Chapter 383: Chapter 85: Bundesliga’s Number 1! A Sky-High Contract! Advance, Dortmund! The Shadow of Bayern’s Great Comeback Reappears

And yet, he couldn’t refute a single thing Watzke said.

The complexity of football and the multi-faceted analysis of statistics were, indeed, major points of contention in the European football scene.

While all sorts of new stats kept the fans entertained, industry insiders had long been at each other’s throats over them.

In the end, the most authoritative metrics were still goals and assists.

But those, in turn, were inseparable from the overall support of the team.

Previously, Watzke and Dortmund’s stance had been that they could offer Wang Shuo a high salary, but not an excessive one.

At this point, the negotiations had reached a stalemate.

Dortmund acknowledged the statistics, but they had their own interpretation of them.

Just as Thomas Essien was getting too antsy to stay in his seat, Shen Qinghe calmly tapped the enter key on her laptop.

Another presentation immediately appeared on the large screen.

"This is a data analysis report from Sky Sports and Opta. All of the data within comes from the Opta data company, and a portion is also from the International Football Bank."

It was perfectly normal for data companies to purchase data from one another.

"At our request, the Opta data company created a brand-new, custom data analysis model specifically for us."

Watzke and the others were astonished to hear this.

’They actually commissioned a brand-new data analysis model?’

"This new model is designed specifically for forwards and can provide clear answers to the various questions you just raised."

As Shen Qinghe tapped a key, the next slide of the presentation appeared on the large screen.

This new data model was designed to solve a controversial problem.

How should one interpret a goal?

Clearly, there’s a difference between tapping in a teammate’s cross in front of an empty net and scoring after dribbling past several defenders.

Both count as a single goal, but the demands placed on the forward are completely different.

So, how could this be resolved?

By introducing a "difficulty coefficient."

In other words, the higher the difficulty coefficient, the more valuable the goal.

Of course, the difficulty coefficient could also illuminate another issue.

Namely, for any given goal, how much was due to the player’s individual effort, and how much was due to the support of his teammates?

The higher the coefficient, the more the goal is weighted toward the player’s individual ability, and the less it’s weighted toward teammate support.

"At our request, Opta not only quantified the difficulty of every one of Wang Shuo’s shots this season, but they also quantified the difficulty of every shot taken by several other established forwards in the Bundesliga."

"They even quantified the difficulty of every shot taken this season by over a dozen established forwards across the four major leagues."

"After repeated deliberation, research, and adjustments, they ultimately produced this chart."

"The vertical axis represents the player’s goal count adjusted by the difficulty coefficient, while the horizontal axis represents the player’s total number of shots."

"In the Bundesliga, Wang Shuo is in the top-right corner, all by himself!"

According to the data, while Wang Shuo’s shot count was in the top tier, it wasn’t the absolute highest.

But once his goal count was adjusted for difficulty, the number was incredibly high.

Shen Qinghe waited for everyone to take it in, then smiled and moved to the next slide.

"Perhaps it would be more intuitive if we disregard the total number of goals and simply compare the average difficulty coefficient of his 31 goals."

The resulting data showed that the average difficulty coefficient for Wang Shuo’s 31 goals was still miles ahead of the competition.

Of course, Shen Qinghe had been a little clever when she designed the presentation.

This ensured that when Watzke and his team saw the chart, their first impression was that all the other players were clustered together, nearly indistinguishable from one another.

Only Wang Shuo stood high above the rest.

’It was just too striking!’

"If we expand the comparison to all of Europe and measure him against top stars like Messi and Ronaldo, then the chart we get looks like this."

Shen Qinghe was now in complete control of the negotiation’s pace.

At her words, Watzke and the others couldn’t help but look.

And the chart displayed on the screen made them all gasp.

On the chart, Wang Shuo was positioned just slightly below Barça’s Messi and Real Madrid’s Ronaldo.

Everyone else was clustered together below them.

Even Atletico Madrid’s Aguero, a player with immense hype, was only slightly above the main cluster.

Manchester United’s Rooney was also within that same range.

This meant one thing.

The players ranked higher on the chart were the stars capable of carrying an entire team through their individual skill.

Wang Shuo might not have reached the level of Messi and Ronaldo yet, but he was only nineteen years old.

More importantly, those two superstars were the best players of their generation, and both played for top-tier powerhouse clubs.

If Watzke had been able to find alternative interpretations for Shen Qinghe’s earlier data, he was now utterly powerless in the face of this report.

Watzke and his colleagues were in a full-blown panic.

They felt they had completely lost their footing in the negotiation.

Every single one of them was left speechless.

Shen Qinghe had prepared so thoroughly that they had no defense.

And to think that when they first saw Shen Qinghe walk in, they had dismissed her as just a delicate beauty.

They never expected her to be so decisive and sharp, her move so precise and lethal it secured victory in an instant!

At his side, Thomas Essien felt a wave of pride and vindication. He even had the urge to slam his hand on the table and shout his approval for Shen Qinghe.

’Absolutely brilliant!’

If he had previously harbored some concern about Wang Shuo hiring Shen Qinghe, a mere university student, then now, he was completely at ease.