Chapter 17 The Top League Is Not that Simple!
The relocation of the Wimbledon club caused a lot of trouble, and in the past two years, their results were also greatly affected.
After being relegated to League One (now the Championship), the team's new owner, musical instrument chain businessman Peter-Winkelman, believes that now that the team has moved to Milton Keynes, only a name change can make the team reflect the local culture. At the same time, it can also attract local residents to become new fans and earn more profits. The club made an application for a name change despite the objections of fans and the FA's suggestion, and after a high-level PR campaign, the proposal was approved, and after Wimbledon was relegated to League Two (now League One) this summer, Officially changed its name to FC Milton Keynes, and changed the club's team logo and theme colors.
This heralded the death of the more than 100-year-old Wimbledon club.
This move completely broke out the angry former Wimbledon fans for a long time!
People started to form their own clubs and with the support of Wimbledon Independent and the-DonsTrust, the fans' club was born, it was called AFC Wimbledon, and South West London had a new football club called Wimbledon. .
"It's simple," said WISA spokesman Kevin Ley. "No club in Milton Keynes can represent the 130-year-old Wimbledon football team."
The passion the fans have for the club is palpable.
At the same time, the renaming of the club also made some coaches, players and internal staff who were loyal to the club very dissatisfied, so the new Milton Keynes club made a lot of personnel adjustments, and the physical and fitness coach Walton Cooper, who had worked in the club for ten years, was very dissatisfied. He also resigned along with other colleagues, and now, Walton-Cooper came to the Derby County club to apply.
Originally, Walton Cooper was looking for a job as a fitness coach, but he was intrigued by the demanding job advertisement for Derby County, and he had heard of Wansheng. So I wanted to come to Derby County to try it out.
In the Derby County club's manager's office, Walton Cooper met Wan Sheng.
At the same time, Wan Sheng was also looking at him.
One year and ten months ago, Wan Sheng, like Walton Cooper, came to the Derby County club to apply for a job. At that time, his situation was much worse than that of Walton Cooper. No one believed he was qualified to be a football coach at all. But with confidence, he still got a job offer as an assistant coach.
And now, the interviewer has become himself.
Thinking of all this, Wan Sheng will always be very emotional, the roles have changed, he has become an interviewer, and he needs to find a suitable assistant coach. He kept looking at Walton Cooper. This middle-aged man looks very young and strong. Of course, a football coach does not look at his appearance. After introducing each other, Wan Sheng directly talked about his requirements.
"I need an assistant coach who can arrange training sessions for each player," Wan Sheng explained.
This job is basically to make training plans for each player, of course, the training content is not subject to change. But the schedule can be changed, for example, tactical training takes two hours. Personal training takes two hours. Any time during the day can be adjusted. Wansheng hopes to find the most reasonable disgust, but no one can help him in this regard.
As for the fitness coach, Wansheng doesn't consider it, he is the best fitness coach himself.
Walton Cooper frowned after listening to Wan Sheng's explanation. He didn't immediately answer whether he could complete the job, but instead pointed to the resume on the table and said, "You can look at my resume first. "
Wan Sheng was taken aback for a moment, then nodded and opened his resume to read it carefully.
Walton-Cooper's resume didn't contain much content, all of which were straightforward to say about his abilities, what he had learned, what he had done, etc., but he quickly focused on one of them.
"Sports psychology?" Wan Sheng looked at Walton Cooper in surprise.
Walton Cooper nodded. He had a good understanding of Wansheng before he came. Knowing that he was a top student at University College London, he naturally knew what sports psychology was. If those 'practical' coaches saw this. One will be skipped, and it is not the same thing at all, but Wansheng is different, he is very clear about the concept of 'sports psychology'.
This is a very professional field, a branch of psychology that specializes in the study of the psychological characteristics and laws of people engaged in sports, and it is also an emerging discipline. At Walton-Cooper's age, he can conduct research in this area. It means that he is always learning.
