The Godfather of Football

Chapter 537 North American Storm

Goalkeepers: Petr Cech, Joe Hart

Defenders: Daniel Alves, Kyle Walker, Marcelo, Fabio Coentrao, Thiago Silva, Vincent Kompany, Zielinski

Midfielders: Yaya Toure, Fabregas, David Silva, Beckham, Aaron Ramsey, Phil Jones

Forwards: Ribery, Messi, Hazard, Cavani, Falcao

Team players: Neymar, Lucas Jr., Varane, Coutinho, Nastasic, Pogba and Eriksen.

Tottenham Hotspur's 27 players, plus the coaching staff, chefs, team doctors and some staff and employees of the team, the whole team looks like a huge tour group. On the second day of the training camp, they boarded the connecting Boeing 777 prepared by Qatar Airways and flew from London to Los Angeles on the west coast of the United States.

This time, Tottenham's pre-season training camp was arranged at the training center of the University of California. Then they will play four warm-up matches in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York, respectively, against Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas Mexico, AC Milan and Barcelona.

Last summer's China trip made Tottenham famous. Ye Qiu returned to his homeland and quickly rolled up a wave of Tottenham. This time, Tottenham's US trip, unlike the China trip, is mainly aimed at commercial development, so the club's CEO Peter Kenyon personally led the business team to the United States.

Many people analyzed that Tottenham's US trip came at the right time, because the US national team had just shined in the Confederations Cup not long ago, eliminated Spain and reached the Confederations Cup final. Although they lost to Brazil in the end, they won the unanimous recognition of American fans and ignited the American football passion.

Under such circumstances, Tottenham arrived in the United States and arranged a training camp in the United States. Coupled with Ye Qiu's influence in the United States, Tottenham was destined to become the focus of praise and attention from major American media from the day it arrived in Los Angeles.

Unlike other teams that are always in a hurry in the United States, Tottenham's trip to the United States was well prepared.

For example, they had already held an event on the Internet half a year ago, calling on more American fans to put their own football recordings and videos on the Internet, so that netizens from the United States could vote and select the best five fans to follow Tottenham's pre-season training throughout the whole process.

This event has attracted considerable attention among young people in the United States. After all, Tottenham will stay in the United States for two and a half weeks or nearly three weeks. In other words, if they get the opportunity to participate in Tottenham's training camp, they will be with this group of top superstars for more than half a month in the future and receive Ye Qiu's guidance.

In total, more than 10,000 American fans uploaded their videos and recordings. After more than three months of online voting, Tottenham Hotspur selected five fans to train with the team based on public opinion. After the team arrived in Los Angeles, they entered UCLA at the same time as the international players participating in the Confederations Cup and stayed in Tottenham Hotspur's hotel.

This incident has also attracted the attention and reports of media from all over the United States, and Tottenham Hotspur has also shown its professional side under the attention of the media. That is, they not only helped these five fans to join the training in a perfunctory manner, but also gave them professional guidance. One of the fans was strictly required to lose some fat.

The coaching staff also tailored a set of short-term technical intensive training for these players based on the observations of the first few days. Although it is impossible for them to significantly improve their technical level, it can help them use technology more reasonably, so in front of the media, they all play football in a similar way.

In addition, Tottenham Hotspur also showed its image to all walks of life in the United States in various ways. It opened a training class to the public every day, and Ye Qiu would take different players to accept interviews with media reporters every day, which quickly caused a huge response in the United States.

Not only Tottenham Hotspur, in fact, since the team successfully defended the Champions League in Rome, major sponsors have regarded the summer trip to the United States as the focus of publicity and promotion.

Qatar Airways needs no further explanation. It has long regarded Tottenham Hotspur as the key signboard of their North American publicity, and Tottenham Hotspur's jersey sponsor Adidas hopes to take advantage of Tottenham Hotspur's popularity and sweep the North American market.

The strong consumption power of American fans was fully reflected after Tottenham Hotspur arrived in North America.

After more than a month of preparation and promotion, almost all Adidas stores in North America launched Tottenham Hotspur's new season jerseys and training suits at the same time, especially in major American cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and New York, where almost all of them were sold out and out of stock signs were hung.

Even the stores on Tottenham Hotspur's official website have also received a large number of orders from the United States. A Tottenham Hotspur jersey priced at $90 is always in short supply, and Adidas keeps urging the manufacturing factories from China.

The jerseys are selling well. After Tottenham Hotspur arrived in Los Angeles, almost every public training session attracted many fans wearing Tottenham Hotspur jerseys to UCLA. When walking on the streets of the United States, you can often see some fans wearing Tottenham Hotspur jerseys or training suits.

