Moreover, Gerrard, who joined Barcelona, rejected AC Milan's sincere offer for his red and blue blood!
If he went to Serie A, his future might be different.
Because at that time Gennaro Gattuso, who was a competitor for the same position as Gerrard in AC Milan, had not yet had any outstanding performance, and there was a high probability that he would not be able to beat Gerrard Lopez in the competition.
That is to say, starting from Gerald Lopez, Barcelona has a tradition of poaching Valencia players. In the future, they will poach Villa, Alba, Andre Gomez, and Paco Alka from the Bat Corps.
Players such as Serge and many of them are superstars.
Under this wave of output, Barcelona spent all "Figo's bad money" and even lost more than 10 million, which satisfied the fans.
Barcelona firmly believes that with such strong signings, they will usher in a bright season!
But no one would have thought that after spending so much money, Barcelona could not dominate the transfer headlines after Figo's transfer was settled.
Because on the other side of the Imbilia Peninsula, a transfer from Sporting Lisbon shocked Europe.
"Official website of Sporting Lisbon: Warmly welcome FIFA's first World Footballer, Ballon d'Or, and German Footballer Lothar Matthäus to join Sporting Lisbon!"
Boom!
Thunder is rolling!
With such news, who else?
Sporting Lisbon is unremarkable.
Matthäus is already a dusk superstar and has little traffic.
But when a star who everyone thought would retire suddenly announced that he would play again, many fans would still be extremely excited.
This is just like Torres suddenly announcing his comeback in 2022 after retiring for several years. It is shocking and makes people want to know more, even if the horse riding is just an advertising campaign.
Subsequently, relevant news continued to burst out, and the "Record" gave almost all first-hand information, once again dominating this summer.
"Matthaus mysteriously joined, and his salary is only as high as Sporting Lisbon's original maximum salary! It's a huge discount compared to the Bayern era!"
"The first reason why Matthäus joined Sporting Lisbon: Triguera and Maxa are excellent coaches, and I hope to work with excellent coaches!"
"The second reason why Matthaus joined Sporting Lisbon: Although the German team was eliminated from the European Cup group stage, Deng Kai did not tell me in advance that he predicted this result, otherwise we may perform even worse. Help Deng Kai and Lisbon
Competition is my gratitude.》
"Matthaus joined Sporting Lisbon for the third reason: he hopes to lead a group of young people to fight for the championship and prove that Bayern and the German team did not fail because of me."
All kinds of news are flying all over the sky.
The Sun, which has a large network in England, was quick to refute several of the Record's stories.
"The Sun": "The biggest pusher for Matthaus to join Sporting Lisbon is Deng Kai! The star wives have played a key role. We previously judged that Matthaus was ready to join Manchester United based on the star wives, but now it seems that Deng Kai
Been preparing for this day!”
"On the eve of Matthäus joining Sporting Lisbon, he attended a gathering of the Star Wives Club in Buckinghamshire. This was convened by Victoria and Hathaway. Marlene also took Matthäus to attend."
"There were other heavyweight stars also attending the party, two Frenchmen and a Spaniard!"
"The Sun" always knows how to play with traffic.
Two Frenchmen and a Spaniard whetted people's appetites.
Everyone speculated.
But soon, one of the Frenchmen surfaced.
"Sporting Lisbon took Deschamps, a member of the French team's championship team, from Chelsea! The transfer fee is 3.5 million euros!"
"Deschamps admitted that he had participated in the meeting of football star wives, but he did not reveal the identity of the other Frenchman!"
"Found it! Zidane and Beckham shot a certain brand's advertisement that day, and the location was in England!"
"Zidane: I was invited to the party. It was the home field of the girls. We players just gathered around and chatted."
"French Football: Zidane may choose to leave. His contract extension with Juventus has not been negotiated on some terms. Will the star's wife make him waver in Juventus?"
"Marca: Florentino is very interested in Zidane! Real Madrid needs all the top stars!"
"Juventus: I am very happy to renew my contract with Zidane. He will be the most important player for Juventus in 2005!"
Good guy, Deng Kai was talking about the news of "The Sun", how could "France Football" pick up the news, and how could Spain's "Marca" follow suit.
Looking at it now, it turns out that this was a trick by Zidane to put pressure on Juventus and make Juventus agree to his high-paying contract renewal conditions.
The key point is that not even Juventus can utter a single word of complaint.
Because Zidane was very cooperative from beginning to end.
It's Real Madrid and the star's wife who are causing trouble.
Otherwise, Zidane is a smart man.
If you really force the team on the outside, even if you sign a contract, will you still be the perfect Zidane in the eyes of the senior management, the fans, and your teammates?
Of course, after this incident, Deng Kai called Zidane and praised Qi Zu's operation.
Zidane kept trying, but in the end he made it easier for Deng Kai and asked for some phone numbers in France and Italy.
Both of them expressed satisfaction with this "cooperation".
As for the Spaniard who attended the party, he still didn't hide it.
Guardiola was called out by the media.
In this regard, Guardiola generously admitted: "I was invited by Deng Kai, but it was just for life considerations outside of work. We talked about some ideas about investing in opening restaurants in England."
"We don't talk much about football. The main thing is that I sign a lot."
Guardiola dispelled doubts of Barcelona fans.
But one thing is that Barcelona has bought Petit, which shows that Guardiola is not so reliable in their eyes.
Especially since 1997 and 1998, Guardiola seems to have had more injuries.
Last season, he actually missed several games that the head coach wanted him to play, citing maintenance as an excuse. This once caused fans to criticize Guardiola.
But Guardiola's explanation for this was that his sports medicine experts advised him to rest, otherwise he might suffer a serious injury.
People never care about what "will happen", only what happens.
Guardiola lost a lot of trust at the time.
Some Barcelona fans even asked at the star wives meeting event, why didn't Guardiola go to Sporting Lisbon?
With Petit and Gerrard, Guardiola is actually dispensable in Barcelona.