When playing football, you should call it GOAT.

Chapter 4: Will he make the competition roster? (Please read on!)

Roy's agent, Alan Millia Jo, arrived late.

This veteran French agent is known for his low profile and efficiency, and rarely gives media interviews.

His most famous achievement was leveraging the political struggle between Florentino and Sanz to facilitate a record-breaking €7500 million transfer in 2001, which set a new world record for football transfer fees: his most famous player was Zinedine Zidane.

There was no contract between the two; their decades-long partnership was based solely on a verbal agreement. Zidane publicly acknowledged Milaccio and refused to allow other big names to get involved.

Miliacho famously said: "I only talk to Zidane; no one else."

In addition, well-known French players such as Lizarazu and Dugarry are also under his wing. When Roy signed his first professional contract with Real Madrid at the age of sixteen, he also chose to sign with Migliaccio.

"The last time I saw you was more than a year ago."

“Bosque called me and specifically mentioned that he would continue to monitor your performance.”

Alan Milaccio spoke in a kind tone, hugging Roy and touching his right and left cheeks before whispering something.

Roy frowned; he felt uncomfortable with this French etiquette.

"Please thank Mr. Bosque for me."

Roy remained silent for a few seconds before saying, "I will always cherish the time I spent in Castile."

This seems to carry an emotional tone, but it's certainly not true; maintaining a good relationship with Real Madrid simply won't do him any harm.

Putting everything else aside, if his strength continues to grow, even if he doesn't want to go back in the future, flirting with Real Madrid before contract renewal negotiations would be a wonderful thing.

Migliorgio spent most of his time with Zidane, and he didn't even give enough attention to stars like Lizarazu, let alone Roy.

In order to better plan his career, Roy must keep an eye out for new agents.

At this stage, however, Miliacho is still his best option.

"Long time no see, Didier, you're still as charming as ever!"

Migliorio then turned to Deschamps, greeted him warmly, and mentioned that he had just met with Deschamps' agent, Benedict, in Paris last week for dinner.

Roy's professional contract details at Monaco have been preliminarily agreed upon: a weekly salary of 8,000 euros and a three-year contract.

Although Monaco wanted to sign him to a four-year contract directly, both Roy and Migliacio insisted on a three-year contract. Roy is currently developing his skills, which would make future negotiations easier.

Based on a 52-week calculation cycle, Roy can earn an annual salary of 416,000 euros.

In that era, the highest-paid player in Ligue 1 was Lyon striker Sonny Anderson, earning around four million euros, which was equivalent to the salary of a mid-table Serie A player during the same period, such as Parma's Gilardino.

Secondly, there's Giuly from Monaco, with a salary of 3.8 million euros.

For Roy's age, over 400,000 is a pretty good salary; it's basically in the range for promising young stars.

Another point that cannot be ignored is that the Principality of Monaco is a country that exempts personal income tax.

Monaco has maintained a competitive squad for a long time thanks to this financial advantage, spending far less each year than other Ligue 1 clubs. Later, with the rise of "money-driven football" by Russian oligarchs, they acted with even greater impunity; for example, Falcao earned a net annual salary of €12 million in 2013.

It wasn't until 2014, when fourteen French Ligue 1 clubs, including Paris Saint-Germain, Marseille, and Lyon, jointly filed a complaint with the French Professional Football League, that they were sanctioned and forced to pay wages at the French tax rate (up to 45%).

After Migliorio's team lawyers reviewed the final terms, both parties signed them, and the agent photographed the signed page.

Since most of the numbers were already taken, Roy chose the number 25 jersey.

It's probably because he's been a fan of Bavarian card player Thomas Müller for twenty years.

He then held up his jersey and took photos with team president Campora and head coach Deschamps.

A standard smile: showing the upper teeth but not the lower teeth.

Castilla even teaches this; Real Madrid has a professional visual team responsible for these things.

After fifty shutter clicks, the flashes stopped.

The franchise ceremony has concluded!
"Let's see what you can do?"

Deschamps led Roy into the locker room, and along the way, club staff looked him over with curiosity.

"Gentlemen, please be quiet for a moment."

Deschamps' teams have always emphasized team discipline, and the effect is immediate; the noise in the locker room disappears instantly.

"This is our newest member, from Real Madrid's youth academy, Ludovic!"

"Looks like I'll have to drop to second place in the locker room's ranking of handsomeness."

Giuly stepped forward and smiled at Roy: "Welcome to Monaco!"

