The Godfather of Football

Ye Qiu's villa has one advantage, that is, whether it is the second-floor balcony or the garden, it is surrounded by green trees and flowers everywhere. Even in the hot summer, the whole villa is very cool.

As for flowers, plants and trees, Ye Qiu only likes to look at them, enjoy the coolness, and appreciate them, but he does not know how to do it and does not like to do it. Fortunately, his father Ye Changming and father-in-law Huang Jinsong are people who like to toss around, so Ye Qiu is happy to be idle and does not have to pay attention to and take care of these flowers and plants.

Therefore, even now, he does not understand how many plants are planted in the garden, and how to match the trees and flowers to avoid mosquitoes, etc., but he likes to sit in the pavilion in the garden, smell the birds and the fragrance of flowers, and feel relaxed and happy.

Wenger had been to Ye Qiu's house many times. Although he was full of envy and hatred for his garden, he was not surprised. On the contrary, Ferguson was a little surprised when he came for the first time. He hurriedly asked which gardening company was hired to do it. In the end, he heard that it was Ye Qiu's father and father-in-law, so he said that he would definitely visit again another day.

His villa is in Cheshire, also in a small town in the countryside. It is not small and has a large garden. It seems that he also likes to toss flowers and plants, but this guy probably doesn't understand.

The three people sat in the pavilion. On the balcony on the second floor, Huang Chu was packing up. This scene made Ferguson nod his head and kept saying that Ye Qiu married a good wife. At least there are few young people nowadays who are so virtuous.

Wenger directly said, "There are not many virtuous husbands like you. Don't you take care of all the housework in your family?"

"Fuck the reporters!" Ferguson immediately cursed, but he couldn't give any evidence to refute it. Especially when he saw Ye Qiu and Wenger were both smiling, he knew in his heart that he couldn't get rid of it even if he jumped into the Yellow River.

Who made him afraid of his wife and fame?

Speaking of which, the three of them are really interesting. Ferguson is the Premier League champion this season, Ye Qiu is the third in the Premier League, and Wenger is the fifth in the Premier League. Ferguson has a good impression of Mourinho, who is the second in the Premier League, but Ye Qiu and Wenger don't like him. However, Ye Qiu has a good impression of Benitez, who is the fourth in the Premier League, but Ferguson doesn't care about him at all.

Sometimes the relationship between people is really complicated and elusive.

It's like, if it gets out now, who would believe that Ferguson and Wenger would sit down and drink together? And they are drinking the kind of Patos that costs more than 30,000 euros a bottle? The key is that Ferguson paid for it himself?

I believe that everyone will be surprised to hear this, can this miser be so generous?

Thinking of this, Ye Qiu couldn't help but smile. After seeing his cunning smile, Ferguson immediately shook his head and pointed at Ye Qiu and said to Wenger: "He must be thinking bad things about us now!"

Wenger felt the same way. This was the first time he agreed with Ferguson.

Ye Qiu didn't explain and smiled, "It's not bad, but I was thinking that if people knew that the three of us were drinking together, they would definitely guess that we were plotting something. Maybe tomorrow there will be news that we poached each other, and then there will be another round of overwhelming hype and publicity."

The English media is indeed like this. As long as they catch a little clue, they will immediately make a big fuss.

Ferguson and Wenger looked at each other and heard that Ye Qiu had other meanings hidden in his words.

"Do you want to say something?" Ferguson asked with a smile.

Ye Qiu glanced at the two old ghosts, "Don't you want to say anything?"

The three of them laughed. In fact, they all had the same idea, that is, to take advantage of this opportunity to drink together to discuss some things. After all, in many things in the Premier League now, the big teams still speak louder, especially when the big teams take the form of a group to speak collectively, it will be more powerful.

Of course, all this is based on the premise of not harming the interests of small and medium-sized teams, otherwise they will not do it.

For example, if the winter break is introduced, the mid- and lower-level teams will not care about you. Anyway, they only have domestic competitions. They don't care about your life and death in the European arena. They even hope that your performance will be affected because there is no winter break, because this means that they will have more opportunities in some domestic competitions.

Of course, there is another consideration that before and after the winter break, especially during the Christmas period, the Premier League can monopolize the entire European football market, because at that time only the Premier League has games, and fans all over the world have to watch the Premier League to watch football games.

Therefore, the winter break has been called for so many years, but it has never been implemented. The reason is still here, and all Premier League teams have taken advantage of this aspect, even Manchester United and Arsenal, which often play in the Champions League, have also tasted the sweetness, so the willingness to introduce the winter break is not so strong.

"I think we should reach an agreement. We should avoid this kind of transfer and recruitment strategy of mutual poaching and mutual consumption!" The three people sat in a triangle in the pavilion, and Ye Qiu stared at the two people opposite and said, "Of course, I don’t mean that there will be no transfers between each other, but that we should adopt a more aboveboard approach, rather than illegal private contact and poaching players."

Ferguson and Wenger looked at each other for Ye Qiu’s proposal. The two thieves obviously saw through Ye Qiu’s intention, because Tottenham Hotspur now seems to be a treasure trove of young players, and everyone wants to get involved.

