"Oriental Daily" is a Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, founded by Ma Xiru and Ma Xizhen, published by Oriental Press Group, claiming to be "the first in sales in Hong Kong" for 35 consecutive years, and is one of the most influential newspaper media in Hong Kong.

is such an influential media, but the editorial department responsible for sports-related news is quite idle, because there is not much sports news to report in Hong Kong, and in recent times, the hottest thing is that Hong Kong football has entered the Asian Cup finals by luck.

Fortunately, some time ago, there was still big news worth reporting on this all the time, that is, Manchester City Club in the English Premier League, the young Chinese head coach Wan Sheng may take over the Hong Kong team to compete in the Asian Cup.

This news is considered hyped up by the industry and unrealistic.

Manchester City head coach, the world's top and youngest head coach, Wan Sheng, what an influential big man in world football? How did he get associated with Hong Kong football...... That's a bit too!

But the news came out of the Hong Kong Football Association, so various media in Hong Kong still reported it.

It's the same with Oriental Daily, but everyone in the editorial department thinks that it's just hyped up by industry peers, and it can't be true at all, and after doing some 'supposed' and other reports, sports news reporters don't pay much attention to it.

Fang Yongsheng is a reporter in charge of the sports section of the Oriental Daily, and he is only 27 years old, a very young reporter in the industry.

Normally, he was always motivated to go around for interviews, but now in June, before the start of the Asian Cup, he can only look forward to following the newly formed Hong Kong team to Southeast Asia for some preparations, and there has been nothing to do in the past few days.

Recently, his job is to check some sports news abroad and in China. Look for messages that can be used as material for your story.

This work is very leisurely, in fact, it is equivalent to nothing to look at the web page, record the main content, he still has time to chat with colleagues at work, and talk about some gossip about the long and short west, and the working time is really idle and boring.

At this moment, a figure barged in and called his name directly.

Fang Yongsheng was a little puzzled, and immediately reacted that it was his superior female editor, Wang Na. After Wang Na called his name, she immediately ordered loudly, "Fang Yongsheng!" Go to Hong Kong Airport! With the camera crew, immediately, immediately! ”

"What's wrong?"

Many people in the editorial office looked over, and Wang Na explained, "Wansheng...... It's Wansheng, he's coming to Hong Kong! ”

"Wan Sheng?"

Just when many people were puzzled, Fang Yongsheng was the first to react, "It's the head coach of Manchester City in the Premier League." At the age of 30, Wan Sheng, known as the youngest and most successful Chinese coach? ”

"Of course, there will be who, not soon! If it's late, I didn't get an interview. Beware of being deducted! Wang Na looked at Fang Yongsheng and was stunned, and shouted with some annoyance.

Fang Yongsheng hurriedly sorted out his things, and muttered quietly while being surprised by the news. "Menopausal women are really hard to mess with......"

————

In Hong Kong, I don't know how many media newsrooms have a similar scene happening.

This visit to Hong Kong was not carried out in secret. He didn't wear sunglasses or a hat to cover up at Dalian Airport, so he was already recognized as soon as he arrived at the airport, and then all the nearby media reporters rushed over to interview, and Wan Sheng also admitted that he was going to Hong Kong.

What to do in Hong Kong?

Whatever he does, report the news quickly!

Soon after, the media in Hong Kong knew the news, and they immediately prepared to go to the Hong Kong International Airport to 'greet' Wan Sheng, what they wanted to know was, what Wan Sheng was doing in Hong Kong?

Is it for his Tagorewan group, or as previously reported, he will take over the Hong Kong team to compete in the Asian Cup?

Whatever the reason, just go for the interview!

So when Wan Sheng got off the plane, it was not surprising that he was surrounded by a large group of reporters in the reception hall.

Wan Sheng is not surprised, in fact, he came to Hong Kong to prepare for this, this time he came deliberately did not hide his whereabouts, after stepping on the plane to Hong Kong, he has already entered the 'work mode', he wants to be in charge of the Hong Kong team, there is no need to be sneaky, so at the airport, Wan Sheng also accepted an interview by the way.

He emphasised three points, "I came to Hong Kong because of the invitation of the Hong Kong Football Association. ”

"If you want to take over the Hong Kong team, there will be a special press conference."

