Chapter 49: Chapter 49 The City Derby is Here
"Chris, you might not know this, but your brother made a good sum of money doing business in Lisbon this time... I scolded him for not visiting his own little brother while he was there. What kind of brother is he, he told me he was too busy to get away..."
"I did the math, it’s roughly eight thousand US dollars. I’m leaving three thousand for you, and with the rest, you can set up a stall and start a small business outside."
"Right, your brother said this trip to Lisbon had a big impact on him. He felt that hanging out with those fair-weather friends was meaningless, and these past few days he’s been staying home reading books. Guess what he is reading... No, it’s about being a football agent!"
"He said that if he can pass the exam to get his license, he could be your agent assistant... He said that he definitely wouldn’t qualify to be your agent directly at that time, but at the very least, once you have an agent, he could help you check contracts and plan your career."
"After all, you can count on your own people. How does that saying go at Deng Kai’s, ’Fighting tigers is for blood brothers, going into battle is for father and son soldiers!’ When you’re playing football on the green field, Hugo will help you sign commercial contracts, help you get promoted, and let more people know that our Chris is a football genius..."
Ronaldo listened to his mother’s voice on the phone, feeling her excitement, a complex emotion welled up inside him.
This time, to deal with his brother Hugo’s situation, he incurred a huge debt of twenty to thirty thousand US dollars to Deng Kai, which involved numerous intense communications, arguments, fake emergency calls, and even rescuing his brother from the lair of thugs.
Troublesome, costly, and thankless.
If Hugo weren’t Ronaldo’s real brother, Ronaldo would think such a person wasn’t worth bothering with and should just be left to his own devices.
But now, feeling his mother’s excitement over his brother’s "earning money and becoming sensible," Ronaldo finally understood the significance of this matter.
In the past, he was only pleased with his achievements, and he was used to the joy of his family members because of his success.
He had almost forgotten the feeling of his parents being excited over his brother’s or sister’s achievements.
It was as if the parents were his, Chris’s, and not the parents of his brothers and sisters.
Until this time, his mother was happy because of his brother’s "money-making and sensibleness."
It had nothing to do with Ronaldo, yet he felt genuinely happy.
After hanging up the phone, Ronaldo looked at Deng Kai and said, "I used to think I knew what love was, what family affection was, but after this event, I’ve realized I really didn’t understand at all."
"I never understood why some people said I was selfish, but now I get it, my past self was indeed very selfish. Selfish enough to think I was everything to my parents, selfish enough to only be happy for my own success. I never considered their perspective; I’m just one of their four children!"
"I’ve taken too much love that belonged to my brothers and sisters! I will do my utmost to repay them! I must play football even better!"
Deng Kai nodded, this was a sign of a healthy family relationship.
A man who sees this finally is not far from maturity.
It’s been worth the trouble helping Ronaldo for so long.
...
On November 23rd, Sporting Lisbon’s U15 team faced their league opponent Iretic at home.
The game was not particularly thrilling.
Sporting Lisbon won easily with a score of 2-0.
In this game, Ronaldo had neither goals nor assists.
However, his movement and positioning played the biggest part in the team’s victory.
Deng Kai earned an assist.
The two goals were scored by other players within the team.
This game also became the happiest day of the year for those two goal-scorers.
The atmosphere within Sporting Lisbon’s team improved even further, almost becoming like a loving family.
In training, more players naturally started to join the groups of Deng Kai and Ronaldo.
Ronaldo finally shed his invisible airs and became down-to-earth.
Apart from Deng Kai, he could at least have a few words with his teammates now.
This change pleasantly surprised Maxa.
But he thought it was due to the victory.
Indeed, a good team atmosphere certainly requires more than just winning games.
It also needs people working hard and maintaining things behind the scenes.
On this day, Maxa had invited Trigella to give the team a targeted tactical lesson specifically designed for their upcoming match.
Their target was... Benfica U15!
In the next round of the league, Sporting Lisbon U15 would be facing Benfica away, the current leaders in their district.
So far, the league had completed twelve rounds.
Sporting Lisbon had six wins, one draw, and five losses, accumulating nineteen points and ranking fifth in their group. They had the chance to enter the playoff zone!
In their last six league matches, they had won five and lost one, defeating even the second-ranked team in the standings, coming into the match in red-hot form.
But Benfica was on fire!
They had already achieved twelve consecutive victories!
In this district, Benfica had an unmatched dominance!
The two rivals from the same city, one invincible and the other in top form recently.
When these two giants clashed, it was not only about superiority but also a matter of survival!
For this reason, Benfica had followed suit and requested to move the local derby from their youth training ground, which could only hold two thousand people, to the main stadium of their senior team—Estádio da Luz.
The Luz Stadium, which had just been expanded in 1997, now had a capacity of forty-two thousand people.
With Benfica’s call to arms, their fans were expected to flood in on the day of the match, potentially filling the entire stadium!
This U15 local derby would also serve as the rallying cry for Benfica’s senior team as they pushed for the league title that year.
Up to this point, Porto still comfortably led the Primeira Liga standings, but the gap with Benfica was not wide.
Starting with their youth teams, Benfica planned a series of actions to build momentum for their senior team.
Sometimes, this "momentum" could be the driving force behind the senior team’s miraculous comebacks.
Therefore, even the media believed that this U15 local derby would determine the fate of the season’s Primeira Liga champions!
It sounded very thrilling, but such a title was, in fact, an insult to Sporting Lisbon.
Because... no matter the outcome of the U15 match, whether Benfica’s senior team was encouraged or not, the Primeira Liga champions would not be Sporting Lisbon.
Of course, the media were aware that Sporting Lisbon was hurt by this, but there was no helping it—after all, their U15 team was in the same league as Benfica’s.
Porto’s U15 was in another district, so if they wanted to have a championship face-off with Benfica’s youth, they would have to wait until the inter-district matches.
And if they weren’t drawn together for the inter-district games, they would simply have to wait for the champions’ playoffs.
Moreover, this year’s U15 at Benfica had every reason to be proud.
In their youth ranks, many players had been promoted from younger age groups.
The players of this year’s U15 were normally born around 1983.
Like Deng Kai and Cristiano Ronaldo, both born in 1985, belonged to the extremely talented group of players who had been moved up an age division.
This year, Benfica had six players who, born in 1984 and 1985, had also moved up.
This showed that their team was full of young prodigies.
Among them, there were acquaintances of Deng Kai.
For instance, Joao Pereira, the right-back who had been his teammate during the Diamond Generation Invitational and with whom he had excellent synergy.
He was the right-back for Benfica U15.
Then there were Amorim and Miguel Veloso, the midfielder and center-back of the opposition team at the Diamond Generation Invitational. Both were in this squad and performing remarkably well.
