[Football] Bad Boy Batty

On the night of the match, 13 minutes before 11, in Paqueta's room in the hotel where the Brazilian team was staying, most of the team's players were crowded in. The owner of the room was surrounded in the middle, like a criticism meeting, and there was a tablet on the ground with a long list of related news displayed on the notification bar.

[Brazil beat Switzerland 3-0. The captain fainted after the game due to a family accident and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance]
[Update: Brazilian captain woke up and jumped out of the car while being sent to the hospital, causing traffic chaos]
[Qatar local police dispatched, officials said they understood Batistuta's feelings and would not prosecute him]
[2.5 hours after the game, the Brazilian team finally returned to the hotel. The angry captain kicked over the hotel potted plants to vent his anger]

"Look at what you did." Richarlison pushed Paqueta's head lightly. "I thought you were aiming at this side to throw the drink. It turns out it was for this."

"No, no!" Paqueta waved his hands repeatedly. He was about to stand up to explain himself, but when he saw the new message on the tablet, he was instantly deflated. "I didn't know what was on it... I thought they wanted to play a prank on Batistuta, and when he clicked on it, a ghost face would suddenly pop up to scare him."

"So you deliberately covered the drink with the tablet and put it in his backpack?" Casemiro shook his head helplessly. "This is too - I don't know how to comment on it."

"This is too stupid." Vinicius took over and criticized, "From the idea to the practice, it's stupid. I have never seen Batistuta so flustered, and I dare say no one here has seen it."

"I didn't know this would happen!" Paqueta was going crazy, and his annoyance almost overwhelmed him. If he knew they were talking about this news, he would never show it to Batistuta. "This is so rare, I didn't think it was a prank!"

"Didn't think of it?" Richarlison glared at him. "I don't think you even thought of it!"

What he said was true, Paqueta really didn't think too much about it, and this incident was really rare. Who would have thought that such a thing would happen before the news report.

There was an eerie silence in the room.

No one knows what will happen next. They only know that in three days it will be the last round of the group stage, and in three days after that it will be the round of 3.

'click--'

With the sound of a mechanical lock, the door opened and Neymar, looking worried, walked in.

"How is it?" Casemiro asked, "Is Batistuta better?"

Neymar pursed his lips and said a little dryly: "If it was physical (the scratch when jumping out of the car), I think he is better, but psychologically... he just kicked me out of the room."

"I saw he made a phone call all the way. Did he get through?" Richarlison asked anxiously. "He knows so many people. He must know the situation."

Neymar shook his head.

"The signal tower in Rio was blown up, so no one can get through to the phone," he said. "His godfather should have arrived, so he can't be contacted either."

"What about the people around his godfather?" Edson asked, "For example, the man who works as a part-time agent and lawyer, I think his name is Lucy, right?"

Neymar still shook his head: "I have called everyone, but none of the people around his godfather could get through. I just heard him even call Tom Cruise, who was still filming there. I heard the sound of brakes and collisions, probably filming Mission Impossible."

The room fell silent again.

It's really terrible to be trapped in an isolated island and have no idea what is going on. It's hard to imagine how sad Batistuta is going through now.

"Is there anything we can do for him?" Marchinhos asked.

"Maybe I could try to comfort him, but I just failed." Neymar was tired of shaking his head and he let out a long sigh: "Zidane was about to see him when I left. To be honest, I hope he can do something."

……

If Neymar can't calm Batistuta down, what can Zidane do?

He couldn't even open the door and could only knock and shout in the corridor.

"We are in Qatar and they are in Brazil and there is nothing you can do except get mad and make yourself miserable. Stop hurting yourself Batistuta, open the door and let's see what we can do. Locking yourself in the room won't help," Zidane said.

"Give me a few more minutes!!!" Batistuta's voice was trembling, and he was already very hoarse. "I won't leave, I won't leave the World Cup, this is the moment we have been dreaming of, but please, I must - let me hear their voice, you son of a bitch phone! Put it through to me!!!"

Zidane was helpless.

If the human brain can be described as a piece of uncooked instant noodles, then Batti's instant noodles are in a chaotic state after being soaked, boiled, stir-fried, deep-fried, and finally chopped.

It sounds bad, right? And it is bad.

When Batty heard that the bloodhound had an accident, he didn't believe it.

Who was his godfather, Delain? He was a legend who had ruled the slums for nearly 40 years. How could he be ambushed by mistake during a transaction? Even if there was a traitor around him, would he not notice it? And the butcher, he was not just a guy with muscles and ruthlessness, dead? This sounds as ridiculous as killing a cockroach with a leaf.

It is said that human emotions can be divided into several stages.

After the doubt, Batty entered the stage of admission and assumption, which is where he went crazy.

If this was true, if the butcher was really dead, if the bloodhound was really in dire straits, and if his godfather Edmundo had also rushed to such a dangerous place, then they might really die, all of them, without even a complete body left, and they would completely disappear from the world in just a few days.

That won't work.

That's not okay.

Those people are almost everything in his life, Batty thought. Sometimes things always go the other way, which is very funny. He thought he hated Bloodhound, the group, and living in the Rocinha slums, but now he found that he couldn't live without them.

Those people and events made him who he was, and were the most important part of his being. If they died and disappeared, a part of him would be erased forever.

……

When Neymar and others came to Batistuta's room, they could no longer hear the cursing and screaming. Zidane was still standing outside the door. He had just answered a phone call and looked quite troubled.

"Thank God!" The head coach waved his hands. "I can't go on, I have to - you talk to him, make sure he opens the door. If he continues like this, I would rather he quit now." Neymar nodded to show that he understood.

