[Football] Bad Boy Batty

[Gooooo...No! Once again, we are just one step away from scoring a goal to expand the lead! It's strange, why do the boys of our national team seem a little depressed today? I have to suspect that it has something to do with our new interim coach. ]

【Zidane may be a good coach, but he is French and uses the European system. His football philosophy seems to be unable to integrate with our beautiful Brazilian football. In the first half, we only led 1-0 with the penalty kick created by Batistuta and scored by Neymar, and our opponent is Venezuela.】

[I can probably understand what Zidane means, but Brazil is not Manchester City. Putting Batistuta in the center position is not a good choice. You can't expect him to be both a center and a front midfielder without the strong midfield and backcourt support of Manchester City, not to mention that we have several good center forwards on the bench, such as Jesus and Richarlison. ]

[The only thing that comforts me is that even though the environment is bad, the relationship between our two core players, Neymar and Batistuta, is still as good as ever. Normally, Batistuta would take the penalty kick himself, but today, he gave the ball to Neymar, which also helped Neymar's total number of goals for the national team reach 77, tying Pele! ]

Although there is a boycott, considering the huge economic impact and losses it will cause to players who do not play in Europe, the America's Cup will be held as usual and all participating countries have not withdrawn.

On June 6, the opening match started, with the host Brazil team playing against Venezuela at home. To everyone's surprise, the Samba Army did not show the dominance they should have. Perhaps the wonderful games in the past few years have spoiled people's appetite, and a 14-1 penalty kick alone could not satisfy them.

Of course, this is inseparable from Zidane's deployment of troops.

Without considering the Brazilian team's previous lineup, the team directly reformed, causing most players to be unable to adapt. They played in a daze after coming on the pitch, with Batistuta being the worst hit.

Ever since his reputation as the King of Manchester City spread, the targeting of him on the field has gradually overwhelmed everyone else. The consequence of the switch to the center this time was particularly obvious. As long as he got the ball in the penalty area, Venezuelan players would rush up and use the most traditional human sea tactics to steal the ball.

Or like in the early 2000s, a few people blocked the referee's view, a few people kicked the players, and as for VAR, what that was, they didn't care.

"What a fucking ghost!"

In the 76th minute of the second half, when he was dribbling the ball and did not pose a direct threat to Venezuela's goal, the Venezuelan midfielder used a scissor kick defense against him.

This completely pissed off Batty.

He almost got into a fight with the opponent on the field. If Neymar and Vinicius hadn't stopped him in the end, he would probably have become the first player in the history of the Brazilian team in the America's Cup to be sent off with a red card.

With five minutes left, Zidane replaced Danilo with Mario.

"Kick it as hard as you can, you hear me." Batty crossed most of the field and hooked his neck to warn him harshly, "Potatoes can sprout one day, you keep it in your heart and we know nothing, shout it out, okay? We are a team, everyone can express their opinions, even on the field."

Mario nodded silently.

God.

Batty rolled his eyes and didn't even want to answer the boy.

He patted Mario's head as if he were patting his own wolfhound. "There are still a few minutes left in this game. You must shout out at least three sentences, otherwise I will ask you to do the hula dance in public when you go back, and I will record it and post it online. Do you understand?"

"I understand, I understand."

"Louder!" Batty pushed him. "With so many fans cheering for us, I can't hear you!"

Mario was trembling a little, as if he had made a great decision.

"understood!"

"Good, good, this is a great momentum!" Batty praised without reservation, "Two more words, keep it up!"

In order to teach the child well, he has been watching dog training videos these past two days. What is emphasized in every video is that when the dog executes the command, it must be praised so that he can remember that there will be rewards for doing the right thing.

For dogs, the greatest reward is treats.

What about Mario?

What does he like?
Batty spent two days contacting and observing many parties and finally figured out what the child liked. No wonder he didn't share it with his teammates. If he dared to publicly express that he liked origami, they would definitely laugh at him for being a little girl.

"Do a good job!" He gave Mario a determined look. "I'll help you fold origami when we get back. The rose is really difficult. I've been studying it for a long time but still can't figure out how to fold it. You have to help me."

Mario was so shocked that he was speechless.

"Barty! Come back soon!"

Neymar was calling him over there. Batistuta didn't say anything more. He smiled at Mario, gave him a thumbs up, and then ran back to the frontcourt.

"Can't you wait until it's over before talking to him?" Neymar complained when he looked at Batistuta who had returned.

"What, are you unhappy?" Batistuta didn't seem to take it seriously. As if to comfort him, he gave Neymar a quick hug, "Pay attention, pay attention, the ball is coming!"

In the final moments, Marquinhos received a pass from Batistuta and shot from long range, but unfortunately the ball went wide of the goal. Brazil got off to a good start with a 1-0 victory over Venezuela.

“We’re doing pretty good.”
"I see you're trying, keep going."
"You too."

When the referee blew the whistle to end the game, Batistuta took the initiative to find everyone and conveyed the signal of victory to them. He also fist-bumped with each of his teammates, and gave special praise to Mario, and even took him to be interviewed.

