Chapter 1 The Beginning

Zhou Yi finished his morning run, ate breakfast, and returned to his room to rest, while preparing to pack the things he would need for the afternoon's match. He suddenly found a hard-cover notebook in his backpack—his student ID.

Picking up his student ID, Zhou Yi remembered why he had brought the thing abroad in the first place—he wanted to test if a Chinese student ID could get him half-price train tickets overseas…

It had to be said that Zhou Yi’s brain worked in strange ways. Most people wouldn’t think of bringing a student ID to Europe to get discount tickets.

As a result, he traveled around Europe by plane and bus, never getting the chance to put his idea into practice.

So the student ID was stuffed into his backpack, never to be touched again.

With the backpack being carried around, the student ID gradually sank to the bottom, to the point where he almost forgot about it.

But finding it today, Zhou Yi suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

His mind was off again.

He put the student ID back in his backpack. He would have to carry this bag to the match later anyway, since his shoes and other things would be in it.

※※※

Before the afternoon's match, Zhou Yi found the substitute goalkeeper, Lai Cong.

And solemnly handed him something.

"What's this?" Lai Cong looked at the student ID in his hand, not understanding what was going on.

"Please keep this safe for me."

"No… I don't mind keeping it safe, but I'm just curious, what are you doing bringing a student ID to a match?" Lai Cong was confused.

"Oh, this is important. To put it bluntly, this match revolves around it!" Zhou Yi said, pointing to the student ID in Lai Cong’s hand.

Lai Cong grinned. Was Zhou Yi subtly telling him that he was the core of this team?

But… he didn't need to do that, did he?

Lai Cong couldn't figure it out, but he didn't ask any further. He was afraid that if he asked too directly, and Zhou Yi meant just that, wouldn't it be awkward for everyone?

Seeing that Lai Cong hadn't refused, Zhou Yi thanked him again, and then ran onto the field with the other starting players to prepare for the match.

※※※

When Zhou Yi said that this Manchester United team wasn't strong, he certainly wasn't talking about the first team.

Having just defeated Chelsea in the Champions League final, allowing Ferguson to win his second Champions League title as a manager, Manchester United was still one of the best club teams in the world.

But compared to their glamorous first team, the fact that Manchester United's youth training hadn't made any progress in the last ten years was also true.

As mentioned before, Chelsea's youth training wasn't very good. Abramovich had spent a lot of money on youth training, even poaching Tottenham Hotspur's youth training director, Arnesen, for five million pounds and offering the Dane, who had discovered stars such as Ronaldo and Stam, an annual salary of two million pounds.

But the last Chelsea youth player who was able to gain a foothold in the first team was… the twenty-eight-year-old John Terry.

Chelsea later changed their strategy, from cultivating their own players to poaching semi-finished products from all over the world, but even so, no one was able to successfully enter the first team.

Manchester United's situation was a bit different from Chelsea's.

Manchester United had a very glorious tradition in youth training. For example, the famous "Class of '92": Beckham, Phil Neville, Gary Neville, Giggs, Butt, and Scholes were all later mainstays, even the core, of Manchester United.

Their maturity also directly propelled Manchester United to become the Treble winners in 1999.

The Class of '92 has always been repeatedly mentioned as a symbol of Manchester United's youth training.

But this also illustrates an embarrassing fact, which is that after the Class of '92, Manchester United's youth training… no longer had any symbols that could be repeatedly mentioned.

The Class of '92 was both a witness to the glory of Manchester United's youth training and the beginning of the decline of Manchester United's local youth training.

Whether it was O'Shea or Wes Brown, these two people always found it difficult to reach the achievements of their predecessors in the first team. If it weren't for the Manchester United youth training label, they might not have been able to gain a foothold in the Manchester United first team. Now, Manchester United's main central defender pairing is Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, who have nothing to do with Manchester United's youth training.

Fletcher was also a Manchester United youth player, but compared to his talent, his body was too fragile. Because of injuries, he has always found it difficult to maintain a consistently high level of performance in the Manchester United first team. Otherwise, Ferguson would not have signed Carrick and Hargreaves one after another.

After Roy Keane left the team, Manchester United had never found a good replacement in midfield. Fletcher was once highly expected, but now it seems that he is not up to the task.

Of course, Zhou Yi said that the Manchester United youth team was not strong because he had played against the Manchester United Under-17 youth team more than twenty times in his dreams and didn't find any outstanding players. Dortmund had Gotze, Arsenal had Wilshere, but Chelsea and Manchester United didn't have such a leader.

That's why Zhou Yi said that their youth team was not strong.

However, this Manchester United youth team was still stronger than the Chelsea youth team.

This could be seen from their performance on the field. The direct reflection in the score was that Manchester United youth team was leading in the first half.

1:0, they were ahead of the Chinese teenagers.

In terms of the overall game, Manchester United also had a slight advantage.

The Chinese team was slightly subdued.

※※※

After the start of the second half, Manchester United, leading by one goal, strengthened their defense in the thirty-meter area.

When the Chinese team attacked the front, they didn't have any good way to penetrate their defense.

Faced with their defense, the Chinese team could only pass the ball back and forth outside their defensive line.

