[Football] Bad Boy Batty

Two hours had passed since the end of the game, and Guardiola led the team back to Etihad. Instead of blaming Batistuta, he took the lead in comforting his captain after talking about the existing tactical problems.

"Listen, it's not your fault that we lost today. The main reason we lost points is me. Mourinho knows me and my tactics too well. I have to come up with a better way," he said.

"It's my fault." Batty was very frustrated. He sat in front of his locker, his elbows propped up on his knees, lowered his head and imagined the bandages on the ground in front of him were being ravaged by the enemy. "If it happened again, I would rather fight with that guy before the game and get both sent off, so that I wouldn't drag the team down."

"No, that would be worse." Guardiola said firmly. He walked up to Batistuta and rubbed his depressed light-colored head. "I was a player too. I know what it feels like to have a jerk who keeps saying rubbish in the opponent's team. No one requires you to endure it. This is his fault. The FA should introduce regulations to limit this kind of sexual harassment on the court."

But no matter what he said, Batty didn't listen at all. He still kept his head down, every strand of his hair looked listless, and he was just angry and annoyed.

Guardiola had no choice but to look up to the locker room for help.

'Any good suggestions, guys?' he mouthed slowly.

'Party!' The loach at the door came up with an idea, 'Bati's 21st birthday party!'

After his reminder, other people in the locker room suddenly realized it, and most of them nodded to the head coach to indicate that this was a great solution.

'Oh my god.' Guardiola made an incredulous expression. 'There are nearly 30 people here who have lived for a millennium together, and the best you can do is to party!'

'That's Batistuta, he likes this.' Neymar shrugged at him, 'Party, or you invite his godfather over now, otherwise there is no other way.'

Guardiola rubbed his beard helplessly. What Neymar said was right. Unless he could conjure up the great director like a magician, he could only use music and alcohol to make his captain recover quickly.

Of course this is not absolute, there are other ways, but no matter whether those methods are healthier and more natural, they are definitely not as fast as this one.

After half a minute of careful consideration, the Catalans chose to compromise.

'Okay, party.' He said to the locker room, 'Go to Batistuta's 21st birthday party tonight, and delay the recovery training tomorrow afternoon to 4 o'clock.'

"Yeah!!!"

Everyone cheered silently.

"Bati, Batistuta, look up." Guardiola reached out and patted his captain's furry head again. "Don't think about the game anymore, it's already in the past tense. Look forward. Come on, you still have a party scene to prepare."

"——Don't mess with me. I know you mean well, Pep, but my fault is mine. I never evade it." Batistuta slapped the hand on his head. "It's unrealistic to ask the FA to restrict that guy. I can only——wait, what did you say?"

The Manchester City king raised his head and looked at the head coach in shock: "Party? Did I hear it wrong, Pep?"

"You heard me right." Guardiola smiled at him lovingly, "I did say party."

"So—you're OK with me having the party?"

"Correct."

"What about the bar all night?"

"I don't approve, but you are allowed to do that tonight."

"W-oh, are you turning into a fairy godmother today, Pep?"

"perhaps."

"--I can't believe it." Batty whistled and jumped up, but just as the flame of joy was about to ignite and spread to the entire locker room, it stopped abruptly.

"Thank you, Pep, but no," Batistuta said, his voice cooling.

"Why not?" Guardiola asked.

"We lost the game today," Batistuta said, looking up at his coach. He then added, "And it was because of me."

"No, how many times do I have to tell you to let you off? The game is over. No matter how many times you say it's your fault, the result won't change." Guardiola leaned over and hooked his arm around Batistuta's neck, kissing Batistuta's hair with his mouth while harshly teaching him a lesson. "Hurry up, everyone here is waiting to go to your house to party! You're 21 today!"

The King of Manchester City was grabbed by the head coach, but still seemed unable to let go. He stood there like a wet animal that was sulking and refused to step into the house.

"I've never heard of anyone having a party after losing a game." Batty crossed his arms and muttered.

"There will be many games. If we are lucky, we can face Manchester United this season. If not, we will have to wait until next season. But no matter what, you are a professional player and there are hundreds or thousands of games waiting for you in the future!" Guardiola pinched his chin and shook it back and forth, as if to shake his brain apart. "But Batistuta, there are many games. Your 21st birthday is only this day."

