No one knew that before Gao Shen flew from Manchester to Madrid, he made a phone call to the German national team.
The call was made to the young international player of the Bundesliga Hamburg team, Jerome Boateng.
The 21-year-old German international has dual nationality of Ghana and Germany. He was born in Berlin and received youth training at Hertha Berlin. He debuted in the Bundesliga in 2007.
In August of the same year, Boateng transferred to Beidawang Hamburg.
He is tall and strong, but has good foot skills and is relatively flexible. He is a good defender at first glance, so he has always been the main force of Germany's national youth teams of all ages.
Ribery, who played as a full-back in the club and once defeated Bayern Munich, became famous in one battle. In June 2009, he represented the German U21 National Youth Team in the European Youth Championship held in Sweden. With his perfect performance as the main central defender, he helped
Germany defeated England 4-0 to win the championship.
In October, he was selected into the German national team by Loew, but was sent off in his first game for accumulating two yellow cards.
Today's Hamburg is no longer the northern king of the Bundesliga. Not only has it been left behind by Bayern Munich, but even other Bundesliga teams such as Dortmund basically ignore Hamburg.
As a popular player in the national team, Jerome Boateng naturally wants to find another job to improve his career.
It was under such circumstances that Manchester City came to the door.
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As early as March, Gao Shen stated at the club's high-level meeting that the team will compete for the Champions League in the new season.
Mubarak also promised that the team will still have no budget for summer transfers.
After the meeting, Gao Shen drew up a signing plan and handed it over to Gary Cook, Marwood, Brian Kidd and others for execution. Among the signings was Jerome Boateng.
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After the meeting, Manchester City's management immediately contacted Boateng's agent, Powell.
In fact, this is not difficult at all, because Boateng's brother Kevin Boateng plays for Portsmouth in the Premier League.
Powell met with Manchester City representative Marwood, who hoped that Powell would convey to the players Manchester City's sincerity and interest, as well as coach Gao Shen's favor for Boateng.
The relationship between Manchester City and Hamburg has always been very good. From the transfer of Kompany to the later De Jong, Manchester City has introduced two players from Hamburg in succession. They are familiar with each other, and Hamburg cannot refuse to poach players from Manchester City.
At least, Hamburg does not have such strength now.
As the most promising rookie in European football, Boateng certainly has no shortage of interested buyers, but Gao Shen's invitation will undoubtedly be more special for him.
In order to further strengthen the players' confidence in choosing Manchester City, Gao Shen personally made a phone call.
At that time, Boateng was training with the national team before the World Cup.
Gao Shen personally promised that he would let Boateng play as a central defender. "I think that is the position that can best bring out your advantages and abilities."
But for Boateng, Gao Shen believes that he still has many problems that need to be improved.
On the contrary, Gao Shen doesn't care at all about the impatience that is most criticized by the outside world.
"Frustration when fighting, too many movements, these are not problems, but the growth process that a young defender must go through, but your speed and positioning sense, as well as that long pass, are all very
Scarcity is what I appreciate most.”
On the phone, Gao Shen told Boateng that the coaching staff has a lot of experience and can help him improve these problems, which will allow him to grow further and eventually become a world-class central defender.
It can be said that it was Gao Shen's phone call that confirmed Boateng's choice.
In early June, when Gao Shen was still on vacation in China, Manchester City officially announced that it would introduce Jerome Boateng from Hamburg in the Bundesliga for 10 million euros.
This is also Manchester City's first signing this summer.
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People are sitting at home, but the signing progress has not slowed down at all.
After the club officially announced the signing of Boateng, Gao Shen immediately liked Boateng on Twitter to welcome him, and then immediately sent another tweet saying that he was very optimistic about Boateng becoming a world-class central defender.
This made Boateng, who was in South Africa, extremely happy. He immediately expressed on Twitter that he was very happy to join a high-level team.
"I can't wait to meet you and experience your famous pre-season training."
Gao Shen could only smile bitterly.
He didn't expect that his pre-season training would be rumored to be so mysterious.
"I am carefully preparing a gift for you, it will definitely help you!"
Boateng replied, saying he would wait and see.
After finishing a distance communication between the head coach and the new players, Gao Shen made some plans in his mind.
After the introduction of Boateng, the central defenders are basically full.
David Luiz, Kompany, Gary Cahill and Boateng, these four central defenders all need to be physical and pass the ball, and their abilities are also very good.
Among them, David Luiz and Kompany are both a combination that has been trained for a year and are now the main players.
Cahill is the strongest central defender among the players with a high-level residence permit who meets advanced requirements.
Boateng is the youngest, but he has great potential, but he still needs further development and training.
Gao Shen has trained Ramos, David Luiz, Bonucci and Kompany, etc., and he is confident that he can train Boateng.