"This visit to Hong Kong is also related to the investment of Tagore Wan Group in Hong Kong."

After talking about these three points, there is no need to say more, Wan Sheng emphasized that he came to Hong Kong to work, which is related to the Tagore Wan Group and the Hong Kong Football Association.

Whether it will take over the Hong Kong team or not, let the media speculate.

Perhaps there is no need to speculate, Wan Sheng's visit to Hong Kong is equivalent to releasing a clear signal, and all the media in Hong Kong have reported on this, and even the "Ta Kung Pao", which has always been indifferent to sports news, has made a confident report, "Wan Sheng is likely to take over the Hong Kong team to compete in the Asian Cup in July!" ”

At this time, Wansheng had already entered the hotel arranged by the Hong Kong side.

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Wan Sheng rested in the hotel for one night, and the next day the Hong Kong side hosted a welcome banquet for him.

Hong Kong has made very thoughtful arrangements, and at the welcome banquet, there are also a lot of big people, which can be divided into three categories of people, one is the officials of the Hong Kong Football Association, these people are headed by Liang Jiande, chairman of the Hong Kong Football Association, but they are not the main figures, because many stars from the business, political, and even film and television circles have also come, and these are the characters who really need to pay attention.

The welcome banquet of dozens of people surprised Wan Sheng, it was like he was treated as a 'dignitary'.

Some of them, Wan Sheng has also heard of fame, but it is the first time to really see them, under the introduction of Kevin Tagore, Wan Sheng shook hands with them one by one, and then at the banquet, he talked about some things related to the Tagore Wan Group.

Hong Kong's political and business circles are very concerned about this.

The scale of the Tagore Wan Group is not too large, but the funds that can be used are also calculated in terms of '100 million US dollars'. Kevin Tagore, as the CEO of the group, rarely reveals relevant news.

As the largest shareholder of Tagorewan Group, Wansheng naturally has a lot of say.

He only mentioned one point, "Our goal is to take root in Hong Kong and China", which clearly indicates the general direction of the group's future, which is equivalent to Hong Kong and China, and releases a friendly signal.

Later, Wansheng said, "The development of the group is managed by CEO Kevin Tagore, and he will not interfere too much in its affairs." ”

Then there is no more talk about the group company.

The next most important thing is to come to Hong Kong for the most important job - to take over the Hong Kong, China team and lead the team to the Asian Cup.

For football. Wansheng has a lot to say.

This is his profession and his purpose, and as far as he knows, the current situation of the Hong Kong Football Association is somewhat pitiful.

In 1972, the Hong Kong Football Association applied to the Government for land allocation for the construction of a permanent clubhouse, which was approved in 1974 and handed over a piece of land to Ho Man Tin to the Hong Kong Football Association for the construction of the clubhouse.

After more than five years of preparation, the Hong Kong Football Association (HKF) Building was officially opened on 10 September 1979 at Fat Kwong Street, with the opening ceremony officiated by the then President of the International Football Association (FIFA) Harwick Sharveland, and the new clubhouse was three storeys high. With an area of 19,000 square feet (about 1,900 square meters) and can be used for large-scale meetings, the clubhouse has been used to this day.

After 2000. The Hong Kong Football Association (HKF) was unveiled on 28 January this year with a large-scale renovation project funded by FIFA's GOAL-Project.

From the development process of the headquarters of the Hong Kong Football Association, it can be seen that there must be financial problems with them.

In fact. The Hong Kong Football Association has always been poor, and they have been running deficits since 2004 because of poor financial management. and led to a series of losses in fiscal reserves. Despite the FA's efforts to save the day, including a pledge of more than $500,000 by some of its directors, last year's financial report showed that it had a deficit of more than HK$1 million.

Compared with Hong Kong's prosperous economic situation, the development of the Hong Kong Football Association is very bleak, and this situation also leads to the fact that the officials of the Hong Kong Football Association do not have a very important position at all.

This can be seen at the welcome banquet.

This banquet was organized by the Hong Kong Football Association for Wan Sheng, but their officials were like 'followers', and only the chairman of the Football Association, Leung Kwan-tak, could say a few words, and the others were just standing next to them, and they couldn't interject at all.

Wan Sheng also shook his head silently in his heart, compared to the wealthy FA, the Hong Kong Football Association is too far behind.

