Beijing time last night (30th), the family of the famous agent Laiola issued a statement confirming that 54-year-old Laiola died of illness. Rumors of Laiola's death had spread through the mainstream media two days earlier, but he negotiated with God and ended up winning nothing more than two days for himself.
Raiola is gone, leaving behind a different world of football.
Rumors of Raiola's death had spread throughout the mainstream media two days earlier, and although it was subsequently refuted by his own social media and attending physicians, his condition was already obvious. Earlier this year, he underwent emergency lung surgery, sparking speculation about his health. Due to personal privacy and economic interests, Raiola was silent, but failed to prevent the disease from invading her body. He negotiated with God, and in the end what he could get for himself was nothing more than two days.
The football world is inevitably a natural law of life, old age, illness and death, but the death of few people can make so many people sigh like Raiola. Laiola's salary is comparable to that of a top player, but his sudden death at the age of 54 has given him no chance to wait for the wheels of history to continue to turn forward, waiting for the industry to give him a different evaluation than it is today. For a long time, Raiola gave the impression of being too strong, and in the 21st century golden dollar football era, he was the protagonist and a rock star, and people did not expect his life to be so fragile.
Like most Italian businesses, Laiola's brokerage firm is a family business. Now, his younger brother Vincenzo Rayola will take over many of the contracts waiting to be signed at the negotiating table. After the death of his brother, Vincenzo posted on the social media, with Mino on the picture strategizing and looking straight ahead, while Vincenzo looked at the former with a longing eye in the corner of the picture - of course, it is difficult for him to fully take over the cause left by Mino. After Minogue's death, the negotiation process of his players is bound to be affected, and his management empire relies almost entirely on his personal charm and negotiation talent, and is now in danger of collapsing.
Mino Rayola was born in 1967 in the small town of Nizhnò Nocella in southern Italy. It is located between Naples and Salerno, and the original family of the brokerage entrepreneur who will enter the gold in the coming day is actually not rich. When Rayola was a year old, the family emigrated to Haarlem, an ancient city near the Dutch capital Amsterdam, and after gaining a foothold, opened a pizzeria. The energetic Laiola worked as a waiter in her own restaurant in her youth, completed her classical high school studies at the same time, and began her football life in the Haarlem youth team.
La Ionora is a polyglot: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and the Neapolitan dialect. This naturally helped his football career as a manager, but the real key to his success was courage and business acumen. Less than 20 years old, Laiola turned to a local McDonald's restaurant and made a small fortune. He then set up his own brokerage firm called "Intermezzo"—the Italian word for "intermission," which also etymally means "sandwiched in the middle." Why do you want to be a broker? "I realized that the Dutch can't do things like we Italians do (flexibly). The merchants placed orders, but they did not receive the goods for a long time, they said to me, 'Mino, you try', I picked up the phone, the problem was solved immediately. ”
At the table at her pizzeria, Raiola met the then president of Haarlem, who said directly: "You don't know anything about football", and the latter's reaction was: "You do it". In this way, Raiola became the sporting director of the Haarlem team. As the oldest club in the Netherlands, Haarlem's financial situation was not ideal, and Raiola had a whim, he called The then president of Napoli, Fellaino, to try to get the latter to buy Haarlem, but was unsuccessful.
Born in Laiola, near Napoli, he has been a sky blue fan since childhood. He also recommended a rising star of Dutch football to Felleno: Bergkamp. His offer was 700 million lira, or less than 400,000 euros, but Felleno, who had brought Maradona to Naples, hesitated. Two years later, Napoli tried to recruit Bergkamp with a now €14 million super offer and a villa on capri, and Raiola had promised Inter Milan.
Traveling with Bergkamp to Inter Milan was his national team mate Wim Jonker. "Buy one get one free", Raiola disciplined the Nerazzurri. In those years, the operation of Dutch players to serie A was Laiola's main business, he brought Roy to Foggia, Crick to Padua and Vink to play in Genoa. In Wink's transfer, then-Griffins chairman Spinelli offered a price equivalent to 5 million euros today, while Laiola only let the latter pay 2 million, at the cost of the team's top salary for the Dutch new signings.
This is one of Raiola's secrets. He has always been able to win a good salary for his clients, and he has also made his reputation in the player circle, and Rayola herself believes that the players have a high salary and are more motivated to play well. Brian Roy was Laiola's first major transfer to successful operations, and the Dutchman scored 12 league goals in his first season in Foggia, helping the team to 9th place in Serie A in 1993-94 and bringing Raiola to a new friend: then Foggia manager Zeman.
Laiola's relationship with the Czech Republic was thus concluded. His agency has an office in Prague, and the star who really made him a world-class agent is another Czech Nedved. In 2001, Laiola and Moji secretly agreed to subdue Kranioti with a huge transfer fee and to take Nedved to Turin by private jet, waiting for 40 journalists for the Czech star. "Are they all here for me?" Nedved asked.
"At Lazio and Juventus, Nedved is the player who earns the most in the team. He spent a huge transfer fee on Juventus, but opened a new era for the Bianconeri. "Laiola's words are full of pride, and his partnership with Juve is not to be continued. In 2004, he brought Ibrahimovic from Amsterdam to Turin, and the story of one of the best players of the 21st century in Serie A began.
