"Welcome to Stauptwood, guests from afar!"

When several reception vehicles in Southampton, carrying Klaus Michael Kuhn and others, traveled south from Wembley Stadium in London to the Staupwood training base in Southampton, Les Reid greeted them outside the training building.

The British youth expert, who has just been promoted to Southampton's technical director, wears a white shirt and a scarlet tie, which looks somewhat dazzling, and his slightly bald round head and a pair of glasses look very relatable.

Almost all people who work in youth training can see such an affinity.

"Hello, Mr. Reed, thank you very much for your reception!"

Kuhn and the others got out of the car one by one, and walked up one by one to shake Les Reid's hand.

"That's what we're supposed to do, Mr. Kuhn!" Les Reid looked polite.

This is a guest that Young Master Huan personally explained, so he naturally wants to receive them warmly, and Young Master Huan will come back to invite them to dinner in the evening.

"I'm here to introduce you, this is Andris Juncker, our head of academy."

The tall blonde middle-aged man next to him immediately stepped forward and politely shook hands with Kuhn and the others.

"Juncker?" Kuhn frowned slightly, "If I'm not mistaken, you used to be Van Gaal's assistant coach?" ”

"Yes, I was Luiz's chief assistant coach when he was at Barcelona and Bayern Munich." Juncker said with a smile.

Kuhn nodded, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Andris, I've heard Ricciardo talk about you many times. ”

"Ricardo?" Juncker was a little surprised, who?

"Ricardo Moniz!"

"Oh, it's him!" Juncker suddenly realized.

This time it's right.

Ricardo Moniz used to be an assistant coach in Hamburg before becoming the team's head coach.

"At that time, we were planning to renovate the academy in Hamburg, I asked Ricardo for his opinion, and at that time he recommended you like we solemnly recommended you, thinking that the academy of Barcelona can have the glory it has now, and you are indispensable to the transformation of the academy of Bayern Munich back then, and then you joined Bayern Munich with Van Gaal, and you are also starting to transform the academy of Bayern Munich."

Speaking of this, Kuhn laughed, "He told me that if you ask anyone who is familiar with European youth training, the most famous youth training expert in Europe, Andris Juncker must be in the top three. ”

"It's over!" Juncker smiled modestly.

Alexander Otto and the others were also a little shocked, they didn't expect this Staputwood to come out by any person, they were all so good!

As early as in the car just now, they had already learned that Southampton's Les Reid is also a well-known youth expert in Britain and even Europe, but they didn't expect that Staput Woodri would still hide such a youth talent as Andris Juncker.

Oh, I heard that he is the team's youth director, so he must have only arrived in the last year.

There have been rumours in the media that Southampton is undergoing a management change.

There are reports that Peter Kenyon may be leaving, Ron Gurley will move from the original chief operating officer to CEO, while Nicolas Cortez will remain the executive chairman and Les Reid will be the team's technical director.

In this case, Andris Juncker must have been here at that time.

"Several, please inside!" Les Reid smiled and invited everyone into the training building.

The Staupwood training facility is divided into two training areas, one for the first team and for the youth team, both equipped with advanced hardware facilities such as a training building and an indoor training ground.

There are also two more professional football pitches in the youth team's training area, which are used by Southampton's youth team, one of which is also equipped with a live broadcast and multimedia system for the youth team to play in the UEFA Youth Champions League, as well as a number of other matches that are broadcast live.

The two training areas are separated as soon as they enter from the gate, and the middle can only be walked through, and vehicles cannot pass through.

In the middle of the two areas, there are a number of shared facilities and venues, such as the Data Analytics and Research Center, the Medical and Rehabilitation Center, and the popular indoor football stadium for players.

The first thing Kuhn and the others visited was the training building of the Saints' first team.

For this well-known training building in European football, Kuhn and others also visited with a pilgrimage mentality of learning, but because the first team went to London to participate in the Community Shield, the training building was very empty and there were almost no people.

But Kuhn and the others were surprised by the hardware facilities of the training building.

If nothing else, let's talk about the simplest rooms where the players rest, which are completely completed according to the standards of a five-star hotel.

"We've just completed a new round of renovations to our players' rooms, exactly as sleep specialist Nick Lithales has requested, and despite the significant investment in it, the response from the players has been very positive, so we will continue to renovate the rooms in the youth team's training building over the next year."

Kuhn and Otto and others were surprised to hear this.

The incident has been reported in the media before, and it is said that more than seven figures have been invested in the renovation cost.

But that's how bold Southampton is!

After touring the players' rooms, they came to a large gate.

