i want to be king

Chapter 125 I'm Falling In Love With You!
As Christmas approaches, Alcocheti, which is usually bustling and noisy, becomes empty.

The team ushered in the Christmas holiday, and many players also have round-trip air ticket subsidies, so they all went home for the New Year.

Ronnie, for example, returned to Madeira last night.

Although Jose Semedo has no subsidies, his family is in Setúbal, which is very close to Lisbon, so he also went back.

Su Dong and Pepe politely declined Ronnie's kind invitation and chose to stay in Lisbon.

Albertini returned to Milan, while André Cruz did not return to Brazil, but chose to stay at home with his wife and children.

Professional players travel around to play games all year round, and they often spend a month or two training camps, and they really have very little time to spend with their families.

Although the team was on vacation and all the teammates and friends who trained together on weekdays had gone back, Su Dong and Pepe came to Arcocheti to train every day. Without Tonito as a free driver, they had no choice but to choose to take a taxi.

The two of them were not the only ones who practiced during the holidays.

Quaresma also comes to Alcochetti every day. He and his family live in downtown Lisbon. After seeing Su Dong and Pepe come to Alcochetti by taxi, the talented Portuguese winger who drove here offered to pick them up.

At first there were only three of them, but by afternoon there were two more.

They are all players from the Sporting Lisbon youth team. One is Nani, a winger who also has Cape Verdean blood. He has just turned 16. He is quite familiar with Ronnie and has chatted with Su Dong a few times.

After he turned [-] in November, he was officially transferred to the second team, and will train with the first team during the winter break and the second half of the season.

There is also Joao Moutinho, a midfielder, whose characteristics are a bit like Ugo Viana who traveled to England. He is good at midfield organization and passing, and he is also good at defense, so he is hailed as Ugo Viana’s successor.

This is a very interesting place in the football world.

Hugo Viana himself is still a rookie, but he has already begun to have a successor in the Sporting Lisbon team.

Moutinho's playing characteristics and style, from Rui Costa to Ugo Viana, are basically in the same strain.

And Nani, at first some people said that he was like Quaresma, but later everyone said that he was very similar to Ronnie, both in terms of bloodline and playing characteristics, so he has the title of Ronnie's successor.

However, so far, there has been no successor to Su Dong in the youth team.

It is worth mentioning that a friend of Su Dong and Ronnie in the youth team, central defender Jose Fonte will also be officially transferred to the first team after the winter break, because Boloni is not very satisfied with the performance of the current first team central defender.

Jose Fonte is a very capable central defender, and Sudong believes he will perform well in the first team.

……

Several people get together to train, in fact, you help me, and I help you.

In addition to some usual routine training, Su Dong focused on strengthening the header competition for crosses from the side.

Pepe will defend closely, Quaresma and Nani will take charge of the ball from the two wings, and Su Dong and Pepe will compete for landing points.

The reason why he practiced this set is because Su Dong finally chose Klose's "Air Overlord" under the fierce temptation of Maradona's "God's Left Foot". He felt that the most urgent thing for him now was to strengthen his header.

As a center forward, scoring goals is what he needs to consider most.

On the training ground, the two wings kept taking the ball, and Su Dong and Pepe in the penalty area kept judging the ball's landing point and kept fighting for the top.

In this kind of repeated training, Su Dong gradually integrated and mastered Klose's "Aerial Overlord", constantly improving his ability to predict the ball's landing, and strive to improve his header ability as soon as possible.

In the first game of the second half of the winter break, the opponent is Mourinho's Porto.

Sporting Lisbon is now a lot behind Porto in the standings. If you want to reverse in the second half, you must win this strong dialogue.

…………

…………

When Su Dong and others were sweating profusely on the training ground, two Spaniards came to the sidelines.

One of them is familiar to Su Dong, the Spanish scout Garcia.

The two stood on the sidelines, looking at the few teenagers who were training during the holidays, and they couldn't help being a little surprised.

"It's no wonder that in recent years, Sporting Lisbon's youth training camp has produced a large number of talents, and the football atmosphere is really good."

Garcia laughed and said, "See? That's Quaresma."

Following Garcia's gestures, the middle-aged Spanish easily recognized Quaresma.

Perhaps it was a preconceived impression, but he felt that this Portuguese genius was really great, whether it was a stop or a cross, he was very good, and more importantly, he was still very young.

The other dark-skinned kid seemed a lot more frizzy, especially when dealing with the ball, and the stability of his technical movements was not good enough. He especially liked to make a sudden pass after a sudden stop to smash the ball.

But the problem is that the quality of this cross is still very low.

