Free Web NovelChapter 486: Chapter 100: Sign Him, No Need to Buy Ronaldo and Messi
No one could have imagined that a simple, everyday tweet would trigger a global internet firestorm.
In just 24 hours, the football world felt the shockwave from the internet!
From Wang Shuo’s tweet to the responses from Ronaldo and Messi, then the fans of all three sides jumping into the fray, and finally the media fanning the flames, the situation escalated at a speed far beyond anyone’s expectations.
It was a signal completely different from anything in the past.
By the next morning, nearly all of Europe’s major sports media outlets had rapidly upgraded the story from its original status as celebrity gossip to a serious sports headline.
In the pages of many publications, the buzz even overshadowed the Champions League group stage draw and awards ceremony.
This was an extremely unusual signal!
For example, in the Sun Newspaper, celebrity gossip almost never makes the front page.
But this time, the "King of Football" wager was the front-page headline!
It wasn’t just the Sun Newspaper; other media outlets were basically doing the same.
Even The Times, renowned for its authority, ran the story on its sports front page.
Although it wasn’t the main headline, it was still very prominent.
And what was most surprising was that the media was constantly fanning the flames of this topic.
For example, Asi Newspaper, a mouthpiece for Real Madrid, came out in public support of Ronaldo.
Asi Newspaper stated that Wang Shuo’s public challenge to Ronaldo was, to some extent, an overestimation of his own abilities.
Why?
Because Ronaldo and Messi are, at the very least, Golden Ball Level. And Wang Shuo?
So far, the only things he has to his name are a European Golden Boot and a UEFA Europa League title.
Marca Newspaper also wrote a commentary piece arguing that Wang Shuo’s wager showed a lack of respect.
The media in the Catalonia Region, on the other hand, staunchly supported Messi, refusing to believe that Wang Shuo could challenge him.
As for Ronaldo, they didn’t pay him much mind either.
"Today’s Barça is the strongest team in the European Football Scene!"
"Messi is the undisputed king!"
World Sports Daily went so far as to describe Wang Shuo as a madman from Dortmund.
Interestingly, in Germany, media outlets like Bild and Kicker Magazine threw their support behind Wang Shuo, believing that the era of Messi and Ronaldo was coming to an end.
"From now on, the European Football Scene enters an unprecedented era of a three-way showdown!"
In addition to the media taking sides, numerous legends and veterans of the sport also came forward one after another to voice their strong support.
For example, Ronaldinho publicly spoke out in support of Messi.
"This is a very interesting game for the young guys. I think Messi will have the last laugh."
"Ronaldo and Wang Shuo are of course both excellent players, but I don’t think they can shake Messi’s position."
But the legendary Real Madrid veteran Butragueño stated that Ronaldo was just entering the golden age of his career.
"We all support him and believe he is going to have a massive breakout this season!"
Butragueño revealed that Ronaldo had trained especially hard over the past summer and was in excellent condition.
Former Real Madrid star Robert Carlos also supported Ronaldo, reasoning that Real Madrid now had the strongest lineup in the European Football Scene, and Ronaldo was the most terrifying attacker in world football today.
"I have no reason to worry that he’ll lose this bet!"
In Monaco, everyone at Dortmund, from top to bottom, was also paying close attention to last night’s wager.
Head coach Klopp, in an interview with reporters from Ruhr News and the West German Newspaper who were traveling with the team, expressed his support for Wang Shuo.
"This is a good thing!"
"It proves he has the heart of a lion, completely fearless! And this will give him even more motivation and fighting spirit!"
As the media began to raise the stakes and various parties fanned the flames, the entire incident continued to snowball, spreading from the internet into the real world and growing larger and larger in influence.
...
"Over a million new followers in one night?"
In the hotel in Monaco, before the routine pre-match meeting, the Dortmund players gathered around Wang Shuo, all finding the result unbelievable.
They worked their asses off, killing themselves for maybe a hundred thousand followers if they were lucky, while some only had a few tens of thousands.
"You’ve broken three million, haven’t you?" Götze asked in disbelief.
Wang Shuo smiled and nodded, opening his Twitter account on his phone to an immediate flood of private messages.
Checking the back-end data, he saw that not only had he passed three million, but he was now approaching four million.
"That’s insane!" Reus looked at his own pitiful number of Twitter followers and felt like crying.
"Wang, you got really lucky this time. You just blew up," Foyelner said, full of envy.
Twitter followers are traffic, and traffic is money.
"That’s nonsense. I don’t think it was luck. It was his hard work finally paying off," Subotic said, completely disagreeing with Foyelner.
"Hard work paying off?"
"Go look at the comments on Wang’s Twitter. A lot of people follow him because for so long now, he’s been consistently training early every single morning. Look at the check-in times..."
Hearing this, everyone nodded in agreement.
It was true that many fans had started following Wang Shuo for exactly that reason.
For a long time, his account had been in a relatively low-key phase. His follower growth was slow, but the quality of his followers was high, and their engagement was good.
For example, checking in at 5 AM every day, right on time.
As one of Wang Shuo’s die-hard Twitter fans replied to a new follower: "Have you ever seen a star player who, for two or three years straight, gets up at 5 AM every single day for extra training?"
"If a player like that doesn’t succeed, it would be a crime against heaven!"
