Chapter 239: Chapter 238: Gratitude to Deco for the Rocket (Twentieth Update, Rush the Rankings!)
Pah.
I should be thanking my father, my mother, and Deng Kai, hmm, that form seems right.
In the whole European football scene, aside from Portugal fans, there’s no one who isn’t optimistic about Spain and Guardiola.
But for Portugal fans, it’s really difficult to feel the same, because "Guardiola" is a curse word on their side, describing someone with bad luck.
Spain’s national team has Guardiola?
Translate that to Portuguese and it means "Spain is really unlucky"!
...
"Ding! You’ve achieved a victory, with a rating of SS for this match!"
"You’ve obtained a Star Player Drop*2!"
"The Glory of Portugal’s Golden Generation (2/5): ’Golden Generation’ is just a general term, not all members of the Golden Generation will be remembered by the world, someone must always play a supporting role. Positioning +1, Interception +2, Tackling +2, Clearing +2, Blocking +2. Collect all the glories to receive a generous reward!"
"Deco’s Choice: As a Brazilian, Deco accepted naturalization from the Portuguese Football Federation for his football dreams, served the Portugal national team, and achieved success. As a Chinese, you have a chance to choose at the age of eighteen, but whichever you choose, you can also trigger the rewards of the nationality you did not pick."
"Ding! Deco’s Choice has determined your allegiance in advance, you’ve obtained a Nationality Choice Reward."
"You’ve chosen Chinese nationality, gaining an unlock reward for maximum height +20cm!"
"You’ve chosen Portuguese nationality, gaining a random unlock reward for three total attribute upper limits +5!"
This!
This works?
Deng Kai was stunned.
The height gain came too fast, like a tornado!
The Glory of Portugal’s Golden Generation was completely ignored by him.
It was supposed to be Capucho’s drop, completely useless.
Portugal’s Golden Generation: You want to repeat that???
But Deco was genuinely helpful, Deng Kai hadn’t asked for his jersey in vain.
I’ve already mentioned Deco’s journey; he is the most typical example of a successful naturalized player.
His drop might not be useful for others, but for Deng Kai, it was simply divine.
So there are rewards for choosing nationality!
Deco’s Choice was as if it gave Deng Kai the effects of having two nationalities.
The very model of having one’s cake and eating it too!
Deng Kai received both effects.
The former is the reward for the upper limit of height.
This means that while Deng Kai is currently just 1.65 meters, his height’s peak will be 1.85 meters.
Don’t even question if that’s enough, it’s more than enough.
Looking across the world of football, top midfielders are nearly all around 1.75 meters, Modric, Pirlo, Van der Vaart, Hagi.
A bit shorter are Xavi, Iniesta, Sneijder at 1.70 meters.
Taller ones like De Bruyne, Rui Costa, Lampard, Gerard are around 1.80 meters.
1.85 meters, apart from Zidane and Kaka, who else?
Even Ronaldo’s true height is only around 1.83 to 1.85 meters, right?
Ronaldo, you’ll never again see the twin whirls on the top of my head!
Of course, this height isn’t gained overnight.
Deng Kai’s first growth period has already passed.
He basically has to be around eighteen years old to experience his second growth period.
It has to follow the natural laws of growth.
Boys experience a rapid growth spurt in height from the ages of fourteen to eighteen.
But this growth is also phased.
If you hit your first growth spurt at fourteen, then you wouldn’t see the second one until three years later.
Last summer, Deng Kai experienced a sudden increase in his height.
Even if he has now broken the height limit, to really stretch to 1.8 meters, it would probably take another two years.
As for this, Deng Kai wasn’t too concerned.
In these two years of slow growth, not to mention much, growing another five centimeters to match Xavi wouldn’t be a big problem, right?
1.6 meters is really not quite enough.
Messi: *cough cough*, well... I think it’s quite sufficient.
In addition to the height limit, there was also the lifting of the overall body rating limit that came with choosing Portuguese nationality.
It was then that Deng Kai saw for the first time that his overall body rating was followed by various data points enclosed in a red box.
The data inside the red box represented the locked limit for each attribute.
For instance, Deng Kai’s speed is at 71, but the limit for this attribute is 80.
Explosiveness is 73, with a limit of 85.
Step frequency 77, limit 90.
Strength of foot 67, limit 85.
Jumping 63, limit 80.
Strength 64, limit 80.
Agility 76, limit 90.
Stamina 71, limit 85.
This is cruel, but it is also the truth.
Although skill is something that can be constantly surpassed through relentless training.
If at any given time practice doesn’t help you break through, it just means you’ve hit a plateau, requiring a build-up of incremental changes, and not that you’re truly unable to make a breakthrough.
The so-called enlightenment, intelligence, or a natural talent for a certain skill is all about reducing the time it takes for these incremental changes, helping players to quickly overcome their limits.
Even ball sense, which seems the least likely to change, can actually be altered and improved through extensive training.
But physical attributes are different.
There’s an upper limit to human speed; once this extreme is reached, even a 0.01-second improvement is substantial, and it’s even possible that there might be no improvement at all.
These things are not about effort, and they’re not even much related to height or weight; they belong to the innate gifts of the body.
Height and weight can cause your speed, strength, agility, etc., to change significantly in a short period, but they don’t really affect the upper limits of these attributes.
The wonders of nature lie in this.
Therefore, whether it’s football or basketball, there’s a major misconception about the future prediction of players—that shorter and taller players each have their own advantages.
The basis is that shorter players are faster, more agile, and have a softer touch, something that taller players lack.
But in fact, taller players have height and strength that shorter players do not have, and... with the optimization of the species’ genetic lineage, they can catch up with or even surpass shorter players in terms of speed and agility in the future.
This is counterintuitive to human nature, but with the emergence of Durant, the Greek Freak, and Wenbanyama, this is being realized.
Five players who are taller, faster, more agile, stronger, more accurate, with longer arms and shorter necks, are the ultimate path for the future of basketball.
Similarly, in the world of football, players who are taller, with a more balanced body proportion, stronger, faster, and with better ball sense are what the ultimate team of eleven should look like.
The reason for this is due to gene optimization based on appearance and body’s heredity, as well as the abuse of various hormones in modern food, which has made it possible to physically break the invisible locks on human attributes that were once unseen.
And Deng Kai’s current ability to break these locks with the help of the system follows the same principle.
About genetic optimization, there are relevant books for everyone to check out.
Children of traditional powerhouse families are mostly attractive and have standard, healthy physiques; aside from keeping up with nutrition, the choice of their parents’ partners plays a significant role, and generations of genetic optimization have already reached a strong level.