"He should be an African-American player with good body and fast speed. His skills are a bit like street football. He is very casual, not stable enough, and the quality of crosses is not high... Huh!"

The Spanish middle-aged man was slightly surprised.

On the pitch, Nani's pass was indeed not of high quality, but Su Dong, who was in charge of the central support, reacted quickly. He immediately judged where the ball landed, and took the lead before Pepe, stood still and headed the goal.

This caught the attention of the middle-aged Spanish.

"This kid..."

After noticing it, the middle-aged Spanish began to pay attention to Su Dong subconsciously.

He found that this training focused on training Su Dong's ability to respond to crosses, and his prediction of the ball was always very accurate, and his reaction time was also short. Although this is just training and does not represent the performance in the game, but if he can do this in training, he will definitely not be too bad in the game.

"Interesting, is he the Su Dong you mentioned?" the Spaniard asked with a smile.

Garcia nodded with a smile.

Su Dong really stood out from the crowd, with his height, skin color and hair color, standing in the crowd, he was recognized at the first sight.

"He played well this season, should he attract the attention of many European teams?" the middle-aged Spanish asked with a smile.

Garcia nodded, "Yes, there are indeed many teams paying attention to him, even giants like Manchester United, Arsenal, Inter Milan and Juventus, but there is a very serious problem."

"what?"

"He has never participated in the national team competition. It will be very troublesome to go to the Premier League. In other leagues, he will occupy a non-European spot."

The Spanish middle-aged suddenly realized.

The work permit of the Premier League team is very troublesome. If you don’t participate in the national team’s game, if you want to get the work permit, you must show enough strength and performance. Otherwise, how can you convince the Premier League team to work hard for you?
Especially for giants like Manchester United and Arsenal, it is not an easy task for them to obtain a labor permit for a young player. For example, Kaka, a talented teenager who participated in the World Cup Brazil national team, Ferguson couldn't get him.

As for the non-European quota, this is also a very troublesome matter.

For the teams in the four major leagues, especially the upstream teams, the non-European foreign aid quota is very strict. Every team has a foreign aid restriction. Who would be willing to use a precious foreign aid quota for a young player?

For many teams, they would rather spend more money to buy an EU player than waste a foreign aid quota, because those are precious resources reserved for the most cutting-edge stars.

Of course, there will be some teams who don't care about their non-European status, because they can't run out of foreign aid places.

"His agent Mendes has been very popular recently. He has successively signed many Portuguese Super League teams such as Porto, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon. He is the agent of the head star, and Su Dong is one of Mendes' most valued players. He has also been running and contacting the team."

After listening to Garcia's words, the Spanish middle-aged man nodded heavily.

"It's really not easy. Watching him train, it's surprising and exciting that this body can have such speed and technique."

After hearing this, Garcia felt even happier.

This is a famous Spanish midfielder in the 80s. Before Mendieta, Valencia's right midfielder was his unshakable main position. At the same time, he has quite good network resources in Spain and has a very sharp vision.

If he is optimistic about Su Dong, it proves that Su Dong is definitely not bad.

……

The two were talking, and the training on the court came to an end for the time being.

Garcia called Su Dong over loudly.

At the beginning, Su Dong and his group went to the Bernabeu to watch the game. Thanks to Garcia who helped them get tickets and took them to visit the dressing room of Real Madrid, the relationship between Su Dong and Garcia was quite good.

"Why are you here? You didn't tell me in advance." Su Dong was a little surprised.

Last time I troubled Garcia, this time I must do my best as a landlord.

"I have something to do temporarily, come and talk to Aurelio." Garcia explained with a smile.

He didn't say anything, but after thinking about it, he should have guessed that it was probably related to the players.

Garcia is a scout, not just a scout, and there are many places where he can cooperate with Sporting Lisbon.

"Have dinner together after the talk?" Su Dong suggested.

"No, we have to rush back to Madrid, next time."

Su Dong felt very sorry. He didn't like to owe favors very much, and he always felt that he had to ask for a treat before he could feel at ease.

"Oh, by the way, let me introduce you, this is Valencia legend, Javier Subirac."

Now Su Dong became even more convinced that Garcia's coming must have something to do with the players.

"Hello, Javier."

"Hello, Sue."

"Which player of our team do you guys like to come here this time?" Su Dong asked tentatively in a joking tone.

In fact, he is still a little gossip.

Subirac glanced at Garcia, who was quite interested in this curious boy, laughed and said, "I've taken a fancy to you!"

"Ah?" Su Dong was slightly taken aback.

"But it's a pity..." Subirac changed the subject, "I don't serve in any team now, so..."

Su Dong smiled wryly. He found that Subirac seemed to be joking with himself.

(End of this chapter)