Chapter 1 The Last Stop in England

The game against Liverpool's youth team was the last stop in England for the Chinese football hopefuls.

They had achieved excellent results in England, with two wins, one draw, and one loss in four games.

"Green Field Inheritors" also received considerable attention in China because of their outstanding performance, and the ratings began to rise.

In fact, 2008 was a dark year for Chinese football.

The previous year, the Chinese national team had just been eliminated from the group stage of the Asian Cup, becoming a shameful Asian Cup team.

This year, in preparation for the Olympic Games held at home, the Football Association specially formulated the National Olympic Strategy, and also sent this team to Germany for training, where German coaches led the team in matches. This National Olympic team was also based on the National Youth Team that performed well in the 2005 World Youth Championship in the Netherlands, and was highly anticipated.

For the sake of the Olympics, the Football Association even sacrificed the national team's South Africa World Cup qualifiers. It seemed that in their eyes, the World Cup was far less important than the Olympics held at home—which was indeed the case. In terms of political significance, the Beijing Olympics was indeed greater than the South Africa World Cup.

So many things were sacrificed to ensure that the National Olympic team could achieve good results at the Olympic Games.

As a result, in the Beijing Olympic Games, the National Olympic team lost all three games and was eliminated at the bottom of the group.

What was even more unsatisfactory than being eliminated was the team's performance in the game, especially in the game against Belgium, where the Chinese team simply lost the game and the people.

The disappointing performance of Chinese football spawned many jokes during the Olympic Games.

For example, after Messi participated in the Beijing Olympic Games, he returned to the team to show his teammates the latest cheering slogan he learned in China: "The Football Association is stupid!"

Eliminated from the Olympic Games and eliminated from the World Cup qualifiers, Chinese football suddenly seemed to have reached the end of the road. For a long time to come, world football events had nothing to do with Chinese football.

It was against this background that "Green Field Inheritors" made a high-profile expedition, and it was no wonder that it would attract so much attention and criticism.

In fact, the "Green Field Inheritors" program was established very early, at a time when neither the Chinese national team nor the Chinese National Olympic team had suffered setbacks in their respective fields.

They may have planned to use the gimmick of the National Olympic team participating in the Beijing Olympic Games to promote their program.

Who would have thought that when the program officially started recording, the general environment of Chinese football would take a sharp turn for the worse.

In this case, the sixteen football teenagers, including Zhou Yi, were more like scapegoats for the entire Chinese football.

Fans and pseudo-fans vented their disappointment and anger at Chinese football, and even their dissatisfaction in life, on these innocent children.

After the team suffered a crushing 0:12 defeat to the La Masia youth team in the first game, this emotion reached its peak.

However, this team showed a different side in a very difficult environment—they were not defeated by the scolding and pressure.

Starting with the game against the Dortmund youth team, they gradually found the right path.

The audience then realized that these children were different from the Chinese players they thought they were. They did not completely collapse because of continuous failures. On the contrary, they broke through!

Everyone saw the performance of the four games in England, and their progress was very obvious.

It was a perfect end to be able to end the trip to England with a victory.

The improvement in the performance of the young players and the increase in program ratings fully demonstrated that football still has a great influence in China. It's just that in the past, due to various reasons, this influence was negative...

Now, there are finally some positive factors.

※※※

With the expectations of domestic audiences and fans, the Chinese teenagers said goodbye to Liverpool and took a plane from John Lennon Airport to Milan, Italy.

The Italian stop has only one city and two games, against the youth teams of the two major powerhouses in Milan.

AC Milan youth team and Inter Milan youth team.

Because they achieved good results in England, the Chinese football teenagers were very confident, and it seemed that the youth teams of the already declining Serie A clubs were not a problem for them.

But the actual situation is...

They lost to the youth teams of AC Milan and Inter Milan.

Not only did they lose the score, but they were also suppressed by the youth teams of the two Serie A powerhouses.

Such an ups-and-downs performance is very consistent with the characteristics of youth team games, but why is there such a performance?

It is not convincing to simply attribute the reason to the instability of the state of the young players.

On the Internet, there are also many posts discussing the performance of Chinese teenagers.

Some opinions are still very pertinent.

For example, a netizen named "Lin Hai Birdman" wrote an article in the "Green Field Inheritors" Tieba to discuss the importance of Zhou Yi to this team.

In the article, he pointed out that the reason why the Chinese team lost both games and performed mediocrely was because Zhou Yi was very seriously restrained by the tactics of the Italian team.

He analyzed why the Chinese team had such different performances when playing against English teams and Italian teams.

