Chapter 166: Chapter 165 The Shoddy Goods Reveal Their True Nature?
"Heart Condition? Ronaldo’s career is completely ruined!"
"Genius envied by the heavens? Quaresma’s successor Ronaldo may never play football again!"
"What a pity! Without the heart condition, Ronaldo might have joined powerhouses like Manchester United and Real Madrid in the future!"
"Rumor debunking! Ronaldo’s heart condition is curable, and he will undergo surgery soon."
"Trigella: Most of the reports related to Ronaldo’s illness are untrue, he will be even better after the surgery!"
"Sporting Lisbon: Before the news of Ronaldo’s illness, many clubs wanted to sign him and sent us offers. But now, these clubs have gone silent, we don’t want to point fingers, but it’s disappointing."
"Barcelona: We never considered signing Ronaldo! We prefer technically skilled players like Messi!"
"Guardiola facepalms in disbelief: I don’t understand Barça’s youth department. Sporting Lisbon didn’t even mention you, why are you jumping out?"
"Surgery successful! Doctor: Ronaldo could fully recover in two or three months. His health is astonishing! He is in great physical shape, and his athletic ability will be frightening after his growth period ends!"
"Three straight defeats! Without Ronaldo, Sporting Lisbon’s U17 team seems to have lost its soul!"
"Mediocre performance! Deng Kai with zero goals and zero assists in three games, he doesn’t deserve to be the best midfielder!"
"A top striker makes many mediocre midfielders profit, without Caesar, Ronaldo is still Ronaldo, but without Ronaldo, Caesar can only be Deng Kai!"
"The most lackluster midfielder ever! A core midfielder with a pass success rate below eighty percent, Deng Kai’s war crime-level performance is cursed by fans!"
No one would have thought that the biggest victim of Ronaldo’s temporary departure from Sporting Lisbon U17 due to heart surgery would be Deng Kai.
After an initial victory, Sporting Lisbon U17 suffered three consecutive losses.
They lost miserably.
It even affected Trigella.
Many team fans are relieved that Trigella wasn’t put in charge of the first team.
Otherwise, the first team would be doomed.
Look at the current first team, two wins, one draw, one loss; although they haven’t taken first place on the leaderboard, at least Jia De’er and Quaresma are shining, right?
They’re even more popular than Porto and Benfica; the fans are happy, isn’t that enough?
And the supporters of Jia De’er and Quaresma, Maxa, are being called by fans "the man behind Augustus," "the Moriarty of Sporting Lisbon," "the true master tactician of Portugal"!
...
Alcochete Base.
The Sporting Lisbon U17 players are in training.
It’s almost match day again.
The young players are all very anxious.
Because many don’t know if they’ll make the starting lineup or be chosen for the big squad.
In the past three games, Trigella tried multiple formations and combinations but to no avail.
Deng Kai’s stats are indeed terrible, zero goals and zero assists.
But actually, he makes many threatening passes.
It’s just that his teammates can’t catch them.
After failing to receive his passes too many times, they even start to fear Deng Kai’s passing.
After all, no one wants to keep wasting the team’s opportunities.
This is something they need to learn from Ronaldo.
Ronaldo never feels guilty about wasting chances because he always believes that his next shot will result in a goal.
This confidence, much like that NBA player who, even if he misses his first twenty shots, will still firmly take the twenty-first, is strikingly similar to Kobe’s.
This shamelessness, oh no... this mentality cannot be learned, it’s the natural combination of a big heart, competitiveness, and persistence.
Players afraid of wasting chances, or rather knowing they can’t receive the ball well and that it might be intercepted by others, would naturally drop back early to defend.
This is a positive attitude, but it also effectively causes Sporting Lisbon U17’s flanks to fail to advance.
During ball control and passing, if the flanks don’t advance, it results in the situation where they have the upper hand but can’t score."
Always in control of the ball, yet seldom able to create a killing move.
The future Portugal team had this flaw, lacking players who could burst down the flanks. Even with sprinters like Leo and Mendes, the head coach’s tactics still didn’t allow for such explosive play.
It must be said, this was the head coach’s tactical failure.
The U17 Sporting Lisbon coach had effective tactics and also had speedy wingers like Wu Xudong and Yu Shihao, but the players’ mentality was problematic, and they didn’t dare to step up. Different reasons, but the same problem.
While Trigella continued seeking to combine, Deng Kai found him.
He presented his own vision for the team’s formation and playing style.
Trigella supported Deng Kai, but he didn’t actually hold out much hope for the outcome.
Because those few Chinese players, while not inferior to the other players at this stage, were falling behind in terms of cooperation and basic skills. How could the effect be good if they were heavily relied upon?
The reason Trigella agreed to Deng Kai was purely because he wanted to see how far Deng Kai could go.
Could he bounce back when no one else was effective?
Additionally, most of Trigella’s energy was actually on the case of his powerful backer, as well as on studying the Primeira Liga teams.
Once his backer was out of trouble, even if he couldn’t become the club president for the time being, they could regain some of their influence in the club.
Then Trigella could return triumphantly with his research and lead the first team to compete for the championship.
So, in the fifth round of the U17 Portugal championship...
Everyone saw Sporting Lisbon’s bizarre starting lineup.
...
"Oh! I believe many people don’t understand this starting lineup," one commentator said.
"If Trigella doesn’t have the energy to coach the U17, he could let someone else do it, but why mess around?" another remarked.
"I even think that this team is being coached by Deng Kai, who is favoring people he knows, finally putting all his Chinese buddies in the starting lineup," said another.
"Perhaps this is the Chinese F4’s reward for helping Deng Kai against the Argentinians. That’s very loyal, but it’s not football!" one accused.
"Honestly, these Chinese players should leave the team," someone suggested.
"Deng Kai should leave too. He doesn’t have any special talents; he’s just an opportunist midfielder who only knows how to cling to Ronaldo’s coattails," another sneered.
"At least Deng Kai has proved that he’s not suitable to be the core of a team’s midfield," another continued.
"The club has Ronaldo, the national youth team has Quaresma, and Deng Kai is really lucky to have won a treble last year!" someone pointed out.
"He even snatched the youth Champions League Golden Boot from Ronaldo and the Young European Championship assists from Viana!" someone else added.
The reason everyone was so angry was that this lineup seemed too negligent.
It was a 4-2-3-1 starting lineup.
The lone striker was not the U17’s regular main striker Miguel Paixao, but Yu Shihao, who was registered as a left winger until now.
The left midfielder was not the original main Carlos Matias, but Hao Junmin, who was registered only as a right midfielder.
The right midfielder was Wu Xudong, who had already played three games in this position as the original right back of the team.
The attacking midfielder was Deng Kai.
The two defensive midfielders were Veloso and the U17’s main defensive midfielder Nuno Tavares.
The back four were Joao Casama, Shao Jiawei, Angelo, and Duarte.
The goalkeeper was Marcio Santos.
The entire midfield and attack were Chinese.
Could the Chinese play offense?
No!
Didn’t they have the ability to know that?
"Cheer up!" Deng Kai, feeling the pressure from the fans as they entered the field, began to encourage his teammates, "Don’t forget our training, move more, pass more, burst when you need to, and pass early when you shouldn’t."
"Either let the ball flow or let the football break through at high speed. There are no other choices, understand?"
