Chapter 686 Volume 6 Crimson Trip to China

Tang En is not from Ningbo, nor from Zhejiang. Before crossing over, he has only been to three places in the huge China - his hometown, a small town in southern Sichuan; the place where he went to university is BJ, the capital of China; Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, where he graduated from university and worked. .

Although Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou belong to China, it seems like another world to him. They speak a language he can't understand at all, eat dishes that don't suit his taste, and the customs and humanities are very different. He never thought that one day he would have the idea of ​​traveling there.

But now, thanks to the blessing of his soul, he has the opportunity to "tour with public funds" and come to a place that was just a name symbol for him before - NB City, Zhejiang Province.

Of course he didn't really come here for a vacation. In fact, when he came to China this time, he didn't have the eccentric and lovely Shania by his side, but followed a large group of men.

That's right, they are all members of Nottingham Forest Club.

A year ago, Nottingham Forest Club won a large piece of land in Clifton, southwest of Nottingham city, to build a new stadium. The city government gave great support and allowed them to buy the land at a lower price. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and in return, they must do something for Nottingham City Council.

Now is the time to give back to the government.

In essence, the trip to Nottingham Forest was a naked gold digging trip, an act of businessmen in pursuit of profit. But the publicity is a bit higher.

In fact, this is a cultural trip between Nottingham, UK and NB, China. The Nottingham Cultural Promotion Week full of friendly atmosphere will be fully launched with the visit of the European champion Nottingham Forest. At one end of the UK, you can enjoy the most authentic English culture and style.

The relationship between Nottingham and Ningbo can be traced back to 2005, when the two cities signed a contract and formally became sister cities. As a gift, the University of Nottingham, which is quite famous in the UK, cooperated with the NB city government to clone the university as a whole to Ningbo, and built a completely independent University of Nottingham in Ningbo. All the teachers and teaching materials were equipped with the University of Nottingham, and the students graduated successfully. Afterwards, the University of Nottingham degree can be obtained by the University of Nottingham.

With these relationships, it is not surprising that Nottingham Forest's visit to China is set in the city of Ningbo.

This is the result of the cooperation between the club and the city government. Without this relationship, Alan Adams would not care about sister cities. He prefers to set the venue of his visit to China in BJ or Shanghai. But if you take someone else's land cheaply, you will naturally have to pay some price. Fortunately, what is lost here can be made up for in other places-the Japanese's fanatical pursuit of Beckham is enough to make Allen laugh out of his dreams; and Southeast Asia and Hong Kong have always been the largest audience groups for the Premier League in Asia. The status there is simply unmatched by other leagues.

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Before coming to Ningbo, the opponent of Nottingham Forest had been announced long ago. On the day of the announcement, Tang En was very surprised by the opponent's name - the Chinese Olympic team.

This is also Allen's masterpiece.

Considering that the influence of the game here in Ningbo is too small, he decided to find an opponent with enough influence for Nottingham Forest. Now, the whole of China is crazy about the BJ Olympic Games held in August. What better way to promote yourself than to take advantage of the Olympic Games?

So he got on the line with Amity and the Chinese Football Association in China, hoping to arrange a warm-up match--to the industry insiders, it was a "warm-up match", but to ordinary fans, it was a "commercial match". The opponent is the Chinese Olympic team.

Isn't the Olympic team currently preparing for the Olympic Games? They need a high-level opponent to do their warm-up, and which team is more suitable than the European champions?

For the Football Association, this is a very tempting plan. First of all, they don’t have to spend their own money to invite those high-level foreign teams to play warm-up matches; secondly, Nottingham Forest’s level is indeed very high, and now the whole world knows about this team, it is very beneficial for the Chinese Olympic team to play against them ; Third, the European champion Nottingham Forest and the Olympic host Olympic team will also be very helpful in promoting the Olympic Games around the world. Since the torch was relayed, the voices of some western countries against the Olympic Games have not stopped, and have intensified. This game should be able to convey another diametrically opposed voice. As long as it is under the premise of the Olympic Games, everything can be done .

