Founded in 1874, Aston Villa is an established club that has played a pivotal role in the history of English football. Not only were they one of the 12 founding members of England's inaugural football league in 1888, but the idea of a league was first proposed by Villa's owner, William McGregor.

Historically, Aston Villa have won a total of 7 top-flight titles, 7 FA Cups and 5 League Cups. Winning the European Champions Cup in 1982 was the pinnacle of the team. When the Premier League was founded in 1992, Aston Villa became a founding member again and finished runners-up in the first year of the Premier League.

And, before last season, the oldest team had never been relegated and was one of the seven permanent members of the Premier League (the other six being Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton).

In addition, Aston Villa is the first team in the top five leagues to achieve a league win, ahead of La Liga giants Real Madrid, Serie A giants Juventus and Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich.

Because Aston Villa was a branch club at the beginning of its formation, and its grade was higher than that of Arsenal, Liverpool and other workers' clubs, Villa has always had a high popularity in the aristocratic group that paid attention to everything more than a hundred years ago. Passed down from generation to generation, Villa now has a lot of high-level fans.

For example, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, the second heir to the British throne.

For example, David Cameron, who was taken to watch a game at the age of 13 by his uncle, who was the chairman of Villa and is now the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Another example is Tom Hanks, who once said, "If I haven't been to Vera Park, my life is incomplete." It's just that the original reason why this Oscar-winning actor fell in love with Vera was that "the name is very good", and there was a sense of "choosing Xiangbei because it was close to home".

It is such a club with a glorious history and a high-quality fan team that makes Villa fans have higher requirements for the team. Since entering the Premier League era, Villa has only won two League Cups in China, and the only European glory is the discontinued International Toto Cup, and it is also a tepid mess in the league, which makes fans very dissatisfied.

Both former boss Doug Ellis and former boss American Randy Lerner are doomed to the path of degeneration of Villa booking a Championship place three rounds ahead of schedule last season.

Fortunately, the relegated Villa were bought by a company from Huaxia, but Xia Jian, the owner of the century-old club in England who bought the club at a low price, was asked by The Guardian that what is needed to integrate into the local environment and win the hearts of fans is a long run-in with continuous investment. In this regard, Chen Zhiyuan, who turned Cardiff City into a red dragon, has already given a wrong example, so can Boss Xia avoid repeating the mistakes of the past?

The CEO of Ruikang Group confidently stated his ambitions: "My goal is to lead the team back to the top six in the Premier League within five years, and I hope that Villa will become a top three club in the world within ten years, and even become the most recognizable club in the world." ”

"Forget the past, we will enter a new era."

The reaction of the Guardian reporter at that time was not a look of admiration, but a look of bewilderment.

It is said that the ignorant are fearless, and the satellites released by Boss Xia, who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, seem to have been seen on the lips of sports officials of a major country. No wonder Chinese football has not been able to go up, that is, there are too many people who brag.

As the first Chinese to wholly acquire a relegated Premier League team, when asked by reporters how to help Chinese football, Xia Jiantong said: "From the perspective of the football industry and system, I hope to have an impact on the improvement of Chinese football." Villa have the best youth training system in Europe, and we will work with domestic clubs to try to help Chinese football do something in youth training. Within two years' time, a Villa training base was established in China, and when the conditions were right, they were introduced to play for Villa or other clubs in the Premier League. I've been contacted by a number of clubs now who want to work with me. I hope that the team I acquired will become a platform and a bridge, so that the Chinese team can be more in line with foreign countries, and let the domestic team understand how foreign high-level clubs operate. ”

In the reporter's heart, there are only two words: "hehe".

On June 3, Aston Villa officially announced that the Italian, who led Chelsea to their first Champions League title, Roberto Di Matteo, became the team's new manager, with the main goal of leading the century-old club back to the Premier League.

In addition to leading Premier League giants Chelsea to the FA Cup and Champions League double in 2012, Di Matteo chose him for his experience in leading LinkedIn teams to the Premier League: in the 2009-2010 season, he led West Bromwich Albion to the Championship runners-up and promotion to the Premier League.

According to media reports, in order to return to the Premier League as soon as possible, Boss Xia will provide 20 million to 50 million pounds to the Italian for transfers.

Aston Villa, who are set to play in the Championship, have also confirmed their summer warm-up opponents, with the team travelling to Austria for pre-season training from 9 to 14 July. The team will host Ligue 1 side Nantes at Villa Park on 23 July, with a warm-up match against Premier League newcomers Middlesbrough on 30 July.

In London, in an office building, Liu Yichuan, the resident London correspondent of "Sports Weekly", is pressing his temples.

Recently, in addition to reporting on the scene that Qiansheng represented England in friendly matches, he also personally interviewed Xia Jian, the Chinese owner who bought Aston Villa.

