Seeing so many of their Youth National Team teammates successfully move abroad, Lin Feng and Feng Xiaoting were both delighted.
To make it easier for everyone to stay in touch and communicate, the two of them created a QQ Group and added every teammate who had successfully gone abroad.
After creating the group, Lin Feng casually posted:
"Newbie checking in. Please take care of me, big shots!"
"The big shot is pretending to be a newbie again!"
"Exactly. You're already the most valuable player in our group, yet you still have the nerve to call yourself a newbie!"
"Hehe, you can't look at it that way. I was born in '88, and all of you are older than me. I also joined the team last. Whether by age or seniority, aren't I a newbie?"
Everyone was speechless. Comparing yourself to others really could drive you mad. This guy was the youngest on the team and had joined the latest, yet he was doing better than all of them.
"By the way, where's Big Head? Why haven't we seen him?"
Within the Youth National Team, Gao Lin was affectionately called Big Head by his teammates because his head looked rather large.
However, within the national team, that nickname belonged to Li Weifeng, so they only called him that in private.
"Big Head's situation is a bit complicated. I have him added already. I'll pull him in and let him explain it himself!"
Very soon, someone with the nickname "I'm a Pro at Flying Planes" was added to the QQ Group by Chen Tao.
Lin Feng: "???"
Feng Xiaoting: "???"
Zhao Xuri: "???"
At the sight of that nickname, everyone sent a string of question marks.
I'm a Pro at Flying Planes: "Newbie reporting in. My beloved ministers, rise and dispense with the formalities!"
Cui Peng could not help asking in the group:
"Old Gao, what does that nickname mean?"
I'm a Pro at Flying Planes: "Nothing else. It means exactly what it says. With your extensive experience, you definitely understand!"
Cui Peng hurriedly denied it three times in a row: "Don't talk nonsense. I'm not, I didn't, and I have no idea!"
I'm a Pro at Flying Planes: "Hehe, don't explain. Explanation is concealment, and concealment is another way of admitting the truth."
Chen Tao did not want to watch Gao Lin fool around in the group any longer, so he interrupted the two and directly asked Gao Lin:
"Big Head, how's your transfer going? July is already halfway over, and preseason training for the new season is about to begin in Europe. Everyone else has pretty much completed their transfers, so why haven't you had any news at all?"
Because of the vast geographical span, temperatures and climates differed greatly across the country, so the domestic league schedule was very different from that of the Big Five Leagues.
The new seasons of the Big Five Leagues usually began in late August and continued until the following May, when they broke for the offseason.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Super League season usually began in March and ended in November.
By March, the weather across the country had warmed up and the temperature gap between regions had narrowed, avoiding extreme differences where the south was twenty or thirty degrees Celsius while the north remained ten or even dozens of degrees below zero.
There was a similar reason for ending the league in November. After all, winters in the north often reached twenty or thirty degrees below zero. Playing football outdoors in that kind of weather was practically deadly.
For that very reason, when domestic players moved abroad, many chose January, when both the domestic and European leagues were in recess.
In July and August, the Chinese Super League was entering its final sprint. Many clubs, seeking stable results, were unwilling to let players go easily, creating considerable obstacles for players hoping to move abroad.
One of the reasons Shenyang Ginde had set obstacles for Chen Tao's transfer was exactly this.
The reason the transfers of the other Youth National Team youngsters had gone so smoothly was mainly because most of them had failed to secure starting roles at their clubs and were not particularly important to their teams.
Originally, Gao Lin had belonged to the second category. He had not been valued at Shenhua and had been playing with the youth team.
But after the Youth World Cup, Shenhua saw Gao Lin's outstanding performances and decided to promote him to the first team.
Under those circumstances, Shenhua's attitude toward offers from foreign clubs was hard to predict.
Gao Lin sent a crying emoji. "My club and the team interested in me failed to reach an agreement. I can't go abroad!"
Feng Xiaoting: "That serious? Which foreign club was interested in you? How much were they willing to offer?"
Cui Peng: "Don't panic yet. There's still more than a month before the transfer window closes. Hang in there, and there's still hope!"