In addition, some sponsors of Tottenham Hotspur, such as Budweiser, Versace, BMW, etc., also made a fuss about Tottenham Hotspur's trip to the United States.

In fact, it is impossible for Tottenham Hotspur alone to cause a huge sensation, but there are so many big sponsors with huge networks, abundant resources, and long-standing publicity networks in the United States to support and fuel the flames behind the scenes. This has made Tottenham Hotspur's trip to the United States form a strong storm from the beginning, becoming the hottest topic in North America in mid-July. Almost all Americans are discussing Tottenham Hotspur's landing.

Moreover, Peter Kenyon personally led the team to the United States this time, and his purpose was to further open up the American market. At least Tottenham Hotspur has received cooperation intentions from more than six sponsors, with sponsorship fees ranging from 2 million to more than 10 million euros. If all of them are obtained, Tottenham Hotspur will make a lot of money.

But as a football club, and the defending champion of the Premier League and the Champions League, Tottenham Hotspur wants to continue to win the support and affirmation of American fans. It must show its strong enough strength on the football field. After all, a considerable number of American fans choose to support them because Tottenham Hotspur is strong enough.

So Ye Qiu attaches great importance to the warm-up matches in the United States. Not only him, but also the club and the organizing committee attach great importance to it.

The first warm-up match was not arranged at the Home Depot Stadium of the Los Angeles Galaxy, because the capacity there is too small, only 27,000 people can sit, which can not meet the huge demand of fans at all, so the first warm-up match was arranged to be held at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Los Angeles.

Everyone may not be familiar with this stadium, but everyone should remember that Baggio's lonely back in the 1994 World Cup in the United States happened at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Los Angeles.

Although the Rose Bowl Stadium only has 92,000 seats, more than 95,000 tickets were sold before the game, and a considerable number of them were standing tickets. In the end, the total number of fans who entered the Rose Bowl Stadium reached 95,137, which completely broke the record of the highest attendance rate in the history of the Rose Bowl.

After a week of high-intensity training in North America, Tottenham Hotspur also fielded the strongest lineup in this game. The goalkeeper is Peter Cech, the back line is Coentrao, Zielinski, Kompany and Kyle Walker, the midfield is Beckham, Yaya Toure and Fabregas, and the front trident is Ribery, Cavani and Messi.

Among them, several Brazilian players who participated in the Confederations Cup final did not appear in the starting lineup. This was because Ye Qiu considered that they had been running back and forth and then participated in the team's training camp non-stop, so he arranged them to play as substitutes.

At the beginning of the game, Tottenham Hotspur played relatively steadily. After all, the team had just experienced a week of devilish training and their physical strength was still in a serious stage of consumption, but the American fans in the stands still burst out with amazing enthusiasm.

Ye Qiu, Beckham, Messi, Ribery, Tottenham Hotspur's star coaches and superstars became the objects of shouting and praise from 95,000 American fans, and this game also attracted basketball stars including the Lakers, and even some Hollywood superstars such as Tom Cruise came to the scene to watch this game.

After a relatively dull start, Tottenham Hotspur quickly controlled the game, and in the 26th and 41st minutes, Beckham and Messi scored a goal for the team respectively, establishing a 2:0 lead early.

But in the second half, Ye Qiu adjusted the starting lineup according to the convention of all warm-up matches, and replaced Falcao, Alves, David Silva, Marcelo, Thiago Silva and other players. As a result, Tottenham Hotspur played a very hearty offensive storm in the second half, directly suppressing the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Tottenham Hotspur's fast-paced offensive football and concise and sharp passing and receiving cooperation made the American fans in the stands very excited. The atmosphere in the Rose Bowl was very hot, and as if stimulated by this hot atmosphere, Tottenham Hotspur's players also performed very hard, especially Falcao, who performed a hat trick with his head and feet.

This Colombian center who just transferred from Ajax to Tottenham Hotspur this summer performed well in training. His scoring stability and efficiency are higher than Cavani. In addition, Tottenham Hotspur's ability to create opportunities is very good, which makes Falcao's goal efficiency always very good.

The hat trick in the second half made the fans in the stands praise Tottenham Hotspur's new signing this season. What is particularly commendable is that his three goals were scored by his head, right foot and left foot from different positions inside and outside the penalty area, which shows the versatility of this Colombian center forward.

Argentine forwards have always been more adaptable to the European professional football environment than Brazilian forwards. The reason is simple. They are more efficient and do not lack stability like Brazilian forwards. When training forwards, Argentina will emphasize the basic skills of shooting and tend to let players adopt more solid shooting skills rather than fancy moves.

