Soccer: I became Bruno Fernandes.

Chapter 240: Udinese's Supermarket Opens

With Bruno staying at the club, Udinese officially opened their "supermarket."

In Udinese's original plan, if Bruno had transferred away this summer, they would have tried their best to keep other players to ensure that the team's performance wouldn't plummet next season. However, after two months of heated transfer rumors, Bruno's transfer fell through. As a result, Udinese needed to sell other players to maintain their operations.

After winning both the Serie A and the Champions League, keeping players and giving them substantial raises was inevitable. Although the team's revenue increased significantly last season, Udinese's management decided not to keep all the players to avoid a sharp increase in the total wage bill.

Thus, Udinese announced several transfer deals in the following period.

The first player to leave this summer was the substitute striker, Luis Muriel. The Colombian forward had been a substitute for Udinese in the past two seasons. In the 2013-2014 season, he had decent playing time, but last season he had limited opportunities. The 24-year-old Colombian didn't want to continue sitting on the bench at Udinese.

As soon as the summer transfer window opened, his agent started looking for a new club for him. However, due to his limited opportunities last season, where he played only 21 matches (mostly as a substitute) and scored 4 goals with 5 assists, there weren't many clubs interested in him. After more than a month of difficult negotiations, Sampdoria became Muriel's new home, and Udinese recovered 10 million euros from his transfer.

The second player to leave was Guilherme, who had only been with Udinese for one season. The Brazilian midfielder had a fantastic season with Udinese but was dissatisfied with his compensation and decided to leave. Due to his outstanding performance last season, he had no shortage of suitors. Surprisingly, he chose Deportivo La Coruña, who had narrowly avoided relegation in La Liga the previous season. Guilherme's departure fetched Udinese 15 million euros.

Following Guilherme's departure, another Brazilian, Gabriel Silva, also left. The Brazilian defender was a regular in Udinese's defense in the 2013-2014 season, but with the rise of Cancelo and Piris last season, even established players like Hertaux were benched, leaving Silva with very few opportunities. Consequently, he found no takers in the transfer market, and Udinese had no choice but to loan him to newly promoted Serie A side Carpi.

In fact, before the official announcement of Bruno staying, several other players had already left Udinese, mostly on loan or for very low transfer fees, which went unnoticed. Most of these players were from Udinese's youth or reserve teams, with only a few from the first team. Besides the aforementioned three, another notable departure was the young player Nico Lopez, initially signed from Roma.

Only two transfers exceeded 10 million euros: Muriel and Guilherme.

After the official announcement of Bruno staying, the first significant departure was N'Golo Kanté. After two seasons with Udinese, Kanté had become a key defensive player. Despite signing a new contract last summer, the terms were no longer satisfactory for Kanté, and Udinese was unwilling to further increase his wages this summer. Consequently, Mendes had been searching for a new club for Kanté, but Udinese had been reluctant to let him go, causing the delay in his transfer.

Once Bruno's stay was confirmed, Udinese finally agreed to sell Kanté, and his new destination surprised Bruno: Leicester City!

In the 2014-2015 season, Leicester City was almost certain to be relegated, spending 140 days at the bottom of the Premier League. Under Nigel Pearson, they secured 7 wins in the last 9 matches, miraculously avoiding relegation. This summer, Leicester City hired Claudio Ranieri and actively sought new signings, with owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha fully backing the team. Clearly, Leicester City didn't want to experience another season at the bottom.

Ranieri targeted Udinese's impressive French midfielder, N'Golo Kanté. After a period of negotiations, Kanté transferred to Leicester City for 20 million pounds.

Bruno was silent for a long time after learning about Kanté's move to Leicester City. Unbeknownst to him, Leicester City had reassembled the team that would achieve the "Leicester miracle" in another timeline!

Bruno had worked hard to bring Mahrez and Kanté to Udinese, only to see both players inexplicably join Leicester City.

After a long silence, Bruno called Vanessa, who was still in Milan. "Honey, do you want to make some pocket money? Go bet on Leicester City to win the Premier League next season!"

"?" Vanessa, surprised by the sudden call from Bruno, was puzzled.

Bruno was joking, of course. After chatting for a bit, he hung up the phone. Intrigued, Vanessa researched Leicester City online, learning about their miraculous survival last season and developed an interest in the team. Knowing that Bruno's teammate Kanté had just joined Leicester City added to her surprise.

Thanks to Bruno's influence, Vanessa was very familiar with Udinese's performance and knew that Kanté was an excellent defender.

As for Bruno's joke about betting on Leicester City to win the league, Vanessa didn't take it seriously. However, after checking the Premier League title odds, she was stunned. The defending champions Chelsea led the odds at 1:2.65, followed by Manchester City at 1:3.75, Arsenal at 1:5, and Manchester United at 1:6. Leicester City, which Bruno had jokingly suggested, had an absurdly high odds of 1:5001, tied with another bottom-tier team, Watford, for last place.

Vanessa wasn't a stranger to the odds set by European betting companies before the season started. They often set high odds for teams they didn't favor. For example, last season, several well-known European betting companies had offered odds of 1:101 and even 1:201 for Udinese to win the title.

However, this move had left these betting companies lamenting at the end of the season because Udinese actually won! While many fans wouldn't bet large amounts on their teams to win, many would place small bets of 10 or 20 euros to show their support. Udinese had a strong fan base, and the cumulative amount was substantial.

The highest bet was made by a local Udinese fan who wagered 1,000 euros, winning 201,000 euros at the end of the season, making him wealthy overnight. Many betting companies didn't profit much from Serie A last season; some even lost money. As a result, these companies were more cautious when setting odds for Serie A teams for the new season.

Remembering Udinese's miraculous title win last season, Vanessa felt tempted. Maybe Bruno's suggestion to bet on Leicester City wasn't entirely a joke? Thinking this, Vanessa decided to go to the betting shop and placed a 10,000 euro bet on Leicester City to win the title.

Bruno had no idea that Vanessa had actually placed a bet on his joke. At that moment, he was busy preparing for the upcoming UEFA Super Cup with Udinese.

The 2015 UEFA Super Cup was scheduled for August 11 in Tbilisi, Georgia, at the Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena, where Udinese would face Sevilla, the Europa League champions.

This would be Udinese's first significant friendly match of the summer. Before this, they had only played two warm-up matches against lower-division teams. Although Udinese had already won a UEFA Super Cup last summer by defeating Real Madrid, Bruno didn't want to miss out on any trophies, so he was very serious about his preparations. Meanwhile, other Udinese players didn't seem too concerned.

Just before Udinese was about to leave for Georgia, the club announced another transfer. Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah, who had only joined the team during the winter transfer window, transferred to Roma!

Bruno was stunned by the news, wondering why Udinese was in such a rush to sell Salah after just half a season. Salah's talent and ability had already been proven, with the Egyptian contributing 12 goals and 7 assists in 25 appearances for Udinese in Serie A and the Champions League last season.

However, after reading various media reports on the transfer, Bruno understood the reason: Roma offered too much to refuse! Roma paid 30 million euros for Salah!

Udinese had bought Salah for 15 million euros during the winter transfer window and sold him for double that price in just six months. It was an offer too good to pass up.

Bruno smiled wryly, realizing that this summer, Udinese had indeed become a supermarket for players.

(End of Chapter)

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