Chapter 1 Aurelio De Laurentiis received a call. The caller ID showed Chen Hero's vampire agent's number, but when he answered, it was Chen Hero himself speaking.

"Mr. De Laurentiis, I wanted to ask if Napoli is still short of players?" Chen Hero asked.

"That's not my department, Hero. That's the job of the team manager and the head coach." Although the call was a bit strange, De Laurentiis answered patiently.

"It's like this, I want to recommend someone to you. I figured since you have such great ambitions, and a second five-year plan to become a world-class club within five years, you'll definitely need a lot of outstanding players to help you complete this plan, right?"

"And who do you have in mind?" De Laurentiis asked with a smile.

"My good friend, Zenit Saint Petersburg's number one star, absolute core, captain of the Russian national team, number ten, Andrei Arshavin."

De Laurentiis wasn't very familiar with Arshavin. He wasn't a football expert, so he hadn't heard much about Arshavin.

"He really wants a change of scenery, so I recommended you guys to him. I think if you really have great ambitions, he's a player you absolutely can't miss. I hope you can bring him and me to Napoli together."

"Okay, I'll call Pierpaolo," De Laurentiis said. The "Pierpaolo" he was referring to was Marino. "But I hope we can sign the contract first. Are you satisfied with the contract terms we offered?"

"Very satisfied. But I'd like to wait until you've finalized Arshavin's transfer before signing. Don't worry, I won't go back on my word. I just want to attend the signing ceremony with my good friend."

De Laurentiis didn't expect Chen Hero to have such a thought. He must be afraid that he would agree but not put enough effort into pushing for Arshavin's transfer, so he was using his own transfer as a condition for bringing Arshavin along...

This kid!

"Alright, I'll urge Pierpaolo to get this done as soon as possible..." he replied, somewhat helplessly. If an ordinary player dared to make such demands to blackmail him, he wouldn't hesitate to let that bastard know his power. But now he had actually agreed to Chen Hero's request.

He had to admit, it was probably because this kid shared some of his own qualities.

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Pierpaolo Marino was a little surprised after receiving a call from his boss. What was going on with the boss, who usually didn't interfere much with the club's operations? Not only was he interfering, but he had done so twice. The first time was when he personally instructed him to sign Chen Hero at all costs, and the second time was now, personally calling to tell him to sign Chen Hero's teammate from Zenit, Arshavin.

Who was Arshavin? He knew a bit about him. He was indeed a very outstanding player. But his contract with Zenit wasn't expiring until the end of the year, and he was a native of Saint Petersburg, the core of Zenit. Wanting to take him away? That wouldn't be easy...

But now that the boss had given the order, what else could he do?

Give it a try!

After all, he was an excellent player, and if he could really be transferred, it would only benefit Napoli.

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Hearing that Chen Hero's negotiations with Napoli were progressing smoothly, Sazanniya had been in a good mood recently. Chen Hero, who was destined to leave, was sold for fifteen million euros. And how much did the club spend when he joined the team? Not even a ruble!

Pure profit!

To appease Advocaat's anger at the sale of his beloved disciple, he had decided to unconditionally agree to Advocaat's request to sign Tom Tomsk's center forward Pogrebnyak. Compared to Chen Hero, this Tom Tomsk's top scorer was much cheaper. Last season, he ranked third on the league's top scorer list, and just like the relationship between his ranking and Chen Hero's, his value was only about one-third of Chen Hero's.

Just as he was imagining what to do with the fifteen million euros earned from selling Chen Hero, he received a call from Napoli's general manager, Pierpaolo Marino.

Due to the cooperation and contact on Chen Hero's transfer, the two clubs no longer contacted each other through official channels such as faxes. Instead, the general managers of the clubs called each other directly, which was faster and more convenient.

"Good morning, Mr. Sazanniya, oh...it should already be afternoon there, right?"

"Yes, good afternoon, Mr. Marino, what can I do for you?"

"It's like this... I wanted to ask, how much does your team's Andrei Arshavin cost?"

When Marino said the name, Sazanniya's hand trembled, and he almost dropped the phone. He thought he had misheard.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Marino... I didn't hear you clearly, can you repeat that?"

So Marino repeated himself. In fact, when he heard Sazanniya ask that question, he knew this matter would be tricky...

As expected.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Marino. Shava is the symbol of Zenit Saint Petersburg, the core, a star player loved by all Zenit fans. He is our priceless treasure... We are not selling him," Sazanniya replied, his tone very firm, the kind of firmness that said, "There's no room for negotiation."