Zhao Xuri: "That's right. Everyone saw your performance at the Youth World Cup. Even Zhu Ting and Mao Biao managed to move abroad, so there's no way nobody wants you!"
Zhu Ting, Mao Biao: "Zhao Ritian, was that polite?"
I'm a Pro at Flying Planes: "Apparently, it's a Relegation Battle Team in Ligue 1. Their striker got injured, and they urgently need a forward as cover."
The moment everyone heard it was a Ligue 1 club, they all tagged Cui Peng.
Among the Youth National Team players, Cui Peng was currently the only one who had joined Ligue 1, and he had even gone to a highly ranked club.
Cui Peng: "Old Gao, don't panic. Tell us about that Ligue 1 club first, and I'll help you assess it."
Within the Youth National Team, Cui Peng and Gao Lin had a very good relationship. The two shared the same tastes and got along exceptionally well.
No wonder that, back on that Olympic team, they had been the first two to be kicked out.
I'm a Pro at Flying Planes: "That team seems to be from some island. It's called Ajaccio or something!?"
Cui Peng: "Ajaccio? They're a team from Corsica. They had 45 points last season, only four points above the relegation zone. If they hadn't won their final two matches, they probably would have been relegated already."
It was clear that after joining Ligue 1, Cui Peng had done plenty of homework. He obviously knew more about Ligue 1 than the others.
After explaining for a while, Cui Peng added:
"Ajaccio isn't in great financial shape. The transfer fee they offered probably wasn't very high, right?"
At the mention of this, Gao Lin flew into a rage. "Not very high? They only offered 900,000 Euros! Shenhua even thought they were deliberately insulting them!"
Gao Lin was, after all, a starting forward for the Youth National Team, and his performance at the Youth World Cup had been quite impressive.
Although he could not compare to Lin Feng, Chen Tao, Feng Xiaoting, and the others, he felt that he could not possibly be worth less than Zhu Ting.
Zhu Ting had played even fewer minutes than him at the Youth World Cup, yet Hamburg had offered 1.5 million Euros for Zhu Ting.
Hamburg might not have been a top-tier club, but at least they ranked in the upper-middle of the league and did not have to worry about relegation. What kind of lousy club was this one that wanted him?
Not only was it in a remote location, but the transfer fee was low. Most importantly, the team was under enormous relegation pressure.
One wrong step, and the club could very well be relegated from Ligue 1 to Ligue 2.
Ligue 1 was already the weakest of the Big Five Leagues. If he really got relegated to Ligue 2, he might as well stay in the Chinese Super League!
After hearing Gao Lin out, everyone fell silent.
His situation was indeed complicated. It was clear that Shenhua was dissatisfied with the transfer fee, while Gao Lin himself was not too pleased with the club either.
Moreover, there was a downside to playing for a Relegation Battle Team: they valued results tremendously and would not give newcomers much time or patience to adapt.
If Gao Lin performed poorly in the league, the Head Coach might very well freeze him out and abandon him completely.
If that happened, he would truly be taking a massive loss.
Lin Feng asked curiously, "Have any other clubs contacted you?"
Given Gao Lin's performances, there should have been more than one club interested in him.
After all, even Mao Biao, who had spent his time warming the bench, had successfully moved abroad. Gao Lin had at least started several matches, so he would only have drawn more attention.
"Yes, but they're all second-tier leagues under the Big Five Leagues, like the Spanish Segunda División, the English Championship, and the German 2. Bundesliga."
Based on Lin Feng's understanding of Gao Lin, if Gao Lin had to choose between those second-tier leagues and a Ligue 1 Relegation Battle Team, he would most likely choose the Ligue 1 side.
After all, this guy cared deeply about appearances. Joining one of the Big Five Leagues sounded far more prestigious than joining one of their second-tier divisions.
"Brother Feng, you have to save me! You've been abroad for a long time and have extensive connections. You're the only one I can rely on now!"
Seeing Lin Feng take the initiative to ask, Gao Lin immediately seized the opportunity and began pleading with him for help.
Lin Feng thought for a moment. Most of his connections were in the German leagues, and there happened to be a team in the Bundesliga with limitless potential in the future but poor form at the moment: The Hornets, Borussia Dortmund.
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