863 The era belonging to Su Dong is coming to an end!
After narrowly defeating Blackburn Rovers 1-0, Manchester City finally got out of the devilish schedule at the end of April.
Although the team will still have to continue fighting on the third front, it can at least take a breath.
After all, the next opponents are not like the Premier League teams like Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. In the Europa League, Manchester City's opponent is Benfica of the Portuguese Super League, and the other matchup is Porto.
Liarelle.
The pattern of the Europa League semi-finals this season is very interesting.
In fact, if you include Braga in the quarter-finals, you can clearly see the strength of the Portuguese Super League among the second-tier European leagues.
The top eight teams occupy three seats and half of the semi-finals. The Portuguese Super League is ranked first among the second-tier European leagues.
Before the Europa League was about to start, the British media also paid attention to the Portuguese Super League. The Times even made a detailed report on the Portuguese Super League to help fans better understand the Portuguese Super League, especially Manchester City’s next opponent, Benfica.
It's actually quite surprising that Benfica can reach the semi-finals of the Europa League.
The team's financial situation has not been ideal in recent years.
As we all know, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon are rivals in the same city. As early as that year, when Su Dong and Ronnie played for Sporting Lisbon, Mendes had a close relationship with the Green Lions, which allowed him to successfully sign for Sporting Lisbon.
Young players.
But it is precisely because of his relationship with Sporting Lisbon that Mendes does not have much cooperation with Benfica.
The real turning point came in 2009.
At that time, due to financial crisis, Benfica was forced to mortgage 25% of the ownership of the twelve main players in the team to a Portuguese bank in exchange for a loan of 40 million euros to repay the club's debt.
In other words, the estimated price of these twelve main players is 160 million euros, which is actually a reasonable price.
Subsequently, the transfers of Di Maria and Ramirez proved that the value of Benfica players is still acceptable.
Of course, these two players are the more valuable among the main players, but there are also players like Coentrao and David Luiz who remain on the team, and they are also players with great potential and strength.
Under the circumstances at that time, Mendes made a decisive move and bought the 25% ownership of David Luiz from the bank for 4.5 million euros, plus the operation of Di Maria to
The transfer from Manchester City, and the subsequent transfer of Ramires to Chelsea, opened up the cooperation barrier with Benfica management.
From that moment on, Mendes had complete control over the top three players in the Portuguese Super League.
It was also from that year that Mendes started his South American star plan, introducing many South American stars including Falcao and Hulk to the Portuguese Super League, using Portugal as a springboard to land in the four major European leagues.
In Mendes' plan, Portugal has a natural affinity with South American players. Stars are more adaptable to the Portuguese Super League. They can also use the Portuguese Super League to adapt to the European leagues, and the Portuguese Super League can also use these South American players to improve their strength.
, especially some outstanding players, who have shown good strength after their appearance in the Portuguese Super League, especially the Champions League, have become more popular with the four major league teams, and their values have naturally skyrocketed.
I have to say that this is a very smart player transfer channel.
Mendes, players, clubs and teams in the four major leagues all got what they wanted in this chain.
Today, this supply chain of players is working. Benfica and Porto have both reached the Europa League semi-finals, Braga has also entered the quarter-finals, and the Portuguese Super League team has risen strongly in Europe's second-tier leagues.
Among them, Benfica is the most outrageous.
This team is heavily in debt, short of money and people, and its willingness to cooperate with Mendes is very strong. At the most outrageous time, there was only one Portuguese player in Benfica's lineup, Coentrao, and all the others were from
Foreign aid in South America.
Su Dong already knew about Mendes' plan when he laid it out and was optimistic about the prospect. However, he did not participate in it and chose to stay out of it.
Player ownership operations are indeed very profitable.
Let’s not talk about others, let’s just talk about David Luiz’s transfer to Manchester City. Mendes made millions of euros from it. This does not include the agent’s commission, it is purely the profit from the player’s ownership.
However, world football also has different attitudes towards third-party ownership of player ownership. The Portuguese Super League recognizes it, but other leagues do not. Others are ambiguous and turn a blind eye.
It is undeniable that this method of operation is prone to problems.
Su Dong cherishes his feathers. He has strong commercial value and is burdened with the image of many world brands, so he is unwilling to participate. He is afraid that if something happens, he will not benefit much, but will cause a lot of trouble. He will have a negative impact on his image.
damage.
Now he doesn't need to worry about money at all.
The lifetime contract with the American sports brand is still being negotiated. What Su Dong is offering is an unprecedented sky-high price. Let alone world football, even in the sports world, there has never been such an astonishingly high price.
