Football’s First Defender

Liverpool's current team owner is John Henry from the United States, and the Fenway Group behind him.

As an excellent investment businessman, after Henry made his first pot of gold through funds and investments, he keenly discovered the crazy returns that the sports industry may bring.

In the United States, he first successfully acquired the Boston Red Sox of MLB.

Then through a series of effective reforms: expanding the stadium, signing excellent players and executives, and reforming the way of television broadcasting, the team won the MLB championship twice, and became one of the teams with the largest average away audience in the league.

The success in the field of baseball has brought Henry a lot of wealth in return.

When returning funds and looking for the next money-making project, he did not try in the other three major leagues in the United States, especially the NFL, which is the most profitable and expensive, but chose the European football field.

In 2010, John Henry spent 447 million pounds to buy Liverpool in adversity.

At that time, Liverpool, the most anticipated team that completed the miracle of the Istanbul night comeback, had just fallen apart and the team was at a trough.

For John Henry, who is worth only 1.1 billion pounds, investing in Liverpool may be a gamble.

His available funds are far less than that of Tottenham boss Lewis at the time, and Manchester United's Glazer family, let alone Chelsea's Abramovich, and later Manchester City's Mansour.

However, he used a small stake to sell, playing with American financing and property restructuring, which brought enough transfer fees for Liverpool.

It was with John Henry's entry into Liverpool that he brought a group of experienced management talents from the United States and began to carry out drastic reforms to Liverpool's transfer department.

With the support of John Henry, Liverpool began to properly limit the power in the hands of the head coach, and carefully calculated the buying and selling of players. The multi-person negotiation system buying method made Liverpool's success in the transfer market unprecedentedly improved.

If you want to buy a player, it is no longer the transfer period, when the coach takes the money to buy it. Instead, you need to set up the project more than half a year in advance, compare and study with players of the same type, and then choose to buy the most suitable player for the Liverpool team.

Although there will be some transfer failures due to the American personnel's over-emphasis on data and money value, so far, Liverpool has definitely made a lot of money in the transfer market for several years.

Yang Feng, Suarez, Coutinho, Sturridge, and the introduction of many core players have already made Liverpool full of honor.

This team, which cost John Henry more than 400 million yuan to buy, was still burdened with tens of millions of pounds in team debt. Now, after winning the Triple Crown, if Henry wants to sell and earn double, it is still very easy. .

However, Liverpool at this time, to John Henry, is a hen that can keep laying golden eggs, and he has kept it in his hands, and he will earn more in the future.

However, the prerequisite for Liverpool's rapid appreciation is that Liverpool's finances must always maintain healthy development, and they must be able to maintain their status as a top-notch Premier League team all year round.

Speaking of healthy financial development, for Liverpool, which has enjoyed great success in the Premier League and European arenas in the past two years, the renewal of players in the new season will have a huge impact on the stable performance of the team's finances.

Transfer fees are a large part of the team's expenditure, but the proportion of player wages is actually not small.

The Jie team left. On the one hand, it was because their own state declined and they couldn’t keep up with the team’s current game rhythm. On the other hand, Liverpool’s renewal price was too "realistic", far less than the salary of the MLS. .

The departure of the Jie team is only the beginning of the busy work of the team's summer management.

As a team determined to spend every penny wisely, Liverpool must compare existing players with "listed" players in the transfer market, and choose those with similar strengths and lower wages.

Paying less wages or earning some transfer fees are quite beneficial to the team's finances.

Money is the most important thing at this time.

As Americans, the biggest difference between John Henry and Kroenke is that Kroenke relies on the team as his own, for the sake of his own son of the NFL team, the Rams, and for Arsenal. live.

Henry, on the other hand, regards both the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool as his important investment assets.

The Red Sox have already won the championship, so the team is completely on the right track as a rich team, responsible for its own profits and losses, and guarantees the income.

And Liverpool, after the triple crown and two consecutive Premier League titles, in Henry's mind, should also enter the self-financing stage like the Red Sox, and it is time to ensure profitability every year. Inside, it is completely enough to win two or three championships and maintain competitiveness.

The increase in team value is false, but the money allocated each season is real.

For Liverpool, this summer, under the reputation of the Triple Crown, it is time to harvest a wave without affecting the general strength of the team.

First of all, what Liverpool did was to clean up some of the team's "negative equity".

This season's two major forward tools were all cleaned up by Liverpool after the honor of the Triple Crown.

Borini was sold to Sunderland by Liverpool for 12 million pounds, while veteran Lambert was dealt to West Bromwich Albion for 4 million pounds.

Handling two center forward players to two weak teams means that Liverpool will completely abandon the high center forward tactics.

It's that the Liverpool management has already found a replacement for the two, or an enhanced version of the player.

The announcement of Liverpool's first franchise player in the summer caused a shock in the Premier League. Liverpool secretly used 40 million pounds to get Aston Villa, and brought the high center forward Benteke, who performed very well last season, to Anfield.

Although this will have a big impact on Liverpool's pass-and-control style of play, after discussions between the management and Rogers, Rogers, who feels that the pure pass-and-control style of play is not suitable for the Premier League, is very willing. In the team's tactical reform next season, Give high center Benteke a place.

Aspas, who rarely played in the second half of the season, was also sold to Sevilla by Liverpool for 6 million euros.

In addition to the million-level transfer fees of several young players who left the team, Liverpool received an income of about 25 million pounds in dealing with the team's "negative equity".

After that, in order to ensure the revenue of the summer, and to play the role of "killing chickens and monkeys" for the agents of the players who want a large-scale salary increase, the Liverpool management accurately found the high-quality assets of many key players. They believe that leaving the cost-effective for the team's lowest player.

"Boss... I'm sorry, next season, I won't be able to practice with you anymore..."

In professional football, the flow of players between teams is a very normal thing. Every summer window, if the teams in the five major leagues do not enter or leave more than 10 people, then the management seems to be incompetent.

For many small teams, it is normal for more than 10 people to leave and then more than 10 people in one summer.

But Yang Feng didn't expect that after some insignificant players called to say goodbye to him, they would get news again that they would be his "people around him"...