This is actually quite normal, mainly because of the current situation of Hong Kong football.

In 1949, Hong Kong lost 2-5 to South Korea in their first international match, and four years later, Hong Kong beat South Korea 4-0 to win their first international match.

Hong Kong reached the first four Asian Cup finals and finished third at home in 1956.

In 1974, the Hong Kong team faced Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan in the World Cup Group A qualifiers, all of which were defeated 1-0, and finally lost 1-3 to the host South Korea and fell into second place and failed to qualify.

In the 1977 qualifiers held in Singapore, led by Dutch coach Bao Qin, they defeated Indonesia and Thailand 4-1 and 2-1 respectively, and also beat Singapore and Malaysia 2-2 and 1-1 respectively to successfully qualify for the second round.

In the first round of the 1986 World Cup qualifiers, Hong Kong defeated Brunei 8-0 at home on February 23, 1985, and the chivalrous center Mak King-fun, who represented Hong Kong for the first time, scored four goals alone.

The history of these football games has recorded the glory of the Hong Kong team, but since the 90s, Hong Kong football has entered a twilight period, and it is very powerless to revitalize it.

At the beginning of the 90s, although the Hong Kong team retreated to the second and third tiers of Asia, there were still occasional good achievements in the competition, such as the first round of the 1998 World Cup qualifiers, the home defeat of Southeast Asian powerhouse Thailand 3-2, and the same two goals only lost to the Asian tiger South Korea under the home battle, all of which were the hard work of the Hong Kong team.

However, in the same event, there was a match-fixing incident, and striker Wei Junlong, goalkeeper Lu Ka-wing, defender Chen Zhiqiang, winger Chen Zijiang and others were sentenced to prison for manipulating the game, which made the situation even worse for Hong Kong Football Games.

In 1997, when Hong Kong was handed over, the Hong Kong team was required to participate in international competitions under the name of "Hong Kong, China". In the late 90s, the Hong Kong team's performance continued to be poor, and a total of 11 eggs were eliminated in the two games of the Asian Games football qualifiers.

The first round of the 2002 World Cup qualifiers. The FA hired Dutch coach Lisa Wan in the hope that the Hong Kong team would achieve good results, and also frequently invited foreign teams to visit for practice matches, but in the end, due to the difficulty of the players to adapt to the coaching style and the FA's lack of long-term plans, the poor results ended in a hurry.

After that, Hong Kong football almost collapsed, and their fame was not as good as the Hong Kong Star Football Team' of the Hong Kong Film and Television Star Sports Association, and as a result, when it came to Hong Kong football, people would unconsciously think of the football team composed of a group of film and television stars, as for the real Hong Kong team, there are very few people who know it.

One of the realities that Hong Kong football is well aware of is that they are on the verge of falling back to amateurism.

Wan Sheng is prepared for this.

He didn't expect the Hong Kong team to be strong. It's just to lead the team to the Asian Cup, and he doesn't care if there are star players in the team.

Leading the Hong Kong team will allow him to gain experience in international competitions.

It's a whole new experience.

In fact, a large part of the coaching of the Hong Kong team is of a 'commercial nature', he is not just coaching for the purpose of becoming a Hong Kong coach, this is also a kind of 'football show' with the Hong Kong side, and at the same time, it is also a means for the Tagore Wan Group to expand its network in Hong Kong.

Wansheng is still very clear about this.

Therefore, it is very important to attend similar banquets. At the banquet, Wansheng also found a few people to talk to, such as former Chinese professional player Fan Zhiyi, who worked as a football coach for a period after retiring. But it was not very successful, and he came to Hong Kong at the invitation of the wealthy businessman Yang Jiacheng.

Wan Sheng quickly met Yang Jiacheng, because the two have a lot in common in Premier League football.

Yeung Ka-shing was born in a housing estate in the New Territories of Hong Kong and went to London to study at the age of 16. After returning to Hong Kong, he became a hairstylist, and some Hong Kong media reported that Yang Jiacheng's life was not satisfactory at that time. He has been collected by banks and courts.

Yeung Ka Shing began to get involved in real estate, from investing in luxury properties in the Mid-Levels to a full-time investment expert, gradually becoming widely known, his main industries are in the real estate market and gambling market, later, he changed hands on Pak Ka Road property and made a lot of profits, and in 2004 in Macau to participate in the famous Greek Mythology Casino.