The interview with Xia Jian was originally decent, but suddenly what he said startled him: "Xiao Liu, look at it, when our team is promoted to the Premier League next year, no matter how much it costs, we must buy Qiansheng." Although he joined England, he was a Chinese after all. ”

Liu Yichuan's whole person was shocked at that time, and his mind kept buzzing and repeating: I want to buy Qiansheng, I want to buy Qiansheng, I want to buy Qiansheng......

Can I put this paragraph on that? Liu Yichuan was very entangled.

Without waiting for him to be in urgent need of entanglement, Xia Jian said: "By the way, Xiao Liu, please trouble you with something, okay?" ”

"Mr. Xia, please speak."

"In two days, there will be two young Chinese players coming for a tryout, and you will go with the people from the club. And ......"

Liu Yichuan raised his eyebrows, and there is the following.

"Mr. Xia said, as long as I can do it."

"Are you familiar with Qiansheng, can you see him?"

"I've interviewed him once, and Qiansheng is a good person, if you want to contact him, you should be able to meet him."

"Can you invite you to the training base and give guidance to these two young players?"

"Uh, Mr. Xia, how old are these two little players?"

"At the age of 19, a member of the Chinese U19 and U21 national youth teams, one of whom is in the youth team of Atletico Madrid, has already talked about a reunion."

Let the 15-year-old Qiansheng guide the two 19-year-old Chinese national youth team players? It's a joy to be, but Qiansheng does have this qualification, and his strength is unmatched even by the Chinese national team.

"Mr. Xia is introducing two Chinese players this time?"

"Well, bring in these two players first this year, and if they perform well, they may become the main force of the team."

"Mr. Xia helped the Huaxia football youth training so quickly, it was so efficient." Liu Yichuan's sycophants don't want money, and he keeps shooting Xia Jian.

Xia Jian said with a smile: "As a Chinese person, it is right to help Chinese football." ”

Liu Yichuan is worried about how to contact Qiansheng to go to Aston Villa, you must know that Qiansheng is now preparing for the European Cup, and countless people are watching every move of this super-popular star, if he goes to Aston Villa, I don't know how many unscrupulous reporters will be scribbled.

But he quickly agreed to Mr. Xia, being a man is to be trustworthy, Mr. Xia said not long ago that he wanted to help Huaxia football, and he quickly put it into action.

What to do? The England national team has been training in closed space for the past few days, and will soon fly to France, if you want to contact Qiansheng, he Liu Yichuan is just a small foreign correspondent, what can be done?

Not to mention that Liu Yichuan was struggling with how to contact Qiansheng, and to say that in the waiting hall of Huaxia Capital Airport, the two teenagers were waiting for the flight to London with excitement.

In addition to being full of hope for the future because of the transfer to Aston Villa, it is also exciting to meet their common idol Qiansheng.

Li Jiaming, born in 1997, is 180 cm tall, the position of the midfielder, the main midfielder of the Chinese U19 national team, and the substitute midfielder of the youth team of La Liga giants Atletico Madrid.

He is a member of the "Yida Youth Football Talent Study Abroad Program" launched by Wan Jianlin, chairman of Yida Group, the richest man in China, after acquiring a 20% stake in Atletico Madrid in January last year.

There are only five places in the first batch of Yida Group's plans, and Li Jiaming, who studied in New Zealand and embarked on the path of professional football, became a member of the first batch of Yida Group's plans with his talent and hard work.

Through youth training in the Atletico Madrid system, Li Jiaming emerged in the second half of last year and became the main substitute defender of the Atletico Madrid youth team, scoring 2 goals and 8 assists, averaging 3.8 interceptions per game and 2.1 tackles per game.

Li Jiaming is characterized by a good sense of position, good skills, and defense mainly relies on positioning and prediction, so his interception data is higher than that of tackles. And he runs aggressively, with a pass success rate of 78.3%, and a unique ability to make accurate long passes.

Due to playing in the midfield position, there are few scoring opportunities, and the two goals scored are long shots scored by the opponent's defensive corner kicks and grabbing the second landing point. And the 8 assists he contributed were basically through balls and long passes from the back when he was counterattacking. Therefore, he was nicknamed "Huaxia Pirlo", and his excellent performance was selected for the Huaxia U19 national team, which was considered by Huaxia Media to be the new hope of Huaxia football.

Compared with Li Jiaming, Liu Shihao of the same age is much less famous. He is as tall as Li Jiaming in the midfield position, good at organization and fast. Originally from Xiqin, he is only a substitute in the Chinese U19 national team. He was able to go to Aston Villa with Li Jiaming because of a person's recommendation.

This person is Qiansheng's agent, Mino Raiola. (To be continued.) )