"Are you afraid that we will poach your players?" Ferguson said with a smile.

When Ye Qiu heard this, he also smiled, "I am very confident in my players. I am afraid that I can't help poaching your players."

When Ferguson and Wenger heard this, they couldn't help but burst out laughing. This guy was a tough talker, but soon, Ye Qiu said something again, which made them stop laughing.

"I'm thinking we should get involved in the competition for Carlos Tevez, and my scouts are also paying close attention to Croatia's Dinamo Zagreb, what do you think?"

It’s no secret that Manchester United wants Tevez, so Ferguson’s instinctive reaction to Ye Qiu’s words was to twitch his eyelids, because he could soon feel that if Tottenham Hotspur also joined the competition, West Ham will certainly raise the price, but do Tottenham need to get involved?

With the current Tottenham Hotspur lineup, Tevez has no place, so if Tottenham Hotspur is really involved, the only explanation is that he deliberately wants to make trouble with Manchester United and let Manchester United play Tevez. It’s a waste of money on the introduction.

But thinking about it, Ferguson looked at Wenger again, Dinamo Zagreb? Could it be that Wenger has taken a liking to the players on this team?

Ye Qiu saw the reactions of the two people and smiled slightly: "I believe we all have only one purpose. In the European competition, our Premier League team should be consistent in dealing with the outside world, and in the Premier League, everyone should also Be fair and honest, show your gentlemanly demeanor, work hard and rely on tactics and skills on the court, right?”

Wenger was the first to nod, because Arsenal's current situation is indeed unfavorable, the finances are not very generous, and he is also a victim of this kind of private poaching. For example, Chelsea poached Arsenal's Ashley Cole, and in the past A few years ago, when Ye Qiu was in charge of Chelsea, he even revealed that he wanted to poach Vieira and Henry, forcing Wenger to give them a salary increase.

Ye Qiu's actions indeed made Wenger a little angry, but Ye Qiu did not actually take action in the end. But after Ye Qiu, Chelsea contacted Ashley Cole privately, which obviously broke the tacit understanding between the clubs. and rules.

Seeing Wenger nodding, Ferguson also thought the proposal was good, "But if we agree, will Chelsea agree?"

Benitez's Liverpool has never liked English players. This fat Spanish guy is a bit like Ye Qiu. They both prefer players with a continental style. Therefore, there are not many English players in the Liverpool team, and they tend to import them from continental Europe. Imported, so Liverpool has no big problem.

"As long as we, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool have reached a tacit understanding, do you think they can refuse?"

When Ferguson thought about it, he was right. Public anger is inevitable, and Chelsea must agree. Otherwise, they will not be able to sign anyone in the future.

Strictly speaking, Ye Qiu's proposal does make some sense. It avoids an arms race similar to that between Real Madrid and Barcelona in the Premier League, allowing everyone to build their own teams with peace of mind and avoid falling into mutual poaching and competition in vain. Cheaper the practices of other league teams.

At the very least, haven’t Real Madrid and Barcelona attached great importance to maintaining their private agreement not to poach or compete with each other in recent years?

Wenger has been silent. He feels that this proposal will be beneficial to everyone, but it seems impossible for Ye Qiu to do this because he is worried about being poached, unless... "I received news and heard that a ball came to your place recently. Head of the Detective Department?”

Ferguson was stunned after hearing this. Does Tottenham Hotspur have a director specifically responsible for the scouting department?

He does know that Arsenal has Steve Lawley, Manchester United also has its own chief scout, Ferguson's younger brother Martin Ferguson, Chelsea also has Frank Arnesen, and Liverpool also has Eduardo Masia. These are all They are well-known top scouts in the European continent. They either have sharp eyes or have excellent connections.

The so-called chief scout is actually responsible for the player inspection of the first team and youth team, which is equivalent to the director of Tottenham Hotspur's scouting department. It is just the Tottenham Hotspur administrator previously reported in the media. It seems that the head of the management department does not have this authority.

After Frank Arnesen was poached to Chelsea, Ye Qiu took over Tottenham Hotspur and no longer arranged for the so-called technical director and director. Even the director of the scouting department was vacant, which made many people doubt. Ye Qiu wanted to start with the results of the first team and then slowly build up the scouting system, but now it seems that he plans to take both steps together.

This reminded both Ferguson and Wenger of the second half of last season. At a regular summit of the Premier League, Ye Qiu submitted an initiative through Eliza Moon, hoping to reform the English football club. The scope of youth training selection allows some teams with the ability and funds to select talents from all over England.

"You kid, you're throwing out every move, and you're keeping all of us in the dark!" Ferguson pointed at Ye Qiu and scolded him with a smile.

Ye Qiu smiled after hearing this, "We did appoint the team's scouting department director not long ago, former PSV Eindhoven scouting department director Peter Devisser."

If it were someone else, even if you ask Moyes, Benitez, or simply Mourinho, they may not know Peter de Visser. Or even if you simply ask the fans of Eindhoven, I believe There are also a lot of fans who don't know him. Most of them don't know what he looks like or even how old he is.