The head coach looked at his captain seriously and said, "I'm going to ask you one last time, will you come to the birthday party tonight?"

Everyone looked at them as nervously as if they were watching the elimination round of a talent show.

Batty took a deep breath.

"Come on!" he said, jumping on Guardiola. "Oooookay! Let's go crazy! Spend the last few hours of my 20 years soaked in beats and alcohol!"

……

Batistuta's birthday party was even more lively than expected. With Guardiola's permission today, he called all his celebrity friends in Manchester to attend, including Hollywood actors, members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, famous DJs, as well as fashion designers and models.

"Drink! Drink! Drink!"

With the crowd's encouragement, Kyle Walker defeated Ederson in drinking and successfully broke his record for the shortest time to drink a dozen whiskeys (shot glasses). In the end, he teamed up with the Manchester City goalkeeper to pick up the person who laughed the loudest next to him like a suckling pig and then threw him into the swimming pool.

"Hey!" Seat B wiped his face and got out of the water, "Why is it always me who gets unlucky?"

"Because you always ask for it, Bernardo!" Lucas laughed at him beside the swimming pool, then he grabbed a bottle of sparkling wine and said, "How about we have a competition?"

Before Seat B, who was soaking in the water, could say anything, the others had already started to make a noise, some whistled, some screamed.

"Bi! Bi! Bi!"

"You guys--" The Portuguese was used to being bullied, but that didn't mean he wouldn't play a prank in return. He swung his arms and splashed water at the crowd above, "Taste this!"

[Crash!]
Everyone near the swimming pool suffered.

"Jesus Christ!"
"Who! Who did this! My phone fell into the wine glass!"
"I just changed my clothes!"

"Hahahaha!" Seat B laughed. "Great, now when your brains are taken out and squeezed dry, there won't just be alcohol in there, there'll be a lot of water too!"

But what he didn't expect was.

Batistuta, who was not participating in the drinking contest not far away, was also affected. He was originally talking to Neymar about music, and he wanted to continue playing popular Spanish music, but Neymar's friend, a guy named Chris Goodes, also came. He said he was a professional DJ, and was well-known in Rio and Paris.

But before Batistuta could continue asking questions and ask Neymar to introduce them to each other, the "waves" hit and wet his entire back.

"Bernardo!!!" "Oh, no no, this was an accident Barty, I didn't mean to - ahhh!" Sean B in the middle of the swimming pool waved his hands and apologized, but it was too late. He could only watch the annoyed Barty walk towards the swimming pool step by step, take off his coat, and then jump in to grab him and teach him a lesson.

"Wrong, wrong!" The Portuguese midfielder tried to swim to the nearest swimming pool. "Please spare me, my dearest king. I won't dare to do it again... Gurgle Gurgle."

Poor B席 was caught before he could finish his words, but it was not Batistuta who was caught. At the moment Batistuta went into the water, Walker and Ederson, who were not afraid of trouble, also went down. Walker swam fast and directly grabbed B席's ankle and dragged him back.

"Hey! Watch his head! Don't hit it!" Aguero warned loudly.

"Get him up!" Neymar also rushed to the side of the swimming pool, "Bati, Batistuta! This is an indoor swimming pool, the water is warm, come up, it's really boring in there!"

Ederson held B's arm and paused.

"That makes sense." He said, "Shall we go up then?"

"I don't care whether I'm in the water or on top of it." Walker tapped B's forehead with the leg of his sunglasses. "Who did you just say has alcohol on his mind?"

"No one, oh, no, who admitted it?" Unexpectedly, the Portuguese midfielder would not give in even at this point. He grinned at Walker with his big teeth bared.

"Okay." Walker glared at him. "That's what you said - Batty, go up?"

"Go up!" Batty twisted his thoroughly soaked sleeve and hit B席 on the nose with it. "Our Bernardo has never seen what real bullying is. As teammates, we have to help him. Honey, today we will let you see what 'intra-team bullying' is!"

"Ohhhhhh!"
"Fight!"
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

……

The party was quite successful and lasted until 4 or 5 in the morning. The second group of people couldn't hold on any longer and went home or fell asleep. Only a few people from the Manchester City team were still having fun.

"I still think this is not a good idea." Qiao Lin said to Niu Qiu while holding a half-full bottle of Coke on the sofa. "The number of infections in the UK is skyrocketing. It exceeded 100 million last week. Are you holding a party at this time?"

