Ground football: Ronaldo thought I was going to assist him

"Don't get excited, don't cry, speak slowly, there's no rush... Yes, I know you've worked hard enough, your performance speaks for itself... Mr. Triguera is known for his ability to discover and nurture young stars; Figo, Simão, and Quaresma are all his masterpieces!"

"Okay, okay, let's start working on the contract then. By the way, you can also start some training in advance. Sporting Lisbon's goal for the season is the Portuguese league title, so we'll be in match mode early on. Don't fail the team test when you join the team."

Soon, Deng Kai had secured Barzagli's services.

It seemed the other person had been crying for quite a while on the phone.

Andrea Barzagli is certainly no stranger to Juventus and Italian fans.

He started as a center forward like Ciro, then played midfield, and only switched to center back at the age of eighteen, last year.

He is a true star who rose from the very bottom.

Last season, he led Londinella in the amateur leagues and successfully guided the team into the Italian fourth division.

That's why 200,000 euros is an astronomical price that an amateur league club can't refuse. Their player transfers are usually in the thousands, and tens of thousands are rare.

Thinking about it that way, it's quite normal for Rondinella to reject the loan offer from Serie B side Pistoia.

Furthermore, Pistoia's words to Barzagli did not include any promises regarding the number of matches. If Barzagli really goes there, he will probably not get more than five appearances, and he will only be wasting his youth.

In fact, if Sporting Lisbon hadn't made the purchase...

Barzagli will transfer to Ascoli in Serie C and help the team get promoted to Serie B again, before joining Serie A team Chievo.

He reached his first peak after transferring to Palermo and then to Wolfsburg, and then experienced a rebirth and entered his second peak after joining Juventus.

Chiellini, Bonucci, and other top Italian center-backs later had to call him "brother," and the three of them were once Italy's most reliable defense in the national team.

Barzagli's greatest strength lies in his one-on-one defensive tackles.

That's ridiculously strong.

As he gets older, his slow turning speed will be a fatal flaw, but he is not yet twenty years old, so he will not have a speed crisis.

This is definitely a good choice for the center-back position.

In terms of center-back talent, he is far superior to Fonte.

……

Barzagli was just the beginning.

Triguera also secured a good loan signing in the Premier League.

This player is a very promising young player; he'll be playing for his team this year or next.

A Premier League first team is definitely a prestigious club.

These players are treasures; basically, no team will loan them out. What if you injure them or ruin their training?

Furthermore, even if it were a loan deal, it wouldn't be Sporting Lisbon's turn. They definitely have other teams they're partnered with, and they wouldn't want the money to go to outsiders.

But this player is a special case this year.

He started for the team's first team last year, but the team didn't give him a chance to play, so they loaned him out for half a year, afraid that his form would cool down.

He was supposed to play more games with the first team this year, but the team's trades went wrong. The players who should have left didn't leave, and the players who shouldn't have come came. Suddenly, this young player didn't have many opportunities to play.

If he really wants to stay in the first team, he may not get enough playing time.

Out of a sense of responsibility to the players, the team informed them of the situation and allowed them to make their own choice.

The player originally planned to gamble on the first team, as he was confident in himself.

But then Sporting Lisbon, a powerhouse in the Portuguese league, sent a loan request.

The club had just completed a pleasant deal with Sporting Lisbon, and it wouldn't be good to back out now, so they let the player decide whether to go.

The player is also happy, because this way he doesn't have to fight tooth and nail for the first team. If he had stayed in the first team and hadn't secured a starting center-back position, his future would have been uncertain.

How about we postpone things for the Premier League first team for another year?

Moreover, it would be good to experience the real competition in the Portuguese league, since the level of the Portuguese league is still stronger than that of the English Championship and Italian Serie B.

These days, the Portuguese and Dutch leagues are just as good as the French league and even the German league.

And so, Chelsea, the Premier League team that had just sold Deschamps to Sporting Lisbon, quietly announced that they would loan their talented academy player John Terry to Sporting Lisbon for one season!

If Barzagli was a world-class center-back at his peak...

John Terry is a regular on almost every list of the "Top Ten Center Backs".

He may not be the world's best center-back, but he is England's best center-back, the most successful center-back in the Premier League's big-money era, and the future heart and soul of Chelsea!

Although it's only a one-season loan, and although Terry is only twenty years old now.

But honestly, he's definitely much better than those center-backs at Sporting Lisbon like Marcos, Facundo, and Fonte.

Fonte: I'm really leaving!

The team was busy, and Deng Kai was still on the phone.

He directly spent 400,000 euros to sign 22-year-old center forward Didier Drogba from Le Mans in Ligue 2.

At first, Le Mans even said that Guingamp in Ligue 1 had their eye on Drogba and wanted to buy him, with their first offer being 200,000 euros.

Deng Kai didn't bother with any small talk about Le Mans; he immediately asked, "Two hundred thousand is too cheap. Would you sell it for four hundred thousand euros?"

Le Mans had never seen anything like this before.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!

Didier Drogba looks robust and has the potential to be a center forward, but his goal-scoring efficiency is really not good.

His performance in Ligue 2 has been lukewarm, making it hard to believe that he will score more goals when he plays in a higher-level league in the future.

However, Deng Kai knew that some center forwards' goal-scoring ability was not measured by the number of goals they scored.

He might only score ten or so goals in lower-level leagues, but he could score ten or so goals in top-level leagues as well.

This is a completely different type of striker from Jardel.

Jardel scored 30 or 40 goals in several seasons in the Portuguese league.

But if you go to a top league, it's hard to score even ten goals in a season.

Of course, Deng Kai didn't need to tell the other party these things.

Drogba now may not even have the ability to compete in top leagues.

But using Drogba as a substitute for Jardel is still acceptable.

Furthermore, if Deng Kai remembers correctly, Drogba will face a series of injuries this season. Even if he comes back, he'll need to undergo examinations first, and then his use will depend on the situation; he can't just be used whenever he wants.

Didier Drogba came from a poor family and drifted between France and Ivory Coast at a young age, playing for several small clubs.

So when he learned that a Portuguese league team wanted him, he didn't hesitate much, packed his bags, and set off.

He has every reason to fight desperately for it!

[P.S.: There will be two more chapters for the Alliance Leader, and I'll try to finish them tomorrow. I really can't write today. I just found out that one of the three people I live with and eat with, A, B, and C, has tested positive for COVID-19. I'm so angry.]

We had to move to a two-person environment overnight to reduce the risk of cross-infection. No wonder I've been feeling dizzy and have diarrhea for the past two days...

I like playing football on the ground: Ronaldo thought I was going to assist him.