Ground football: Ronaldo thought I was going to assist him

Wahaha Team Achieves Remarkable Results! Chinese Young Players Are Indispensable!

Miracle coach Bora Milutinovic becomes the new head coach of the Chinese national football team; the team launches its assault on the Asian Cup!

Milutinovic: Chinese football has great potential, both now and in youth training! My friend Triguera has recently taken a liking to several young Chinese players!

Wahaha team draws 5-5 with Sporting Lisbon U15! Their opponents have advanced to the knockout stage of the UEFA Youth League!

Jiang Yunzhu: Domestic fans shouldn't be overly optimistic; we are still far behind top European levels in youth training!

Behind the 5-5 scoreline lies a 4-0 defeat! Sports Weekly provides an in-depth analysis of Wahaha's final match on their European tour—a truly crushing loss!

The Wahaha team's outstanding performance has sparked heated discussions in the country.

As the sports weekly revealed the details, people learned the whole story of the final match.

"Holy crap! Is this for real? Deng Kai is that awesome?"

"At first I thought the statistics were wrong. Three goals and four assists, Sporting Lisbon only scored five goals in total, where did the other two come from?"

"I can't believe Deng Kai scored one goal and two assists for Sporting Lisbon, and then joined the Wahaha team in the second half and scored two more goals and two more assists! It's insane!"

"This is way like a microwave oven, just plug and play?"

"This isn't just a microwave anymore; it has its own built-in system, directly compatible with the Wahaha team!"

"This was completely a one-man show by Deng Kai, it's outrageous!"

"I used to think Deng Kai's reputation was just hype, but now I realize the Portuguese media really don't know how to exaggerate! If he were in China, he'd be a definite Chinese football king!"

"Have you heard? Sporting Lisbon's youth team wants to buy Gao Lin!"

"What? Really?"

"It's not just Gao Lin, there are several!"

Soon, news that Sporting Lisbon's youth team hoped to sign several young Chinese players spread like wildfire in China.

This is undoubtedly a huge recognition.

Chinese football at this stage desperately needs this kind of recognition.

This was almost the period when domestic fans had the highest expectations for the national football team.

People are eager to hear all the good news about football.

These reports were subsequently confirmed one by one.

Gao Lin, Hao Junmin, Feng Xiaoting, Chen Tao, Yu Shihao, Wu Xudong and others have indeed received invitations from Sporting Lisbon.

but!

The original employers of Gao Lin, Feng Xiaoting, and Chen Tao were unwilling to let them go.

Their demand for a "transfer fee" is very high.

It's very high, at least for youth players.

Sporting Lisbon only spent $1,500 to acquire Cristiano Ronaldo.

You're making Sporting Lisbon spend hundreds of thousands of euros on these few young players who are just scratching the surface.

That's absolutely impossible.

Even packaging won't work.

Moreover, the owners of these young players want more than just money; they also need support in terms of training equipment, training systems, and coaches.

This conflicts with Sporting Lisbon's plan to establish their own youth training base in mainland China, and they would never agree to it.

Hao Junmin and Yu Shihao, who were not tied to any club, failed to join Sporting Lisbon because they could not convince their families.

This is actually understandable.

Fourteen or fifteen-year-olds, having graduated from junior high school, are at the perfect time to find a good high school.

Many top high schools in China are vying for them, and some have even made certain promises regarding their university choices.

This gives them the opportunity to pursue higher education at prestigious universities.

How to choose between Sichuan University and Sporting Lisbon?

It's not hard to choose, Sichuan University is definitely the one.

How to choose between Peking University and Sporting Lisbon?

Do you even need to choose? Have you lost your mind?

Which parents would give up such conditions to let their child play football in Portugal?

Compared to taking the college entrance exam, fewer people would choose to play football.

Moreover, the chances of leaving one's hometown to play football abroad are far greater than the chances of attending a prestigious university.

Young players themselves are unlikely to make this kind of decision.

Finally, only Wu Xudong's parents, who came from the grasslands, said that a good man should have ambitions beyond his hometown, and that if he really wanted to go out and play football, his parents would support him.

In fact, it was because Wu Xudong had already become very familiar with a group of delinquent teenagers in the area.

His parents worried that if things continued this way, he would eventually go astray.

It would be better to send them abroad.

At least I can completely cut ties with those bad friends.

After learning about this, Deng Kai probably realized that this was the reason why he had never even heard of Wu Xudong in his previous life.

With his speed and ruthlessness, he'd be a master at navigating the underworld; becoming a double-flower red stick wouldn't be a dream.

Ultimately, before the winter break ended, Sporting Lisbon U15 successfully signed Wu Xudong.

He was provided with room and board, enrolled in a local Chinese school in Lisbon, and given a monthly living allowance of 200 euros.

His salary level thus surpassed that of his parents, making him the pillar of the family.

However, most domestic football media outlets are pessimistic about Wu Xudong's overseas career.

They believe that China already possesses a strong capacity for developing young players.

It would be a better choice for players to go to Europe to compete when they are 18 or 20 years old, when their personalities have matured and their abilities have stabilized.

Yang Chen, Fan Zhiyi, and Xie Hui all achieved success in China before going abroad to study, and their results were quite good.

What if Wu Xudong leaves too early and gets corrupted by foreign influences?

Deng Kai declined to comment on this.

However, considering the various bad practices in China such as seniority-based promotion, favoritism, factionalism, and unethical practices, it's not guaranteed that you can succeed in football abroad, but it's really difficult to succeed in football in China.

Deng Kai left his contact information for all of them, including Yu Shihao, Hao Junmin, and Feng Xiaoting.

If this winter doesn't work, then next summer, the winter after that, and the summer after that.

We'll try to salvage as many as we can.

If we can't see it, we can let it go, but we definitely have to help those who are clearly in need.

……

The winter break is over.

The Portuguese U15 league has entered its second stage – the North and South Divisions.

The twelve qualifying teams were randomly assigned to two groups and played a round-robin tournament within each group.

The top two teams from each group advance to the final stage – the championship.

The six teams from the north are: Porto, Guimarães, Braga, Rio Ave, Universidad de Coimbra, and Santa Clara.

The six teams in the south are: Sporting Lisbon, Benfica, Oeláção, Istoll, Liana, and Marítimo.

That's right, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon are still together!

This is absolutely dramatic.

Deng Kai even suspected that the Portuguese Football Federation might have deliberately divided the teams this way.

Knowing that these two teams have a history, do we really have to make them play against each other?

And perhaps they felt they needed to capitalize on the trend quickly.

They scheduled the Benfica vs. Sporting Lisbon match directly as the first game of the second half of the season!

January 26th.

It was still the Alvalade Stadium, where more than 40,000 fans welcomed the young Benfica players to their home ground.

When Veloso came on as a starting player for Sporting Lisbon, the fans erupted in the loudest cheers.

Because Veloso was previously a Benfica player.

Benfica's few fans were particularly furious, constantly cursing Veloso and even launching personal attacks against him and his entire family.

The scene was incredibly lively!