"The first time I saw him, I understood that he was an arrogant bastard, just like when I was younger." Raiola recalled. Last year's movie Zlatán also recalls this classic scene: two people wearing Hawaiian shirts and eating sushi for seven on the table. Raiola pulled out the numbers of Shevchenko, Piero and Vieri, "If you only scored 4 goals in 21 games, what would I do to sell you?" Ibrahimovic's response was, "That's why I need you." ”
Ibrahimovic's choice was not wrong. On 28 April, with news of Raiola's critical illness, Ibrahimovic traveled to the San Rafael Hospital in Milan to visit the old man who was at the end of his life, and Zlatan's career had entered the twilight. He didn't become one of the greatest players in history, but he became one of the most expensive players in football today. "Mino was a friend, an agent, a father. He helped me a lot. —About the nearly 20-year-long partnership between the two, Ibrahimovic said.
The long-term cooperation with Ibrahimovic has become one of the labels of Raiola's brokerage career. The Swede recommended Laiola to Paris teammate Verratti, while Donnarumma and De Ligt chose to join forces with the manager at the beginning of their careers, perhaps drawing on the career planning of their predecessors. Mirabelle decided he had defeated Raiola, "I took advantage of his departure at the negotiating table and let Donnarumma sign the contract extension on his own. But in fact he was never a winner, and the young Milan goalkeeper guaranteed the maximum salary standard and laid the groundwork for the breakdown of negotiations for his next contract extension; Masala quarreled with Rayola, who said that he received the last call from milan club saying "We have signed Menion", while the Milan sports director responded: "This is just a courtesy notice." ”
In 2016, Raiola brought Ibrahimovic to Manchester United, accompanied by two other players: Mkhitaryan and Pogba. Four years ago, he guided the Frenchman out of Manchester United to Italy, inter did not want to offend Ferguson, and AC Milan could loan him to Genoa. Pogba chose Juventus and returned to Old Trafford after four championship seasons for a transfer fee of $105 million – Juventus did not receive that much money on his account, as Laiola received commissions of up to €27 million in trades.
According to Forbes' 2020 statistics, Laiola negotiated a player contract worth a total of 850 million euros that year, and his commission income is estimated to be around 85 million euros, second only to Jonathan Bennett and Mendes among football agents. Rather than the first two in the UK and Portugal, Laiola has a network of customers in Italy, the Netherlands and France. Among the top agents of our time, Rayola comes from the most humble background and likes to play cards without common sense, he once said: "I deliberately do not trim the edges, so that they look down on me and let down their guard against me." Actually, I earned more than they thought. ”
Donnarumma's renewed contract with Milan's Rashomon, Pogba's complex relationship with Manchester United, has also made Raiola controversial in recent years. Raiola and Ferguson have a bad relationship, and the former Manchester United manager once described it as a "lump X", and how did the former react? "The criticism from Ferguson is actually the biggest compliment I've ever received in my career. He was used to people nodding their heads around him and saying yes. What I can reveal is that during pogba's return to Manchester United negotiations, the Glazer family admitted that I was actually right in the first place. ”
At one point, Raiola publicly stated that she would never do business with Ferguson and Guardiola because they would always be aggressive and try to put their side in the lead, and that they cared about the interests of the players — his premature death gave the statement no chance of being falsified in Haaland's deal.
The news of Laiola's death was announced by her family using his own social media account. "Mino is committed to making the players in the football world a better environment and this passion will continue." The quality service that Laiola offers to his clients is indeed worthy of the high commissions he enjoyed in his lifetime: Haaland is destined to be the emperor of the new era of football, Ibrahimovic, Verratti, Pogba and Donnarumma have joined the highest-paid footballer array, de Ligt has been compared by Laiola to Rembrandt's famous painting "Night Watch" – the longer the time, the higher the value, but he now enjoys an absolute top salary at Juventus.
Of course, behind several golden signs, Laiola's business strategy has also made some of its players make wrong career plans. Balotelli's experience is certainly related to personal personality, but Raiola's high profile has not made the public opinion situation of the former Italy international better, and the too frequent switching of the court has not really left a mark on any team.
Vladimir Weiss was one of the most watched rising stars of the 2010 World Cup, but he went to the Middle East at his prime age, sacrificing his career heights for a bank account, and Raiola was naturally full of money. AC Milan in the early 2010s was almost occupied by Laiola's clients, and brokers made huge commissions in several transactions, but for Mationi and Rodrigo Eli, the Rossoneri was not necessarily the most ideal place to go.
How would you rate Raiola? In the current era of football, this is the most difficult essay problem to solve. You can give a thousand different answers based on fan positions, values, views on industrial relations, predictions about the future of the football industry, and never get a standard answer. How jealous milan, Juve and Manchester United die-hards are, and how much their players love him. Some Italian fans said: "If our government defends our interests like Raiola defends its own players, we will be the best country in the world." ”
Wen | Shen Tianhao
Edit | Peppery Soup