Chapter 256: Satellites and Spectators
Of course, two of the four youngsters are non-European nationals, and according to Serie A's "hukou book" system, it will be difficult for Torino to bring in both players in one year, because they cannot bet on young people all the valuable places they buy from overseas every year, and one of them still has special requirements. So, this requires the club to take a different approach and take a roundabout route.
Satellite teams, in addition to loaning players to the past for the purpose of training, this is also the most common way for European teams to deal with the trouble of "household registration" when introducing foreign aid. When Manchester United brought in Celestial Dynasty player Dong Fangzhuo, he was loaned to the club's satellite Antwerp in Belgium because the latter was not eligible to apply for a labor certification in the United Kingdom, so that he could make up the number of international appearances in the next two or three years.
And this is only the most rudimentary, the more advanced is to loan those non-EU players to play for a period of time in countries where they have obtained permanent residency status for a short period of time, so that they can reasonably obtain EU citizenship. For example, the two most famous countries are Spain (which theoretically only takes two years to become naturalized) and Belgium (which requires three years of continuous citizenship).
There is also a faster way to take advantage of the affiliation system brought about by the former colonial relations between some countries, as long as it is possible to find a player's immediate family that has a close relationship with the original European dependency state, it can apply for a second nationality. For example, Argentina corresponding to Italy and Spain, Brazil corresponding to Portugal, and some African countries corresponding to France, etc., players from this non-EU country can easily obtain the corresponding second nationality. And this relationship also gave some criminals room to take advantage of illegal operations, and the "fake passport case" that shocked world football around 2000 implicated hundreds of players, agents and club officials, Veron and former Lazio president Craniotti are two of the biggest names among them. Although the matter was eventually settled, the Argentine midfielder, who was in full swing at the time, had to be forced to move to Manchester United, which led to the sinking of a superstar.
Compared with the United Kingdom and Spain, which have very strict terms on restricting non-EU players, the Italian Football Federation's policy of bringing in non-EU players from within the country without taking up the annual purchase of overseas players has become a good way for giants to take shortcuts. For example, Juventus wants to bring in a South American player who does not have a household registration book, and they do not have a quota, they can let his satellite team help buy it, and then put it into their squad after a year or even half a year.
In order to limit this possible loophole, the Italian Football Federation has imposed restrictions on the two overseas recruitment places per year, one of which has no restriction at all, and the other can only be activated if one of the non-European players in the squad leaves the team at the end of his contract or moves outside of Italy. In other words, if a club sells a non-European player to a domestic team, then he will only have one place left each year and will not be able to activate the second one. However, there is a lot of one place for each family, and if you get a few more satellite clubs, you can still complete multiple transactions at once.
Li Mudi just wants to take advantage of this loophole to make a fuss, but this requires the chosen satellite club to have a very close relationship with Turin, and there will be no mistakes that lead to the situation of making wedding dresses for others. At present, several Italian clubs that have formed partnerships with the Red Bulls, such as Vercelli and other teams, have not been able to completely reassure the Torino hierarchy, so the search for new satellite teams that football manager gamers are very familiar with will start in the next month, and chairman Urbano Caiiro and others hope to reach a cooperation agreement with a Serie B or Serie C team close to a sub-team to facilitate future recruitment, but the team manager thinks they are all wishful thinking. The results are hardly satisfactory to the top of these clubs.
Excluding whether there are any teams willing to become absolute subordinates of other clubs, it is difficult to bypass the relevant provisions of the Football Association and UEFA alone. The Italian Football Federation has been very serious in avoiding tacit goals and even match-fixing, and in principle does not allow two teams to form an alliance, if the partnership within the rules in the transfer market can still be tolerated, then the practice of one club completely obeying the other is absolutely unacceptable. UEFA has a clear conflict of interest clause, that is, two European clubs with entanglements of interest are not allowed to participate in UEFA competitions such as the Champions League and the Europa League at the same time, and the Premier League giants Chelsea have caused huge controversy because of similar incidents.
Due to his close personal relationship with Georgian businessman Melab Yordania, owner of Eredivisie club Vitesse (the team where the Celestial Empire striker Zhang Yuning plays), the Blues have loaned nearly 30 of their players to Vitesse over the course of several seasons since 2010, making the latter their 'second team' and training ground. According to the grapevine, in the 2013/14 season, in order to avoid qualifying for the Champions League and thus violating UEFA rules, Chelsea advised the rarely outstanding Vitesse team not to compete for the Eredivisie title. As soon as the matter was revealed by the media, it immediately caused an uproar in the Netherlands, and the Dutch Football Association strongly announced the launch of an investigation, but fortunately did not cause more trouble in the end.
However, it can be seen from this that the European football world takes the complete control of one club over another club, so the plan of the Torino hierarchy is destined to be unattainable. The Torino coach, who didn't have the heart to follow them around, came straight out of sight and out of mind, and focused on the next day's team training and the World Cup European qualifiers in the evening.
Due to the lack of a number of players who are playing for the country, and there are still nine days left in the next round of the league home game against Udinese, Li Mudi did not bring too much tension to everyone in these two days of training, but also transferred some good seedlings from the youth team to the first team. The team held a five-a-side game every afternoon, so that the players were always in a relaxed mood to find some competitive form due to the absence, and the Under-20 lads were also given the opportunity to play against the regular players and ask for advice, which can be described as a joy for all.
