Although the desire to win the Serie A title has not diminished in the slightest, after learning the news that Ronaldo is about to join Juventus, Li Mudi's confidence in success will inevitably be shaken to a certain extent, and he feels that if he does not do more preparation, the outcome in ten months may not be as satisfactory as planned.

Under the effect of a strong sense of crisis, he resolutely communicated with the CCTV sports channel, pushed off the commentary of all the knockout matches except for the World Cup final, and rushed back to Italy overnight on July 5. After that, he contacted Antonio Comey, the director of the Torino club, early the next morning, and submitted his new preparation plan to kick off the 2017-18 season of the Red Bulls.

Although due to the impact of the World Cup, the assembly time of the teams in the major European leagues will generally be postponed, but the Torino team is a rare exception among the top 50 teams in European clubs with the overall strength of not having a single original player enter this tournament. Therefore, before the end of last season, the coaching staff had full discussions with the management, and the time for the new season to report on the players was set on July 18, that is, three days after the end of the World Cup.

This point in time should be relatively comfortable for the Torino players, although they have four days to a week less rest than other teams, but they have not consumed too much physical energy because of participating in the World Cup, and they will come back a few days earlier to recover their competitive condition, and those players who hope to go further in the new season will naturally not have much resistance, so they are very happy to agree to the date of this report before the vacation.

However, after feeling the huge pressure brought by the sworn enemy in the same city, Li Mudi decided to start the training camp in advance, but did not force the players to join, but expressed his wish to change their personal leave plans in a suggestive tone for those new signings.

After a season's adaptation, the veteran players are already familiar with the manager's 3-4-1-2 formation, so naturally there is no need to return to the training ground too early, but the newcomers need a certain amount of time to learn the team's tactical philosophy. According to Limmudi's previous plan, players such as Bruno Fernandes who have just joined the team will use the warm-up games and the previous rounds of the league to find a tacit understanding with the whole team, and when the schedule enters September, they will basically integrate into the Red Bulls.

However, under the circumstance that Juventus's strength ceiling may be raised due to the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Torino coach has to pay the highest level to every game and even every point, and if the whole team can be put together as soon as possible, then it is very likely to reduce the possibility of conceding points and lay a good foundation for the final championship. So under the guidance of this line of thinking, Li Mudi made the decision to gather for training early.

And it turns out that the players who can be favored by him are basically above the average level of professionalism. Not only did several new signings quickly reply that they would rush back to Turin City as soon as possible, but even the Polish defender Glick, who returned to his old club after two years, also said that he would immediately end his rest and join the training camp immediately. As soon as the former captain of the Torino team took the lead, the other players naturally did not dare to slack off, even though the coaching staff repeatedly emphasized that this was not mandatory, but before the official start of the practice program on the morning of the 8th, except for Falke, who had basically confirmed that he would join Valencia, the rest of the first-team players all stood in front of Li Mudi, which made him very moved.

Even Benasi, who is negotiating personal treatment with Inter, and Bonifazi, Hou Yongyong and Maximilian Egerstein, who are about to leave on loan, are not absent, which is enough to make Li Mudi very proud.

Then came the tough fitness drills, led by fitness coaches Bovinci and Philippe Lambert, who also returned to work early, and the current 30 players in the first team began a painful and tedious practice. The rest of the coaching staff took the time to study how to make reasonable arrangements in various subjects in the extra ten days so that the players' sacrifices would not be wasted.

While the atmosphere on the training ground began to develop in a hot direction, Li Mudi was still in constant communication with the marketing department, and he hoped that the few recruitment deals that were originally planned to start after the World Cup could be negotiated now.

After agreeing to Benasi's departure, the Red Bulls joined the contenders for Portugal international Andre Gomez. Although Li Muddy would prefer to get Croatian midfielder Luka Modric, who has won almost every honour he can get at the Bernabeu, he has expressed a desire to change to a more comfortable environment, and the departure of Zizou and Cristiano Ronaldo's current transfer form have also made the soon-to-be-33-year-old feel tired.

Just to be able to devote all his energy to the last World Cup journey of his playing career, the agent of the Magic Flute has repeatedly stated that the legendary midfielder will not say anything about personal club matters until Croatia are out. Through the feedback from the FM system and Raul, Real Madrid is now busy with the issue of the president's stay and has not made a final decision on whether to consider letting Modric. Therefore, according to the Torino coach's estimates, even if he can rule out the transfer fee, the player's personal treatment and other issues, and recruit the world's top organizer, the time will not be earlier than the beginning of August, which is too late for the team's preparation.

So even with reluctance, Li Mudi finally decided to abandon the plan to bring in the Magic Flute, and put the profile of Andre Gomez, the first substitute for the central midfield position, who has never been able to integrate into the Barcelona team, on Valentino Cairo's desk. He asked the club prince to find out within five days whether he could win the Portuguese, who had fallen into a slump at Camp Nou, and if he could not get a positive response, the team immediately started to contact other candidates, after all, time is precious and Torino has no money to waste.

Fortunately, the La Liga giants seem to have had enough of the midfielder, who has been outside the team's tactical system for two years, and the 34 million euros spent on taking him away from Valencia in the summer of 2016 seemed like a bargain at the time, but just two years later, Barcelona's management regretted it to the core. Although they have been adamant that the Portuguese, who is not yet 25 years old, still has a chance to prove his worth at Camp Nou, neither Luis Enrique nor Ernesto Valverde have found a way for Andre Gomez to regain his former highlights at the Mestalla (home of Valencia).

