On the highway returning from Berlin to Dortmund, the driver sat up front while Klopp, in the back, watched Wang Shuo with a very curious and sowhat baffled look.
"If you have a question, just ask it. Don’t stare at like that." Wang Shuo was getting a little creeped out.
I an, being stared at by a burly, bearded man in a speeding car... it was genuinely unsettling.
With permission granted, Klopp imdiately laughed. "What on earth was going through your head?"
"What do you an?"
"That training system. They spent two or three years painstakingly developing it, but the price is too high and they can’t bring the cost down. To this day, not even Bayern has been willing to buy one. They’ve been struggling to find a market, and we at Dortmund are the first to take the plunge."
"And on top of that, they gave us a twenty percent discount."
The reason Dortmund bought this training system in the first place was, in the end, because of the German Football Association.
Don’t forget, Dortmund’s president, Laubal, is the vice president of the German Football Association.
They even gave Dortmund a twenty percent discount, hoping to use the club to generate so buzz and open up the market.
But then, unexpectedly, Wang Shuo went and ordered one for himself.
The club itself was reluctant to buy it, yet a player went and ordered one on his own.
And the crucial part is, it’s not even for him. He’s sending it to China.
"It’s simple. I genuinely think it’s a great system," Wang Shuo said with a smile.
"Theoretically, it is great, but do you think it’s cost-effective?"
Wang Shuo understood what Klopp ant.
From a German club’s perspective, it really wasn’t very cost-effective.
As Klopp had said before, was the training system useful?
Yes, it was useful. It worked well. It was advanced—at least ten years ahead of its ti.
But it just wasn’t cost-effective.
Wang Shuo had been in Germany for three years; he had a good grasp of the salary landscape in the German football scene.
Doctors’ salaries are high all across Europe and Arica, not just in Germany, right?
At Dortmund, the team doctors were paid very well, but their monthly salary was only around 10,000 euros, with so making as little as seven or eight thousand.
The training ground’s equipnt manager made less than 2,500 euros a month.
The team bus driver earned between 3,500 and 4,000 euros a month.
A head coach’s annual salary wasn’t cheap, but the salaries for other coaches were not particularly high.
Dortmund’s head coach, Klopp, currently earned around 1.5 million euros a year, while assistant coaches like Buvac and the others made only about three to four hundred thousand.
And mind you, these were annual salaries, and they were pre-tax.
The annual salaries for other coaches were even lower, basically just a bit more than an average wage earner’s.
A monthly salary of five or six thousand to ten thousand euros was already considered quite good for them.
But don’t forget about the coaching interns.
These coaches lacked experience and joined the team purely to build their résumés, so their salaries were even lower.
So, for a German club, why spend that kind of money on a machine?
Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to just hire a few more coaches?
Besides, it wasn’t a one-ti purchase; there was still maintenance to think about.
This was why the training system wasn’t selling well.
However, this logic only held up under one condition: an abundant supply of coaches.
Simply put, there had to be plenty of youth coaches available.
Germany could draw not only on its dostic coaches but also on those from the European Union, Eastern Europe, and even the rest of the world—all of whom represented a very cheap labor pool.
In China, however, the situation was completely different. Youth coaches were extrely scarce.
Wang Shuo’s idea was simple. He would import one system and donate it to Huairun Football School.
On the one hand, it was a way to give back to his old youth academy. On the other, it was to show people in the Chinese football world just how advanced and developed Europe’s football industry had beco.
They were already pursuing automation and big data.
More importantly, Wang Shuo was well aware of China’s industrial capabilities.
This training system... sure, it was advanced. But with China’s industrial power, if the thing really proved useful, they could reverse-engineer it in no ti and slash the production costs.
And then, wouldn’t it be great if every team could have a few?
If it didn’t work perfectly, they could still gradually improve and refine it, iterating on the design.
Even if it turned out to be useless in the end, Wang Shuo would only be out 800,000 euros.
But what if it really took off?
What if it served as a wake-up call and a stimulus for China’s football industry?
Of course, Wang Shuo didn’t reveal his true intentions. He only ntioned that he wanted to give back to his old academy.
He also explained the dire state of youth developnt back ho, including the severe shortage of youth coaches.
Upon hearing this, Klopp instantly understood.
The way he looked at Wang Shuo changed.
It wasn’t that Wang Shuo didn’t care about money. He certainly did.
But whether at Mainz or Dortmund, Klopp had always found Wang Shuo to be thodical and magnanimous.
At the very least, he was never stingy with money that needed to be spent.
"Speaking of a lack of youth coaches, I think you could try recruiting from Eastern Europe. The youth coaches there are very skilled and experienced, and most importantly, their salaries are very low."
"Eastern Europe?"
"Yes." Klopp nodded emphatically. "Look at Croatia. Their youth developnt is top-notch, right? And the annual salaries for coaches there are truly, incredibly low."
"And then there’s Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania... the youth coaches from those places are all desperate to get into Germany, but they can never break in."
This was the first ti Wang Shuo had ever heard of this.
"So, would they be willing to go work in China?"
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