Chapter 19 Meeting and Signing

Zhou Yi was a very proactive person. He acted immediately. While in the car, he used the car's Bluetooth to call Schulze and explained the situation. Schulze was also happy to meet Yan Min—although he didn't know what kind of person Yan Min was at all, since he could join Borussia Dortmund and was recommended by Zhou Yi, it meant that Yan Min was not mediocre.

Schulze himself had always been very interested in developing the Chinese market, but he only had Zhou Yi at the moment. Although Zhou Yi was the most influential star in China, he couldn't be in multiple places at once. He couldn't possibly monopolize all the opportunities in the Chinese market, right?

So he really needed to have more Chinese players represented by him.

At this time, Zhou Yi recommended Yan Min, who had just joined the team, and Schulze was very happy.

At noon, he met Yan Min at the agreed-upon restaurant.

After some polite greetings, the two quickly got down to business.

Zhou Yi ate his meal on the side, listening in, but not offering any opinions—this was Yan Min choosing an agent, and Schulze choosing a player. It was their business, and had nothing to do with him. He was only responsible for introducing the two of them to each other, and he couldn't interfere with the rest. After all, if he made the decision, he would be responsible for what he said. What if Yan Min listened to his advice, considering his relationship with Schulze, and agreed to let Schulze be his agent, but then found that they couldn't get along at all in practice? Whose responsibility would that be?

Besides, everyone's needs were different. Yan Min knew his own needs, and it was not appropriate for others to interrupt.

As for the language barrier, Zhou Yi wasn't worried. Schulze had put in a lot of effort to develop the Chinese market—he had specifically signed up for Chinese classes and had Zhou Yi work as his oral training partner, conducting oral and listening training with him. Although he wasn't very proficient in reading and writing, there were no problems with listening and speaking.

Zhou Yi listened from the side. Yan Min was a person with his own opinions, but his requirements were not too high, at least not as high as Zhou Yi's were back then.

He didn't have many requirements for personal brand operation, development, and maintenance, only that nothing that would damage his personal image should be done.

This requirement was very easy for Schulze to meet.

In just half a meal, after fully understanding each other's needs, the two reached an agreement—Yan Min was willing to let Schulze be his agent.

After reaching an agreement, Schulze took out the prepared contract from his briefcase and handed it to Yan Min, asking him to take a look and sign it if he had no objections.

Yan Min took it and raised his head in surprise—because the contract was actually written in Chinese.

"Prepared in advance, I was afraid it would be difficult to understand in English," Schulze said with a smile.

Yan Min read it through, then handed it to Zhou Yi, wanting Zhou Yi to help him take a look. This was the first time he had actively sought Zhou Yi's help in today's negotiations.

Zhou Yi didn't decline—he wouldn't actively help others when they didn't ask for it, but he wouldn't refuse when they did ask for his help—he took it and read it through, then returned the contract to Yan Min and told him: "There's no problem, Tino is trustworthy in this regard."

Next, both parties signed the contract, completing the signing.

From that moment on, Schulze officially became Yan Min's agent.

Zhou Yi raised his glass and said to the two of them, "Come on, let's have a toast, for this cooperation."

Three glasses clinked together gently, making a crisp sound.

※※※

Although he had an agent, the most important role of an agent would not immediately be reflected in a new player who had never represented Borussia Dortmund in a game. Currently, Schulze was mainly helping Yan Min find a place to live—he couldn't always stay in a hotel, and he was also arranging a German teacher for him so that Yan Min could learn some German as soon as possible, so that he could communicate with his teammates and coaches.

Although football was a universal language, if the language was not understood, it would greatly affect the player's life, and if life was not going well, it would also affect the final performance on the field. After all, players were also people, and they had to live like normal people.

Schulze couldn't bring any new contracts to Yan Min at the moment, nor could he find him a sponsorship. All he could do were some small things in terms of living services.

Not all agents would do this kind of thing, and some agents would charge extra for doing these things. But if the agent and the player got along well, they would also provide this kind of service to the player free of charge.

For Yan Min, more important than life was quickly integrating into the new team, not only integrating into the locker room, but also integrating into the team's tactical system.

In fact, Yan Min integrated into the locker room quite quickly. On the one hand, it was because he was Zhou Yi's compatriot, and everyone was willing to treat this compatriot of Zhou Yi kindly.

On the other hand, Yan Min came to Borussia Dortmund because he had fully demonstrated his ability in the game against Borussia Dortmund. He was the most threatening player in Chongming in that game. He made the Borussia Dortmund players feel embarrassed. Although they were all members of the Borussia Dortmund youth team and the second team, they were all elites in the youth team. Otherwise, it would be impossible for Klopp to transfer them to the first team for training...