In the 2017-18 season, Gomez, who has a high salary of 4 million, has only a small midfield reserve for Barcelona, who has only a small midfield reserve, has made 31 appearances in all competitions, accumulating 1,185 minutes, both of which set the lowest value since he landed in La Liga for four years. And his estimated value in "Transfer Market" has also fallen from the peak of 27 million two years ago to the current 13.5 million. Having not been named in Portugal's 23-man squad for this World Cup, the midfielder, who was once thought to be a potential to take over Xavi's mantle, is likely to continue to depreciate.

In order to reap as much cost as possible, Barcelona's management had the idea of selling it for cash as early as last summer, when Premier League upstart Tottenham Hotspur was interested in becoming a pick-up. In the following winter transfer window, AC Milan and Juventus joined Gomez in the chasers, but for various reasons, no substantive negotiations could be reached.

And when the time came to the end of June and the beginning of July, the Rossoneri had already withdrawn from the transfer market on the side of buyers early due to financial problems; The old woman has shifted all her focus to the direction of "seducing" Ronaldo, even if she still hopes to get the Portuguese midfielder, she has no time to be distracted now, and after spending at least 100 million to bring in the president, Juve's funds will be in short supply in a short period of time, and the rest of the recruitment plan cannot be started; Tottenham, on the other hand, are somewhat out of the picture, and after a season of observation, Pochettino seems to have a new target.

When Andre Gomez's departure looked like an impasse, his old club jumped out and Valencia general manager Alemani said in an interview with reporters at the end of June that he was eager to return the veteran on loan. At the time, Gomez's agent also expressed to the outside world that the player was very happy to return to play in Mestalla, and he was looking forward to regaining confidence where his dream began.

However, just when the outside world thought that another scene of rebirth was about to be staged in reality, things took a surprising turn the next day. Barça mouthpiece Le Monde Sport broke the news that Valencia did not intend to pay a transfer fee to bring the veteran back to their team, and they were only willing to bring in the player on loan. But what is even more surprising is that after Singaporean Chinese billionaire Lim Rongfu joined the club, the Bats, who are not bad for money, actually asked Barcelona to pay part of Gomez's salary.

The Catalan giants, who were extremely humiliated by this offer, naturally would not agree to sign such a "humiliating and humiliating" alliance under the city, and Barcelona's sports manager Braida immediately said in a private occasion that he would rather rot the Portuguese midfielder in his hands than let those teams who want to rob the fire succeed.

But these words reveal the helplessness of the Barcelonans, who are currently chasing Lazio midfielder Milinkovic, Juventus' Bosnia-Herzegovina midfielder Pjanic and Sevilla's French centre-back Lenglet, who still have a huge need for funds. If you can deal with the likes of Gomez, Alda Turan and Vermaelen, who are no longer part of the manager's plans for the new season, you can not only reap a sum of euros, but also save their considerable share of wages, which is really something that everyone at the club likes to see.

It's just that the purge plan has gone very hard so far, and even though they have lowered the price tag for the Portuguese midfielder from 50 million to 22 million euros, it is frustrating that they have not even received a formal offer other than to attract a large number of followers.

On July 5, Arsenal, which has made a lot of noise in the transfer market since Unai Emery joined the team, suddenly expressed its intention to sign Andre Gomez, which brought good news to the La Liga giants. However, BBC TV revealed in the evening program that Arsenal was also asking Sevilla for Argentine player Banega at the same time, and after the successive introduction of German goalkeeper Leno and Sampdoria's Uruguay international Torreira, the Premier League giants have little transfer budget left in this summer, and their most realistic way to buy can only be to pay in installments, which is not far from Barcelona's idea of hoping for a one-time payment.

Just when the Catalan media was still analyzing what the club's acceptable bottom line was, Italian transfer expert Di Marzio suddenly published an article on his personal website, saying that the Red Bulls suddenly entered the game and became the frontrunner in the battle for Gomez in less than 24 hours.

On the morning of the 11th, before anyone else could react, the two clubs issued an official statement at the same time, Andre Gomez switched to the third place winner of Serie A last season, and he will get a four-year contract with an annual salary of 4.25 million euros before taxes and an annual increase of 10% from his new club, which is at least a 40% salary reduction compared to when he played in Spain, but with the addition of various incentive terms, the one-year income is still barely acceptable. However, it is clear from this that the player's desire to escape from Camp Nou is strong.

In order to acquire the Portuguese midfielder, Torino paid Barcelona €20 million, with a number of floating clauses that could add up to $6 million. This figure did not cost the sellers too much of their initial investment, and it was stuck at the critical moment when they were in dire need of funds to bring in new signings, so it was quickly accepted by Barcelona, who had already lost patience. Had it not been for a series of haggling with the player's agent over personal treatment, the deal might have been finalized much sooner.

However, it was not too late, as Gomez, who joined training camp only four days later than his team-mates, quickly put all his energy into adjusting his physical condition and learning the tactics of a new team. Although he has only just started to learn Italian systematically, with the help of compatriot Bruno Fernandez, he has gradually adapted to the rhythm of life in Turin, and has also shown the quality of a world-class midfielder on the training ground, which has won the unanimous approval of the team.

Thus, when the Torino coach was ready to leave for Moscow to explain the final, the Red Bulls' stupid bird-first strategy had paid off, at least while the players of the other Serie A teams were still on vacation, and they were already mentally and physically preparing for the new season.