The Football Association agrees to this proposal in principle, but they also have their own requirements...

The Chinese Football Association hopes to participate in the share of game revenue.

Allen and the person in charge of Amity looked at each other after hearing the proposal. Alan doesn't quite understand this approach, but Amity is indeed a professional company that often operates foreign teams to come to China for commercial competitions. They told Alan that if you want to deal with the Chinese Football Association, this kind of thing makes you foreigners feel unbelievable. Things will happen often, and to be honest, this request is not really too much...

It was only at this time that Allen recalled what Tang En said "what is China's national conditions". It has been half a year since he came back and forth from the UK to China, and he thought that his understanding of China should be similar to that of Tang En. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he was still far away from Tony...

Alan Adams agreed to the Football Association's proposal. After agreeing on the specific sharing ratio, the Football Association, Amity and Nottingham Forest jointly announced that the opponent of Nottingham Forest's visit to China was the Chinese Olympic team.

As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted the attention of the Chinese media and fans. The media reported the upcoming game, introduced Nottingham Forest, publicized Nottingham Forest, and reported Nottingham Forest. The fans also expressed a very strong interest in this game. In addition, China's national TV station has purchased the live broadcast rights of the game.

These are what Allen wants to see most. The Chinese Olympic team's combat plan is very successful.

Regarding this opponent, Tang En had no objection. Not only that, he felt that playing in the Chinese Olympic Games might be the best choice. If he played against a local Zhejiang team, Tang En would find it boring. Playing those impromptu league teams, let alone play the role of training troops. Playing against an Olympic team that has been training together for a long time has some competitive value.

Yes, Allen only considered the economic effect, but what Tang En cared about was the competitive value. These two words are spelled the same in Chinese Pinyin, but they are completely irrelevant. In professional football clubs, it's almost a complete opposite.

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When getting off the plane, the Nottingham Forest stars received a very warm welcome. The light rain could not stop the fans who came to the airport to wait, and there were also beautiful girls queuing up under the airport gangway to lay flowers. The enthusiastic and beautiful Ningbo girl made the players of Nottingham Forest very happy. Except for a few big stars who were a little reserved and had to maintain their personal image, the younger ones almost hugged each other and took a group photo.

Tang En didn't bother with them. In his opinion, this showed that his team was currently in good condition.

After receiving the garland presented by the little girl, the team walked to the airport bus parked outside the terminal building. Naturally, the warm welcome of the fans who heard the news was indispensable along the way. From the poster portraits held by the fans, it is very intuitive to know who is the most popular person in the team.

Before coming to China, the Nottingham Forest players got together to bet - who will be the most popular player in China? Of course this gamble ruled out Beckham from the start...

Now the answer is revealed. In addition to Beckham, the most popular person is George Wood. Van der Vaart narrowly finished second.

"Wood! Wood!" Enthusiastic Chinese fans held up George Wood's posters and big-headed caricatures, shouting his Chinese nickname.

Facing the crowd that warmly welcomed him, George Wood still had a calm face, with almost no smile. But everything he has done can only attract screams of higher decibels and more people's pursuit of him.

"Look! This is the star! What a personality!"

"Wood is so cool!!"

"But I think he's lovely—oh, Wood! I love you!"

...

Seeing this scene, Franck Ribery gritted his teeth and said, "It's unreasonable, zombie faces can be so popular..."

Fortunately, someone soon comforted his "injured heart". "Fribery! Ribery! Look this way, look this way!" Someone shouted in English.

He hurriedly turned his head away happily, but he saw an embarrassing scene:

A Chinese fan held up a sign, and two fans next to him pointed to the sign, which read in French: "How much do you want to stay in Nottingham?!"

Obviously, it was a satire on the news that he asked for 150,000 pounds a while ago and refused to renew his contract with the club, but went to Real Madrid.

He could only pretend that he didn't see it and turned his eyes to the gray sky.

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"Is this China?" On the way from the airport to the CITIC Ningbo International Hotel, the teammates of Nottingham Forest looked out the window curiously.

