[Football] Bad Boy Batty

The next morning, although Guardiola notified all players to stay at home and rest, and postponed the meeting and review to the afternoon, Batistuta still got up early and went to the club.

Because Aguero didn't call him.

A few hours ago, Messi added Neymar and Batistuta as Snapchat friends, and he sent him a lot of photos. At the same time, the Barca king told him not to worry, as Aguero's test results would take some time to come out.

This didn't sound true, so Batistuta decided to ask someone who knew the truth, such as the head coach and his team.

When Batistuta knocked on the door, the head coach's office was crowded with people. In addition to the coaching team, there were also club executives, the chairman, the chief operating officer and lawyers. This gave Batistuta an even worse feeling.

"You are talking about Aguero, right?" Batistuta stopped Guardiola from asking. He was not shy at all. "I want to know how he is doing now."

The head coach pinched his temple with a headache, and after whispering something to Arteta, he motioned for others to wait for him in the conference room as he wanted to talk to Batistuta alone.

The door closed and they were the only two people in the office.

"How is Kun?" Batty asked. "Is the injury serious?"

Guardiola didn't say anything at first. He rubbed his head with his palms for a long time, as if he could come up with a perfect answer in this way. Of course, he failed.

"I won't lie to you, Batistuta, his calf injury is very bad." The head coach sat on the table, he untied his tie, and then smiled bitterly at Batistuta, "I just got the news from Barcelona this morning that he will be out for at least 6-8 weeks."

"6-8 weeks!" Batty's eyes widened. "Why does it take so long?"

"It's a muscle strain, a serious muscle strain." Guardiola explained patiently that sincerity is the key to communicating with Batistuta. "It's exactly the same as in 2014. He even needs help to walk now. We have to find a caregiver for him..."

Hearing this, Batty took a deep breath.

"Messi is with him," he said.

Guardiola gave him a surprised look: "How do you know?"

"He sent me photos this morning and told me that everything was fine with Akun." Batistuta threw the phone to Guardiola. "He lied to me, I knew it."

Guardiola quickly read through the chat log between him and Messi. "He doesn't want you to worry," the coach said. "I guess this was Aguero's idea too."

"It's like if you don't tell me I won't worry about it, which is what parents who are about to divorce think, but guess what, their children know it all," Batty said sarcastically, then he shook his fist and said, "What the hell."

Guardiola thought so too. Nothing could be more weird than this.

But things have already happened, and all they can do is try their best to remedy the situation.

Guardiola got down from the table, walked to the tactical board and drew a formation diagram with a pen. "Come here, Batistuta, since you are here now, I will discuss the positioning with you," he said.

Discuss? With him?
The coach's words drew Batty's attention.

"Excuse me, Pep, but I know nothing about football tactics." Batistuta crossed his arms. "I can score goals, make assists, and maybe encourage my teammates, but when it comes to directing the team, there is no one in the entire club who is better than you."

"Thank you, but on some issues, I think it's better to ask for your opinion." Guardiola smiled and raised his hand to signal Batistuta to look at the tactical board. "Now we don't have a center forward, which means the burden on your shoulders is heavier. You have to get closer to the center."

Batistuta understood what Guardiola meant. He wanted him to become more of an organizer, that is, the No. 10 position.

"You have Kevin De Bruyne who can do that," he said. "I prefer dribbling, passing and shooting to passing."

Guardiola shook his head.

"Kevin can't be too close to the goal, he needs to be in the middle, and when necessary he has to play the role of a deep midfielder." He said, "What you have to do is cooperate with him and sort out the relationship between the midfield and the frontcourt, similar to Messi's position in Barcelona last season."

"You want me to imitate Messi?" Batistuta's tone became dangerous.

"No, Messi is Messi and you are you. I mean refer to the role he plays in the Barcelona lineup." Guardiola was helpless. He stroked his hair several times in a row, as if there was really something on his head. "Maybe I expressed it wrong, Batistuta, I never thought of asking you to imitate Messi's play."

Batistuta raised his chin; he was still angry with Messi.

"There is another way," the head coach changed the subject, "We can give you the entire wing, from our goal area to theirs, referring to Bayern's two-wing flying tactics."

"But we don't have a real center forward, and there is no one to rush in when we cross the ball from the bottom," said Batistuta.

"This is the final step of the method I mentioned - transforming Jesus into a center forward." Guardiola lightly dropped a bomb, "He has a good physique, can handle the ball, can retreat and play to the side, and more importantly, he was your former teammate in the Olympic team, you are very familiar with him."

Batty wanted to refute him, but he swallowed the words back. "You are the head coach, I listen to you," he said.

"So," Guardiola said in a long voice, "Which do you prefer, the No. 10 position or the wing?"

Batty stared at the tactical board for a long time, which seemed like a century. He bit his lower lip and said, "Maybe I can try both."

Where he couldn't see, Guardiola curled up the corners of his mouth into a smile, as if he had expected him to say that.

"Very good, Barty, let's try it together."

……

The afternoon review and meeting were basically what Guardiola and Batistuta said. At the end, everyone looked unhappy. De Bruyne invited Batistuta to his house, but Batistuta refused. He doesn't want to talk to anyone now.

Well, not all of them.

"Don't you guys at Barcelona usually have training?"

Batistuta was lying on the sofa and talking. He was holding the handle and controlling the pixelated man on the screen to chop down trees. There was no CSGO, which Neymar liked, on PS4, so they chose the most relaxing one from a bunch of mini-games, Minecraft, which was recently made popular by Pewdiepie.

"Are you trying to drive me away?" Neymar almost sang, and he made exaggerated crying movements, "I just helped you build the sheepfold."

"No need." Batistuta yawned and said, "Why, have you been suspended for accumulating yellow cards? But I remember that you would only use this for your sister's birthday."

Yes, it was before, Neymar thought, but not now.

But before he could say anything, Batty threw the controller to him and rolled over into the corner.

"I'll take a nap."

Neymar took the handle in a hurry, but still failed to save the character who fell into the lava. He exhaled and shook his head at the back on the sofa.

The little bastard didn't care again.

But what could he do?

Who made him...

Neymar played with his resurrected character for a while, but it was too boring, so he saved the game and exited it, then planned to take Batistuta back to the bed in the room so that he could have a good sleep.

Of course, he had no other thoughts.

No.

But just as he was thinking about how to pick up the person without alerting him, Batistuta's phone screen lit up and someone sent him a private message on IG.

After hesitating for a moment, Neymar took out Batistuta's phone, entered the password to unlock it, and then clicked on it.

It was an account with a pure black avatar, and the private message contained a news link. He clicked on it out of curiosity and found that it was a news report just released by Sky Sports. Manchester United U20 had just defeated Everton U7 by 20 goals, and a guy named Augustus scored goals.

Neymar scrolled down and soon saw the picture of Augustus.

Isn't this the red-haired guy who competed with Batty at the Christmas party?

Neymar narrowed his eyes, and just as he was about to search for the guy's identity, more private messages came.

The guy with the pure black avatar sent many messages in a row, but they were all in French. Neymar couldn't understand a single word - but he could understand emoticons. The guy actually sent Batistuta a long string of eggplants and water drops!

How dare he!

Neymar gnashed his back teeth until they creaked, then he ran to the corridor and called his sister.

"Hey Rafina, I remember you had a lot of IG accounts right... Oh 11, that's perfect! Lend them to me, I'm going to go curse."

(End of this chapter)