Neymar, who had just exchanged jerseys, glanced inadvertently towards the interview area, his eyes moving around Batistuta and his arm around Mario's shoulder.

"Let's go Ney!" Marchinhos called him, "We're planning on ordering takeout tonight, come and discuss what you want!"

Neymar retracted his somewhat dissatisfied look.

"coming."

……

[Bati, what do you think of this game? It's only 1-0, could you have won more?] Obviously, the reporter was directing the conflict to the head coach.

Batty didn't give him the chance.

"Isn't 1-0 a victory?" he asked with a smile, "How many wins do you think we should have won?"

【Uh——3 or 4? 】

"Don't be ridiculous. There is no predictable score for any game. The Venezuelan defenders will cry if you say that." Batistuta easily resolved the crisis. "They did a good job today and didn't give us too many chances. 1-0 is an acceptable score and we deserve this victory."

Seeing that being vague was not working, the reporter directly pointed out the problem.

[What do you think of Zidane? This is the first time that the Brazilian team has used a non-Brazilian coach. What has he brought to the team? ]

"He's good, we have no problem communicating, he's funny and he'll joke in the locker room." Batistuta talked about some innocuous situations, then he pulled Mario's arm and pulled him in front of the camera, "You should ask him this question, Zidane was once the coach of Real Madrid, and Mario was a Real Madrid youth player, he knows our coach better than I do."

Mario was stunned when he was suddenly blamed.

Batty was very satisfied and taught him how to answer the questions step by step. It was at this time that the benefits of his introverted personality came to light. The reporters could not get any useful (explosive) information from him.

[The last question is about the America's Cup. What made the Brazilian team change their mind and finally choose to participate? ]

"Haha, you finally asked a question that makes sense." Batistuta smiled and replied, "We all know that it is inappropriate to hold the America's Cup at this time. It has nothing to do with politics. We try our best to avoid linking football with other things. The Brazilian team has a common position. Please don't link us with false information."

【you mean--】

Batistuta: "We are professional football players and also workers. We have a necessary mission to fulfill for the five-time World Cup champions. We oppose the holding of the America's Cup, but we never say 'no' to the Brazilian national team."

Mario next to him glanced at him secretly.

At this moment, he suddenly had a completely new understanding of Batty.

……

When Batistuta brought Mario back to the locker room, the others were still deciding what to eat for dinner that night.

"Come on!" Neymar stepped out of the crowd and waved, "There's a new restaurant near the base, serving Indian food, do you want to try it?"

"Order whatever you want!" Batty returned to his seat to change his clothes. "I only want pizza. I must have pizza! Double cheese, no fish, and I don't want anything else!"

"Can you be a little more ambitious?"

"What's wrong with pizza!" Batty picked up the towel next to him and threw it over. "Is Indian food so demanding? If you have diarrhea tomorrow after eating it, don't blame me for not warning you!"

"Our Indian food here doesn't contain Ganges water, so what's there to be afraid of?"

"Then do whatever you want, just don't include me." After giving the other party two middle fingers, Batistuta took out his mobile phone from the cabinet and unmuted it. As soon as he opened it, countless messages popped up, the most conspicuous of which was from Stones.

While the America's Cup is in full swing, the European Cup is also being held on the other side of the European continent. The time interval is not long, and the first group stage matches are held in these two days.

Batty flipped through the private messages from several of his England teammates.

A few hours ago, England beat their bitter rival Croatia 2-0, with Sterling and Lingard scoring and Stones making a brilliant goal-line save.

[Look! We are not far from becoming the European Champion! ]

Stones sent him a high-five selfie, a photo of him and Walker, and a short clip of the victory celebration in the England locker room, with Foden and others in the picture.

Batty quickly responded with a cheer and a few emoticons.

Then he thought, now that the match with England is over, what about Belgium?

After checking the private messages Batistuta found that neither of the two Belgians had sent him a message, and the news showed that Belgium had easily won 3-0 in their first match against Russia.

This is a bit strange.

Batistuta took a screenshot and took two selfies and sent them to De Bruyne: Congratulations on the big win. Belgium is one step closer to the top of Europe. By the way, we also won (fireworks) (kiss) (kiss)
As for Courtois.

A week after the end of the Champions League, the Belgian goalkeeper released Batistuta from the blacklist, and even posted a meme and ordered local roses from Manchester to apologize. Unfortunately, Batistuta was too busy at the time to take care of him, and now he completely forgot about the previous experience of being blacklisted and copied and pasted the message and sent it to him.

So 3 minutes later——

De Bruyne: I wasn't your first choice, was I?
De Bruyne: Who else did you send this to?
Courtois: Hey! I saw your message to Kevin (kiss) (kiss)
Courtois: (nice.jpg)
Courtois: I like the way you play
Courtois: Oops, he seems to have seen mine too

……

Looking at the different tones on both sides of the phone, Batty thought for a moment, then firmly and resolutely turned off the screen and turned on the mute button again.

If you can’t answer, don’t answer.

Batty believes they will understand his approach.

(End of this chapter)