Chapter 31: Chapter 31 The Youth Champions League Do or Die Battle
In the 79th minute, the winger from Casabia did a good job.
A cross from the flank caused an own goal by the Lisbon’s center-back.
It was 3-1, as Casabia clawed back a goal.
But just nine minutes later, Ronaldo, who knew he couldn’t rely on Deng Kai, still managed to score with his immense individual talent, pulling off a solo run.
He netted his thirteenth goal, maintaining his position on the top scorers’ list.
In the end, Lisbon won a resounding 4-1 victory over their opponents, achieving their first back-to-back league wins.
This match made people realize that Lisbon’s U15’s victory in the previous round was not just a fluke.
Some believed that Deng Kai was the reason for Lisbon’s radically improved strength.
But many felt it was just the norm for young players, sometimes underwhelming and other times outstanding, nothing special.
For Deng Kai, this game furthered his understanding of his skills’ effects.
He found that there were still many things not fully explained in the skill descriptions, which he needed to figure out himself.
For instance, Black Panther Hunt.
Today, Deng Kai’s second goal came from the use of Black Panther Hunt.
But this goal was passed to Deng Kai by Ronaldo, not snatched by Deng Kai himself.
Ronaldo intercepted the ball and passed it to Deng Kai.
Deng Kai took a direct shot without controlling the ball first, to make it within three seconds.
And the result did not disappoint Deng Kai.
In this way, Black Panther Hunt was indeed very useful and could become Deng Kai’s core skill in the early stage.
In this match, Deng Kai also received an SS rating.
He gained some training dummies, energy drinks, medical bandages, and blue shards.
Since there was no critical hit, he only got four blue shards.
However, just like the last time, he also got a special item "Eastern Dragon Energy Drink."
The super training dummy is an enhanced version of the training dummy, and the Eastern Dragon Energy Drink is an enhanced version of the energy drink.
"Eastern Dragon Energy Drink: Sleep your motherf*cker, get up and cheer! Instantly recover stamina and energy, long-term use can increase stamina attribute! (Does not take effect during matches)."
Indeed, much stronger than a regular energy drink.
This one moment solved so many problems.
Perhaps fans often watching top-league football may think a biweekly match pace is normal.
But in reality, it’s a huge burden for professional players to play twice a week.
Once a week is more or less their comfort state.
And for 13, 14, 15, or 16-year-old youth players, even once a week is the standard.
Biweekly matches are more harmful than beneficial for them.
At least, that’s what the traditional youth training philosophy believes.
But this year, Lisbon’s U15 team will experience biweekly matches.
Stamina has become a major issue for all participating youth teams to confront.
Now, just three days after this match, Lisbon’s U15 will welcome at home Pilsen Victoria—also known as the future U15 squad that will be in the same UEFA Champions League group as FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, and Bayern Munich—for the fourth round of the Youth Champions League.
It will also be the second encounter between the two teams.
In their first encounter, Pilsen won, and Ronaldo was almost left with a psychological shadow by the opposing goalkeeper, Cech.
But the deep-seated reason for his poor performance that day was inadequate stamina!
A direct consequence of playing twice a week.
For goalkeepers, though, playing twice in the same week poses absolutely no issue with stamina.
Cech could stay relatively rested.
...
"Lisbon’s U15 Achieve Their First Consecutive Wins, Chris Scores Thirteen Goals in Eight Matches, Securing a Temporary Third Place in the Scoring Charts!"
"Football Caesar Deng Kai’s Amazing Luck, Four Goals and Three Assists in Two Matches, Unmatched Efficiency!"
"Lisbon’s Dynamic Duo Emerge, Officially Making a Push for the Post-Season Championship (North and South Zone Competitions)?"
"The league still has hope, but European competition has reached its end! Lisbon Sporting U15 can hardly call this season a success!"
"Pilsen victory players land in Lisbon, ready for battle, and in three days they may completely knock Lisbon Sporting U15 out of the competition!"
"Young Champions League’s outstanding goalkeeper Cech: Looking forward to the upcoming match, not worried about Chris’s shooting! In the past half month, I have focused on studying his and Fan Peixi’s shots, and I will do my best to keep a clean sheet against them!"
"A battle for honor! Lisbon Sporting U15’s European competition goal changed from reaching the finals or semifinals at the start of the season to just achieving a single victory, even just one would do!"
"Portuguese supernova Cristiano Ronaldo angrily speaks out: ’We will definitely break through Cech’s defense, and we will win this match!’"
Just from these news headlines, one could see that UEFA might be harsh, but not without reason.
Elimination games do indeed negatively affect the psychological health of young players.
But in terms of the excitement of the matches, they are really much more stimulating than the league system.
Even the young players themselves pay more attention to, or are more excited about, European competition.
This year’s Youth Champions League has even surpassed the increasingly declining Cup Winners’ Cup in terms of interest.
According to various confirmations, this year’s Cup Winners’ Cup will also be the last edition of the event.
Knock, knock, knock!
There was a knock on Trigella’s office door.
"Come in," Trigella said, without turning off the TV.
Ronaldo entered and seeing the news, still felt a bit excited.
This was the longest he had ever been on TV.
With Ronaldo were Deng Kai and Maxa.
Trigella had called them in today because he had important information to communicate.
"The team’s situation is not very ideal," Trigella said with a serious demeanor, the team he referred to naturally wasn’t U15, but the Sporting team competing in the Portuguese league, "Last year we only ranked fourth in the league."
"Porto, however, has already won the title for four consecutive years, and this year they are still at the top of the leaderboard."
"Over the past ten years, Benfica won the championship three times, the rest were all Porto’s. People can’t help but ask, where is Sporting Lisbon?"
"Currently, we are once again pressed down by Porto and Benfica on the leaderboard."
"The dissatisfaction of the fans has reached its limit."
"But the team can’t make any other backlash, and the transfer negotiations between Simon and Barcelona haven’t finished even now. The team wants to give resources to Simon so he can have good stats and a good performance."
"Without any surprises, our performance this season won’t be better than last season’s."
Deng Kai nodded secretly.
Trigella’s prediction of the situation was very accurate.
Last season, Sporting Lisbon ranked fourth in the Portuguese league.
And this season, Sporting Lisbon will still be fourth in the Portuguese league.
But what does this have to do with their U15?
Unless... the Youth Champions League!
Has the first team become so disadvantaged that they need to use the U15 squad to divert the anger of the fans?
Sure enough.
Trigella said, "In order to divert the dissatisfaction of the fans, the management wants to bring U15 into the limelight to attract the fire. This team has all the conditions to take the fall for the first team."
"The Youth Champions League gives everyone a reason to pay attention to U15."
"Deng Kai, your joining the team caused a big stir, even reaching the level of virality, you have huge potential for generating attention."
"Chris, your performance has been dazzling, even if the U15’s overall result is bad, as long as you maintain your stats, you will still live up to the name of Sporting Lisbon’s youth training. This is beneficial for the negotiations with Barcelona."
"Even, this can also help build your fame in advance, making you truly famous while still young! Become the next Simon!"
This was no longer a case of killing two birds with one stone.
This was an unknown number of birds with one stone.
"So..." Deng Kai looked at Trigella.
The latter slowly began to speak, "So, the venue for the Youth Champions League fourth-round match in three days will move from the grass field at Alcochete Base which can accommodate a thousand fans, to the Estádio Alvalade, the main field of Sporting Lisbon, which can accommodate up to fifty thousand people!"
"The match will receive exposure at the level of the Portuguese league, broadcast in over fifty countries and regions around the world!"
"This is a huge crisis, but also, it might be a huge opportunity!"
"Are you... ready?"
