The Ajax club was quite surprised that Sporting Gijon wanted to purchase their young center back Vermaelen who was on loan. At this time, Vermaelen had not attracted Ajax's attention.
Therefore, Ajax is not opposed to selling Vermaelen, as long as the price can satisfy them, that's fine. After all, he is just a young man on loan and is not among the young talents Ajax focuses on cultivating.
Moreover, half a season has passed, and Vermaelen, who is on loan at Waalwijk in the Eredivisie, has only had the opportunity to play in six games, of which only two games were starts. His performance can only be said to be average, not outstanding.
What’s so special? The feedback from this news made Ajax pay even less attention to Vermaelen: This young man is for sale!
Since Ajax is not opposed to selling Vermaelen, all that's left now is bargaining.
After two days of communication between Banderas and the Ajax club, the negotiations between the two parties have reached a deadlock.
Ajax has priced Vermaelen at €1.5 million.
However, the price of Sporting Gijon's task is too high. According to Li Ang's previous instructions, Sporting Gijon's attitude is that it is only willing to pay 500,000 euros at most.
Are you kidding? Ajax dares to offer 1.5 million euros for a 19-year-old young central defender who is only loaned to a mid-to-lower team in the Eredivisie and is only a substitute?!
This was 2005, and this was not the era when players were generally priced at a premium. In 2005, if you were lucky and there were no malicious bids from other teams, you could buy a capable player for one or two million euros.
Therefore, Ajax's asking price of 1.5 million euros, in Li Ang's view, is just a big deal. It can even be said that there is no sincerity.
Because his bid for Metzelder, Kompany and Albiol were rejected, Leon was also furious and felt quite unhappy. Now in his view, Ajax's lack of sincerity also made him dissatisfied.
"Reply to Ajax, 800,000 euros, fixed price, if it doesn't work, forget it." Li Ang directly told his assistant Banderas. For an unknown young central defender, 800,000 euros is enough.
Defenders are different from other positions. They have their own unique characteristics. Young offensive players may be sold at high prices, but this is not the case for defenders.
After hearing this, Banderas nodded. He didn't think there was anything wrong with eight hundred thousand euros. He didn't know Vermaelen, and naturally he didn't know the future achievements of this young man. Anyway, he just felt that a 19-year-old
He is a young defender who is loaned out by Ajax and cannot play in games. Even 800,000 euros is too much.
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Li Ang believed that Ajax lacked sincerity and he had no hope of winning Vermaelen. Therefore, this afternoon, Li Ang stayed in the office. He was thinking and watching the game video. It was all Scott.
Rui has compiled some game videos of the team's central defenders, which is also Li Ang's request. Li Ang has now realized that those talented players in his memory, for him now, more often than not can only
Drooling with envy, because most of these players are in wealthy teams, and it is not easy to poach them from wealthy teams. Looking for some targets from these game videos can be regarded as filling in the gaps. He has a system to rely on. If necessary,
He can spend perspective points to 'detect' the strength of some players he likes. However, after watching the game videos for an afternoon, there is no player that stands out to him and is worthy of him generating a strength inspection report on a certain player.
When Banderas knocked on the door of the head coach's office, he informed him that Ajax had agreed to Sporting Gijon's offer of 800,000 euros for Vermaelen.
Li Ang was surprised at first, then happy, and finally cursed through gritted teeth. Sure enough, those wealthy families were all cheap. They were polite here, but they ran into obstacles everywhere. He was cruel, but it had a miraculous effect.
Of course, Li Ang understands the reason for this. It seems that Ajax really does not pay attention to Vermaelen. The previous "high price" of 1.5 million euros was based on the hope that there would be no more dates.
Attitude, if Sporting Gijon is willing to pay a high price, they will make money. Then seeing Sporting Gijon's tough attitude, they feel that 800,000 euros is not unacceptable...
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Ajax agreed, and the rest is up to the players' personal wishes.
Sporting Gijon contacted Vermaelen and his agent very quickly. The young Vermaelen joined Ajax from the Belgian Eklund last summer. He was very excited about joining this Eredivisie giant for the first time.
He was soon crushed by the cruel reality. He was not in Ajax's current plans, was not taken seriously, and was directly loaned out.
It can be said that Vermaelen is not Dutch, nor is he a product of the Ajax youth academy. He does not have much affection or sincerity for Ajax. He came to Ajax just because Ajax is a wealthy club.
, this is a bigger stage.
Under such circumstances, the favor of Sporting Gijon allowed Vermaelen to see a new stage.
His agent immediately enlightened him and told him about the situation of Sporting Gijon.
Through his agent's narration, Vermaelen had the simplest understanding of Sporting Gijon. Their head coach is Chinese and he is a very interesting person. Although Sporting Gijon is a newly promoted team, in this Chinese
He performed very well under his leadership and is now ranked fourth in La Liga. In the league, he successively captured the Bernabeu and Camp Nou, knocking out the two giants Real Madrid and Barcelona. Others such as Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna
Other strong teams in La Liga have also been defeated by this team. From this, we can see the strong performance of this team... and as the champion of the Spanish Cup last season, it has now entered the knockout stage of the UEFA Cup.
That's enough!
For Vermaelen, a 19-year-old young man who is currently not taken seriously by Ajax, La Liga is a bigger stage than the Eredivisie. The fourth-placed team in La Liga has a European war to play in.
Such conditions were enough to satisfy Vermaelen.
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Ajax club and Vermaelen himself have agreed to the transfer, but it does not mean that the deal can be concluded immediately.
This is because Vermaelen is currently on loan to Waalwijk from Ajax. In terms of ownership, Vermaelen is now a member of Waalwijk.
Vermaelen's transfer still requires Waalwijk's approval.
Waalwijk Club did not set up obstacles to Vermaelen's transfer. After all, Vermaelen is an Ajax player. They only loaned Vermaelen. In addition, Ajax is an Eredivisie player.
For the league's giants, Vermaelen is just a substitute center back in Waalwijk, and is not that important. In this case, Waalwijk doesn't mind selling Ajax a favor.
In the end, Waalwijk announced that Vermaelen's loan contract with Ajax would end six months ahead of schedule, and Vermaelen returned to Ajax early.
In order to complete the deal as soon as possible and avoid long nights and nightmares, this time, Li Ang allowed Vermaelen to have a physical examination in the Netherlands, and Sporting Gijon's team doctor went to the Netherlands to accompany Vermaelen for a physical examination.
The young Belgian central defender was in good physical condition at this time and was not the glass man he would become later. The physical examination went well. This also means that the final obstacle to the deal has been removed.
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On January 3, 2005, Sporting Gijon officially announced on its official website that 19-year-old Belgian center back Thomas Vermaelen officially transferred from Eredivisie giant Ajax to join Sporting Gijon for a transfer fee of 80
million euros.
"...We are happy to announce that we have signed a five-year contract with this very talented young Belgian central defender..." said the official website of Sporting Gijon, signing a five-year contract with Vermaelen: Sporting Gijon has adhered to Li Ang's consistent requirements.
, for players that Li Ang is optimistic about, he will always sign long-term contracts as much as possible...
Sporting Gijon signed a long-term contract and recruited the future captain of Arsenal to his subordinates first... and secretly poached Wenger's corner.
