Coaching career started as a college team coach

A stack of A4 papers was placed on Guo Guangchang's desk.

Guo Guangchang was a little hesitant about choosing a coach. Although Wolves, as a club with a great reputation throughout England, must have no shortage of reputation; but after all, they are now in the bottom half of the English Championship and will definitely not attract a very capable head coach.

After checking, Guo Guangchang saw Zenga, the head coach from Italy. He must not be said to be a very capable head coach. Zenga resigned from Sampdoria in the past year.

After taking over the position left by Mihajlovic, the Italian Zenga took over the coaching of Sampdoria. But his coaching performance at Sampdoria did not seem to be very good. After only two months, the board decided to fire him.

It is worth noting that the chairman of Sampdoria said in an interview that in addition to poor performance, he also "lacked ambition" and "was not good at getting along with the locker room."

Despite this, he is also the candidate with the "richest coaching resume" in this pile of resumes.

"Can he speak English?" Guo Guangchang asked his assistant with some concern. The assistant flipped through the resume and shook his head.

Guo Guangchang sighed.

There are 24 teams in the English Championship, which means that there are 46 league games to play every season. The preparation period between seasons is not very long. If the new coach does not make a decision, it will become difficult to handle other personnel adjustments, player transfers and training.

But Guo Guangchang himself is not confident in handing the team over to Zenga. Although he has played for top teams such as Inter Milan in his playing experience, the longest time he has coached in the 11 teams he has coached is only one year. And whether his evaluation of "lack of ambition" can meet the team's vision of promotion to the Super League is also questionable.

"Are there any other options?"

"That's all the resume." The assistant shook his head again.

This is the first time that Fosun Group has tried in the sports industry and has reached such a high level as the second-tier league in England. This makes Guo Guangchang a little embarrassed.

When Guo Guangchang was worried, he suddenly saw an envelope stacked on top of the A4 stack.

The day before, when Jackett, now the former head coach, handed him this "letter of recommendation", he admitted that he did not take it seriously, but out of respect, he still put it in a pile of papers with his resume, but he did not open it in the end.

Holding the idea of ​​trying his luck, Guo Guangchang took the letter out of the envelope.

"Wei Le...?"

"It's the young Chinese coach who came last year." The assistant reminded. But Guo Guangchang still had a deep memory of Wei Le. He was not puzzled by who Wei Le was, but was surprised why Jackett recommended Wei Le as the new head coach.

The more he read, the more surprised Guo Guangchang was.

He really didn't know what happened to the coaching staff this year. After all, he didn't just have to take care of the football field.

When he first arrived, he was just an internship coach with the U23 team. Only half a season later, he had become as important as Jackett's own assistant coach. You know, Jackett's assistant coach Joe Gallen followed him to join the team in 2013 and has been his assistant since then.

Joe Gallen also chose to resign after Jackett left, and decided to follow his head coach to the next battlefield.

But Wei Le, a "temporary worker", really has such strong ability that Jackett personally wrote a letter of recommendation? Guo Guangchang is not arrogant, and he does not look down on this young man. Since his compatriot can be recommended in this way, there must be a reason for him.

What if he is really suitable?

"Can you contact Wei Le? I want to meet him."

——

The opportunity has come.

This was Wei Le's first reaction when he received the call. The place where they met was not an elegant cafe, but just an empty office in Molineux Stadium.

"Hello." When he saw Guo Guangchang, Wei Le's first greeting was in English.

Guo Guangchang laughed when he heard it. He replied in Chinese, "Hey, in a foreign country, it's not easy to meet compatriots, let's speak Chinese."

This was the first time Guo Guangchang met Wei Le face to face. It's not that he had never seen his compatriot before, but that was from his ID photo, which is different from the real person. Although Wei Le is only 21 years old, younger than many players, he did not show any nervousness on his face when meeting the club chairman.

Guo Guangchang has been in business for many years and has of course met all kinds of people, especially young employees and investors. He is used to seeing nervousness on the other side's face.emotions, but Wei Le only brought him politeness and restrained self-confidence.

Guo Guangchang deliberately created a more relaxed atmosphere, and he started by asking about Wei Le's experience.

When he heard about Wei Le's coaching experience in the college team and his journey to the UK alone, Guo Guangchang couldn't help but marvel. Even if Wei Le won't soar to the sky in this opportunity, Guo Guangchang believes that Wei Le will show his brilliance at some point.

As the topic was talked about, it turned to team building.

At this time, the atmosphere of the conversation gradually became serious.

"I think our current lineup depth is far from the level of promotion to the Super League."

Wei Le's evaluation made Guo Guangchang look serious, and he wanted to hear the young coach's opinion of the team.

"In 2014, we almost made it to the play-offs, when we scored 70 goals and conceded 56 goals. Our main strikers Afobe and Sakho scored 28 goals in total, but both players have left the team one after another. This season, we have scored 17 fewer goals than last year, but conceded two more goals."

"Afobe scored 9 goals before leaving the team in the winter window. Although we replaced him with Joe Mason, the striker only scored 3 goals in total. We must admit that our striker's finishing ability is not outstanding."

"What about next season? Another striker Sigurdsson is said to have reached an agreement with Molde and has left on a free transfer. So now we only have Joe Mason, which is far from enough."

At this point, Guo Guangchang nodded. He did see this. He was a little worried. Even if Zeng Jia came, could he solve all this?

"Our defense is not that good. You know, Brighton lost 42 goals in the promotion play-offs this season, but they still failed to get promoted. We lost ten more goals than them, so we have no way to get promoted."

"Our central defenders do a good job in defense, but they are very lacking in passing ability. The team's goals are not just the work of the strikers, and one of our biggest problems this season is the difficulty in switching from defense to offense."

Weile said that he believed that the team needed to make drastic changes and update the lineup.

"I understand that we are pursuing Icelander Bovarsson, but I personally think that it is not advisable to pursue him at a price of nearly 3 million. He is not as good as his compatriot Sigurdsson."

Guo Guangchang was silent. After the team realized that the team needed offensive firepower, they were panic buying strikers. Such a decision was certainly not discussed with Jackett, who had already left, because the new head coach had not yet been determined, and the player was included in the candidate list largely because of the player's agent's self-recommendation.

This situation is not uncommon. Some players' agents will take the initiative to recommend players to clubs to seek potential transfer targets. Such recommendations often do not come true, and it is also a way to understand players outside the scouting system. In any case, Wolves' scouting system has almost collapsed after falling into the English League One.

And this player played 15 games for Kaiserslautern in the just-concluded German Bundesliga season, handing over 2 goals and 3 assists. Such data is not outstanding.

"Sigurdsson is also a tall and strong player, but his way of creating threats is more based on running and smart forward insertions in addition to competing for the top. Maybe we are interested in Boisson's physical advantage, but he does not look flexible in the German Bundesliga. The English Championship has never lacked big forwards, but what it lacks is the 'explosive' forwards who are good at breaking through."

Wei Le said incisively.