He believes that this is related to the fact that English teams' youth training focuses more on physical training, crude skills, and backward tactical awareness. The only English team that the Chinese teenagers lost to was the Arsenal youth team, and it just so happened that Arsenal's youth training concept was different from the latter three.

It is not surprising that the Chinese teenagers, who have advantages in skills and tactics, defeated the English youth teams with crude skills and backward tactical concepts.

But after arriving in Italy, it was different. Italian players have been instilled with various tactics since they were young, and their understanding of tactics is very high. In this regard, the Chinese team cannot beat the Italians. Coupled with the Italian team's innate defensive skill bonus, it is natural for the Chinese team to be unable to gnaw on these two hard bones.

As for someone saying that the Serie A league has declined, and the Chinese teenagers should be able to defeat them, the netizen "Lin Hai Birdman" also expressed his opposition.

He believes that the level of Serie A league is the level of Serie A league, and this cannot be simply equated with the level of Italian youth training.

The Premier League has always been the best football league in Europe, but their youth training level is not flattering.

In addition, don't look at the Bundesliga now, which seems to be as unpopular as Serie A, but the youth training level of German football is really high. He also boldly predicted that the German national team will definitely be able to regain the championship of international competitions within ten years, either the World Cup or the European Cup.

※※※

Losing two games in a row, and losing two games in a row after performing well before, is really depressing.

But what made the Chinese players even more depressed was that, in this case, they returned to Barcelona, their sad place.

According to the arrangement of the "Green Field Inheritors" program, the European challenge trip is a circle, starting from Barcelona and ending in Barcelona.

The Barcelona youth team is the only team they have to play against twice.

This arrangement shows the program team's emphasis and affirmation of Barcelona's youth training.

Of course, this also conforms to their program's theme of focusing on the cultivation of youth football talents.

Stepping on this land again made everyone sigh.

When they first came to Barcelona, their hearts were full of longing for La Masia. In their minds, Barcelona was simply a holy city of football. It has the best football club, the best stars, and the best youth training system in the world.

But after a game, the holy city is still the holy city, but in the minds of the Chinese teenagers, the feeling of worship is much less, and it is replaced by pain.

Losing twelve goals in a game, they walked around Europe, this was the most惨 game they lost, and the only game they lost in double digits.

All of them were given to them by the Barcelona youth team.

Even if they beat the Chelsea youth team, beat the Liverpool youth team, and drew with the Manchester United youth team, they cannot offset the pain brought to them by the Barcelona youth team.

When the plane arrived at Barcelona Airport, the young players were generally silent. This city reminded them of the sad past two months ago.

After the plane stopped and the cabin door opened, the young players silently packed their luggage and moved towards the cabin door with the crowd.

Thinking that they would face the Barcelona youth team again in a week...many people were still a little frightened.

Especially after just experiencing two consecutive defeats in Italy, this fear mixed with lack of confidence made people feel even worse.

But there were still some exceptions.

Zhou Yi carried his schoolbag, he got out of the cabin, stood on the boarding ladder, looked at the busy Barcelona Airport, and suddenly shouted: "Barcelona! I, Hu Han San, am back again!!"

This shout startled Liang Qiqi, who was walking down the boarding ladder in front of him. He almost missed a step and fell down the boarding ladder. Fortunately, his hand grabbed the boarding ladder handrail in time, but he couldn't take care of the bag he was carrying anymore. It rolled down the boarding ladder and fell to the ground, attracting the attention of many people.

He didn't bother to see what happened to his bag, but turned his head and glared at Zhou Yi with anger, but Zhou Yi didn't notice him at all. He was arguing with Sun Pan.

"What are you yelling about? You almost scared me so badly that my legs went weak!" Sun Pan complained.

"Were you scared by me, or by the name Barcelona?" Zhou Yi asked back.

"Of course it was you!"

"Hehe."

"Don't hehe!"

"Ke ke ke."

"Drink water if you're thirsty!"

"Sun Pan, Zhou Yi is saying 'hehe' in a disassembled way..." Yang Mu Ge reminded his roommate.

Sun Pan was stunned when he heard Yang Mu Ge's words, as if he had been hit by magic, stiff there, thinking about what this meant.

Zhou Yi sighed when he saw Sun Pan's dead look: "Sun Pan, I don't believe you finished nine years of compulsory education. Did you falsify your resume?"

The teammates watching the excitement nearby laughed when they saw this scene.

The atmosphere that was still a bit depressing and dull before was swept away.

Of course, as for Liang Qiqi, this person and his bag, it seems that they have been completely forgotten...