With these four central defenders, I believe there should be no problem with the central defender position in the new season.
If that's not enough, Javi Martinez can also be pulled down to play as central defender.
Gao Shen has even planned that in the preseason of the new season, Javi Martinez will play as a central defender.
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After signing Jerome Boateng, Manchester City's pace of transfer signings has not stopped.
Three days later, Manchester City officially announced again that it would acquire 25-year-old Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho from Shakhtar Donetsk, which is still in the Ukrainian League, for 15 million euros.
This deal surprised the media and fans around the world, because Fernandinho's name is not big, and many people even don't know him at all.
But in European football circles, this Brazilian player is no stranger.
The Shakhtar Donetsk team has performed better and better in recent seasons, especially in the 2008-2009 season. First, they performed brilliantly in the group stage, especially in the victory over Barcelona.
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Although they finished third in the group and were forced to play in the Europa League, this team, which is still considered Ukrainian, won consecutive victories in the Europa League and finally defeated Werder Bremen to win the championship. It can be said that it is famous.
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The team's main midfielder Fernandinho scored four goals in nine games in the Europa League and can be said to be one of the core contributors to Shakhtar Donetsk's championship.
It was precisely because of his outstanding performance at Shakhtar Donetsk that Fernandinho was favored by senior players. The Brazilian midfielder was transferred to the Premier League Manchester City for a high price of 15 million euros.
Following Manchester City's official announcement, media around the world were also surprised, especially the unfamiliarity with Fernandinho.
Many people want to know why Gao Shen is interested in a Brazilian midfielder who plays in the Ukrainian league?
As a result, if you don’t dig it, you won’t know. Once you dig it, this kid is actually a world champion!
That happened in 2003 at the U20 World Youth Championship in Abu Dhabi. Fernandinho was in the Brazilian national youth team at that time, but with forward Nirma and left back Adria
Unlike players such as Nou and right back Daniel Alves, Fernandinho did not have a strong presence in the Brazilian national youth team at that time.
Because he is just a substitute among substitutes, always coming on as a substitute in some garbage time.
But who would have thought that for such a little-known little character, in the final, when Brazil faced the Spanish National Youth Team led by Iniesta and others, Fernandinho actually played the most crucial role.
The final word.
Four minutes into the game, Spanish central defender Melli was sent off for a tactical foul.
The Brazilian team had one more man advantage than their opponents throughout the game, but they were never able to break through Spain's goal.
In the 70th minute, Fernandinho came on as a substitute, as if he was the chosen one of destiny.
In the 87th minute, the Brazilian team received a corner kick, Daniel Alves took the penalty, and Fernandinho hit the goal with a header from the edge of the penalty area, giving the Brazilian National Youth Team the lead.
But just three minutes later, there was a fierce conflict between players from both sides, and Fernandinho was directly sent off with a red card.
After the game, no one cared about the World Youth Championship, and no one cared about the midfielder who had won this championship for Brazil and not many people paid attention to it.
Fernandinho also continued to play for Atletico Parana in Brazil until 2005, before transferring to Shakhtar Donetsk.
But now, when the media began to dig deeper into the Brazilian midfielder who had just been appointed by Gao Shen, they couldn't help but feel very surprised, because they discovered that Fernandinho was actually a major contributor to the World Youth Championship.
And it’s still in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
You know, the financial backer behind Manchester City is Abu Dhabi.
Could it be said that it was really predestined somewhere?
But soon, the all-pervasive British media dug deeper again and discovered that Fernandinho did not look like a traditional Brazilian midfielder. Although his passing was excellent, his defensive ability was very strong, averaging 2.5 points per game.
Steals, 3.3 interceptions and 2.5 clearances, he can be said to be a midfielder with both offense and defense.
So when Gao Shen chose Fernandinho, how did he want to use him?
More importantly, the media suddenly discovered a very interesting thing, that is, the 25-year-old Fernandinho only had one experience with the Brazilian National Youth Team. Other than that, he had never played for Brazil.
He has played for the national youth team, let alone the Brazilian national team.
In other words, his resume in the Brazilian national team is blank.
So, as a foreign player, how can Fernandinho apply for a Premier League labor certificate?
You should know that the core clause of the Premier League labor certificate is that the national team has played more than 75% of the games in the past two years.
Although since 2003, in order to avoid the loss of young players, the British Ministry of Labor has specially introduced the so-called "Special Talent Clause" for the Premier League, but that is more aimed at young players.
Fernandinho is already twenty-five years old and is no longer young.
For a time, the media and fans were all in a frenzy, speculating whether this was the poor operation of Gao Shen and Manchester City, which caused them to ignore the issues of labor certification and special genius clauses?
