Chapter 154: Chapter 153 Is Kai a fan of Messi? (Looking for full subscription)
People who are exposed to society know that family conditions are also a part of one’s competitiveness.
The child is happy.
Chasing dreams.
The chance to earn big money.
The clubs provide a guaranteed living allowance, so there’s no need to spend extra money.
Free study abroad.
It’s easier to get into prestigious schools.
Once the last two conditions were mentioned, there were basically no parents who would refuse.
What’s wrong with a child being all alone abroad?
When parents go out to work and leave their children behind in their hometown, aren’t they just as isolated?
Yu Shihao, Hao Junmin, and Shao Jiawei successively signed youth training contracts with Sporting Lisbon and became overseas players.
In this series of connections, Deng Kai played an irreplaceable coordinative role, and Sporting Lisbon symbolically gave him some "thank you" money, treating Deng Kai like a local scout.
Sports Weekly followed the whole process and turned this content into a special transfer feature.
Once released, it triggered hot debates and praise across the nation.
As a result, Sports Weekly also gave Deng Kai a portion of the bonus and a thank you fee.
With these two sums of money, Deng Kai established the "Deng Kai Youth Football Foundation."
The funds weren’t much but aimed to assist talented football children, such as with transfer help and so on.
Jiang Yunzhu became the head of this foundation.
She became a bridge between Sporting Lisbon and the domestic football scene.
At the same time, Deng Kai and Jiang Yunzhu also established a football agent company.
Deng Kai wholly funded it, holding the majority of shares. Jiang Yunzhu invested with her technical and management skills and was the actual operator.
They brought players like Wu Xudong, Yu Shihao, Hao Junmin, and Shao Jiawei into their fold.
Jiang Yunzhu was studying for her agent’s certificate, becoming a slash youth and planning to make her first career transition attempt in the area of agents.
Deng Kai expressed his hopes that Jiang Yunzhu would become China’s Raiola.
Jiang Yunzhu responded that would depend on him becoming Bogkamp and Nedved first.
This remark became known to Yu Shihao and others in a later conversation.
They took their places, with Hao Junmin being humorously called the Wuhan Nedved.
Yu Shihao claimed to be the Mianyang Inzaghi.
Shao Jiawei was dubbed the Jiangyou Thuram.
Wu Xudong was praised as the Tongliao Zanetti.
However, Deng Kai and Jiang Yunzhu never expected that the second major expense of the "Youth Football Foundation" would be on litigation.
Chen Tao, a youth player from Sichuan Quanxing and a member of the Wahaha team, also received an invitation to sign with Sporting Lisbon.
But the team demanded a high transfer fee.
After learning about this, Chen Tao communicated with the team’s senior management, hoping they would be lenient and let him off.
How could he, a mere youth player, possibly sell for a high price?
However, this communication did not go smoothly.
Chen Tao planned to pay for the termination of his contract out of his own pocket, but not only was the buyout fee astronomical, but Quanxing also demanded a training fee from Chen Tao.
This back-and-forth meant that litigation was the only option.
Sports Weekly found this issue to be quite representative and, together with the "Deng Kai Youth Football Foundation," provided assistance to Chen Tao, hoping to take a stand against the corrupt practices in domestic transfers.
The movement of top players is inevitable for the development of football.
Totti’s entire career at Roma, Kane being tricked into staying at Tottenham—these severely impacted their historical stature.
In other words, only through player movement can fan movement be fostered, thus creating true superstars and grand clubs in an environment of "raising gu."
Only then can the influence of sports truly spread out.
This applies to both football and basketball.
During the lawsuit, Chen Tao was frozen out by the team.
But the foundation stated it would fully support his training expenses during this period, and also invited Chen Tao to train with Sporting Lisbon’s U17 squad.
This was a special benefit that Trigella secured for Deng Kai.
Yes, Deng Kai would be playing for the team’s U17 squad in the new season.
However, Trigella gave Deng Kai a heads up that he, along with exceptional players like Ronaldo, might be called up to a higher level team at any point mid-season.
It’s not excluded that after Trigella becomes the head coach of the first team, he will let Ronaldo and Deng Kai train with the first team to get an early taste of real professional football.
As for the U17, it’s essentially just to keep Deng Kai and Ronaldo warmed up.
Deng Kai believes in Trigella’s promise.
Because the future Ronaldo once skipped five levels in a single year.
In Trigella’s mind, a talent like Deng Kai doesn’t need to wait until he’s eighteen to start playing professionally.
He could even accept him starting at sixteen or even earlier.
Because that’s what a real talent is.
What?
You’re asking about Ronaldo?
The difference between Ronaldo and Deng Kai is that while Ronaldo might dominate in U15, it’s not necessarily the case in U17 or U19. He’s the type of player who can quickly grow to reach the limit of the environment he’s in.
But he can’t break the shackles of that environment.
Even if Deng Kai is in the U15, he could make people believe he will perform well in higher-level competitions.
Chen Tao is the second largest expenditure of the foundation.
So who is the first?
Under Deng Kai’s instruction, Jiang Yunzhu, through relationships with media friends, made a donation to a young player named Lionel Andres Messi Cuccittini from the youth team of Argentinos Juniors.
This player was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency two years ago. Initially, the team promised to cover the medical costs, but as Messi grew older, the club opted out due to the treatment costs of at least one thousand US dollars per month.
When Messi’s father Jorge received the donation, he was somewhat confused at first as he didn’t know what was going on.
He also didn’t know what the "Deng Kai Youth Football Foundation" was.
But Messi knew.
Perhaps Jorge had forgotten, but he had once watched Deng Kai’s matches with Messi and encouraged Messi to be like Deng Kai, never to give up on football even with a small stature.
Messi has since been following Deng Kai and has left multiple comments in the interaction section of Sporting Lisbon’s official website, several of which were featured as top comments.
"He isn’t tall, but he’s always someone you can’t ignore on the pitch, and if you dare ignore him, you’ll be punished, by Caesar!"
"My former football idol was the clown Aimar, but now, there’s another player named Deng Kai."
"He makes me believe that I can still play football. I see his innate competitiveness."
Messi used his own name for his social media account.
Deng Kai would regularly browse through some information to ensure his knowledge wasn’t out of sync with the mainstream media.
He noticed this comment and replied to his loyal fan, "No no no, I don’t need a wall."
After replying, he realized something.
Holy shit!
Is this Messi?
Ronaldo, your rival for life has arrived.
Deng Kai didn’t delve into whether this fan named Messi was that Messi, but it reminded him of that Messi.
So, he took a portion of his youth competition prize money and donated it through the youth foundation.
How should I put it?
It’s not that he was burning through too much money.
It’s mainly that this investment... it pays off immensely.
This is one of the most legendary aspects of Messi, even more widespread than the story of signing a contract on a napkin, and it will be passed down by countless people in the future.
But the future version of this story could very well be "With the support of Deng Kai, Messi pursued his football dream and grew to be 1.7 meters tall..."
One point seven meters?
Deng Kai suddenly thought about taking the money back.
After all, his current height is only... 1.65 meters!
Hahaha!
Yes!
In one summer, Deng Kai’s height soared by more than ten centimeters!
He had reached the limit of his body.
This was related to the "ultimate talent" gene contribution from Ronaldo.
It was also related to Deng Kai’s own growth stimulated by winning the treble this season.
His personal data underwent an earth-shattering transformation that summer.