However, after the dissolution of training, Li Mudi just returned to the apartment to eat takeout, and when he was waiting for the live broadcast of the evening game, he was shocked by many reports on the Internet about the team's goalkeeper Joe Hart.
It turned out that the "Sunderland Echo" newspaper published an article two days ago, questioning the Three Lions coach Southgate did not recruit Jordan Pickford, the main goalkeeper of the Black Cats, who has played extremely well this season, and the newspaper's reporter believes that the young man who has just turned 23 is the best goalkeeper in the whole of England and should replace the man who has been making mistakes in Turin to become the starting point for the national team. But who would have thought that such a report about the grievances of his local team players would cause such a big stir, and many hostels jumped out to support or criticize Joe Hart, making the topic instantly reach the level of explosion.
Former England international David James suggested Hart could consider joining Juventus to succeed Buffon after refuting the Sunderland Echo article. "If I were Hart, I would follow Juventus," he said. The difficulty for him to return to the Premier League is, which team can he join? Now the Premier League teams have some great goalkeepers. Look at the England squad and he's the only player to play abroad, but he's been outstanding. It's not easy for a lot of people to play in Turin, but Hart is doing well. As a result, he has proven that he has what it takes to play abroad, so why not join a top team in Torino? ”
The main force of the "anti-Joe faction" is the former Arsenal German goalkeeper Lehmann, the veteran goalkeeper who has been suppressed by Kahn in his career said in a recent interview that he believes Hart is not a world-class goalkeeper. The quote was: "England have always had good players, but they have always lacked a world-class goalkeeper. I've seen Hart have some good games, but I've also seen him make mistakes. When I watched him for so many years, he kept making the same mistakes, he didn't improve his weaknesses. Maybe it's time to try new options, Pickford have been great this year and the Englishman should be bolder. ”
After seeing these comments, Li Mudi is no longer able to complain about the mystery of the Torino goalkeeper in the European football world in recent times, and I really don't understand why the question of where a player's future is has aroused so many people's interest, and can't he do something more meaningful when he has that time? After such a toss, Joe Hart's state after returning to the club can get better, and the Turin club and himself have really suffered 10,000 points of damage in vain!
After he cursed a few words at the well-fed and no-do guys, the three matchups in the fifth round of Group G happened to be played at the same time, with the Torino boss opting to watch Italy's home game against Albania and the two games at home to Israel on TV and computer. Of course, his main focus was on the previous game, when in the match at the Stadio Barbera in Palermo, Sicily, the veteran coach Ventura retained the main pair of the four-goal win over Liechtenstein in the previous round, while Zampacosta and Belotti of Torino both qualified for the second consecutive start.
And it is worth mentioning that this game is also the 1,000th official game of Juventus legendary goalkeeper Buffon in his career, and Li Mudi, who just learned about this situation from TV, hurriedly took out his mobile phone and posted a congratulatory message on the Internet to express his respect for the other party.
Red Babe, who has been leading the Serie A scorer list all the way this season, did not disappoint his mentor, he received a set-piece in the middle of Candreva in the middle of the field in the 10th minute, and was knocked to the ground by Barsara, who plays for Serie B Bari, in the process of scrambling for a spot in the penalty area, and the referee immediately awarded a penalty, and Roma vice-captain De Rossi took the lead in one fell swoop.
However, in the following game, the Azzurri who firmly dominated the field could not find the opponent's hole again, Belotti failed to cause problems for the visiting goalkeeper with two consecutive overhead kicks, because Mobile also did not play a role in the league under the marking of the opposing defenders, and the final score was maintained 1-0 until halftime.
On the other hand, the matadors who played at the Grand Moulin Stadium, home of Sporting Gijón, were in full control of the game, and with possession as high as 63%, David Silva and Sevilla winger Bitolo scored two goals in succession to take a solid step towards three points with a score of 2-0.
After the restart, Belotti suddenly lost himself and was basically invisible in attack, just when the Torino boss speculated whether Ventura would replace him soon, but there was an accident on the field. In the 57th minute, the referee on duty had to suspend the game for a full nine minutes due to the smoke sticks lit by a large number of Albanian fans in the stands, which made the visibility in the stadium so bad that the game could only continue after the smoke gradually cleared.
The situation was still a bit stronger for the hosts, with two wingers, Insigne and Candreva pressing heavily in attack, almost making it 4-2-4. However, the 54th in the world are not a weak team like Liechtenstein, and they still do a very good job defending, at one point completely blocking the line of Italy's attack in the middle, so that the latter can only find opportunities through wide crosses.
However, the difference in strength between the two sides was reflected in the second half of the game, in the 70th minute, Insigne's free kick in front of the arc of the penalty area was directly blocked by the wall, Sapacosta sent a curling cross from the right, and Immobile scored with a header into the far corner at a small angle, and Italy finally got the two-goal advantage of insurance. However, the Albanian player angrily complained to the referee that Belotti in an offside position also made a scramble to interfere with the goalkeeper's judgment, and the goal should have been invalidated, but it was not supported.
After that, there were no good shots, and neither side was able to create any decent offensive again, and the score was maintained at 2-0 until the end of the game, with Buffon completing his 1,000-game milestone with a perfect clean sheet. And Ventura didn't even change a player, which also caused a lot of controversy in the outside world after the game, the old fox's thinking is indeed very different from ordinary people, and Li Mudi can't call his pulse.
In the other game, Spain thrashed Israel 4-1, with Diego Costa and Isco scoring in the second half to lead the group with 13 points level with Italy.