Chen Hero could be sold, because he wasn't someone they had nurtured. They didn't have much affection for him. He hadn't played for Zenit for seven or eight years, he wasn't from Saint Petersburg, and he wasn't the captain of the Russian national team... In short, they could find a replacement for a center forward who was good at scoring goals, it wasn't a difficult task. But every team has someone whose value and status cannot be measured by money. Fans and the media like to call such players "spiritual leaders" or "flag bearers," while managers call them..."Not for sale."

But Marino didn't think so. Since he served as general manager at Udinese, there was no such thing as "not for sale" in his dictionary, or rather, he had another interpretation of the term—"Not for sale" just meant that your offer wasn't high enough.

When Nesta debuted at Lazio, he quickly became the team's captain at a young age, and was considered by the media and fans to be Lazio's future core, leader, and flag bearer. But what happened? To help Lazio pay off its debts, he was sold to AC Milan.

A little earlier, there was Batistuta, the eternal pride and pain of Fiorentina. He was once synonymous with loyalty, the flag bearer of Fiorentina. To express their love for him, Fiorentina fans even erected a bronze statue of him outside the Stadio Artemio Franchi. But for a league title, he transferred to Roma, and his statue was torn down by heartbroken and angry Fiorentina fans.

Udinese was even more so. For small clubs to survive, supporting a large group of loyal players was impossible. Why was Udinese, under his management, able to achieve both financial and competitive success? It was because he had this idea—to dig up young players with potential at low prices, and then give them a super long-term contract to lock them in. The wages weren't high, but Udinese never defaulted, which was very rare among most small and medium-sized teams in Italy. Because of this, Udinese attracted many young players vying to join, especially those from South America, who were very cost-effective, and they usually had relatives in Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy, and could obtain Italian citizenship, so their arrival wouldn't take up non-EU spots.

Then Udinese nurtured them, and they helped Udinese achieve good competitive results. After they became famous and talented, if there were suitable buyers and prices, he would not hesitate to send these players, who themselves wanted to go to a bigger stage, away. And the transfer fee he received was often several times, or even more than ten times, what he had spent to buy those people in the first place...

One thought Arshavin was not for sale, while the other thought the so-called "not for sale" just meant that the offer wasn't high enough.

And so, a transfer negotiation that shouldn't have happened began, thanks to Chen Hero's willingness to stick his neck out for a friend...

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For players, it's not always clear whether a transfer will be beneficial to them. Maybe the transfer will be very successful, and the player will go to a new team, change their previous destiny, win more championships, gain more prestige, and earn more money. But it could also be a failure. They might not get to play, their confidence might be exhausted, their commercial value might shrink sharply, their position in the football world might be in danger, and they might end up with nothing.

But for agents, transfers are always beneficial. Because they can take a cut from the transfer fee, which is their deserved reward, and their main source of income.

So some players' agents are always encouraging their players to transfer frequently, so they can earn a cut from every transfer fee. Some transfer deals even involve the other club preparing a special commission for them, to thank them for convincing the player to transfer to the team.

The most famous example is the two older brothers of French forward Anelka. Having a talented younger brother was their luck, while having two greedy and foolish older brothers was Anelka's misfortune. Under the promotion of these two older brothers, Anelka's career in the first half was always wandering, from this club to that club, from one country to another, and the money he worked so hard to earn ended up in the pockets of his two older brothers. Such frequent transfers also made Anelka's football career almost a failure, leaving everyone with the impression that "This kid is a troublemaker, a football whore who will do anything for money."

Later, Anelka became unbearable of his two older brothers' actions, so he fired them and found a new agent, Piggis. He successfully transferred to Chelsea this January, but no one knows how long this football wanderer will stay at Chelsea. Maybe we'll soon see rumors of his transfer appear?

This is the fate of players under the control of those agents. Their paths are not up to them. Those agents will do everything they can to persuade, coerce, and entice players to listen to them, and transfer to teams that are willing to offer high transfer fees, pay agents extra commissions, and offer players high-paying contracts, but may not be suitable for the players. Because in this way, the agents can make a lot of money.

Chen Hero gave his agent the name of a vampire count. For those players, their agents are indeed complete vampires. But they are different from Dracula. They not only suck the blood of both clubs, they mainly live by sucking the blood of players.

Arshavin's agent, Dennis Lachter, was also not one to be trifled with. Years ago, he had been planning to let Arshavin leave Saint Petersburg. But Zenit's determination to keep Arshavin was very strong, even recommending Arshavin's friends to the club that originally wanted to acquire Arshavin, in order to prevent the team's flag bearer from being taken away.

But now Lachter keenly realized that a great opportunity had arrived.

He didn't know why Napoli was suddenly interested in his player. But this was beneficial to him, beneficial to his financial interests.

All he had to do was take advantage of the situation to push this transfer rumor to finally become a reality. And what he could do was...put pressure on the club!

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ps, extra chapter!