On the evening of June 29, a tweet quietly appeared on the internet.
The tweet was simple, containing only one sentence.
"I'm about to sign with the Champions League champions."
The tweet was posted by a player named Eden Hazard. He had 230,000 followers, and his verified account identified him as a Ligue 1 Lille player. At first, it did not attract much attention.
But half an hour after the tweet was posted, Yang Yang retweeted it on his personal Twitter account and replied to Eden Hazard, "Welcome to Real Madrid!"
Yang Yang had as many as forty million Twitter followers—not only far more than football superstars like Messi and C. Ronaldo, but even American basketball star James had less than half as many. The difference between him and everyone else was even greater.
After Yang Yang retweeted it, the tweet quickly attracted attention across the internet. Media outlets of all sizes around the world that followed Yang Yang's Twitter account noticed the tweet and swiftly published reports.
Eden Hazard immediately thanked Yang Yang for his attention and reply, saying, "I'm really looking forward to fighting alongside you. I'll do everything I can to support you."
Afterward, Real Madrid stars such as Xabi Alonso also retweeted Yang Yang's post one after another. Everyone turned their attention to Eden Hazard, and some media outlets even began digging deeply into the Ligue 1 wonderkid.
Eden Hazard was clearly not an unfamiliar name. Any fan who had followed football for a long time would certainly know him. After all, he had won the Ligue 1 Player of the Year award for two consecutive years—and more importantly, he was only twenty-one.
Born into a Belgian footballing family, with both parents having been professional players, he received formal training from a young age. At