Chapter 164: A Busy Week
Lin Zixu, 44 years old this year, has been in the industry for 20 years, and he is a very old professional agent. However, as a middle-aged elite who has passed the age of confusion and should be at the peak of his career, his work experience is a little bumpy. After graduating from a second-rate university in China, he first applied for a well-known advertising company as a planner, and then changed jobs twice, until he was twenty-four years old and found that he really had no ability to make money in this industry, so he was introduced by a friend to join a small brokerage company and started as a small assistant. Lin Zixu is kind and willing to endure hardships, so he did a good job in the Celestial Empire entertainment circle, which has a very complicated relationship, and in less than two years, he grew all the way to an agent who can lead people, and then he was poached by the powerful Dongsheng Media and joined this top domestic company. first brought newcomers for a few years, and then took over two small roles in the fourth and fifth lines, and finally became Bao Xiaolei's chief agent in 2006. However, in that year, his biggest artist chose to get married, and gave birth to a daughter a year and a half later, and since then, he has basically faded out of the entertainment industry.
Then as the child grew up, Bao Xiaolei had no plans to return to the screen, and put more energy on the Shanghai Drama Theater, only occasionally making guest appearances in a few TV series. In 2012, she left directly after the expiration of her contract with Dongsheng Media, and has been in a state of no contract since then (of course, it is only a brokerage contract, and the work unit is still Shanghai Dramatic Art Center), Lin Zixu also broke up with Dongsheng Media a year later because of poor performance, and joined a small company saved by several friends to continue to make a living in the circle, and the situation in the past two years is naturally a little miserable.
Although taking over Bao Xiaolei's brokerage business not only did not make Lin Zixu gain fame and fortune, but indirectly caused his career to almost die, the relationship between the two was still quite harmonious at that time, otherwise Li Mudi's sister Xiaolei would not have thought of him at this time. As a result, after inquiring about Lin Zixu's information on the side, Baozi and Brother Sun Honglei and others all thought that this person was good, so they made a simple report to the Turin coach. Then I went directly to the door, and after the initial negotiation of the intention, I came to Italy to let the two parties have a final face-to-face exchange.
Li Mudi is not an actor, although he doesn't care about making a cameo appearance in a good film and television drama if he has the opportunity in the future, so as his agent, he doesn't need to run resources for customers, he only needs to review the intentions of various advertisements and endorsements, maintain the personal image of the Turin coach on weekdays, take care of his related business in the Celestial Empire, and then he can sit and wait to collect money, this job is not difficult! And Lin Zixu has many years of experience in business development, and the newcomers and artists he brought before did not starve to death, but occasionally received some business notices, such as going to the red carpet of a small event and singing at the tail end banquet of a township enterprise. And after taking over Bao Xiaolei, who almost retired, she also negotiated two endorsements for domestic first-class brands, which can be said to be very unusual in terms of ability and vision in this regard.
Therefore, after talking for more than half an hour, Li Mudi recognized this Celestial Empire agent who was neither humble nor arrogant, but had an inexplicable affinity and first-class business ability, and directly reached a verbal agreement with both parties. Lin Zixu will join Cambridge Film and Television, which was established by Baozi to invest in the crew of "People", and become the company's largest shareholder, the agent of the Turin coach in the Celestial Empire, and the only staff member in the film and television company who has a contract, because it is an empty shell. Fortunately, after he joined, he would also recruit some assistants and other clerks, which avoided the dilemma of playing mahjong.
In the evening, Valentino Cairo took the lead with two Celestial Empire guests and went straight to the restaurant he had booked, and the Turin coach, who was waiting outside with many tabloid reporters, had to call a taxi service alone, after all, the feeling of being surrounded by a group of crazy people could not affect others. By the time he finally got rid of the pursuers and arrived at the dining table, the three had almost finished eating the steak, and Li Mudi had no choice but to wait for the main meal to be served, watching them feast, and his saliva was about to flow.
