Chapter 1 Chatting

"Today, when I was chatting with my agent on the plane, he said that I would have to charge for interviews outside of the contract in the future..." Zhou Yi, resting alone in the hotel, was chatting with his friends in the group via his mobile phone.

Soon He Ying replied: "Charging is right and is the default rule."

"Then He Ying, do you know how much Messi charges for an interview?" Zhou Yi asked.

"I don't know..." He Ying said. Although he was a player in Barcelona's youth team, he was not familiar with Messi at all.

"One thousand euros per minute!" Zhou Yi shocked his friends.

"Damn it!"

"!!"

"..."

Sure enough, Sun Pan, Guo Nu, and Yang Muge all appeared in turn.

"When I knew this, guess what I thought of?"

"You also want to charge a thousand euros a minute?" Guo Nu asked.

"What are you thinking, Lao Guo? I'm not a player of Messi's level."

"Is Messi too greedy?" Guo Nu guessed cooperatively again.

"It's not greedy for a player of his level to charge this price, it's the market price. He tops this standard, and everyone abides by it, which shows that it's not outrageous."

"What is it then?" Guo Nu couldn't guess.

"I'm thinking that if you become famous in the future, you can make a lot of money by charging for interviews, Lao Guo!" Zhou Yi said.

"..." Yang Muge was speechless.

"Hahahaha!" Sun Pan laughed very happily and made the expression of laughing and捶地 (chuí dì - pounding the ground) again.

"Pfft." He Ying couldn't help but laugh either.

"Damn it, you're mocking me again!" Guo Nu also heard it.

"Just telling the truth, a thirty-minute interview is a lot for us, but your interview may take an hour and a half," Zhou Yi said. "Think about how much money that is! Time is money, my friend!"

Under Zhou Yi's blow, Guo Nu could only send a wry smiling emoji.

He really couldn't win against Zhou Yi, whether with his mouth or with the keyboard...

"Then what is your charging standard in the end, Zhou Yi?" The kind Yang Muge changed the subject for Guo Nu.

"Well, five hundred euros per minute, I guess."

"That's a lot too!" Guo Nu exclaimed. According to what Zhou Yi said just now, a thirty-minute interview would bring Zhou Yi 15,000 euros.

"Amazing..." Yang Muge sighed.

Sun Pan: "We've been chatting for ten minutes now, so that's five thousand euros gone. Zhou Yi, you've suffered a heavy loss."

"Saying that, I don't dare to chat with Zhou Yi anymore. I can't afford it..." Guo Nu sent a "poor" expression.

"It's okay, your brother is rich!" Zhou Yi was full of pride, "Come on, let's chat for another ten thousand euros!"

Everyone rolled their eyes.

"Hey, how are you guys doing in the national Olympic team?" Zhou Yi asked proactively when he saw that everyone was ignoring him.

When Zhou Yi went to the national team for training and warm-up matches, his four friends, He Ying, Guo Nu, Yang Muge, and Sun Pan, were also recruited into the national Olympic team to compete for the 2012 London Olympics finals with the national Olympic team.

This was of course what everyone expected.

Since Zhou Yi and Sun Pan became famous, those players who went abroad to study at the same time have also received attention. As players who can play as the main force in the youth teams of top clubs, it is natural for them to join the national Olympic team, and there is no controversy.

"Hey, it's simply our world!" Speaking of this, Sun Pan became excited. Of course, he had to be excited, because as soon as he went to the team, he snatched the main goalkeeper position from Wang Dalei, with an overwhelming advantage.

"Everyone is performing well, so there shouldn't be any problem playing as the main force." Yang Muge said so, so obviously the main force is really not a problem for them.

"Alas, I really want to play for the national Olympic team too..." Zhou Yi said.

"Don't show off here in the national team!" After Guo Nu finished speaking, he sent an emoji picture of "If you don't show off, we're still friends."

"Really, I just want to participate in the Olympics."

"It's as if we can't get into the Olympics without you," Sun Pan said.

"Sun Pan is right, Zhou Yi. Don't underestimate us. Although we are not in the national team yet, we will lead the national Olympic team to rush out of Asia," He Ying said.

"Hey, I thought of something. How about this? You guys work hard to get the ticket to the Olympic finals, and then I will go to London with you. And I, I will work hard to get the ticket to Brazil, and after three years, let's go to Brazil together!" Zhou Yi thought of a good idea.

"This idea is reliable." He Ying was the first to agree.

"Not bad, so we will participate in both the Olympics and the World Cup!" Sun Pan was also very happy.

"Okay, then let's all work hard!" Yang Muge also felt high-spirited.

Guo Nu was concise and comprehensive: "Okay!"

For a time, everyone was immersed in infinite longing for the future.

What will the Olympics be like, and what will the World Cup be like? What will we perform and what results will we get at that time? What powerful opponents will we meet?

Everyone started brainstorming as they chatted.

Until Yang Muge suddenly discovered that they had been chatting for more than twenty minutes: "It seems like we've exceeded the time limit. Isn't this more than ten thousand euros?"

Zhou Yi was very generous: "It's okay, the extra is a free gift!"

※※※

After all the activities in the United States were over, it was already June 15th.