The only thing that made Dutch fans remember this man was the Michels Award in 2005, which was the lifetime achievement award for Dutch football. At that time, it was awarded to Peter de Vissel to thank the old man who was over 70 years old for his contribution to Dutch football.

If anyone wants to know de Vissel's resume, you will find that you can know very little, or even almost nothing. Only those who really understand Dutch football can catch some news about him. For example, he has been coaching alone since 1964 and has been coaching for 30 years. He has coached teams such as Willem II, Breda, Roda JC and AZ Alkmaar, but his results are not very prominent.

Compared with his coaching results, he has a very rich vision in selecting players and has very rich resources in the scout network. For example, he has very good interpersonal networks in European and South American football, so Romario came to Eindhoven because of his recommendation and relationship.

In 1993, after he was fired from Breda, Arnesen took over the position of general manager of PSV Eindhoven. The Amsterdam native, who was unemployed and could no longer work as a head coach, chose to be a part-time scout and wait for the opportunity to coach again. Then his friend recommended Ronaldo to him.

The next thing was very simple. Ronaldo came to PSV Eindhoven naturally. In the following years, he even recommended Ronaldinho, Kaka and Robinho to PSV Eindhoven early, but these players eventually failed to come to PSV Eindhoven because of the transfer fee.

In Ye Qiu's previous life, Van Nistelrooy, Robben, Stam, Van Bommel, Hofland, Alex and other PSV Eindhoven players were all his work, because he was the chief scout of PSV Eindhoven at that time, but because he had never appeared in newspapers and media, no one knew of his existence.

It was not until 2005, when he received the Michels Lifetime Achievement Award and was praised by Dutch football circles as the world's number one scout, that he was truly recognized by Dutch fans for the first time. However, no one knew his photo, no one knew what he looked like, and no one even knew how old he was.

Perhaps it was because of Peter de Visser's low profile that Frank Arnesen, the general manager of the club at the time, was naturally pushed to the forefront. In addition, Danes are born to like to take credit, and they are former meritorious players, so a lot of credit naturally fell on Frank Arnesen.

But in fact, Frank Arnesen still relied on Peter de Visser and the latter's scout network resources.

Peter de Visser's recent two transactions were Alex and John Obi Mikel. After the latter entered Cape Town Ajax, he was spotted by de Visser and later recommended to Arnesen, which led to this dispute with Manchester United.

Outsiders may not know Peter de Visser, but Ferguson has dealt with PSV Eindhoven for many years, and Wenger has also been involved in this industry for many years. Both of them have heard of him more or less. When they heard that Ye Qiu actually brought him to Tottenham Hotspur, they were all a little surprised, but not too envious.

With the current development of information, the role of scouts is actually weakening, and whether it is for Manchester United or Arsenal, Peter de Visser is quite outstanding, but they also have their own scout network, so there is no need to envy others.

"To be honest with you, we will vigorously develop youth training in the future. We have even drawn up a very detailed youth training promotion plan. We also support all interested teams to come to visit and learn, but we do not welcome scouts with ill intentions!"

Ye Qiu's position is very high and he sees things very widely. He thinks that promoting youth training does not necessarily have to be done by himself. It can be done all over England and even the world. Anyone who wants to learn can come to learn and visit. It doesn't matter, because the more stars cultivated by others, it means that Tottenham Hotspur will have a wider range of selection in the future.

This is true for all the big teams in the world. Ye Qiu even hopes that all the English teams will learn his youth training system, which is a combination of Ajax and the Netherlands, and even some other youth training systems in continental Europe, because it is beneficial to Tottenham Hotspur.

And Ye Qiu has always felt that the most important thing about youth training is not the method. Anyone can learn the youth training method. If you want, you can enter Ajax's youth training camp at any time as long as you have certain connections and letters of recommendation. But why is there only one De Tokmost in the world?

The most important thing about youth training is not the method, but a culture!

And youth training culture is not something you can learn just because you want to. It takes years of accumulation and precipitation to appear.

Compared with Tottenham Hotspur's youth training camp, which has just been reorganized and restarted, Manchester United and Arsenal's youth training has been accumulated for many years, and has even basically completed the transformation towards continentalization. Benitez is now also reorganizing Liverpool's Kirkby Youth Training Camp, and Chelsea's youth training system is also being reorganized under the guidance of Frank Arnesen.

In other words, Premier League teams attach great importance to youth training, but don't expect to see results in a short period of time, because it will take at least ten or eight years for talents to appear, which is why not many teams are willing to insist on youth training.

The risk is too great and the return on investment period is too long!

Ferguson and Wenger were not surprised by Ye Qiu's series of actions, because Ye Qiu knew football too well. Among all the football club owners and even the decision-makers in the world, no one knows football better than Ye Qiu, and even includes the former football stars of Bayern Munich.

Therefore, they were not surprised at all that Ye Qiu made such a large investment and forward-looking decisions.

But besides not being surprised, they also felt threatened to some extent, because this also meant that Ye Qiu was leading Tottenham Hotspur forward in a big stride, and they even had the strength and influence to rank among the top group of the Premier League.

With time, the title of Premier League giants will no longer be out of reach for them, but within reach.