The God of Football Starts With Passive Skills-Chapter 72 - 40: Flexing Muscles, Fighting for the Main Role! Wang Shuo: Coach, I’m So Desperate to Score
But it sounded pretty damn impressive.
The Germany National Team, on the other hand, had battled their way through the European Cup, ultimately reaching the final.
Lővér’s team came up against a Spain coached by Aragon.
Klopp believed it was a victory for holistic football!
"The four semifinalists in this year’s European Cup—Lővér’s Germany, Trim’s Turkey, Hiddink’s Russia, and Aragon’s Spain—all play holistic football!"
"Just like Rehhagel’s Greece four years ago!"
Tuchel deeply agreed.
But when it came to the European Cup final, his opinion differed from Klopp’s.
Tuchel believed Aragon would win because Spain’s passing and possession were stronger, and that was the future of the sport.
Klopp, however, supported Lővér’s Germany.
And just like that, the Mainz first-team head coach and the newly arrived U19 head coach were at odds.
On the day of the final, under pressure from Klopp and Tuchel, Wang Shuo had no choice but to pause his training and watch the live broadcast with them as a witness.
In the end, Spain defeated Germany 1-0 thanks to a goal from Torres.
Wang Shuo wasn’t surprised that Spain won. Instead, it was some of Tuchel’s ideas that intrigued him.
However, what he really marveled at was Torres.
’That guy is so damn lucky!’
Iniesta, Fabregas, Harvey, David Silva, Harvey Alonso...
’So many playmakers feeding him the ball!’
Wang Shuo then thought about Mainz...
"Coach, I want to score goals so badly!"
Everyone burst out laughing.
Klopp couldn’t help but laugh and chide, "Don’t worry, I’m already working on it. We’ll definitely sign a playmaker this summer!"
"But we have a deal. Once you have a playmaker, if you still can’t score, don’t blame me for throwing you on the bench."
Wang Shuo thumped his chest, making a guarantee.
After his special training, he could feel his skills had improved, giving him more confidence for the new season.
But cruel reality dealt the unfortunate Mainz a heavy blow.
The players Klopp wanted to sign most were Hamburg’s Zidane and Nuremberg’s Bosnian midfielder, Misimovic.
Last season in the Bundesliga, the guy made 28 appearances, scoring 10 goals and providing 3 assists.
The season before that, he made 30 appearances, with 7 goals and 10 assists.
He was a master at both scoring and assisting.
But what was the result?
Mainz scraped together the funds and managed to meet Nuremberg’s asking price of 4 million euros.
In the end, Misimovic ran off to VfL Wolfsburg.
Why?
Wolfsburg was a big club and could play in the UEFA Cup.
Mainz’s negotiations with Hamburg for Zidane also fell through.
Hamburg said, "We spent 6.5 million to buy him from you a year ago."
"His performance wasn’t great, but his value wouldn’t have depreciated that much in just one year."
Their asking price was 4 million euros.
Mainz refused, thinking it was too expensive. They were only willing to offer 2 million euros at most.
Hamburg was livid.
’Those bums in the 2nd Bundesliga are all a bunch of paupers!’
So, by the time the summer training camp was about to begin, the playmaker Klopp had promised was still nowhere in sight.
...
The tragedy of small clubs is that they are truly poor.
But being poor doesn’t mean you have to accept your fate.
This summer, Mainz had raised a large sum of money specifically to sign Misimovic from Nuremberg.
But they failed to sign him.
The transfer for Zidane also stalled.
Bayern was unwilling to loan out Tony Kroos.
In the end, Mainz spent 1.25 million euros to sign the 28-year-old Hungarian midfielder, Thomas Hainauer, from Karlsruhe.
According to Schürrle, to be able to sign Hainauer, Mainz offered him an annual salary of 2 million euros.
In other words, after joining, Hainauer became the highest-paid player on the Mainz squad.
But he deserved it.
In the last Bundesliga season, Hainauer made 32 appearances, scoring 8 goals and providing 9 assists—an outstanding performance.
And in the 06/07 season, he had helped Karlsruhe get promoted from the 2nd Bundesliga to the Bundesliga with 7 goals and 11 assists in 32 matches.
This actually reflected a characteristic of the German professional leagues at the time.
The gap in quality between the top teams in the 2nd Bundesliga and the bottom teams in the Bundesliga wasn’t very large.
Therefore, a player like Hainauer, who excelled in the 2nd Bundesliga, could still do well after moving up to the Bundesliga.
Currently, Hainauer’s market value was 4 million euros, but because his contract was about to expire, he was sold for only 1.25 million euros.
Correspondingly, the salary Mainz offered had to be relatively higher.
After signing Hainauer, Klopp was in a great mood.
The team finally had a playmaker!
In other summer transfer news, Borja ultimately did not get a contract from Mainz.
The Ecuadorian forward’s performance in the second half of last season was truly hard to put into words.
Most importantly, aside from scoring goals, he couldn’t offer the team much else.
Besides Borja, other attackers like Jovanovic, Dam, and Diakite also left the team one after another.
The two left-backs, Markov and Landka, also chose to leave, and on free transfers at that.
This was because they hadn’t been getting any chances to play last season.
Klopp would rather play Demetraz than let them on the field.
However, Marco Rose had torn a ligament, and after surgery, his recovery was nowhere in sight.
Therefore, Mainz chose to sign the 32-year-old Belgian veteran Peter Van der Heyden from VfL Wolfsburg.
Van der Heyden was very experienced. Since joining VfL Wolfsburg in ’05, he had been the main starter on Wolfsburg’s left flank.
He lost his spot last season due to injury, and combined with his age, he became a free agent after his contract expired this summer.