He knew they had to get Batty back on his feet, but honestly, he had no idea how.

Zidane left while making a phone call. Neymar turned to the players and was about to discuss a solution, such as asking the front desk for a spare key to force the door open and get Batistuta out, when he heard a "ah" from inside the room.

Then there was a series of clanging sounds, which continued from inside all the way to the door. The players in the corridor could almost imagine how their captain ran out in panic.

‘Click! ’

With the sound of the door unlocking, Batty rushed out yelling.

"It's working! Help me listen, help me listen!" He trembled as he handed the phone to Neymar, and he was so nervous that he bit his fingers, "I can't... I can't hold it!"

"Don't worry, Batistuta, don't worry." Neymar glanced at the name on the screen. It was a call to Godfather Batistuta, and it was indeed connected, so he immediately turned on the speaker function and turned up the volume to the maximum. "Mr. Edmundo, this is--"

"Dudu! It's me! Where are you! What's the situation! Where's Delain! Are you all okay!!" Batty completely interrupted him and yelled into the phone.

Neymar glanced at the people around him, they didn't have any idea either. Casemiro signaled him not to stop Batistuta, after all, this was a call between him and his godfather.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the phone.

After 5 or 6 anxious seconds, a few intermittent human voices mixed with electromagnetic interference came from the loudspeaker.

"...We still...Bati...don't...anything...God...play well...we..."

Soon the call was cut off again, leaving only a few incomplete phrases.

Neymar looked at Batistuta who was in a daze and asked carefully: "Is it... is it him?"

Batty nodded imperceptibly, then slowly, slowly knelt down on the carpet in the middle of the corridor, as if this brief conversation had sucked away his soul.

After more than ten seconds, he started crying.

The Brazilian players had never seen such a scene before. Some of them might have imagined their captain crying, but most of them were crying with strong emotions, such as crying with joy, with red eyes and a smile on the mouth, or crying in pain with bitterness all over the body.

But they had never imagined it would be like this.

Like a lifeless doll or a bionic man, he had no emotions. Tears would just mechanically flow from his eyes, and he would not reach out to wipe them away. The tears on his face were like two streams, which finally dripped onto his body and the carpet and disappeared.

"It's okay, it's okay." Neymar squatted down and wiped away Batistuta's tears, then gave him a hug and patted his back gently, "They are still alive, they will be fine, they will be fine."

Then everyone hugged him.

If this scene could have been captured by a camera, it would have definitely been the most tear-jerking scene in the first half of the documentary that eventually became a masterpiece.

……

On the training ground the next day, Batistuta attended training as usual. He was in much better condition, but there was still some weirdness in him.

First of all, he performed properly in any training process, neither outstanding nor lagging behind, as if he was completing the task solely by muscle memory.
Secondly, he turned into a robot that only knew how to smile. He no longer cared about his teammates' mistakes as much as before, and his attitude became as gentle as a fake person.
In the end, he no longer cared about anything except the Brazilian team, such as the French team breaking away from the defending champion curse and winning three games, and the Belgian team had serious internal strife and was eliminated in the group stage like Germany.

"I want the previous captain to come back." Paqueta said softly while stepping on the ball with his head down. "I just lost my position and rushed forward without paying attention to defense, but he just smiled at me and told me to pay attention next time."

A normal Batistuta would probably call a halt to the group stage in anger, then point at his nose and scold him for having his brains hanging on his feet, and if he continued to attack like a mindless bulldozer, he would tell the coach to put him on the bench.

"Who isn't?" Marquinhos next to him agreed. "Just now I saw Ederson tell him that Belgium is out and he won't be able to see his good friend De Bruyne in the future. Guess what Batistuta said? He smiled and said it was a pity. He knew it."

"I don't think that's a big deal. In the group stage just now, the pigeon deliberately shot the wrong goal so that Barty would have the opportunity to scold him, but Barty didn't notice it at all and praised him for shooting well and told him to keep it up next time," Rafinha said. "That's really creepy."

"I saw it, too." Casemiro dribbled the ball a few times. "I also saw Neymar go to him, and he just grabbed Neymar's collar and kissed him. Everyone was stunned at the time."

"Yeah, once a person's mental state is disturbed, they can do anything." Militao shook his head and said, "I ran into Batty in the restaurant this morning and he drank the whole bottle of vegetable juice prepared by Loach without changing his expression. Normally, he would scream for a long time if he touched a drop of that thing."

"So..." Renan Lodi took over the conversation, dragging out the last word and looking at Batistuta at the other end of the training ground, "How long do you think it will take for our captain to come back?"

That's a good question, but unfortunately no one knows the answer.

Over there, Neymar was helping his captain, who had become a dough that could be kneaded by anyone since last night, to tidy up his training suit that was almost rolled up to his chest and his socks that were one long and one broken. He was also thinking about this problem.

"If your godfather and Bloodhound can confirm that it is safe, will you come back?" He looked up and looked into the blue eyes that had lost their luster and asked.

"But I'm right in front of you, dear." Batistuta lowered his head and rubbed Neymar's nose with his nose. His godfather's last words were to let him play well, so he played well. "Have you forgotten that we have to win the sixth star this year!"

Damn it, in your current form, it will be a miracle if you can make it to the semifinals this year.

Neymar took a deep breath.

There was nothing he could do about the safety of Batistuta's family except praying, and beyond that, in order to get his captain back to normal, he thought he needed to ask for some foreign help.

(End of this chapter)