"Relax, nothing will happen." Loach was a little drunk. He leaned back on the sofa and shrugged confidently, "All the people here are trustworthy friends. There is no risk of infection."

"Tsk, you foreigners only know how to say nice things--"

"And didn't you just use that little temperature gun of yours to test everywhere?" Loach interrupted her, "Did anyone's temperature exceed 36.5? No, so is there a problem? No."

Jolene rolled her eyes.

"It doesn't mean you're safe if you don't have a fever. This damn virus has an incubation period, and everyone here could be a carrier." She snorted and said, "Also, many countries have already announced lockdowns. If you're having a party now, what if the British government suddenly announces a lockdown as well?"

"You're too nervous, Qiaolin." Loach obviously didn't believe it. He shook his head and straightened up, pretending to be preaching. "The number of infections here is not as high as you said. There are more than 100 million in the UK, but Manchester--"

[Ding--]
Just then, his cell phone rang.

"Hmm? Weird." Loach swallowed the rest of the sentence and took out his phone with a frown. "It's for emergency contact. I haven't used it in years."

Qiaolin was intrigued by his reaction.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Uh, it's Lucy, Godfather Batty's legal advisor." After seeing the sender, Loach seemed even more confused, "How did he know this number?"

"What did he say?" Qiao Lin asked again.

"He asked me to watch the news, so let's watch it now." Niu Qiu stood up with the help of the sofa. With the help of Qiao Lin, he found the remote control and turned on the TV on the wall.

And the moment the news footage appeared, he was dumbfounded.

……

Over there, Batistuta finally finished teaching B Silva a lesson. He took off his wet clothes, turned up the indoor heating, and returned to Neymar and his friends.

"Sorry, something delayed me." He put on his charming smile again, "Let me introduce your friend, Ney."

"Chris, this is Batistuta; Batistuta, this is Chris, an Afro-Brazilian." Neymar stood nearby and acted as a middleman. "Chris and I met in Paris. Now we are both shareholders of the Black Panther Club (cs:go). He is a very good DJ."

"Nice to meet you." Batty took the initiative to extend his hand.

Chris Goodes has a very friendly face, and is dressed in a trendy but calm manner. One can tell at first glance that he is a very straight-forward guy.

"So Chris, this is Buddy, my-"

"I know! Which Brazilian doesn't know Batistuta!" Chris interrupted Neymar's introduction. He shook hands with Batistuta enthusiastically, and then pulled Batistuta over to hug him. "Okay, I don't think we need those polite words. What kind do you like? I'm pretty good at DJing. I can do anything you can think of!"

"Let me think about it." Batty cracked his knuckles. "Parado no bailao, you know, Menozin's new song, maybe—"

The sudden appearance of Loach interrupted his words.

"Badi, something bad has happened! Something big has happened, a big thing!"

Batistuta turned his head and saw Loach crawling towards him. To be honest, he was almost immune to it. Every time something happened, this little brother would make a fuss, like the last time Real Madrid was reversed by Ajax.

"Why? Which team lost by a big margin again this time?" he joked.

Loach supported himself on his knees and gasped for breath, and at the same time hurriedly waved his hand to signal Batty to look in the direction he came from. Then he handed Batty a - uh, a remote control?

Batty looked around with the remote control for a few times but found nothing.

"What happened?"

"Go watch the news yourself." Qiao Lin also came over at this time. She patted Niu Qiu on the back with an expression of 'I told you a long time ago but you didn't believe me' on her face, and said, "Look, over there, it's already opened."

Batty looked at the wall-mounted TV over there with some doubt, and saw the face of the current British Prime Minister Johnson at first glance.

He paused the DJ and turned up the volume with the remote control.

[Any responsible prime minister will not ignore the recent epidemic data. Unless we take action and really start to control it, there will be thousands of deaths in this country every day.] Johnson said seriously, [After the parliament reviewed and approved the "lockdown" plan, I hereby announce that from March 3, in order to prevent the further spread of the virus, people are prohibited from going out unless necessary, schools and most shops will be closed, all activities and competitions will be suspended, and the UK will enter a home quarantine phase, which is tentatively set for 18 months.]

Batty: ...
Batty: Huh???

He was as dumbfounded as the loach just now.

Close, close the city?
(End of this chapter)