Walton Cooper said, "I can't guarantee your request to be the best, and I can't guarantee the most efficient arrangement, but I am an individual fitness coach, and I can make the most reasonable arrangement from the perspective of physical endurance and sports psychology. These trainings."
Wan Sheng looked at Walton Cooper, thought for a moment, and finally nodded.
He decided to hire Walton Cooper.
The reason is that Walton Cooper has studied sports psychology and his last words, he knows that it is almost impossible to arrange training to find the most efficient way, and Walton Cooper can be both physically and mentally. It is quite good to make the most reasonable training plan for the team.
More importantly, Walton Cooper has ten years of coaching experience. Although he is a fitness coach, he must have done some related work in leading the team, which can help Diamares reduce some of his workload.
In fact, on the team, Diamares has a busier job than Wansheng.
It seems that he is only leading the team, but in fact, he has a lot of work tasks-he has to lead the team in training every day, and this work alone takes up most of the time. The real assistant coach of the team is only him. Diamares needs to do a lot of training and match day work on weekdays. Especially when the team is promoted to the Premier League and receives more attention, Diamares sometimes even has to deal with many media reporters. , the workload of these is too much, and Diamares is even busier than Wansheng.
The only thing is that he doesn't have to think about it, he just goes to work according to Wansheng's arrangement, that's all.
Walton Cooper's arrival at the club will definitely help Diamares share some of the work. This alone is enough. As for whether Walton Cooper can do a good job in arranging training. It is difficult to see results in a short time, so Wansheng decided to hire Walton Cooper.
...
Wan Sheng's influence in the Derby County club is unquestionable. With his current influence, it is still very easy for the club to sign an assistant coach. Walton Cooper's salary is also good. One month trial period. After the official job, the weekly salary is 2,500 pounds, which is higher than the salary he received at Wimbledon.
After becoming the assistant coach of Derby County, Walton Cooper came to work at the club the next day. He originally thought of making training arrangements directly, or becoming Diamares' assistant first and leading the team to train. Get acquainted with the team. But what he didn't expect was that his first task would be to help the club's press officer Richardson deal with many media reporters.
After the victory over Arsenal at Highbury Stadium, many media reporters poured into the Derby County town to interview the Derby County club, and Wansheng refused to interfere with the team training, so the Derby County club had to spend energy to deal with it. .
Among the media who came to interview, not only the English media, but also some Chinese media.
There is still a lot of attention to Wansheng in China, even though Wansheng is a coach. Rather than an attractive professional player, there is still a lot of domestic attention. Because Wansheng is already the most talked-about football coach in China, especially this season, Derby County has been promoted to the Premier League, and the first game is against Arsenal again. Some domestic network TV, such as Xinlang, etc., also carried out the game. Webcast, the victory made more domestic voices support Wansheng, so more Chinese media reporters came to interview.
However, they did not enjoy any special treatment when they came to Derby County. Maybe Wansheng also had the intention to take care of his compatriots, but there were too many media reporters who came to interview. In order not to affect the normal training of the team, he could only refuse everything The interview request was then left to the club press officer Richardson to deal with.
These reporters can only contact Wansheng at regular press conferences. It is not easy for them to interview players, so they need to interview in private.
However, on a normal training day, players have a very tight training schedule. Most players are a little tired after a day of training, and few people still have the mind to deal with media reporters, so it is not easy for them to interview players.
In fact, most of the media reporters who came here wanted to interview Wansheng, because everyone knew that Wansheng was the biggest contributor to the Derby County club's good results. As for the players who performed well, it didn't matter at all. Unless there's some big news for these players, like getting into the England squad, the interviews aren't going to be huge.
It's a pity that Wan Sheng rarely accepts private interviews.
