Chapter 435: Chapter 434: Ronaldo, I will always admire your stubbornness
With the referee’s three whistles, the match officially ended.
Six to one!
Sporting Lisbon stepped on the corpse of Serie A powerhouse Lazio with an eleven-point lead to top the group and advance to the Champions League Round of Sixteen, ahem... Round of Sixteen.
There’s only one character difference between those two appellations, but the former is quite unlucky.
In the end, Ibrahimovic failed to score a goal, he didn’t even manage to get an assist.
But this brilliant victory was enough to increase the market value of every Sporting Lisbon player.
"A hattrick of goals plus a brace of assists! Sporting Lisbon’s core Deng Kai turns Lazio fans against their own team at home!"
"Invincible! Deng Kai leads Sporting Lisbon to three consecutive Champions League victories after his comeback!"
"Eagles Fall! Lazio fans switch sides, the season almost prematurely ends!"
"In a six-to-one match, Serie A’s ’Seven Sisters’ are no more! Deng Kai kicks off a new era in European football!"
"That’s it? Serie A powerhouses are just this? What’s the difference between Lazio and Porto?"
"With victory in hand, showcasing a master-class manager! Trigella left the pitch ten minutes before the end of the match!"
After the game, the media was in a frenzy.
But they couldn’t find Trigella.
They raised the question while Deng Kai was accepting the trophy for best player of the match.
Deng Kai, "Mr. Trigella meant no disrespect to Lazio. If he did so, there must be a reason. To my knowledge, he actually has a very good impression of the Lazio team."
"Maybe he just didn’t want to witness the sad scene of Lazio getting knocked out of the Champions League."
Deng Kai’s words excited the journalists.
If this gets out, wouldn’t the Lazio fans’ imaginations run wild?
Currently, the most talked-about managers on the market are Maxa and Trigella.
The players at Lazio are not bad; if they could bring in a top-class manager, perhaps... they could still make a comeback?
This puts a lot of pressure on Lazio’s coach, Mancini.
He really doesn’t have the credentials to compete with Trigella, if the latter wanted to take over at Lazio.
After the interview, Deng Kai asked Maxa, "Where on earth did Mr. Trigella go?"
Maxa, still shaken, "In the toilet."
Deng Kai was startled, "He hasn’t come out yet?"
Maxa, "It’s earth-shattering!"
Deng Kai frowned, "Did Lazio poison him? That wouldn’t make sense, if they were to poison anyone, shouldn’t it be the players?"
Maxa, "It might not be Lazio’s doing."
Deng Kai, "An inside job?"
Maxa pointed with his lips toward Feng Te, who was distributing Assam milk tea he had personally made to his teammates, "Recently, Mr. Trigella has only consumed this one kind of food."
Deng Kai broke out in a cold sweat.
Luckily, he adhered to the principle of not drinking while driving, not drinking milk tea while playing football.
If he could not hold it together on the field, wouldn’t he end up like a template of Ramos?
"Uh... that milk tea... maybe let’s drink something else?" To protect Feng Te’s pride, Deng Kai didn’t spell it out but subtly reminded his teammates.
Ronaldo scoffed, "If you can drink it, why can’t I? What, is there special treatment now? I insist on drinking! I’ll drink! I want a double portion!"
Ronaldo snatched the milk tea from Kaka’s hands.
Deng Kai smiled faintly, "Ronaldo, I’ll always admire your stubbornness."
Later, when the team took the bus back to the hotel, Deng Kai mentioned he had something to take care of and would take a taxi there alone when the time came.
Hathaway’s "The Lord of the Rings" was premiering at the end of next month, and there was a promotional tour across Europe currently happening—in Rome today.
Kaka, curious, asked Deng Kai if he could join him.
He wanted to witness a grand event.
Ronaldo also wanted to go, but Deng Kai swiftly refused.
In the end, it was rumored that Lisbon Sporting’s bus encountered a serious "accident" on the way, and had to make an unscheduled stop.
The players scrambled out of the bus, holding their noses, and took taxis back to the hotel one after another.
Ronaldo was the last one to rush out, but strangely, he was wearing his own number seven jersey and shorts when he got on the bus.
But when he got off, he was wearing Deng Kai’s number ten shorts.
The only pity was that Lazio managed to attract too much attention this time around.
So the news of Ronaldo mysteriously changing his shorts got buried and only circulated within Deng Kai’s global fan support groups.
...
"The thing I regret most is signing my name on the Manchester United 99 Champions League winning football," Stam mentioned in a post-match interview. "Because that ball is now in Deng Kai’s possession. He distracted me with topics like this on the field; he’s too sneaky."
Lazio’s head coach Mancini said, "Our players did not perform to their usual standard, and the defeat was painful. But our season is not over, and we still have the Serie A championship to fight for."
Crespo expressed, "It’s as if we were cursed; it’s difficult for me to get support from my teammates, which is the most troublesome part of the match."
Popovski admitted, "I felt somewhat despairing on the field; I couldn’t feel help from my teammates, and it was hard alone to get past one Lisbon Sporting player after another."
Though none of the players directly said it, there was no doubt that Mendieta had lost their trust.
After the match, Lazio’s die-hard fans gathered, burned Mendieta’s jersey, and then put on Deng Kai’s jerseys, which they had bought on the spot from Lisbon Sporting fans.
They shouted at the camera, "Deng Kai should be the one worth 48 million euros, let us congratulate the birth of Mr. 740 Billion Lira!"
Mr. 740 Billion Lira!
This was the nickname Lazio fans gave to Mendieta at the beginning of the season.
This nickname originated from when Internazionale spent 50 million dollars to acquire the world’s number one striker Vieri, and Inter fans excitedly declared Vieri as ’Mr. 900 Billion Lira.’
The figure was undoubtedly impressive.
But also, it highlighted the severe devaluation of the Italian currency.
After arriving at Inter, due to injuries and team chaos, Vieri didn’t perform as the world’s number one striker.
Similarly, when Inter later introduced Ronaldo as the new world’s number one striker, he too failed to perform to that level with Inter, suffering serious injuries instead and playing less than thirty matches in the recent three years.
And now with Mendieta... it seems players referred to in lira didn’t end up with good fates.
So, for a time, people couldn’t tell if Lazio fans were using Deng Kai to mock Mendieta, or if they were cursing Deng Kai with Mendieta.
Many football stars also paid attention to this match.
Nedved, after parting ways with his old club, didn’t kick them while they were down: "I watched that match; it was insane, Lisbon Sporting played an outstanding game."
"Deng Kai was like a god in that game, every player has their signature work, and that game might become his signature work," he said.
"I hope Lazio can pull themselves together in the league."
