Chapter 17: Two Great Reinforcements

  Deng Zhuoxiang, who has just changed positions, needs time to adapt. Moreover, he is still young and has not yet shown his value. Xu Genbao, after experiencing the failure of the national Olympic team, no longer values Deng Zhuoxiang as a player with only "flower fist and embroidered leg" pure technical skills. He didn't say it out loud just to avoid hurting Gao Jun's self-esteem. But Rong Huang's performance alone made Xu Genbao acknowledge Gao Jun's "maiden ball exploration". The two of them, along with Zeng Cheng and Wuhan native player Huo Jiansen, who joined the team earlier, formed the "Wuhan Gang" within the base...

  Also worth mentioning is that Gao Jun took this opportunity to investigate the situation of "himself" in this time and space, and found that Gao Hong in this time and space had died young, and his parents later gave birth to another child. Now they even have a grandchild, and the whole family lives happily. After learning about these situations, although Gao Jun felt somewhat lost for a while, he also felt somewhat relieved, "Since they have their own happiness, I should also put down my past and start my new life..."

  While Gao Jun was digging Xiao Niu, Xu Genbao, the boss, did not idle. In addition to making good preparations for participating in the B-League, he also actively used his influence to dig up two famous players who even had competitive strength in A-League, so that after the team was formed, it would not rely solely on "little ghosts taking charge".

  The most crucial and unexpected signing was the famous General Fan, which also had a large element of luck. In 2003, General Fan returned from the Scottish Premier League to start his transition from player to coach. He planned to start with his home team Shanghai Flower Queue as a player-coach, if not, Shanghai Zhongchuang would be the alternative. However, both teams rejected General Fan, and only a few second-tier teams were willing to accept him, and he had to start from being an assistant coach. This naturally made General Fan, the first Asian Footballer of the Year in Chinese professional football history, very depressed. But this could only be blamed on himself, who would believe that such a guy could make a good coach?

  Fortunately, Xu Genbao, the most important mentor in Fan Zhiyi's football career, extended a helping hand to him in time. "Xiao Fan, if you don't mind, come and help me coach the youth team for a year. The pay is not high here." (Xu always referred to himself as "Coach Xu" in front of his former apprentices, giving off a strong sense of nostalgia from 30 years ago.)

  General Fan, who had been thinking of becoming a coach, came to the base and watched his junior disciples train for a while before agreeing, despite the annual salary of only 3 million being very low compared to his abilities.

  General Fan, although he didn't become a good coach later on, still had an eye for judging players' abilities. He keenly saw that these young players, despite their age, already had six or seven of them reaching at least the level of a substitute in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). And as for Gao Jun, who was praised by his master, even if only considering technique and awareness, he surpassed Hao Dapao, who had been competing with General Fan for over a decade. Even though he was still physically weak, it would be almost impossible for anyone to defend against him in the low-level Chinese Basketball League (CBL). If they also had their own stable defense and calm nerves, this team's chances of promotion to the CBA were almost guaranteed, and their prospects looked much better than those of the other CBL teams that General Fan had contacted before. However, General Fan, who was always rough around the edges, overlooked one thing - the conflict between the schedule of the Youth League and the Chinese Basketball League...

  Regardless, General Fan's arrival is a huge help to this newly formed team of young players. Although on the surface he appears to be 34 years old, his physical condition is still rare in the country. The main reason General Fan considered retiring was that he wanted to become a coach, not because he was too old to play.

  It's also worth mentioning that, like most Chinese players, General Fan's age was also changed when he registered with the Football Association. However, unlike others, General Fan's age wasn't reduced, but rather increased (it's said that because he was too strong physically and thought it wouldn't be fun to bully younger kids, so he added two years to his age and directly participated in adult competitions...). In fact, he was born in 1971 and is now only 32 years old, which is the golden age for a center-back.

  Although General Fan's current state has deteriorated greatly due to his lack of training and competition, as well as being inferior to his arch-nemesis Hao Da Pao in terms of self-discipline, his rich experience accumulated over the years still helps a lot for this inexperienced team. Moreover, Xu Genbao cannot sit on the bench as the head coach due to his harsh words in the past, so an acting head coach is needed, and "Little Fan", who has always been his favorite disciple, is undoubtedly a good candidate...

  With General Fan leading the defense, Xu's originally most worrisome defensive issues were greatly alleviated, and the even more crucial goalkeeper position had been resolved even earlier...

  At that time, Gao Jun had not yet brought Zeng Cheng to the team, so Xu Genbao naturally thought of finding an old goalkeeper to transition for two years. Coincidentally, there was a suitable candidate at this time. Jiang Hong, the main goalkeeper of the national second team when Xu Genbao coached, had just announced his retirement not long ago. With his rich experience, he can fully serve as the main goalkeeper of a second-tier team.

  Jiang Hong received a call from his former mentor and soon decided to return as the goalkeeper for the Dongfang team, also serving as the goalkeeper coach for both the team and the Chongming base. The Chongming base finally had a somewhat decent goalkeeper coach...

  According to the domestic regulations, when a player like Jiang Hong retires and then joins another team, the new club needs to obtain the consent of his original club, and usually pays some transfer fee. However, at that time, Shaanxi Guoli Club was facing financial difficulties, and the boss was worried about finding someone to take over. Moreover, Dongfang Team was a second-tier team, and there was no competitive relationship between them and Shaanxi Guoli. Jiang Hong had made outstanding contributions to the team in the past, so they finally let him go without much fuss, and only asked for a transfer fee of 100,000 yuan. Like Fan Zhiyi, Jiang Hong also greatly reduced his salary requirements out of respect for his former coach, and as he held two positions, he only asked for an annual salary of 200,000 yuan, making people sigh "birds of a feather flock together".

  Note 1: At this time, although the average income of Chinese players was still far from that after 2010, the top domestic stars had already earned a lot. In 2003, Hao Haidong's annual salary exceeded 5 million, and the annual salaries of other national team main players were generally around 20-30 million...