Free Web NovelChapter 536: Chapter 107: Another Record Broken! Half-Season Champions! Zero-Angle Goal! Another Great Reward! Tremble, Bayern
"Everything is about teamwork these days. A sense of responsibility is something you can just hire for."
That’s true.
Take someone like Mendes. Does he need a sense of responsibility?
He doesn’t need to personally take care of his players at all. That’s what the people he hires are for.
With the number of players he manages, if he tried to handle everything himself, he wouldn’t get anything done.
"You know, I may not have been in your line of work for long, but I’ve met a lot of people. I think Thomas might not be the only one, but he’s certainly one of the rare few—an agent who dares to tell you exactly how much money he’s making."
Shen Qinghe couldn’t help but laugh as she said this.
In fact, it was Shen Qinghe who suggested Thomas Essien hire an assistant.
Otherwise, he was genuinely planning to do everything by himself.
How should I put it?
At least in Shen Qinghe’s eyes, Thomas Essien was just too responsible and sentimental.
But an agent like that can never make it big.
If he hadn’t happened to run into Wang Shuo, who would even know who Thomas Essien was?
Among all the soccer agents in the world, Thomas Essien would just be another face in the crowd!
"But if it had been any other agent back then, they would have sent me packing back home long ago instead of foolishly sticking with me through tryouts for eighteen different teams, right?" Wang Shuo had always been grateful to Thomas Essien.
Shen Qinghe agreed. "My dad always says integrity is golden."
Wang Shuo listened intently, feeling like there was a second half to what she was saying. But when she paused at the crucial moment, he raised an eyebrow.
Shen Qinghe chuckled and continued, "But pure gold is too soft."
’Integrity is golden, but pure gold is too soft?’
Wang Shuo mulled over the phrase, realizing it made a lot of sense.
’Shen Qinghe’s father must be an impressive man.’
"So what does your dad do, anyway?"
"He’s a small-time entrepreneur, runs a little company. He loves to read, though. And back in his day, he graduated from Hu City Jiaoda." Shen Qinghe was quite proud as she mentioned the last part.
Wang Shuo was surprised.
Shen Qinghe was about his age, which meant that for someone in her father’s generation, getting into Hu City Jiaoda made him the absolute cream of the crop.
"I’ll have to pay him a visit and pick his brain sometime," Wang Shuo said casually.
But for some reason, Shen Qinghe blushed and shook her head, trying to cover it up. "He’s just a middle-aged guy who likes soccer, goes fishing, and nags a lot. There’s really no reason to visit him."
’Is that so?’
Wang Shuo was a little doubtful.
In reality, his own parents were only about forty-five. They weren’t old by any means.
But people from the countryside did farm work and manual labor, so they tended to age faster.
They were only in their forties, but they looked like they were fifty or sixty.
A pang of bitterness hit Wang Shuo whenever he thought of his parents.
’I’m getting a little homesick!’
After so many years in Europe, he had gotten used to life in Germany. He was doing quite well, too.
The only thing was, whenever he thought of his parents and family back home, his heart ached.
With his current means, he could easily bring his parents over to live with him.
He had even mentioned to He Jianwei that he could come to Europe to study after high school, offering to help him get in touch with schools.
But his parents didn’t even speak standard Mandarin very well; sending them abroad was out of the question.
’If they came here, they wouldn’t know the language, and the lifestyle is so different. Would they just be cooped up at home all day?’
’Knowing my parents’ personalities, they’d get sick from being shut in.’
"Feeling homesick?" Shen Qinghe asked with a smile, her tone laced with concern.
"Is it that obvious?"
"It’s written all over your face."
Wang Shuo nodded.
He hadn’t been home to celebrate the New Year with his parents in years.
"Why don’t you go back for a visit during the winter break?"
"No, the second half of the season is too important. I need to focus on preparing for it."
Shen Qinghe pouted. ’Men,’ she thought. ’So career-focused!’
"Europe is great," Wang Shuo said with a sigh, "but at the end of the day, it’s not our home."
Shen Qinghe nodded along at first, but the more she thought about what he said, the stranger it sounded.
Just then, the first snow of winter began to fall in Germany.
...
The first snow fell on the 29th.
After December began, it snowed again on the night of the 1st, continuing straight through to noon on the 2nd.
By the 5th, it had turned to sleet, accompanied by a freezing fog.
That afternoon, at 4:30 p.m., when Wang Shuo and the rest of the Dortmund team stepped into Nuremberg’s Gund Arena, large snowflakes were still drifting down from the sky. The temperature had plummeted to minus 9 degrees Celsius.
The center of the pitch was equipped with undersoil heating, so the grass was still green, but the surrounding areas were covered in a thin layer of white frost.
Gund Arena could hold 50,000 people, and it was a full house.
As Wang Shuo walked onto the pitch rubbing his hands together, a chorus of shouts erupted from the stands.
"Wang Shuo! Wang Shuo!"
He looked up at the stands and saw that a considerable number of Dortmund fans had traveled for the away match.
They were all in the stands now, chanting Wang Shuo’s name and holding their scarves high as they cheered for him.
Wang Shuo was deeply moved.
But in this bitter cold, neither Wang Shuo nor the rest of Dortmund could play at their best.
Snow was falling, but the undersoil heating was on, making the air incredibly humid.
Just by walking onto the pitch and standing in the center circle waiting for kickoff, he was already soaked to the bone.
His damp jersey clung to his body like it had just been pulled from the washing machine. It couldn’t breathe at all, and it felt awful.