Few people are interested in these histories.

In fact, Yang Jiacheng has a long-standing interest in English football, and this year, he has made real moves – in January this year, Yang Jiacheng offered 120 million pounds to buy Reading team, which is still playing in the Championship, and in March this year, he offered Wigan Athletic another 50 million pounds; In April, Yang made a £30 million offer for Sheffield Wednesday.

Unfortunately, all three acquisitions failed.

Now, Yang Jiacheng is in the process of acquiring Birmingham City in the Premier League, but after three 'setbacks', he does not have certain confidence in this acquisition, perhaps because he is a little uncertain about the investment environment in the Premier League, so he consulted Wansheng in this regard.

Wan Sheng did not give any clear advice, he only talked about the development of Manchester City in two years, "I brought two league titles to Manchester City FC, and in these two years Manchester City paid off 70 million pounds of debt and made a lot of profits. ”

Wansheng's meaning is very simple, the development of the club is actually directly linked to the results.

The football investment environment of the Premier League can not be said to be very good, but in Europe, it is not bad, it is a 'country of golden dollars', if you want to rely on football to make a profit, you may only be able to invest in large clubs like Manchester United, it is not easy for small clubs to ensure results, so in terms of investing in football clubs, it is not easy to make profits, it depends on personal vision.

If it's just a personal hobby, it doesn't matter if it's profitable or not, but if it's to make money and invest in a small club in the Premier League, the prospects are not so optimistic.

Wansheng couldn't help Yang Jiacheng in this regard, he just gave personal and reasonable advice.

————

For the first three days of his arrival in Hong Kong, Wan Sheng was busy with interpersonal interactions.

He met with people from all walks of life in Hong Kong to discuss issues related to the business development of the Tagore Wan Group and some football-related matters.

Three days later, Wan Sheng put down all these tasks and walked into the headquarters of the Hong Kong Football Association, which held a press conference in the afternoon of the same day, officially announcing that Wan Sheng took over the Hong Kong team and will lead the team to the Asian Cup in July.

Although it is not the latest news, when the Hong Kong Football Association announced that Wan Sheng would become the head coach, it still caused an uproar in the Hong Kong and mainland media.

Before this, many people speculated that the news of Wan Sheng taking over the Hong Kong team was just hype, but what I didn't expect was that now it has become a fact, and some domestic media couldn't help but think of the news that the Chinese Football Association invited Wan Sheng to serve as a technical director, and the results of the negotiations between the two sides were inconclusive.

Unexpectedly, Wansheng really took over Hong Kong.

The Chinese team and the Hong Kong, China team participated in the Asian Cup together, which was originally a news worthy of hype, and Wan Sheng served as the head coach of the Hong Kong, China team, and the Asian Cup held by the four Southeast Asian countries is even more worth looking forward to.

At the press conference, Wansheng accepted an on-site interview.

It's not the first time he's been interviewed as a manager, but it's the first time he's coached a national team in an international cup.

This first time was different from the previous experience.

Whether it is coaching the Derby County club or taking over the Manchester City club, the outside world has doubts about his ability, and now when he takes over the Hong Kong team, there is almost no media questioning his ability, but the media is not full of praise, they also have doubts, and the focus of the questioning is the strength of the Hong Kong team.

"Excuse me, what is your goal in leading the Hong Kong team to the Asian Cup?"

That's the point.

Wan Sheng sat on the rostrum, looked at the reporter who asked the question, and said with a confident and serious face, "Qualifying from the group is the goal given by the Hong Kong Football Association." ”

Hearing this answer, the media was not much surprised.

Even if the Hong Kong, China team relied on 'luck' to enter the Asian Cup finals, but as long as they entered it, the goal would definitely not be 'to gain experience', otherwise the Hong Kong Football Association would not invite Wan Sheng to coach the team, so their goal can only be to 'qualify from the group'.

But Wan Sheng's words were not finished, and after a pause, he continued, "I personally don't think so, according to the strength of the Hong Kong team, qualifying from the group is indeed a good goal......

"But no matter which team I coach or what tournament I play, I only have one goal, and that is—"

"—Champion ——!!" (To be continued.) )