Therefore, there are few Brazilian forwards with high scoring efficiency. Ronaldo in his peak period was only formed after being sculpted by Eindhoven. In addition, like Romario, Argentine forwards may not be as talented as Brazilian forwards at first glance, but they are more effective. For example, Batistuta, Crespo, Diego Milito, Higuain, etc. are all scorers who pay great attention to efficiency.

Although Falcao is a Colombian forward, he is a forward cultivated by the River Plate. As early as when he was in the River Plate, he established his characteristics as a high-efficiency scorer, so his growth path has always been very clear.

According to Peter De Visser, he believes that in the current European football world, Falcao is one of the players with the best shooting skills and the most comprehensive and solid shooting basic skills. There are no more than three players who can compare with him. Although he is short, his awareness and prediction are quite good, and his explosive power is also good, so he can become a top powerful center forward.

5:0 victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy, Tottenham Hotspur won the first game of the US tour, and completely ignited the passion of the North American football market, becoming the front-page headlines of major newspapers the next day, especially the performance of this group of Tottenham Hotspur superstars at the Rose Bowl Stadium, which won the recognition and praise of American fans.

And three days later, the team went from Los Angeles to San Francisco to face the Mexican giant Chivas at the Park Stadium in San Francisco.

The number of fans in this game reached 72,000, once again breaking the record in the history of San Francisco Park Stadium. This stadium, which was originally the home of the rugby powerhouse San Francisco 49ers, had a historical record of 70,200 people, but now it was easily broken by Tottenham Hotspur.

Different from the first game, Ye Qiu made appropriate adjustments this time. Falcao replaced Cavani as the starting center, and Alves, Thiago Silva, Marcelo and other players also returned to the starting lineup one after another. However, Beckham, who has always had a huge influence and appeal in the North American market, still got the starting lineup and formed a midfield dual core with David Silva.

At San Francisco Park Stadium, Tottenham Hotspur did not hold back at all. In the first half, relying on Falcao's double goals, as well as Messi and Ribery's goals, they led Chivas Mexico 4:0, making all the fans who came to the scene cheer like crazy.

In the second half, although Chivas scored a point with the goal of Mexican striker Javier Hernandez, the Brazilian teenager Neymar, who came on as a substitute in the second half, assisted Cavani to score another goal, and then Neymar himself scored the last goal, helping Tottenham Hotspur to beat Mexican Chivas 6:1 and win two consecutive warm-up matches.

In two consecutive warm-up matches, he scored eleven goals and conceded one goal. Such a record sheet has not only spread to the United States, but also spread to the world, causing exclamations from fans all over the world, especially the Colombian striker Romedal Falcao, who scored five goals in two games, and became completely popular.

This Colombian striker, who quickly became the main scorer of Ajax after Huntelaar moved to Real Madrid, performed very well in Ajax and had a high scoring efficiency, which was recognized by many professionals. However, after moving to Tottenham Hotspur, with the support of Tottenham Hotspur's powerful creative team, his goal efficiency has been rising steadily, and he has a great momentum to suppress Messi and Ribery.

You know, Messi and Ribery are both the top stars and scorers in Tottenham Hotspur, but Falcao became the most dazzling star in the first two warm-up matches, which really brought pressure to the two superstars in the team.

However, Falcao himself is quite modest. When he was interviewed by the media, he smiled and said that two of his five goals came from Messi's assists and one from Ribery's pass. He felt that he should thank his two teammates for scoring so many goals.

In his conversation, he repeatedly stated that Messi and Ribery are the well-deserved top stars of Tottenham Hotspur. He has just arrived and still has a lot to learn from his two teammates. He hopes to contribute to Tottenham Hotspur in the new season, and he also gave a very high evaluation to his competitor Cavani.

Regarding the strong competitive atmosphere in the team, Ye Qiu smiled and said that he didn't think it was a problem at all, because competition can promote everyone's progress. He repeatedly said that whoever is in good condition will play, no matter who it is, he must rely on his performance on the field to convince himself to arrange him as a starter.

Messi, Ribery, Cavani and other players also said in interviews that they are confident that they can get a starting position, especially Ribery, who was seriously injured last season and has not performed well since his comeback. This summer, he has tried his best to prepare and train, hoping to show his strength again in the new season and return to his peak state.

Judging from the two warm-up matches before the season, Ribery's condition has recovered very well.

Both warm-up matches broke the attendance records of the two stadiums. Tottenham Hotspur has set off the American football market. There is no doubt about this. Even many European media are promoting and hyping it up, believing that the United States, which has always been known as a football desert, will become a hotbed of football because of Tottenham Hotspur.

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