After resting overnight in the hotel, Lin Zixu did not stay to have a good tour of the exotic customs, but hurried to return to China to go through the resignation procedures. Fortunately, the boss of the company he currently works for is a friend of him, and the procedure will be done quickly, and he will basically be able to join the new owner in a day or two. The reason why he was so anxious was because he learned from Li Mudi that many well-known domestic companies had sent invitations to the Turin coach to shoot advertisements and make endorsements, but because no one dealt with them, they all missed, and Lin Zixu, who had a strong sense of responsibility, didn't want to make everyone suffer this unnecessary loss, so he insisted on returning to China as soon as possible regardless of retention, and wanted to take over the business as soon as possible, Li Mudi and others had to agree.
However, Baozi will not return to China with him, he finally found an excuse to leave the work of the office, and he will not go back if he doesn't have enough fun after a trip. However, it seems that it is about to come to the National Day holiday of the Celestial Empire, and Li Mudi's two sisters and nephews will come to Italy to play, which is just right for this kid to act as a bodyguard and a coolie carrying a bag, just as a compensation for the Turin coach to break the money during this time!
After this was done, Li Mudi planned to put all his energy into the preparation for the next round of the league, but on the second night, he was "harassed" by the goddess and failed to complete the planned task. In the evening, Lim Yuna sent a call request through chat software, complaining to him that the new drama "The K2" that was being filmed premiered two days ago, and although the audience's evaluation was not bad, the ratings were difficult to satisfy the crew. Two different data companies give Kimchi Country national ratings of 3.3% and 4.2% respectively, and the companies that provide the latter number have cheated in the past, so the former data is generally the best benchmark, that is, the ratings of the first episode are just over three, which is really not a good result for a big production that brings together Song Yoona and Cho Sung-ha and two popular artists such as Ji Chang Wook and Lim Yoon-a. Regarding this embarrassing fact, many netizens threw the pot on the head of actor Lin, who has always been known as the "poison of ratings", which made her feel a little bad.
Seeing that the goddess was maliciously criticized, Li Mudi was naturally very angry, but unfortunately he had no way to help the TV series increase its ratings, and he remembered that the plot design of this series collapsed a little in the middle and late stages, and the evaluation on the Internet also declined all the way, and the score on Douban of the Celestial Dynasty seems to be only 6.6 points, and the reputation is really poor. So I can only praise Actor Lin's acting skills for making great progress, and encourage her, and persuade her to calm down and not care about temporary gains and losses. Perhaps this comforting remark was too unoriginal, which provoked Lin Yuna not only did not get better, but was angry that the OST written by Li Mudi became popular, which faintly overshadowed the topic of the TV series itself, and also made the singer Girls' Generation captain Kim Taeyeon once again as the queen of the OST in the kimchi national anthem scene. Since the other party was her good sister, she naturally couldn't blame her, so Lin Yuner had no choice but to take out her anger at the "lyricist" Li Mudi. Li Mudi, who couldn't help much in ordinary times, was naturally willing to act as the "target" of his goddess to relieve pressure, and "chatted" for more than two hours, which can be regarded as a relatively successful completion of the task, making the relationship between the two people develop a small step in a more intimate direction.
The Torino coach who appeared on the training ground the next day looked in a good mood, which also brought a more positive attitude and an atmosphere of river crabs to the players, so that the Torino club, who had just won three consecutive games and rushed to the top three of the table, were more confident in the next games.
The team's next opponent is Serie A powerhouse Fiorentina (another nickname is Fei Lengcui), one of the two favorite teams of coach Li Mudi, where Baggio and Batty, who grew into world-class stars, were his idols in his youth. From the perspective of overall strength and external analysis, Fiorentina is stronger, but Torino has the advantage of home field, which is also their second consecutive home game, especially the last game just won against the strong opponent Roma, so it will have a certain upper hand in momentum, and the game can really be said to be evenly matched and inseparable.
