely independent University of Nottingham was built in Ningbo. The faculty and textbooks were all equipped with the University of Nottingham configuration. Students graduated successfully. After that, you can obtain the University of Nottingham Diploma under the University of Nottingham Method.

With these relationships, it is not surprising that Nottingham Forest's visit to China will be in Ningbo.

This is the result of the cooperation between the club and the city government. Without this relationship, Alan Adams would not care about sister cities. He would prefer to set up the venue of his visit to China in Beijing or Shanghai. But if you get someone’s land cheaply, you will naturally have to pay some price. Fortunately, the losses here can be made up elsewhere-the Japanese enthusiasm for Beckham is enough to make Allen wake up in dreams; and Southeast Asia and Hong Kong have always been the Premier League’s largest audience in Asia, the Premier League team The status there is simply unmatched by other leagues.

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Before coming to Ningbo, the opponent of the Nottingham Forest game was announced. On the day of announcement, Dunn was surprised by the name of this opponent-the Chinese Olympic team.

This is also Alan's masterpiece.

Considering that the scope of the game in Ningbo is too small, he decided to find an opponent with sufficient influence for Nottingham Forest. Now, the whole of China is going crazy for the Beijing Olympics in August. What better way than to use the Olympics to promote itself?

So he got on the line with the Chinese company Amity and the Chinese Football Association, hoping to arrange a warm-up match-to industry insiders this is a "warm-up match", to ordinary fans it is a "commercial match". The opponent is the Chinese Olympic team.

Isn't the National Olympic team currently preparing for the Olympics? They need a high-level opponent to be their warm-up object. Which team is more suitable than the European championship?

For the Football Association, this is a very tempting plan. First of all, they don’t have to pay for the high-level foreign teams to play warm-up matches; second, the level of Nottingham Forest is indeed very high. Now the whole world knows about this team, it is very beneficial for the Chinese Olympic team to play against them. ; Third, the competition between the European champion Nottingham Forest and the Olympic team of the host of the Olympic Games is also very helpful for the promotion of the Olympic Games around the world. Since the torch relay, certain western countries’ opposition to the Olympics has not ceased, and it has intensified. This game should be able to convey another diametrically opposed voice. As long as it is under the premise of the Olympics, everything can be done. .

The Football Association agrees to this proposal in principle, but they also have their own requirements...

The Chinese Football Association hopes to participate in the share of game revenue.

After hearing this proposal, Allen and the head of Amity looked at each other. Allen does not understand this approach, but Amity is a professional company that often runs foreign teams to China for commercial competitions. They told Allen that if you want to deal with the Chinese Football Association, this kind of thing makes you foreigners feel incredible. Things will happen often, and to be honest, this request is not really excessive...

At this time, Allen recalled what Dunn said "what is China's national conditions". It has been half a year since he went back and forth from the UK to China, and he thought he should be about the same as Dunn in understanding China, and now he thought about it and realized that he was far away from Tony...

Alan Adams agreed to the Football Association's proposal. After agreeing on a specific share ratio, the Football Association, Amity Corporation and Nottingham Forest jointly announced that the opponent of Nottingham Forest's visit to China was the Chinese Olympic team.

As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted the attention of the Chinese media and fans. There were numerous reports in the media about this upcoming game, introducing Nottingham Forest, promoting Nottingham Forest, and reporting Nottingham Forest. The fans also showed great interest in this game. In addition, a national-level Chinese TV station has purchased the live broadcast rights of the game.

These are what Allen hopes to see most, the Chinese Olympic team's combat plan is very successful.

For this opponent, Dunn has no objection, not only that, he thinks that playing the Chinese Olympic Games may be the best choice. If you play against a local team in Zhejiang, Dunn will find it meaningless. Playing those improvised league league teams can no longer play a role in training troops. Playing against a national Olympic team that has been training together for a long time is of some competitive value.

Yes, Allen only considers economic effects, but Dunn cares about competitive value. The spelling of these two words in Hanyu Pinyin is the same, but they are not related. In professional football clubs, they are almost completely opposed.

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When getting off the plane, the stars of Nottingham Forest received a very warm welcome. The light rain can't stop the fans who specially come to the airport to wait, and there are beautiful little girls lining up to lay flowers under the airport gangway. The enthusiastic and bright Ningbo girl made the players of Nottingham Forest very happy. Except for a few big stars who are somewhat reserved and must maintain their personal image, the younger one almost took a photo with each other's arms.

Dunn didn't care about them, which in his view shows that his team is in good condition.

Taking the wreath presented by the little girl, the team walked to the airport bus parked outside the terminal building. On the way, the warm welcome of the fans who came to hear the news is indispensable. From the poster portraits raised by the fans, one can intuitively understand who is the most popular person in the team.

Before coming to China, the players of Nottingham Forest idled and got together to make a bet-who would be the most popular player in China? Of course, this gamble excluded Beckham from the beginning...

Now the answer is revealed. In addition to Beckham, the most popular person is George Wood. Van der Vaart finished runner-up with a narrow advantage.

"Wood! Wood!" Enthusiastic Chinese fans held up George Wood's posters and comics, shouting his Chinese nickname.

In the face of the crowd who welcomed him so warmly, George Wood still had a calm face and barely smiled. But everything he did can only attract a higher decibel scream and more people's pursuit.

