Chapter 60: The New Ice Prince
Baena left a vacancy filled by Rodwell, but what about the void left by Nicolas Aguirre in an all-round midfield?
Granada have put forward two candidates, the first of which is Dutchman David Klaassen, who is currently playing for Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga!
Born on 21 February 1993 in Hilversumm, the Netherlands, David Klaassen has shown an amazing talent for football from an early age, and under the guidance of his parents, he played in many junior football competitions, and was discovered by scouts for his outstanding talent and became a member of the Ajax youth team.
After a period of training, he finally made his mark in the brutal selection and entered the Eredivisie giants Ajax!
When the Dane joined Tottenham, Ajax fans were worried about who would take the helm of Ajax, Klaassen seized the opportunity to show his ability in just a few games, he successfully took over Eriksen's gun and quickly became the heart of Ajax's midfield with his excellent performance.
Because of his delicate technique and outstanding offensive ability, some Dutch fans even hailed him as the "new Bergkamp"!
Ajax beat Barcelona 2-1 at home in the Champions League group stage in 2013, a game that Klaassen did so well that he made a name for himself on the European stage.
In the 2016-2017 season, Klaassen captained the team to the Europa League final as captain of Ajax and finished runners-up in the Eredivisie!
In 2017, Premier League side Everton brought in the young Dutchman for £27 million, but Klaassen did not prove himself at the Toffees and lost his place after Koeman's departure.
Capable of playing as a midfielder, centre-back or wing-back, he made just 16 appearances in all competitions.
In July last year, Werder Bremen signed Everton midfielder Klaassen.
Klaassen is a very important member of the Dutch team and Bundesliga giants Werder Bremen, he is a right-footed all-round midfielder who can attack and defend well, whether it is playing in the front court or defending in the back, it is a headache for opponents.
Klaassen has the ability to read the game quickly and make judgments, which even Messi admires. Although he doesn't have the most shots on goal in the team, he often finds good opportunities to shoot when he breaks into the box, and has a good shot on target and conversion rate.
And he is very aggressive, especially good at playing defensive counter-attacks, which is very suitable for the tactical style of Granada coach Martinez!
In fact, this is also the candidate proposed by Martinez.
However, Ji Qin actually didn't know much about this "New Ice Prince", but only knew some anecdotes about him!
Klassen's girlfriend, Laura Benshope, is 26 years old, similar to Klassen, who studied criminology at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
She is also a supermodel, having participated in the Miss Holland 2017 contest and was one of the 12 finalists out of 100 contestants. The beautiful Laura admired Klassen deeply in college, and at a banquet, Laura finally met his idol Klassen, and Klassen was also attracted by his affection and charm, exchanged contact information, and gradually fell in love.
When he first moved to Bremen from Everton, Karasen had not yet adapted to Germany's road traffic regulations and was stopped by traffic police while shopping with his girlfriend on his bicycle.
It turns out that in Germany it is not allowed to share a bicycle between two people. Klassen awkwardly said in the interview: "It's very common in the Netherlands, everybody does it. My girlfriend had to get out of the car. I'm new to the city and don't know what's allowed and what's not. The police told me to buy a tandem bike, but it looked weird."
However, Klaassen's transfer fee should not be cheap, at least at the level of tens of millions, and from the old Bundesliga powerhouse Werder Bremen to La Liga promotion Granada, no matter how you look at it, it feels unreliable.
Jiang Lizhang's explanation for this is that if you want to sign Klaassen, you must first let Ibrahimovic join Granada. Because Klaassen is a fan of Ibrahimovic and had a photo with Ibrahimovic when he was a child, when Klaassen was approached by Granada's scouts, Klaassen said that as long as Ibrahimovic was willing to play in Granada, he would be willing to go to Granada!
"How do I think people are rejecting it in disguise?" Ji Qin glanced at Jiang Lizhang and continued to look back, the second candidate was Kosovo Footballer of the Year and former Red Bull Salzburg's super fighter Wallon Berisha.
Berisha was born in the southern Swedish city of Malmö and is of Kosovo descent with Albanian roots. As a child, he moved to Norway with his family and grew up in the town of Egersund, south of Stavanger. He spent his early years at the local club Egsund IK. At just 14 years old, Berisha was invited by Chelsea, Manchester City and Aston Villa to participate in a trial, and both Blue Moon and Villa threw olive branches to him, but he ultimately chose to stay in Norway to hone his skills.
In March 2009, Berisha moved to Viking FK in Stavanger, and on 21 March 2010, at the age of 17, he began his debut in the Norwegian Super League. It is worth mentioning that his first goal in the Norwegian Super League was named the best goal of the season.
Wallon Berisha has long been hailed as Norway's promising rising star, but luckily he hasn't been overhyped. The reason for this is that there were a lot of young talents in Norway during that period, such as Magnus Eckrom, Marcus Henriksen, Haverd Nelson, Hammett Singh, Joe Ange Berdo and several other young players.
As the future of Norwegian football, Berisha doesn't fit the stereotype of a Scandinavian midfielder and a tall centre-back, he's different from the rest, with a Latin style in every move.
Later, Kosovo officially became a member of FIFA, and Berisha changed his door to become a Kosovo international.
Serie A giants Lazio signed Berisha last year, but due to injuries and other reasons, Berisha has only made eight appearances in Serie A this season, five in the Europa League and one in the Coppa Italia. Granada wants to take food from the blue eagle's mouth, and more or less has to pay a little price.
Compared with these two midfielders, Klassen is definitely the best, but the prerequisite for signing Klaassen is to let Ibrahimovic transfer, so this is one of the reasons why Jiang Lizhang flew all the way from Spain to the United States to find Ji Qin.
Ji Qin didn't speak again, but chose to continue watching, if Granada's next transfer players are stars of this quality, even if they are not qualified for European competitions next season, they may not be able to get a good ranking in La Liga and qualify for the Europa League or even the Champions League!
If that's the case, Ibrahimovic can't join Granada, just like Ji Qin's transfer to Wu Lei, anyway, with the blessing of his own "old and strong card", Ibrahimovic can play until he is 45 years old, even if he waits for a year, what can he do?