It's not that he deliberately put on a lofty attitude. In fact, Wan Sheng is very friendly to those reporters who purely support Derby County. However, many media ask for interviews. You agree to a reporter's request, but refuse other reporters. Great, this kind of discrimination is unacceptable, so the only way to get in touch with Wansheng is to join Wansheng's MSN group, and this group is internal, and the reporters in it are known to Wansheng, but it's not Anyone who wants to come in can come in. In short, it is very difficult to interview Wansheng.
Some Chinese reporters directly asked the Derby County club for an exclusive interview with Wansheng, on the grounds that they and Wansheng are compatriots. Derby County Club is so happy to see this, Chinese reporter! It was a good opportunity to increase the Derby County club's influence abroad, but it was rejected outright at Wansheng.
"No time to!"
Wan Sheng's answer was straightforward.
Wan Sheng really doesn't have time. He needs to do a lot of work. Just preparing for the competition will take more time than normal working hours. How can he have the heart to accept any reporter's interview?
But in the eyes of reporters, this attitude is a big game!
When Chinese reporters face foreign big names, they will subconsciously be short, but when they face domestic big names, they have something to say. This may also be caused by habit. In China, some ordinary people and even celebrities He is willing to be interviewed, and foreign stars rarely give interviews in private, but Wansheng must be directly classified in the scope of 'domestic'. He directly refuses to be interviewed, which is a big name, but what they didn't think about , Wansheng is now in the UK, this piece of land definitely belongs to 'foreign'.
Of course, they don't think so.
As a result, some voices in the domestic media did not evaluate Wansheng very well. They once again quoted some English media's evaluation of Wansheng - arrogant and arrogant. When the head coach of a Derby County club, the tail will go up. .
Derby County club?
Has anyone heard this name before?
What's so great about being a manager of a tiny Derby County club?
Such voices have begun to appear in China, but it is a pity that Wansheng simply ignored it. They can say whatever they want. For him, leading the team to achieve good results is the most important thing, and everything else is irrelevant.
In such an atmosphere, the Derby County Club soon ushered in the second round of the league, and the whole team went to Ewood Park to challenge Blackburn away.
Blackburn last season was a disappointment. After all, they had entered the UEFA Cup the previous season. In the summer, they sold core players such as Duff and Dunn. Coach Souness is facing the task of restructuring the team. .
Nonetheless, Blackburn is not a team that is easy to deal with. Their style of play is known for their rough defense. Even the strongest team will have a headache in the face of such a style of opponent. The same is true for Wansheng. The most worrying thing is the mentality of many young players in the team facing this tough defense. After all, many young players still have too little experience. Less experience means less experience, and less experience makes it difficult to behave calmly.
Wansheng's fears soon became a reality.
In this game, Derby County did not play very well. In the face of Blackburn's fierce defense, some players were a little timid, which affected the performance of the whole team. Derby County was even suppressed by Blackburn in the first half. , and was scored by Blackburn on a fast break.
Fortunately, Wansheng made some adjustments at halftime and gave the team confidence and fighting spirit, which made the team calm a lot in the second half.
After making adjustments, Derby County launched an offensive in the second half, and the whole team seemed to have changed. It was almost impossible for Blackburn to suppress. They could only defend passively, but Blackburn's defense was still very good , At the end of the game, Derby County only scored one goal, or a set-piece scored by Ivan Crewe.
The two teams ended up 1:1.
At the end of the game, all Derby County players breathed a sigh of relief. This game was difficult enough. Compared with the previous game against Arsenal, many players realized that the top league is not as simple as they imagined. The score beats the strong team, but it may not be easy to win the weak team.
Blackburn is a weak team compared to Arsenal, but it's not easy to beat them, and now they're not doing it.
1:1, a draw, which disappointed all Derby County.
Perhaps this is also related to the last big victory over Arsenal, which made the team's expectations a little too high.
However, Wan Sheng thinks it can be accepted. This is a reminder to all players, telling them that they should not be careless at any time, and they must do their best to deal with any opponent, otherwise, failure is sometimes inevitable. (To be continued ~^~)