"Sun! Sun!" The teammates warmly greeted Sun Jihai, wanting him to be a tour guide and introduce the scenery full of the flavor of Jiangnan in China along the way. "What's that? And that...ah, this one is so pretty too!"

This made Sun Jihai very embarrassed. Because although he is Chinese, he is not from Ningbo, not even from Jiangnan. He also knew nothing about Ningbo and Jiangnan.

If you really want to explain it to your teammates, you have to start with the fact that China is a very big country, so big that these foreign teammates can't even think about it. In this way, the topic becomes too big, and it is impossible to explain clearly in a few words.

"Ha...Actually, I don't know anything about Ningbo, and I rarely come here..." He could only express his predicament with a dry smile.

The teammates were very disappointed. They finally found a Chinese teammate. They also thought that they could take him to go shopping and spend together when they arrived at the hotel. A free local guide would be great!

Tang En glanced at Tang En, and Tang En quickly stared: "Don't look at me, although I am...but I don't know anything about Ningbo." DV shooting scenery along the road.

There are basically few people sitting quietly in the car, and everyone is holding a digital camera or DV and facing the outside of the window. Tang En didn't do that, he wasn't interested in what happened outside, anyway, he didn't come here for a trip.

However, he turned his head and saw a tall billboard tree on the roadside of the airport. The background was red, and the dark lines were players from Nottingham Forest and the Olympic team. The slogan on it was interesting, written in both Chinese and English——warm Welcome European champions and Premier League champions Nottingham Forest to our city to visit the game!

he laughed. It really has "Chinese characteristics". Seeing this scene is really kind...

There are still several billboards like this on the side of the road. In addition to those directly promoting the Forest team, there are also sponsors related to Nottingham Forest and the advertisements of Ed. It can be seen that Allen has placed a lot of money. effort. Although the game has not yet started, the publicity campaign was well played. Seeing such a billboard, he, the head coach of the Forest team, also has a sense of accomplishment, pride and pride.

The world outside the window was raining lightly, but this did not affect the image of Ningbo in the hearts of these foreign guests. Because this dynamic Jiangnan style painting looks more flavorful in the hazy rain and fog, which adds to the mysterious impression of many foreigners on China, which seems to be real and imaginary, like a dream.

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After arriving at the CITIC Ningbo International Hotel where they were staying, a press conference was held in the hotel. All members of the team attended after changing clothes in the room, and officially introduced the team to all walks of life in China.

Tony Twain became the protagonist at the press conference, because his love for Chinese culture is no longer news, even fans in China know it.

Throughout the press conference, he communicated with the media and fan representatives in fluent Mandarin. Every time, he won applause from everyone present. Everyone applauded for his fluent Chinese and familiarity with China.

Twain felt a little regretful about this. If he is going to compete in Chengdu, Sichuan, he can still greet everyone in fluent Sichuan dialect...

"...I love China, I love the culture and the hospitable people here. I am honored and proud to lead the team to Ningbo! I also hope to introduce the best of China to my players Yes, I believe this trip to Ningbo, China will be an amazing experience for my players!"

His last words won him a lot of applause.

Evan Dalgety, who was sitting in the back, smiled and applauded, and said to Alan Adams next to him, "You are still worried that he will cause trouble for you. But look at his performance, his performance is too perfect!" "

Allen also nodded: "Indeed, I must admit that he is doing better than I imagined. He is really a natural speaker..."

This concludes the press conference. Next, the players will go back to their rooms for a short rest, and then they will go to the banquet together by car - the welcome dinner that the NB city government will clean up for them.

While some reporters and die-hard fans were still lingering in and out of the hotel lobby, Allen had already found Twain: "Tony, are you free now?"

Tang En knew that Allen must have something to discuss with him, but he didn't know what it was. Could it be something about Ribery some time ago?

He nodded. "I have time. What's the matter, Alan?"

"Go to my room, I want to talk to you about something."

Tang En glanced at Evan Dalgety who was standing behind Allen, and he nodded in agreement.