The gate is very ordinary, but what is different is the sign erected at the gate, and you can see that it says, "Non-players, don't enter!" ”

"This is the exclusive area for the players that a lot of media reporters have reported on!"

Alexander Otto was immediately interested, and wanted to push open the door and go inside, but he couldn't do so.

"Hey, what's the lock?"

Les Reid smiled and nodded: "Yes, the player-exclusive area was proposed by Young Master Huan, and it is very popular with the players, except for the players of the first team, no one has a key, and no one is allowed to enter." ”

"What's in there?" Kuhn asked with interest.

Not only him, but everyone around him exuded a curious look.

Who knows, Les Reed shook his head helplessly and said, "Frankly, I don't know!" ”

Everyone suddenly sweated.

Even the technical director doesn't know what's inside, it's mysterious enough!

"I'm strange, Mr. Reed!" Kuhn asked curiously, "What if the players are discussing something bad for the team?" Does the club not care? ”

Les Reid nodded, "Yes, we won't care." ”

"Why?"

'It's a minimum of trust and the players believe in us and that's why they came to Southampton and put their valuable career in our hands, so we have full confidence in the players.

When Les Reid said this, the conversation changed, "Of course, even if there are really players who want to be detrimental to the team, there are twenty or thirty players in it, will they all join?" If so, then I believe that there must be a real problem with the club! ”

When everyone heard this, they couldn't help but nod their heads again and again.

That's true, isn't it?

Compared to Southampton, a player's career is the most valuable.

"Is this Young Master Huan's idea?" Kuhn asked again.

"Well, yes!" Les Reid nodded.

Kuhn didn't say anything more, just took a deep look at the door, and followed Les Reid away.

Walking around the first team's training building, they were all shocked by Southampton's investment in the training facilities.

They had only seen some reports and heard some things from the media before, but when they really witnessed it with their own eyes, they would find out that Southampton was so advanced and so advanced.

But when they left the first-team training building and walked into the data analytics and research centre, they were even more surprised.

Unlike the empty training building, the offices of the data analysis and research center are brightly lit and all of them are in full swing, and the two leaders are not Marcus Du Satoy and Howard Hamilton, who were reported in the newspaper?

These are two of Southampton's biggest names in data analysis!

'I'm sorry guys, they're busy preparing the results of the data analysis for the game that just ended, and when the team returns to Southampton, Bielsa has an analysis meeting and it's going to be used when the time comes, so we can't go in and have a look.'

Kuhn and others also understood this.

But I was very surprised in my heart, I didn't expect that just after the game ended, Southampton would analyze the pros and cons.

That's really efficient.

"Although there is no way to get in, Hamburg has contacted us before and is interested in introducing our data analysis system, so I can reveal here that many rumors from the outside media are inaccurate."

"Inaccurate?" Kuhn looked at Les Reid in surprise.

"Mr. Reed, what do you mean ......"

Les Reid smiled confidently and calmly, "I mean, they underestimated our system. ”

"What?" Kuhn and the others were all shocked.

This system has been rumored by the media to be miraculous, which is still underestimated?

"In the last four years, our database has completed the accumulation of player data in Europe, as well as the preliminary collection of player data from several other continents such as Asia and South America, and I can say that any player whose name you name can be found with us."

Speaking of this, Les Reid smiled, "We may even be able to know and understand their players better than their coaches." ”

Kuhn and Otto and the others looked at each other in shock, how could this be?

Les Reed received a call from Yang Huan before, and knew that Young Master Huan meant to deter this group of fan representatives.

Therefore, he was not polite, and after a short sentence, he nodded to Andris Juncker behind him, who immediately knocked on the door and walked into the office, and soon turned around and came out, with an extra document in his hand.

Les Reid took the file and looked at it, "This is the data from Cesc Fabregas in the Community Shield just now, you can take a look." ”

Kuhn and the others hurriedly took it and flipped through it, but they were all shocked by the first page.

In the past, they saw the player-related data in the media and newspapers, and even in the hands of club staff, at most, how far the player runs, how many passes the ball, how much success rate, interceptions, tackles, passes and so on.

If it's a little bit more, it's equipped with a passing map and a running heatmap and things like that.

But all of this, compared to the data analysis of Southampton in front of me, is simply inferior.

"Thanks to the improvement of the level of broadcasting in recent years, especially the ultra-high-definition broadcasting, we can get more game data, and generally speaking, the data we get from the broadcasters in every game is more than ten times or even dozens of times what the fans see, because what we need is everything that every shot captures in 90 minutes."

I have to say that Kuhn and the others were really shocked.

Because they can't imagine how much work it would take?

Isn't that scary?

With this data analysis ability, looking at the world of football, oh no, it's the world of sports, who can compare?