With messy curly hair and a sunburned nose, Ludovic Giuly is only 1.64 meters tall. But he possesses strong physical strength, a short, thick neck like a bulldog, and exceptionally well-developed trapezius muscles.

"The Fox" Giuly's personality is just like that: tenacious, cunning, and humorous. He is fluent in multiple languages, and few players dislike him. He can act as a good lubricant in the locker room.

For example, he shouted "Offside!" in Italian to the Italian defenders, helped Morientes learn French in Monaco, taught Messi to swear in French at Barcelona, ​​and deliberately wore women's clothing and danced during training to ease the tension in the team during infighting at Paris Saint-Germain.

As Giuly introduced the players one by one, Roy gradually gained some understanding of the personnel in the Monaco team, and he had heard of many of the names.

But after his experience at Real Madrid, he was no longer affected by it.

Mexican center-backs Rafa Marquez, Jerome Rothen, Vladimir Jugovic, Patrick Evra, and Eric Abidal.
Roy quickly settled his locker.

He is preparing for his first training session in Monaco. "Our physical training is quite intense. I don't know about Real Madrid, but you have to be prepared!"

Juli kindly reminded Roy.

"I'll be ready!"

How strong can it be?

I'd like to see what's going on.

"Welcome to Monaco! I am the club's fitness coach."

A bald man with a serious expression stood there, his face sharply defined.

"My name is Antonio Pintus."

The moment Roy heard that name, he no longer doubted Giuly's words.

Once everyone had arrived.

After an hour of warm-up, Roy began to experience the "Pintus" style physical training program with the team.

There are very few fitness coaches in the football world who are well-known, but Pintus is clearly not one of them.

He was so famous that Roy started to feel tired just hearing his name.

He pioneered numerous training methods that were both scientific and draconian, yet proven effective.

After joining Real Madrid, these training contents were further strengthened. Benzema was still able to make explosive runs in extra time in the Champions League knockout stage, Modric was 37 years old and still ran more than 11 kilometers per game on average, and Alaba had no major injuries in his first season with the club. Pintus's influence can be seen in all of these.

He would even do some devilish things: suddenly turn off the air conditioning during training to simulate the extreme conditions of an away game, or deliberately play the cheers of opposing fans when the players were exhausted.

Fartlek interval running, 5x30m sprint, and shuttle run with ball.

Fortunately, Roy's physical fitness was quite good, and he completed the physical training in an orderly manner.

Deschamps watched the team's performance from the sidelines with satisfaction. His tactics emphasize launching attacks through a lot of running and movement, and ample stamina is an essential element.

After a short break.

A whistle blew.

Deschamps began his first training session of the day.

New signing Roy was called out of the line and introduced to the team lineup once again, after which everyone lined up in two rows to applaud and welcome him.

Roy ran through the two lines of people with his head down, and hands patted his back as a formal induction ceremony.

Who the hell touched my butt?
During Deschamps' training sessions, one can deeply grasp the tactical essence of his playing style, advocating practicality above all else, disliking flashy but impractical moves, and emphasizing resolving issues within three touches.

All ball training must involve physical contact to simulate the pressure of a real game.

After the basic ball training, he introduced his unique Rondos upgraded version of the rondo drill, which is smaller than the traditional rondo field.

It is usually a six-on-two or eight-on-three situation, and a shot must be taken after ten consecutive passes.

The team that loses the ball must immediately switch to defense and win it back within five seconds.

This greatly improves the players' first-touch passing ability and their pressing reaction.

This led to their average of 25 tackles per game at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in France.

The training session ended on time at around 11:00 a.m.

Do you think he'll make the roster for tomorrow's game?

Deschamps looked at the players on the training field and spoke to assistant coach Jean Petit.

Why don't you believe your own eyes?

"We've arranged an intra-team training match this afternoon," Deschamps said.

After the training match, Roy was chatting with Giuly, and through Giuly, he also got to know Rothen and the young Evra.

People now maintain a distant and polite distance from him.

Roy didn't talk much, but fortunately, he had decent emotional intelligence.

At least that's what he thinks.

But in competitive sports, ultimately, it's all about performance.

Tomorrow is a Ligue 1 match day, with Monaco hosting Sedan.

Roy joined the team just one day ago.

Deschamps does not believe that arbitrarily including him in the match squad was a rational choice.

However, we should still take a look first.

Deschamps currently views Roy as a promising rising star.
Most players are still inexperienced at eighteen and need more experience.

A few geniuses are an exception.

(End of this chapter)