[Football] Bad Boy Batty

4-0, how could the result be like this?

Manchester City players just couldn't figure out, is the current Barcelona not the same team as the one they played against in the group stage a few months ago?
On the way back to the hotel, Batistuta used his mobile phone to find the highlights of the game on YouTube. Soon many teammates gathered around him. They carefully watched the actions of everyone on the field, trying to find out the reason why Barcelona lost by a large margin.

"Oh, Umtiti must be blamed for this. What kind of kick was this? It was outrageous." Sterling pointed to a clip in the middle of the game where Barcelona defender Umtiti played with fire in the backcourt and said, "He didn't play in the last two games. With the defensive ability in front of him, I could have made a sieve out of him, not to mention Batistuta."

"You can't say that. The whole team lost the ball. Why do you keep throwing it to the defenders?" Fernandinho, also a defender, spoke up for Umtiti. "The biggest blame should go to the front. Who said before that Barcelona has MSN and the coach can win by just putting in a few dogs?"

"I didn't say that. You think that yourself." Sterling retorted, "Paris's attack is too strong. Barcelona's defenders must not be able to run well. Look, do you dare to say that the first goal was not Umtiti's fault?"

"That was a free kick from Di Maria."

"Who caused the free kick again?" Sterling argued with Fernandinho. He pulled Batistuta's sleeve and said, "Bati, what do you think?"

Batistuta had no intention of arguing with them whether it was the striker's or the defender's fault. He also didn't know whether the person who made the highlights did it on purpose or not, and deliberately cut in the clip of Neymar walking back to the locker room with a sour face after the loss.

"Hey, tell me." Sterling pulled his sleeve again and waved his hand in front of his eyes, "Why are you as stunned as Pep?"

What's there to say about this tactical issue?

Batistuta waved his hands like he was shooing away a fly, and once again made an unsparing comment: "They all played like shit. It was wrong from the beginning. The engineer-type player didn't play before, and there weren't enough people in the midfield, so Messi had to go back to play in the midfield. He was fully responsible for the second goal. Neymar was surrounded as soon as he got the ball, and Suarez was invisible throughout the game."

Jesus turned his head from the front seat and leaned on the back of the chair: ...They were all kicked like shit, have I heard this somewhere before.

"Paris surrounded Busquets, which blocked Barcelona's ball. The distance between the front, middle and back lines widened. Paris passed the ball quickly and easily to the middle line, and then played in front of Umtiti, which was wide enough to grow corn." Batistuta added, "Then Barcelona wanted to use offensive pressure to create a crisis for Paris, but the back line went up and Paris' counterattack found the right position - this problem is exactly the same as ours."

Yes, that was his point.

Do you remember the problems Manchester City exposed in the previous games against Tottenham, Chelsea, and even Liverpool? The defense gave away opportunities, there was no connection in the middle, and the front team was targeted when they had the ball. This game was really a perfect example.

"Bati is right. This game also reflects a lot of our problems." Guardiola clapped his hands and walked over. "When we go back, we will focus on reviewing Barcelona's problems in this game, and then improve our strength on this basis. But now, my boys, enjoy the victory you brought to us first."

The players who had gathered gradually dispersed. Guardiola ruffled Batistuta's hair, smiled again, and returned to the front seat. Batistuta curled his lips, said nothing, took out his headphones and prepared to sleep through the rest of the journey.

At this moment, Jesus in front turned his head back again.

"Hey, Batistuta." He lowered his voice, "Neymar posted on Instagram, look—"

He held the phone in front of Batistuta, which showed Neymar's homepage, where he had just sent a plain text message in response three minutes ago. Batistuta didn't read it carefully, but the general content was that the knockout round was not over yet and they could still turn the tables.

Can we turn the tables after losing 0-4?
Batty's mouth curled up in a sarcastic arc. It can't be said that it is completely impossible, but it's just - it's difficult.

Paris has a 4-goal advantage, and Barcelona must score at least 4 goals to drag the game into overtime when they return to their home court. However, Paris has strong impact and Thiago Silva is not on the field, which completely blocks them from any chance of scoring away goals, making it even more difficult.

In the Champions League knockout rounds, if you don't score away goals when you play away first and then at home, you have half the chance of advancing. For example, in today's game, Manchester City scored 5 away goals and had a 3-goal difference. In the second round, unless Dortmund can also beat Paris 4-0, Manchester City can basically secure a place in the quarterfinals.

"So, why don't you give him a call or send him a message to comfort him?" Jesus said, "I just saw the news in the group. Aguero almost flew to Barcelona on crutches. In the end, it was Messi who persuaded him."

Batti thought for a long time about whether he should take the initiative to comfort her, but still couldn't come to a conclusion.

"Go back to Manchester first." He waved his hand for Jesus to turn around, "We'll talk about the rest later."

Jesus turned back to play with his phone, while Batistuta opened the private chat interface with Neymar. The last chat content was last night. Neymar sent him a message to cheer for the game and then sent him several cute photos of cute dogs.