Zhou Yi flew back to Dortmund from the United States.

Although there were still twenty days before the team's training report time, Zhou Yi returned early. Because he still had his own training plan, he wanted to continue to improve his physical fitness. Although his physical fitness had made considerable progress in the past season, Zhou Yi still felt that it was not enough.

Physical fitness is like money, the more the better. There is only a time when you say it is not enough, and there is absolutely no time when you say it is useless.

After experiencing the Champions League, the league, and the three-line battle of the national team last season, Zhou Yi now admired Park Ji-sung very much. He hoped that he could also become a "Park three lungs," someone who could run tirelessly on the court. Only in this way could he go wherever he wanted in the game.

In modern football, physical fitness is the foundation of everything. Without this foundation, the best technology and awareness can only be castles in the air, and it is unrealistic to talk about those things.

Zhou Yi hoped that he could store more physical energy than others before the start of the new season.

As soon as he returned to Dortmund, he devoted himself to his training. During this holiday, he went to many places, which was a bad torment for his body. His physical fitness was definitely not as good as it was during the last season. He must now make up for the class to ensure that he would not be in poor physical condition during the season, and at least he would only be replaced midway because he could not maintain his physical fitness, and at worst he might be injured.

While Zhou Yi was working hard in Germany, He Ying, Yang Muge, Sun Pan, and Guo Nu, as the main players of the national Olympic team, also participated in their first Olympic qualifier.

The Chinese national Olympic team played against the Oman national Olympic team at home.

In fact, before the four-man overseas returnee group joined the team, this national Olympic team was not favored. Because this national Olympic team, to some extent, represented the incompetence of Chinese football youth football training, the lack of talent, and the lack of real star players. If you really want to count the stars, there are only Zhang Linpeng and Wang Dalei.

And look at the previous national Olympic teams, although they did not appear, there were no shortage of star players.

The 1992 national Olympic team had players such as Fan Zhiyi, Hao Dong, Peng Weiguo, and Li Bin. The 1996 national Olympic team had Yu Genwei, Xie Hui, Zhang Enhua, and Yang Chen. The 2000 national Olympic team had Zheng Zhi, Sun Hai, Zhao Junzhe, Zhang Xiaorui, and Li Jinyu. The 2004 national Olympic team had Qu Bo, Du Wei, Zhao Xuri, Xu Liang, and Sun Xiang. The 2008 national Olympic team had Zhou Haibin, Gao Lin, Feng Xiaoting, Hao Junmin, and Chen Tao.

But in this national Olympic team, let alone the core of the national Olympic team, who can serve as the core in the club?

The predecessor of this national Olympic team was the 89-age national youth team, which was established in 2007. At that time, there was a statistic that there were only 300 registered players of the 1989 age group in the Chinese Super League, China League One, and China League Two clubs. If some China League Two players and some weak players were excluded, there would be at most about 100 people. There were more than 700 players of the 1989 age group in the provincial and municipal National Games teams, and like any age group team in previous years, the number of players was decreasing rapidly with the growth of the players.

When coach Liu Chunming started to form this national Olympic team, he had already lost at the starting line. Because the training players of the China Youth Team were only selected from more than 400 eligible players across the country. After several years of elimination, this number has now been reduced by nearly half. After the end of the 2009 National Games, only more than 200 players of the 89 age group are still active in the Chinese Super League, China League One, and China League Two.

It is conceivable that the quality of selecting twenty-three people from such a small number of players to participate in the competition. Compared with Japan and South Korea selecting suitable players from hundreds of thousands of eligible players, China has already lost from the beginning. This national Olympic team is not a matter of cups and tableware at all, it is simply a dining table full of all kinds of cups and tableware...

Although the Football Association later hired the world-famous coach Blazevic to coach the national Olympic team, Blazevic has only led the team in one warm-up match so far since he took office, and he has yet to fully understand the team, so he will usher in the life-and-death battle with Oman.

In this case, recruiting talents without sticking to conventions has become a necessary option.

Since the strength of the 89 age group players is not enough, can we explore it downwards?

This is precisely because the excellent performance of Zhou Yi and Sun Pan in Europe has inspired everyone's idea.

So Sun Pan, Guo Nu, Yang Muge, and He Ying were selected into the national Olympic team before the match against Oman and participated in training with the team.

These four people did not disappoint people's expectations of them.

After joining the team, they showed a level of strength that was completely different from their teammates.

The training they received in Europe made them completely superior to their teammates.

Subsequently, the team played two warm-up matches. Due to the problem of tacit understanding during the running-in period, the performance of the Chinese national Olympic team was actually not very good in these two matches. They lost 1:2 to the North Korean national Olympic team and drew 0:0 with the Saudi national Olympic team.

Now it seems that the only problem is time.

There is too little time left for Blazevic's team. The four overseas players have just joined the team, and they will challenge the Oman national Olympic team after half a month of training.

Can they pass the hurdle of the Oman national Olympic team and advance to the group stage of the Olympic qualifiers?

On the evening of June 19th at eight o'clock, this national Olympic team gave an answer to all those who were concerned about the national Olympic team.

They defeated the Oman national Olympic team 3:0 in ninety minutes!

Directly eliminating the suspense of the second leg!