Founded on 26 August 1926, Fiorentina has been a powerhouse in Italian and European football, winning the Serie A title twice in 1955–56 and 1968–69, as well as six Coppa Italia and one European Cup Winners' Cup (1960–61). In addition to the two idols of the Torino manager, the club has always been at the top of its game in Europe and Asia, with legends such as Rui Costa, Toldo, Chiesa, Effenberg, Dunga, Laudrup Jr. and Trapattoni, as well as more recent stars such as Gilardino, Mutu, Jovetic, Montolivo, Giuseppe Rossi and Gambellini.
The current manager is Paulo Sousa, a former Portuguese star who has played for Juventus, Inter Milan and Borussia Dortmund, who led the Purple Lilies to a fifth-place finish in the league last season, a small step back after finishing fourth in Serie A for three consecutive years. However, he still qualified for the Europa League, and it was amazing that the results of the University last season were exactly the same, with 18 wins, 10 draws, 10 losses, 64 points, and the goals scored and conceded were almost the same, which was basically completed. However, Fiorentina made changes to the squad this summer, buying out the homegrown centre-back Astori, who was on loan from Cagliari last season, and snapped up the talented Polish goalkeeper Bartlomiej Dragoski for 3.5 million euros from competition from many top teams. In addition, they have also brought in Barcelona winger Cristian Tello and Aston Villa's Colombia international Carlos Sánchez on loan to complement the weak points of the players. However, in terms of transfers, there are also German center Mario Gomes transferred to Wolfsburg and Giuseppe Rossi was loaned to Celta de Vigo in Spain, especially the Spanish left fullback Marcos Alonso (Marcos Alonso), who has been with the team for two seasons, was poached by the Premier League tycoon Chelsea for a high price of 30 million euros on the day the transfer window closed, which greatly weakened the left attack and defense of the purple lily.
Li Mudi's pre-match tactics for the Torino players were to focus on Fiorentina's left flank, and the opponent's left-back Hrvoje Milic, who was bought from the Croatian league, was not up to the average level of Serie A in terms of ability and potential, let alone the vacancy left by Alonso. Therefore, in the tactical analysis in the past few days, in addition to explaining the offensive routines commonly used by the Purple Lily to the players, the Torino coach also came from the information from the FM system, that is, the Croatian who is not very familiar to everyone is not very familiar with the inside and out, and believes that after arriving on the field, his boys will definitely give the other party the most "warm" welcome.
On September 28, the latest national team squads were announced by various countries, and Torino had six teams selected, setting a record for the largest number of simultaneous national team selections in the last decade: Italy's Belotti and Zappacosta, England's Joe Hart, Albania's Ajeti, Ghana's Akwa and Serbia's Rajadzic. Head coach Li Mudi is still very pleased with the situation, and among these six people, except for Zappacosta, who was selected for the first time, the others are all regular players or even absolute mainstays in their respective countries, and are likely to play in the two games on October 6 and 9. Playing two intense games in such a short period of time can be extremely taxing for players and may increase their chances of injury. However, compared to the rest of the team's next league mission, Torino's away game against Palermo was rescheduled to Monday night due to the fact that it had to be staggered with other live matches, which was two days later than Napoli's match against Roma on the first kick-off, which allowed the Red Bulls players to play in better physical condition, taking advantage of the big advantage, so the smile on Li Mudi's face became even brighter.
At 12 o'clock at noon on October 1, the Torino coach appeared outside the pick-up gate of Turin International Airport under the cover of a big sunglasses, a large mask, and a thick scarf. Lufthansa flight LH721 from the capital of the Celestial Empire to Turin via Frankfurt, Germany, is about to land on the tarmac of the airport on time, and the eldest sister and the second sister of Li Mudi's family of three and the second sister's family of two and a group of five people will come out immediately, which makes the Turin coach, who has not seen his relatives for more than two and a half years, so excited that he can't wait to rush to the plane immediately.