Chapter 73 The "Footbonaut"

"This is our secret weapon for defeating the Cosmic Team!" Klopp said, pointing to the mysterious square building behind him.

Hearing their head coach say that, the puzzlement in everyone's eyes deepened.

A secret weapon for defeating Barcelona was hidden in this seemingly ordinary house?

This was a house without windows, and no one could imagine what else it could be used for other than as a warehouse.

The answer was soon revealed.

When Klopp led the players into this "big" dark room, the first thing that caught their eye was a huge iron cage.

Inside the iron cage was a patch of artificial turf, with a white circle painted in the middle, like the center circle of a soccer field.

Many lights shone into the cage from the roof, so even though it was in a windowless dark room, the cage was as bright as day.

There were two square holes, one above the other, in the middle of each of the four sides of the iron cage, for a total of eight holes.

It all looked very puzzling and unfamiliar.

Everyone looked around at what they saw with curious eyes, not quite understanding what it was for.

Zhou Yi, however, was reminded of a Nike commercial he had once seen, a cage match, so he asked, "Coach, are you going to have us go one-on-one in there? The loser gets thrown into the sewer and flushed into the Rhine..."

His teammates burst into laughter.

"I'd like to do that, kid," Klopp said with a smile.

After joking around, he clapped his hands and pointed to the iron cage, introducing it to everyone, "Welcome to the 'footbonaut'!"

Hearing the name, everyone was still confused. "What the hell is that?"

"As you can see, what's in front of you is a square area fourteen meters long and fourteen meters wide. The walls of this area are made up of seventy-two special wall panels. See this?" Klopp asked, pointing to the white holes.

Everyone nodded.

Klopp then asked, "Does anyone here play table tennis?"

Some of the team members raised their hands, with Zhou Yi raising his the highest—as a player from China, he had to be confident in this area.

Klopp saw him and asked, "Zhou Yi, have you ever used a table tennis serving machine?"

Zhou Yi shook his head. "No, but I've seen them. It's a machine that constantly shoots out ping pong balls, and then the ping pong player catches the ball and hits it back..."

"A good explanation," Klopp nodded. "And this," he said, pointing to the white hole, "is our serving machine!"

Hearing this, Zhou Yi could more or less guess what this mysterious and strange thing was for...

Klopp continued to explain to the players, "You need to be inside this white circle, receive the balls fired from these serving machines, stop the soccer ball, and then kick the soccer ball towards the randomly lit grid. Sounds simple, right?"

Zhou Yi habitually nodded, and then was stared at by Klopp. "Hey, Zhou Yi."

"Huh?" Zhou Yi didn't expect to be called out, and he was a little dazed.

"Come on, you give us a demonstration!"

"Ooh!" The teammates next to him whistled excitedly, wanting to see Zhou Yi make a fool of himself. Obviously, when Klopp asked "simple," the answer he wanted was definitely not "yes." Zhou Yi had basically walked right into Klopp's trap.

Zhou Yi was thus driven into the iron cage, and after he entered, the door was closed.

"Go to the center circle," Klopp said from outside, pointing to the white circle.

Zhou Yi obediently walked in and began to look around. His head kept shaking from side to side, imprinting everything he saw in his mind. This was his habit. In a strange place, he would constantly observe and scan, recording every detail of the environment.

"All right?" Klopp asked from outside.

Zhou Yi gave Klopp a thumbs up.

The teammates outside stood with smiles on their faces, waiting to see Zhou Yi's showdown with the machine.

"Okay, three-second countdown," Klopp said.

The seventy-two grids in the cage suddenly lit up red at the same time, startling many people.

Next, after one second, the red lights turned yellow, and after another second, the yellow lights turned green.

After the green lights went out, two beeps similar to those when a car locks its doors sounded.

Zhou Yi heard the sound coming from behind him, so he turned his head to look, and saw a soccer ball suddenly shoot out of a serving machine flashing red light!

Zhou Yi quickly turned around, but halfway through the turn, the ball hit his supporting foot!

He stumbled and fell to the ground!

His teammates burst into laughter.

"Get up!" Only Klopp was shouting at Zhou Yi. "Get up now!"

As soon as he finished speaking, two more beeps sounded.

