Free Web NovelChapter 530: Chapter 106: One Step Away! Poaching Wang Shuo
The only question now was how long Dortmund could extend their winning streak.
Dortmund was now competing only with itself.
Dortmund continued their unstoppable momentum in the fifth round of the Champions League group stage mid-week.
Just thirteen minutes into the match, Wang Shuo showcased his individual skill. He made a breakthrough at the edge of the box, drove straight into Lyon’s penalty area, and then delivered a brilliant pass to assist a goal by Kuba.
In the 20th minute, Wang Shuo received a pass from Shahin and calmly dinked the ball into the net in front of the goal, scoring another for the team.
2-0!
After the sides switched for the second half, it was Wang Shuo again. He latched onto a long diagonal pass from Piszczek on the right, surged forward, and headed the ball into the bottom right corner from the left edge of the six-yard box.
The ball was beyond Lloris’s reach.
3-0!
Wang Shuo had once again scored a brace!
In the end, thanks to Wang Shuo’s brace, Dortmund secured a decisive 3-0 home victory over Lyon.
Meanwhile, in the group’s other match, Spartak Moscow claimed a 3-0 home victory over Benfica.
The result was quite a surprise.
Benfica had been aiming to qualify from the group, only to suffer a humiliating and crushing defeat in Moscow.
While Moscow was having a mild winter, that was only relative to Germany.
For a Portuguese team from Southern Europe, Moscow was still bitterly cold.
With that, after five rounds of group stage play, Dortmund had amassed thirteen points with a record of four wins and one draw, securing their spot in the next round as the group winner with a game to spare.
...
Volker Strus. The name meant little to the average fan, but within the German Football Scene, it was legendary.
He was Germany’s top football agent.
His client roster included numerous German stars, such as Götze, Reus, Tony Kroos, and Kael.
Moreover, he had very close relationships with the top brass at many clubs.
Dortmund’s Watzke and Zorc, for example.
It was a relationship of mutual need.
For instance, Strus had facilitated Dortmund’s signing of Gundogan from Nuremberg that summer.
And that was despite Gundogan not even being one of Strus’s clients.
There was also the time Tony Kroos was nearly loaned to Dortmund before he ended up going to Bayer Leverkusen.
In Strus’s opinion, the entire profession of being a football agent had been maliciously maligned and demonized.
Case in point: Strus was now at Westfalen Stadium, inside Dortmund’s administrative offices.
He was here on behalf of Chelsea to make unofficial contact with Dortmund.
This meeting wouldn’t appear on any record, be mentioned in any news, or have a single detail leaked to the outside world.
He had only one objective for this trip: to test the waters.
FIFA has a dedicated system and a highly regulated process for player transfers.
For example, say Chelsea wanted to buy Wang Shuo from Dortmund.
How would they go about it?
Just send a fax directly to Dortmund’s office?
And you know what would happen?
That fax wouldn’t even make it to Watzke or Zorc’s office. The receptionist would toss it straight into the trash can, or maybe the shredder.
Okay, let’s say the fax miraculously lands on Watzke and Zorc’s desks. You’d get only one reply: NO!
And if you were to ask, "Why?"
The answer would be just as simple: "He’s not for sale!"
Alright, so you say, "I won’t send a fax. I know where your club is, so I’ll just come over and ask in person. That should work, right?"
Sure, you could do that!
But for a transfer involving a Bundesliga-level star, that’s generally not how it’s done.
Because when you arrive at the offices in Westfalen Stadium, get received by Dortmund, and sit down in the conference room, their first question will inevitably be, "Have you already spoken with the player?"
How do you answer that?
No?
Then you’re being unprofessional!
Why would you approach us directly without getting the player’s approval first?
Get lost. Come back after you’ve reached an agreement with the player!
Okay, and if you answer "yes," you’re also dead in the water.
Because they’ll report you to FIFA that very day for illegally approaching a player.
According to FIFA regulations, other clubs are only permitted to contact a player when there are six months or less remaining on their contract. Otherwise, it’s a violation.
Do you think Ashley Cole wasn’t punished harshly enough for his illegal meeting with Mourinho back in the day?
So what’s the right way to do it?
This is where the agent comes in!
Ferguson once blasted agents for making too much money.
And it’s true.
Ferguson will tell you how much an agent skims off a transfer fee. But he’ll never tell you how many people that money is split between.
Without Mendes and the network of agents he contacted, could Manchester United have possibly snatched Ronaldo from under Arsenal’s nose?
Would Ronaldo have been willing to give up on Arsenal—a club he’d been in talks with for over six months—and put his trust in Ferguson and Manchester United?
That’s right. Remember this: agents trade in trust.
The trust of both clubs involved in the deal, as well as the trust of the player.
That’s why not just anyone can be a good agent.
FIFA President Blatter once considered abolishing agents altogether. He felt the industry was a murky, non-transparent mess riddled with gray areas, and he wanted to replace it with a more advanced and transparent transfer system.
But in the end, FIFA just went back to using the agent system.
Transfers in the European Football Scene were less a regulated process and more a semi-closed world, one filled with gray areas where official rules were unworkable and everyone was driven by self-interest.
