(2-in-1 Chapter)

In this season's Premier League, Chinese fans can see many familiar "Chinese elements": Chinese billboards on the side of the stadium, the names of Chinese sponsors on the chest of jerseys, Premier League teams acquired by Huaguo Capital, news of Premier League players transferring to Chinese teams, and rumors that Premier League superstars may switch to Hua Brown. Fans who understand English can even see various reports about China directly from the British media, and the only thing that is impossible to see is the performance of Chinese players in the Premier League.

The last time a Chinese player appeared in the Premier League was Sun Jihai in 2008. And the Premier League "Chinese Derby" between Sun Jihai (Manchester City) and Zheng Zhiri (Charlton) in April 2007 is a good memory for countless Chinese fans.

In fact, today, Huaguo Capital is good at dancing in European football, how can national football associations and giant teams ignore the huge Chinese market?

However, looking at the fate of Zhang Yu who couldn't even play in the Werder Bremen League, and then looking at the fate of Dong Yuanzhuo, who once had high hopes and was known as the most promising player in China, the European giants avoided the Chinese players, and even bought them as an image ambassador and made a vase, because it would attract the disgust of Chinese fans and damage the image of the giants.

But since mid-October, a compatriot who is extremely unfamiliar to hundreds of millions of Chinese fans, and a guide who may be a guide to the FA's huge market of 1.4 billion people, Tan Xibi, these three words have become the top three hot searches on the Internet in China, and the headlines of various news media have not diminished in the slightest.

Who is Tan Xibi?

This name is very unfamiliar in Chinese football, even if it is under the flesh, you can only find his experience in Portugal, and the domestic experience is a blank.

Tan Xibi, a native of Huaguoqiao City, born on June 23, 1999, 1.70 meters tall, weighing 62 kg, a member of the U19 team of Sporting Football Club of Portugal, a midfielder, the 2016-17 Portuguese National Youth League champion, the best player of the youth league season, the runner-up of the 2016-17 UEFA Youth League, and the best player of the small Champions League season. In the 2017-18 season, he was promoted to the senior team, wearing the number 28 shirt and playing in the Portuguese Super League, Champions League, Portuguese League Cup and Portuguese Cup, starting almost the whole game.

Before leaving Portugal, Tan Xibi made a total of 14 appearances for Sporting Portugal, contributing three goals and two assists, including the goal in the Champions League qualifying match was the first goal of a Chinese player in the Champions League, making history.

The media at home and abroad can collect information about Tan Xibi, which is these, but the previous experience in Portugal cannot be found.

Therefore, under the strong appeal and request of the majority of fans, in order to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of a considerable number of potential customers, many domestic and foreign media such as Knowing Football Master, Huaguo Sports, Langhua Weibo, Sky Sports, 442 Magazine, BBC and many other domestic and foreign media burst Arsenal's phone and asked to interview this Chinese talented midfielder with a mysterious origin and Leon Messi and Luis Suarez in the Champions League.

It's no wonder they're so crazy, because this new generation of players born in the 90s has no awareness of the new generation of young people in European football using social media to expand their influence and improve their image, no personal social platform accounts, no agents, no various scandals, as if they don't have any sense of existence.

Therefore, in the eyes of many people, there must be a lot of things worth digging in this low-key 18-year-old Huaguo player.

For a long time, the social media presence of football players was nothing more than a source for tabloid reporters to collect the latest celebrity scandals.

But now, with the rapid progress of modern social networks in terms of influence and scale, the research on social media in marketing has become more and more sophisticated, all of which are making the social attributes of football stars more real and intense than ever.

Let's put it this way, a slightly famous player, especially a talented rising star, does not have a social platform that is completely incredible. You must know that today, the super stars in the sports world, including the football circle, have turned themselves into media brands with tens of millions of "users" with their super popularity, and a player like Tan Xibi who does not have a social account is unimaginable.

Tan Xibi is definitely a layman who likes money, and his dream is a mansion, a luxury car, and a beautiful woman.

But Tan Xibi's background and vision determine that his understanding of social media is still at 0, because he has no agent, after joining the professional football industry, Tan Xibi in addition to training games, or training games, how can he have time to understand what social media is and what benefits it can bring him.

Tan Xibi didn't know how much of a sensation he caused by his move from Portugal to England, he thought that he was just a young player from China, and as a newcomer, he should do his job, so he told the club staff that he was going to start a joint visit, confused and confused.

When did my brother Tan become a wrist in society? Aren't all visits the preserve of celebrities?

What he didn't know was that the shrewd Arsenal hierarchy was planning to fight for access to his social media platforms, and to make good use of his social media channels would not only enhance the club's public image in the Chinese market, but also use the almost infinite participation and relevance of fans on social media in marketing to truly leverage the lever of monetization and achieve unimaginable profits in the past.

In one success story, Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has the world's largest total followers, and his social feeds have generated up to 25 million euros in consumer revenue for his personal sponsor Nike, not to mention the fact that he has brought more revenue to other sponsors and clubs.

Arsenal's commercial department sees the value of personal social media for athletes, and in fact, more and more clauses and matters in the negotiation of individual sponsorship and IP development contracts for athletes are focused on the social reach that athletes can bring – what we often call bringing goods and attracting traffic.

As for why they chose Tan Xibi over the other established stars in the squad, Arsenal's commercial department was very deliberate.

First of all, a relevant organization released a football social performance ranking, focusing on the social media performance of players during the 2017 international football transfer window, and the final result can be summed up in a word: the bull's ears of social media operation are by no means only superstars who have been famous for many years, at least at the level of social image, a new generation of young people in European football are rewriting the rules of the game with their shrewd minds.

Admittedly, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Leao Messi continue to dominate the top three of the list, but rising stars such as Marco Asensio, Kylian Mbappe and Paulo Dybala are also making an unprecedented onslaught at the front.