"Look! This is the star! What a personality!"

"The wood is so cool!!"

"I think he's so cute—ah, Mu! I love you!"

...

Ribery gritted his teeth after seeing this scene: "It's irrational, zombie faces can have such a high popularity..."

Fortunately, someone soon comforted his "wounded be careful." "Ribery! Ribery! Look here, look here!" someone shouted in English.

He quickly turned his head happily, but told him to see an embarrassing scene:

A Chinese fan held up a sign, and two fans next to it pointed to the sign, which read in French: "How much money do you want to stay in Nottingham?!"

Obviously it was the news that he was not willing to renew his contract with the club for a price of £150,000 some time ago and was going to Real Madrid.

He could only pretend not to see and cast his gaze on the gray sky.

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"Is this China!" On the way from the airport to the hotel where they were staying at CITIC Ningbo International Hotel, the teammates of Nottingham Forest looked at the scenery outside the window with curiosity.

"Sun! Sun!" The teammates greeted Sun Jihai enthusiastically, wanting him to be a tour guide, introducing the scenery full of Chinese Jiangnan flavor along the way. "What's that? And that... Ah, this one is so beautiful too!"

This made Sun Jihai very embarrassed. Because although he is Chinese, he is not from Ningbo or even from Jiangnan. He also didn't know anything about Ningbo and Jiangnan.

If you really want to explain to your teammates, you must start with China as a very big country, to the point where these foreign teammates can't even think of it. In this way, the topic is too big, and it is not clear at all in a few words.

"Ha...Actually, I don't know anything about Ningbo, I rarely come here..." He could only smile dry and said his dilemma.

The teammates were very disappointed. Finally, there was a Chinese teammate inside. I also thought that when I arrived at the hotel, I could take him out for shopping and consumption. What a free local guide!

Tang glanced at Dunn, and Dunn quickly opened his eyes: "Don't look at me, although I am... but I don't know anything about Ningbo." He almost missed it. Fortunately, Chris Lak sitting in front was busy taking it. DV shooting scenery along the road.

There are basically not a few people sitting quietly in their seats in the carriage, and everyone is holding a digital camera or DV facing out of the window. Dunn didn't do this. He wasn't interested in anything outside, because he wasn't here to travel anyway.

However, he turned his head and saw a tall billboard with trees on the roadside of the airport. The background was red, and the dark stripes were the players of the Nottingham Forest and the Olympic team. The slogan on it was a bit interesting, and it was written in both Chinese and English—warm. Welcome European champions and Premier League champions Nottingham Forest Club to visit our city!

He smiled. It really has "Chinese characteristics", and it makes people feel cordial to see this scene...

There are several billboards like this on the roadside. In addition to these directly promoting the forest team, there are also sponsors' brands related to Nottingham Forest, as well as the ads of Amity Corporation. It can be seen that Alan has played a lot. effort. Although the game hasn't started yet, the propaganda campaign was played beautifully. Seeing such a billboard, he, the head coach of the Forest team, also has a sense of accomplishment, very proud and proud.

The world outside the window was raining lightly, but this did not affect Ningbo's image in the hearts of these foreign guests. Because this dynamic Jiangnan style painting is more flavorful in the hazy rain and fog, it adds to the mysterious impression of many foreigners about China, which seems to be true and virtual, and dreamy.

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After arriving at the CITIC Ningbo International Hotel where he was staying, a press conference was held in the hotel. All members of the team attended after changing their clothes in the room, which formally introduced the team to all walks of life in China.

Tony Dunn became the protagonist at the press conference, because he loves Chinese culture is not news for a long time, even fans know it in China.

Throughout the press conference, he used fluent Mandarin to communicate with the media and fan representatives present. Every time, he won the applause of everyone present. Everyone applauded his fluent Chinese and his familiarity with China.

For this, Dunn was a bit regretful. If he is going to compete in Chengdu, Sichuan, he can still greet everyone with a fluent Sichuan dialect...

"...I love China, I love the culture and hospitable people here. I am deeply honored and proud to be able to lead the team to Ningbo to play! I also hope to introduce the best side of China to my players Yeah, I believe this trip to Ningbo, China must be an amazing experience for my players!"

His last remarks won him a lot of praise.

Sitting at the back, Evan Daugherty smiled and applauded, and turned his face to Alan Adams next to him and said: "You are still worried that he will cause you trouble. But look at his performance, his performance is perfect! "

Allen also nodded: "Indeed, I must admit that he did better than I thought. He is a natural speaker..."

This concludes the press conference. Next, the players went back to their rooms to rest for a while, and then they would go to the banquet in a collective car-the Ningbo Municipal Government received a welcome banquet for them.

When some reporters and die-hard fans stayed in and out of the hotel lobby and did not want to leave, Allen had found Dunn: "Tony, are you free now?"

Dunn knew that Alan had something to talk about with him, but he didn't know what it was. Could it have happened to Ribery some time ago?

He nodded, "I have time. Anything, Ellen?"

"Go to my room, I have something I want to talk to you."

Dunn glanced at Evan Dogatti who was standing behind Allen, and he nodded in agreement. (To be continued, if you want to know what's going on, please visit www.qidian.com, there are more chapters, authors are supported, and genuine reading is supported!)

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