Football was a world that emphasized strength. If you had strength, you could win respect. If you didn't have strength, even if others respected you on the surface, they didn't really think much of you in their hearts.

Yan Min happened to prove his ability in a suitable way at a suitable opportunity, won the favor of Borussia Dortmund, and naturally won the respect of his new teammates.

However, Yan Min knew very well that he couldn't conquer the coach with his performance in this warm-up match and get stable playing time in Borussia Dortmund—now, let alone stable playing time, it was still hard to say whether he would have any playing time at all.

He also knew that the fact that he and Zhou Yi were both Chinese would not bring him any benefits—Zhou Yi couldn't possibly decide the coach's opinion, could he? He couldn't possibly directly arrange for Yan Min to play, could he?

So everything still depended on Yan Min himself. He had to train and study even harder than he did in Shanghai, and face more intense competition.

From the first day he came to Borussia Dortmund, he put 200% into his training—not 20%, but 200%.

This was naturally seen by the coaches of Borussia Dortmund.

When the coaching staff communicated privately, they would all mention the Chinese young man who had just arrived.

And not only did he attract the attention of the coaches, but even his teammates were surprised by the mental state Yan Min showed in training.

Yan Min was very, very serious when training, and he would constantly use his voice to express some content, even though it was all in Chinese.

Since everyone didn't understand, they asked Zhou Yi, and Zhou Yi answered his teammates' doubts with a strange expression: "He's shouting 'okay', 'yes', 'no problem'... things like that."

"Just these?" His teammates didn't believe it.

Zhou Yi spread his hands: "When it comes to understanding what Chinese people are saying, are you the expert, or am I the expert?"

The teammates who had been very doubtful quickly said that Zhou Yi was the expert, but they were even more curious about the meaning of Yan Min's actions. It seemed a bit silly, and it couldn't help him train better, so why was he doing this?

Zhou Yi shrugged: "How would I know? Maybe this is his way of self-motivation? Just ignore it, anyway, you can't understand what he's shouting..."

But after a few days, everyone could hear Yan Min shouting "okay," "yes!" "No problem" in German on the training ground...

Zhou Yi thought that this kid was learning German quite fast. And seeing how daring he was to pronounce, he estimated that his spoken German should be mastered quickly. Everyone who learned a language knew that daring to speak was the most important thing. Chinese people learned a lot of dumb English during their school years, just because many Chinese students didn't dare to speak, for fear of making mistakes, for fear of strange pronunciation, for fear of being laughed at.

But Zhou Yi didn't see any of these "fears" in Yan Min.

I'm afraid he's not only not afraid of being laughed at for mispronunciation, but he's not afraid of anything else, is he?

Like football...

"Yan Min, you don't have to answer me so loudly..." Assistant coach Buovac said to Yan Min.

"Yes! No problem, coach!" Yan Min immediately responded to him with German in a super loud and enthusiastic voice.

Buovac heard a burst of laughter from his colleagues behind him.

Looking at the Chinese kid in front of him, he didn't seem to understand what the other coaches were laughing at, and continued to look at Buovac with a serious face.

Buovac was helpless with him and could only wave his hand: "Go train..."

"Yes, coach!" Yan Min responded with another energetic shout before turning and running away.

Returning to his colleagues, Buovac complained: "Was that kid a soldier before? I saw in the movies that soldiers need to answer every word of the officer loudly..."

"Željko, you can't have watched Chinese movies, right? So you've only watched Hollywood movies. What you're talking about is American soldiers. Maybe Chinese soldiers don't do that?" One of the coaches joked.

"But this Yan Min is really a weirdo. I thought all Chinese people were like Zhou Yi..."

"Hey, aren't there many different personalities among Germans? So there are Chinese people like Zhou Yi, and there are also Chinese people like Yan Min. It's no big deal..."

"I don't care about his personality. I've seen people weirder than him. I only care about how he plays football. As long as he has the strength, it doesn't matter if his personality is a bit strange..."

"That's right. This kid is really fast..."

"Actually, when it comes to speed, he's not as good as Aubameyang. Aubameyang's starting speed is really fast. But this kid's stride frequency is very fast when running at high speed. I personally think he's more agile than Aubameyang..."

The members of the coaching staff began to comment on Yan Min.

And Yan Min knew nothing about the coaches' evaluation of him. He was training wholeheartedly.