Much of the change in the rankings is due to their performances on the pitch, but for this generation of young players who have grown up with social media, they are almost instinctively aware of the enormous value behind social networks.

The back waves of the Yangtze River push the front waves, and just like on the field, the social networks of the football world are not far from the moment of a change of dynasty.

The increasingly sophisticated way players use social media in this era means that clubs, sponsors and brands must do everything they can to keep up with the players and play the social game in order to take advantage of this huge dividend.

This generation of athletes has as developed their minds as their limbs, and sponsors no longer want to think about taking their personal media outlets for a low price. The huge fan base behind a player's social media requires and is worth a lot of real money for brands.

The scope of modern professional football has long been limited to more than just the green field, in fact, the competition of football and the market created by football have become two sides of the same coin.

With the rise of social players, and as they become more adept at the use of social media, players, markets, clubs, and sponsors are being tied together like never before, and in a way that has never been done before, they are also creating new rules in the world of football business.

Arsenal has done a good job at this, even a little stronger than Manchester United, which is the best in commercialization and marketization, so to speak, the Gunners are the pioneers of club socialization, and they are the first to taste a little sweetness, otherwise, do you think that a team that has no heavyweight trophies for many years and keeps four all year round, why does it get a large number of Chinese fans and rank in the top ten ranks of the club's income list all year round?

On Huaguo's Weibo, you can see Arsenal FC's training videos, and you can see various daily tidbits of the team, which are all strengthening the close connection between fans and the club.

Arsenal attaches great importance to the Chinese market, and went to China to play a warm-up match with Chelsea and Bayern this summer, and Arsenal's senior management also knows that in order to completely win the hearts of Chinese fans, in addition to making breakthroughs in competitive results, there is also a way to buy a Chinese player and gain the attention of hundreds of millions of Chinese fans.

It's a pity that there is no Chinese player who can match Arsenal's skills and tactics and adapt to playing in the Premier League, even if it is the youth generation, Arsenal cannot buy a player who cannot play and harm others and themselves.

At least Arsène Wenger will not agree to irresponsibly buy a Chinese player at will, and now Arsenal also has their own "Sun Jihai".

At least this "Sun Jihai" has proved his strength in the European youth generation, and the MVP of the European Youth League is not something that can be obtained by a cat or a dog, and its gold content is definitely not lower than the "European Golden Boy Award".

What's more, "Torino Sports Newspaper" publicly stated that Tan Xibi is a quasi-golden boy who does not enter the list of Golden Boy Awards but has the strength to become a golden boy.

This honor has not even been won by players who have stayed in foreign countries in Japan and South Korea, so it is no wonder that Chinese fans want to know Tan Xibi so "crazy".

The joint visit was organized by the official website of Arsenal Club and jointly organized by four major domestic and foreign media: Huaguo Sports, Masters of Football, Sky Sports and BBC.

The visit was conducted in a small conference hall at the A.T. Kearney training base, and a lot of equipment was placed in the venue, and the visit was broadcast live, and players at home and abroad who were interested in watching it could open the Football Master, Langhua Weibo, Sky Sports, BBC website, and mobile APP.

Unable to participate in the Europa League, Tan stayed at the A.T. Kearney training base to train with his team-mates, and after training, Tan took a shower, changed into a jacket with the club's emblem, and went to the small conference hall with the club's CEO, Ivan Gazidis.

Liu Chuanfeng, the resident reporter of "Huaguo Sports", and Taishanshi, a special reporter of the master of football, were a little excited to see Tan Xibi appear, and they were a little excited.

Sky Sports' reporter is Peter Smith, and the BBC is well-known journalist David Ornstein, who specifically analysed the reason for Arsenal's poor recruitment this summer due to the owner's lack of investment, and even broke the news that a number of Gunners players are leaving. So Gazidis didn't look very good when he saw Ornstein.

Seeing the childish and youthful Tan Xibi, Smith and Ornstein glanced at each other, this is Tan Xibi, who won the MVP of the "Little Champions League" last season and defended Messi and Suarez in the Champions League this season?

I heard that he has a nickname called "The Wall of Sighs", which is one word different from the famous "Wall of Sighs" in Greek mythology, and the reason why he has this nickname is because his opponent can only sigh back in front of his defense, which shows his strong defensive ability.

Tan Xibi is not the first time to deal with reporters, won two MVPs last season, was interviewed by reporters, and played Barcelona in the Champions League this season, and was elected as the best reporter in the game to be interviewed by reporters after the game.

In addition to seeing the two compatriots stunned in some surprise, Tan Xibi's indifferent expression that did not match his age made the five reporters eager to start the interview immediately.

This joint visit adopted the method of asking questions one person at a time, starting with Liu Chuanfeng, who called Renjia and Tan Xibi the same country, so they will naturally be given priority.

But after all, this is an English club, so Liu Chuanfeng still asked questions in English, but fortunately, the live webcast is often delayed by a minute or two, so Chinese viewers watching the live broadcast can see the subtitle dubbing.

Liu Chuanfeng: "Hello Tan Xibi, I am Liu Chuanfeng, a reporter from Huaguo Sports, first of all, congratulations on joining the Arsenal club. A lot of domestic fans are proud to have joined Arsenal, since your past experience is only last season's youth team competition and this season's Sporting de Portugal, the previous one is a blank, can you tell us about your past? ”

Past? Can Lao Tzu be said to be a mixed society?

Can Lao Tzu tell you about the "glorious" past when he was deceived for practice, beat that bastard to the end and stole the money and ran away?

Anyway, no one knows about Lao Tzu's past, just make up one.

As a result, a tear-jerking and inspirational story appeared in the public's field of vision.