Batistuta stared at the chat history in a daze, while De Bruyne, who was sitting behind him, took in his every move while looking at his phone.

what can we do about it?

……

Neymar had a bad day.

It has been almost 0 hours since they lost 4-24 to Paris Saint-Germain. The club's post-match training has ended. It is now 4 o'clock in the afternoon and he is in a daze at home.

It’s not that this score is hard to accept. Seriously, the players know best how they played on the field, so when everyone played a shitty game, such a shitty score makes sense.

Neymar lay on his side on the sofa and suddenly sneered because he found himself using Batistuta's favorite adjective - playing a shitty game.

Speaking of which, Batty.

It was this little bastard Batistuta who turned Neymar's ordinary training day into a bad day.

After they lost by a large margin, there was no response at all, not a phone call, not a text message, nothing. The most annoying thing was that he heard from Suarez that Aguero almost came to Barcelona directly after the game.

In comparison, Batty's heart is colder than the Arctic glaciers.

"Don't think about it, Junior. That kid must be celebrating his victory somewhere right now." said a follower.

"Yes, I saw the photos of them playing in the locker room after the game released by Manchester City. He and Sterling were so happy." Another said. "That's right, let's go play, change our mood, how about playing go-karts?" a follower suggested.

In the end, the proposal was unanimously approved by everyone. The room was filled with noisy voices. Neymar was very annoyed. Even two pillows could not prevent those annoying sounds from entering his ears, so he drove everyone away.

Yes, everyone, including his dad and the guys on his dad's team.

To be honest, he still doesn't understand what that crappy team is doing. He has asked his father, but old Neymar couldn't answer him either. So, sometimes Neymar calls them his father's followers in his heart.

After the house was quiet, Neymar lay on the sofa in the small living room. He took out his mobile phone, opened the private message page with Batistuta, and started counting down in his heart.

Give the little bastard another 3, no, 2 hours if he still doesn't show any reaction.

he just……

Neymar fell asleep while thinking, and when he woke up, it was already dark. Looking at the watch, he had slept for two and a half hours.

He turned on his phone and opened the social platforms, text messages and call pages one by one with calmness and a little hope, but there was no new information from Batty.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Neymar threw his phone away, and the fragile Apple phone hit the corner of the wall and made a shattering sound, and almost at the same time, a call came in.

Go ahead and call, go ahead and call, he won’t answer it, Neymar thought angrily. It’s not someone’s call anyway, so there’s no need for him to go through the trouble of picking it up.

The exclusive ringtone of the Apple computer kept ringing until no one answered it and the call went directly to voicemail. Yes, Neymar has always had the habit of leaving his voicemail box enabled.

I don’t know if I got any injuries from the fall just now, but after I hung up the phone, the other party’s message started playing automatically.

"What? Are you so upset about losing that you don't even want to answer the phone?"

The boy's unique and flamboyant voice came from inside, and Neymar subconsciously turned around and looked at his phone.

"You damn security guard speaks Catalan dialect. I told him to open the door for me ten thousand times but he didn't understand." Batistuta said, "Wait for you for five minutes, open the door for me, otherwise--"

Neymar didn't hear the rest of the conversation. He grabbed his spare phone and rushed out the door.

Now he was extremely grateful to himself for driving everyone away two hours ago.

……

Batistuta parked the car in the garage and followed Neymar into the house. He did not consider himself an outsider at all. After coming in, he sat comfortably on the sofa. Neymar seemed a little embarrassed.

"Why are you here?" He sat opposite Batty and touched his nose.

"Come and see you." Barty crossed one leg and shrugged. "Why, you don't like it?"

"No, I'm very happy." Neymar felt as if there were several needles sitting under his buttocks. He felt uncomfortable no matter how he moved. He licked his lips several times, and finally stood up and ran to the kitchen. "I'll get you something to drink."

Batty changed into a more comfortable position: "Give me any alcohol, 3 cubes of ice."

"No wine, only this." Neymar came out with a bucket of orange juice, "No drinking until the end of the season."

"——You still have so many things to do." Batistuta pouted and pushed away the quilt filled with orange juice with his index finger in disdain. Then he leaned back on the sofa and raised his chin slightly to signal Neymar: "Tell me about it."

Neymar was stunned: "What?"

"Tell me what you think of that game." Batty raised his lips to him, "Anything is fine, just tell me what you told your psychiatrist, otherwise what do you think I'm here for?"

"I don't know." Neymar looked him straight in the eyes and said with a suppressed cheerfulness, "Maybe you just come here to play after winning."

"God, I thought I had made it obvious enough." Batty hooked his finger at him and motioned him to come closer. "Nothing special, I'm here to comfort you."

This is really——

Very Batty style.

Neymar lowered his head and smiled secretly. He stood up, walked to Batistuta, and sat down next to him.

"There are some tips for this. Before we begin, let me tell you some rules." He placed his hand on Batty's thigh. "Rule number one, if you want to comfort someone, never mention that you're here to comfort them."

Barty glanced at his hands on his legs, then looked up and met his gaze.

"Okay," he said, "so what do you want to do?"

(End of this chapter)