Chapter 41: Chapter 41 Data Enhancement, Hugo Visits
"Lisbon Daily: ’Sporting Lisbon U15’s True Core Returns, Champions Declaration After Victory!’"
"Bola newspaper: ’A goal and an assist are indeed dazzling, but isn’t claiming the championship as the goal a bit too arrogant?’"
"Jiang Yunzhu Column: ’Three matches, four assists, five goals, what you consider arrogance is but a walk in the park in the eyes of a genius! Conquered mortals, please refrain from speculating about Caesar without basis!’"
"Morning Post: ’Thirteen threatening passes throughout the match, the talented midfielder’s return helped advance and upgrade the team!’"
"Ball Report: ’Deng Kai’s passes shouldn’t be appearing on the U15 pitch; such passes have the power to cause harm in the professional arena!’"
"Record Report: ’The good news is that within Sporting Lisbon U15, only Chris can catch Deng Kai’s passes, the bad news is if other players can also catch Deng Kai’s passes after training!’"
More and more news about Deng Kai and Sporting Lisbon began to appear in the public eye.
On one hand, everyone reported so much on Ronaldo’s brilliance that they got tired of reporting it.
Ronaldo had already climbed to the top of the regional scorers’ leaderboard.
And after scoring a brace in this match, he surpassed Hugo Almeida from Porto in the neighboring region, becoming the top scorer across the five regions in the U15 league.
Yet, he should be playing in the U13s.
These facts were already well-known to the fans.
In contrast, the guy called the ’Football Caesar,’ although also with many news pieces, had very few positive reports about his abilities until now.
Three matches, four assists, five goals.
One European match, one winning goal.
This data is just too eye-catching.
It’s time to educate everyone on Sporting Lisbon U15’s rising midfield core, Deng Kai, isn’t it!
...
"Ding! You’ve obtained a victory, your rating for this match is S..."
Deng Kai had almost grown accustomed to victory.
Such S-rated matches rarely yielded anything good... Huh?
Blue fragments have critically hit!
"Ding! You’ve spent Blue Fragments*20 and acquired the Blue Player level skill ’No-Look Pass.’"
"No-Look Pass: Look into my eyes, the moment of witnessing a miracle has arrived! When you pass without looking, your passing ability receives a minor boost."
Another skill had arrived in his account.
And it was a skill that had both practical and show-off value.
There are many stories about no-look passes.
In the future, when Ronaldo is more relaxed, he likes to play around with this kind of trick.
Crown Prince Asensio of Real Madrid had also tried a no-look shot in the Champions League, hitting the goalkeeper and becoming the butt of the joke.
In fact, no-look passes are not as simple as people think.
In high-speed motion, losing sight can greatly affect the following actions.
Besides, the essence of a no-look pass not only lies in losing sight but also in the opposite movement.
Kick to the left, look to the right.
This looking to the right is a movement, the head and body will shake, and the entire motion and balance system will respond accordingly.
This is completely different from kicking to the left and looking to the left.
If you can’t understand the difference, try this: with your eyes open, throw your phone up in the air and catch it.
Then with your eyes closed, throw your phone up in the air and try to catch it.
Then with your eyes closed, throw your phone up in the air and quickly shake your head left and right, then try to catch it.
No more ’then,’ because the cracks on your phone screen are too many, making it impossible to see the following text clearly.
And this "No-Look Pass," paired with "De Bruyne’s Conscious Flow Pass," is just perfect!
Because De Bruyne’s passes often didn’t involve looking at the recipient at all.
With this, some of Deng Kai’s passes could enjoy a fourfold enhancement!
Speaking of this, one cannot help but mention the impact of Deng Kai’s passes in the previous match.
Whether passes are good or not doesn’t always correlate to the number of assists.
Deng Kai had previously had games with multiple assists, but no one thought his passes were very sharp; at most, he was praised for his understanding with Ronaldo.
But in this match, with only one assist, people went crazy over his passing!
Not to mention within his own team.
Did the young players in the team respect Deng Kai?
They certainly did not before.
Everyone initially did not accept Deng Kai, because he was the worst in training.
Later, under Maxa’s high-pressure policy, the focus on Deng Kai as the core actually deepened the team’s disdain for him, despite his improved abilities.
Although Deng Kai redeemed some of his image in his teammates’ eyes with his stats and victories,
tailoring the frontcourt pressing tactics for him alone and altering the team’s offensive focus was a bit much.
It was entirely an act of royalty.
Charged up, aren’t you?
It wasn’t until this time, when Deng Kai spoke up for everyone after the game, stating that it wasn’t that the team was weak, but simply lacking in chemistry,
that many started to view Deng Kai differently.
Plus, Deng Kai’s passes had indeed surpassed everyone on the team, and it truly was a matter of them not catching the passes, not Deng Kai unable to make them.
That was when his teammates truly acknowledged his leadership position.
So, being able to catch a pass is awesome, but not being able to catch a pass can also be awesome, perhaps even more so.
This is why so many people praise De Bruyne’s passing.
Because... they can’t catch them!
Of course, one reason everyone respected Deng Kai was that they had all seen the speed of his progress with their own eyes.
He really wasn’t the weakest on the team anymore.
Over the past period, Deng Kai’s stats had considerably improved through training and matches.
Ball Control +1, now at 64
Shooting +1, 52
Long Pass +1, 55
Interception +1, 53
Tackling +1, 40
Explosiveness +1, 56
Lower Body Strength +1, 52
Jumping +1, 45
Strength +2, 49
Stamina +1, 54
Left Foot +1, 3
This might be the growth quota for some less talented young players over half a year, but Deng Kai achieved it in just over a month.
The unexpected joy came from the improvement in left-foot ability.
In this period, Deng Kai had intensified the training of his left foot. As a central midfielder, he might not often use his left foot, but it couldn’t be too weak.
Of course, this didn’t mean that as long as he practiced, his stats would definitely improve.
All stats have a ceiling, and once it’s reached, it becomes very hard to improve further, falling into the realm of "ten times the effort for half the result."
...
That day, after finishing training, Deng Kai and Ronaldo dribbled their balls out of the facility.
Today they were ready to see who would get home first.
Ronaldo still couldn’t fully adapt to Deng Kai’s passes, so he decided to beat Deng Kai at something else.
"Chris!"
Someone called out to Ronaldo from not far off.
Turning his head and recognizing the person, Ronaldo immediately broke into a smile, "Brother! What are you doing here! I’ve missed you so much..."
Ronaldo ran over and hugged his brother, Hugo Dinarte Aveiro.
The brothers were very close.
Hugo was ten years Ronaldo’s senior, twenty-three years old, an age when a "big boy" can still afford to be wild.
But soon, he would have to grow up.
However, at this beautiful moment of brotherly reunion, Deng Kai saw several flamboyanly dressed youths looking at Hugo and Ronaldo.
No doubt about it, they were "street loafers."
Perhaps the name differs, but every country, every area, has a group of young people of this age who do nothing productive, cause trouble every day, and focus on crooked ways.
Ronaldo’s mother had once mentioned in an interview that Ronaldo’s brother Hugo had once fallen into drug addiction. It was Ronaldo, then joining Sporting Lisbon’s youth team, who paid for Hugo’s rehabilitation and saved his brother.
And the timing was around this period.
His coming to find Ronaldo this time, could it be...
Deng Kai’s brows furrowed in concern.