The other party is still hesitating.
However, sports brands from Germany are gearing up, waiting for Sudong to collapse its negotiations with American brands, and they will seize the opportunity to enter.
With this contract alone, Su Dong would have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of his life.
Not to mention that in China, Su Dong's parents left a large number of houses for him.
Until now, Su Dong didn't even know how many houses he owned. He only knew that Wang Chuqing had set up a company to rent these houses. According to Wang Chuqing, some of the houses bought by Su Dong's parents had already been flipped.
Several times, which made Su Dong have to admire his parents' investment vision.
In their words, Su Dong could spend his whole life just by collecting rent.
Under such circumstances, how could Su Dong bet on his own image for the part of the profits Mendes promised?
What's more, the operational risks of third-party ownership of players are also very high.
Just like Benfica's Paraguayan striker Oscar Cardoso.
The 27-year-old forward performed very well last season, playing 47 times for Benfica and scoring 38 goals. He was hailed by the Portuguese media as the player with the strongest scoring ability in the Portuguese Super League after Sudong.
, the limelight lasted for a while.
It can be said that apart from being a little older, Cardoso has nothing wrong with him and has attracted the interest and attention of teams such as Naples, Genoa, and even Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus.
It is precisely because of this that Benfica made the decision to raise 9 million euros and buy 80% of Cardoso's ownership. This was also a very cost-effective deal at the time.
Mendes wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to cash out part of the profits, and Benfica's calculation was also very precise. After another season of crazy goals for Cardoso, they could cash out at a high level and make a lot of money by then.
But who would have thought that not long after the start of the new season, Cardoso suffered a serious injury. So far since his comeback, he has played 33 times for Benfica and scored 18 goals. This report card is not bad, but it is worse than
There was a significant decline last season.
Due to his age, injuries, and decline in performance, everyone knows that it will be difficult for Cardoso to return to his peak.
This deal is probably going to fall through the cracks.
Mendes doesn't care, after all, he cashed out at a high position before and got away with it by luck, but Benfica, the successor, is in trouble.
In addition to Cardoso, Benfica also introduced winger Gaitan from Boca Juniors at a high price, spending nearly 10 million. This is obviously a huge gamble, and this player has not performed amazingly so far.
Not as tall as Di Maria back then.
Not to mention making money, it is still a matter of suspense whether the investment can be repaid.
On the one hand, it was about his own image, and on the other hand, it was too risky, so Su Dong never planned to participate.
When you have money, wouldn’t it be nice to go back to your country and buy a house for your parents?
…
Three days after playing Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City headed south again, heading to Portugal to challenge Benfica away from home.
With continuous multi-front operations and the long journey south, Manchester City's condition is not ideal.
Su Dong came on and opened the scoring for Manchester City in the first half.
But in the second half, Jardel equalized for Benfica, and then Manchester City scored with Gareth Barry's header to surpass the score again.
But in the 59th minute, Cardoso scored a direct free kick and equalized the score for Benfica again.
In the end, the two teams shook hands with each other 2-2.
Manchester City finally took home two away goals.
…
In another game that was held at the same time as Manchester City's game against Benfica, Porto faced Villarreal at home.
What surprised everyone was that, with Falcao's four goals, Porto beat the Yellow Submarine 5-1 at home. The Portuguese Super League champions scored an incredible victory at their home court.
.
The Yellow Submarine has been focusing on the battle for the top four in the league recently. Everyone knows this. Some people have even thought that Villarreal is likely to give up the Europa League. But even so, no one thought that Porto
In the first round, they beat Villarreal 5-1 at home.
After this peak match ended, the Portuguese media gave Porto crazy praise.
With four goals, Falcao once again proved his superb scoring ability, eclipsing Sudong, who also participated in the Europa League semi-finals.
The Portuguese media even added insult to injury by saying, "The era of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is coming to an end!"
"European football will usher in the era of Falcao!"
And Porto's 33-year-old head coach Villas-Boas has also become famous this season.
As Mourinho's right-hand man in the past, he coached Porto after his solo career. This season he has won the domestic league and cup championships, and now the only thing missing is the Europa League.
As long as they win this championship, Porto under the coaching of Villas-Boas will be a veritable triple crown champion.
Although it is only the Europa League, in the current situation of European football, this is already a quite rare achievement.
Even, to some extent, it can be said that it surpassed the Porto team coached by Mourinho.
Of course, the premise is that Porto can win the championship.