Zhou Yi looked up and saw another soccer ball shooting out of another serving machine, flying towards him. He reflexively used his hand to block his face, and the soccer ball hit his arm and bounced away.

Seeing Zhou Yi so embarrassed, the teammates outside laughed so hard they bent over.

However, Zhou Yi also realized that the machine didn't seem to pause because he had fallen, so this time he quickly jumped up from the ground. He already knew how the machine worked.

The two beeps were to remind the player that the soccer ball was about to be fired from the hole in the direction of the beep, about a second earlier than the pass, so that the player could turn around in advance and be prepared.

So this time, when the beeps sounded again, Zhou Yi immediately judged that the soccer ball would be passed from his right, so he quickly turned around, facing that direction.

Sure enough, the red light on the lower serving machine on the right lit up, and a soccer ball was launched.

Zhou Yi raised his leg to stop the ball, and the soccer ball obediently stopped at his feet. He looked up again and found a grid on the left wall with a green light around it.

Zhou Yi quickly passed the soccer ball over, and the soccer ball accurately hit the grid, flipping it up and rolling out.

Then the grid automatically flipped back.

Immediately afterwards, two more beeps sounded, this time from behind Zhou Yi. He turned around, the soccer ball flew over, and he raised his leg to stop the ball. After stopping, he looked up to observe, and a grid directly in front of him lit up. Zhou Yi kicked the soccer ball over, and the soccer ball hit the target accurately again.

The third time, after Zhou Yi passed the soccer ball, it hit the edge of the grid and bounced back, and the green light turned yellow.

Zhou Yi ran out of the circle and kicked the soccer ball back towards the grid. When the yellow light turned red, the soccer ball finally hit the correct target successfully.

In this way, every time a beep sounded, Zhou Yi would quickly turn around to complete the receiving action, and then repeat the whole set of receiving and passing actions.

In the process, he found that the speed at which the target grid changed from green to yellow and then to red was very fast. The three lights might only be lit for two seconds. He had to kick the soccer ball towards the target in such a short period of time.

At the same time, immediately after kicking, the passing prompt would sound. There was almost no chance for Zhou Yi to catch his breath and rest. He had to continuously cycle through this set of actions, and he couldn't stop at all, he couldn't stop.

However, this fast-paced training gave Zhou Yi an addictive feeling in the process... He had completely forgotten to think about anything else, focusing all his attention and energy on finding the target, receiving the soccer ball, and passing it.

The teammates outside the cage gradually stopped laughing and joking. The expressions on their faces became more and more serious, because they also realized that this thing was not a fun toy. The content and training intensity shown in Zhou Yi's demonstration made many of them have to take this strange iron cage seriously...

They were all professional players, and they knew very well what this series of fast passes and catches meant.

Just as Zhou Yi had entered a state of self-forgetfulness, the two beeps did not sound again.

Zhou Yi turned his head and looked around, but none of the eight white serving machines lit up again.

"Huh?" He hadn't figured out what was going on.

Klopp had already opened the door and walked in. "It's over."

"It's over?" Zhou Yi looked incredulous. He hadn't had enough yet.

"Yes, one and a half minutes per training session," Klopp explained.

"Ah, can I do it again? Coach?" Zhou Yi pleaded.

"You think this is just for you? They're still waiting!" Klopp pointed to the players outside the cage.

Zhou Yi looked over and found that the eyes of his teammates were filled with the same excitement and eagerness as his. It seemed that everyone was deeply attracted by this novel thing!

Of course, he couldn't monopolize this training facility, so he had no choice but to leave the cage with regret and unfulfilled desires, giving way to other teammates.

Watching his teammates excitedly and somewhat clumsily adapt to this new training facility in the cage, Zhou Yi's heart and feet itched.

He couldn't help but think how great it would be to have his own training facility like this...

On this day, the entire Borussia Dortmund team, except for the goalkeepers, underwent a total of ten minutes of "footbonaut" training.

Zhou Yi was the same, but at the end of the training, he still said goodbye to this "big" dark room with reluctance.

As he walked out with his teammates, Zhou Yi looked back at the white-walled building with no windows.

He was seriously considering whether he could sneak back for special training at night...