In terms of the integrity of the defensive line, the Manchester United youth team did better than the Chelsea youth team. In addition, they strengthened their defense against He Ying, so it was not easy for the Chinese team to score.

This was the situation since the first half.

Zhou Yi passed the ball to He Ying, but He Ying couldn't even turn around and passed the ball back. Then he ran, but there were always two Manchester United youth players following him.

This was how the match had been going. As the player who scored a hat-trick in the previous match against the Chelsea youth team, He Ying was the focus of the Manchester United youth team's attention in this match. This was perfectly normal.

In comparison, the other forward, Zhang Tao, faced much less defensive pressure, but this was useless.

There was a reason why he faced less defensive pressure, because Zhang Tao posed too little threat to the opposition.

Zhang Tao was tall and had an excellent header, but this excellence was only in comparison to He Ying.

The shortcomings of his game were obvious: he wouldn't run and would only stand and play. Therefore, he was only a substitute in the youth team of his domestic club, let alone compete with English defenders for headers here.

Zhou Yi had passed the ball to him, but he had wasted it.

Zhou Yi passed the ball out, and the ball was passed back and forth between the Chinese team players. The rhythm was fast, and the Manchester United players couldn't easily intercept it for a while.

But this was useless.

Because these passes were all sideways and backwards. Not to mention threatening the Manchester United youth team's goal, it was difficult to even threaten the Manchester United youth team's penalty area.

Seeing this scene, Xu Yang, who was off the field, shook his head: "It's going to be difficult to score…"

Hao Dong didn't speak, but it could be seen from his furrowed brow that he was also at a loss.

In the match against the Chelsea youth team, the Chinese team defended to the death. Now, it was the Manchester United youth team that was shrinking their defense, allowing the Chinese team to break through their dense defense.

It really was… educational.

※※※

Although the match between the Chinese team and the Manchester United youth team was not closed, there were not many spectators on the sidelines. After all, it was a youth team match, so the level of attention was not high.

However, some figures could still be seen watching the match on the sidelines, and they were all watching with great interest.

Tim Kist and Alan Powell were among them, but they didn't know of each other's presence.

In the previous match against the Chelsea youth team, Zhou Yi assisted three goals. In the eyes of these two scouts, he was naturally the center of attention.

In the first half of this match, Zhou Yi's performance was somewhat dim.

Tim Kist, who had observed Zhou Yi for two matches, naturally knew what was going on—he guessed that this was mostly related to Zhou Yi's physical fitness.

Zhou Yi played the entire match against the Dortmund youth team, resulting in exhaustion. In the match against the Arsenal youth team, Zhou Yi only played half the match before being substituted.

Because he had rested for half a match, Zhou Yi played an extra twenty-four minutes in the match against the Chelsea youth team. After completing three assists, he ran out of energy and was substituted due to cramps.

In this match, Zhou Yi's performance in the first half was not very active, obviously also due to physical reasons. They had really fought too hard to win against the Chelsea youth team in the previous match, and this was the aftermath.

On the other hand, Arsenal scout Alan Powell was somewhat disappointed with Zhou Yi's performance in this match—could Zhou Yi's performance in the previous match have been a fluke? Did he just happen to see the best match he would ever play in his life?

Watching Zhou Yi pass the ball back and forth, but unable to reach the heart of the Manchester United youth team, Powell shook his head.

Since football is a sport that tries to create as much space as possible in attack, when a team gains possession of the ball near the opponent's goal, they should reduce the number of players and the number of passes. This is conducive to creating more space. If everyone crowds into this area, they will only squeeze out all the space needed for their attack.

This is common sense.

But now Zhou Yi and his teammates were frequently passing the ball back and forth in front of the opponent's thirty-meter area. This was obviously not a good sign.

Excessive passing in front of the opponent's penalty area can also lead to a huge risk of losing possession of the ball.

So what the Chinese team was doing now was wrong and very risky.

※※※

In fact, Zhou Yi himself was clear that he might not have risen to the height of some theory, but playing football and watching football since he was a child also made him understand that passing too many meaningless sideways balls in front of the opponent's penalty area was not a good thing.

Manchester United couldn't just watch the show and let the Chinese players pass the ball back and forth to pad their possession rate.

They were already eager to intercept the ball.

But he couldn't find any gaps.

Manchester United's defense was very complete, the players moved in and out as one, and He Ying was tightly marked. If he were to force the ball out, it would be no different from letting the opponent intercept the ball.

Pass it back?

Zhou Yi had also tried passing it back, but the effect was not very good. The Manchester United youth team was not stupid either. They could see what he was trying to do. Even if he passed it all the way back to goalkeeper Sun Pan, it wouldn't be of much use. As long as the Chinese team passed the ball forward again, the Manchester United youth team would retreat quickly.

Perhaps the fact that the Chelsea youth team had actually lost to the Chinese team had aroused Manchester United's attention, so the Manchester United youth team was not very careless in this match, and there were naturally fewer loopholes for the Chinese teenagers to exploit. In addition, they were now leading by one goal, so they could naturally seek stability first.

The ball was passed to He Ying's feet, but He Ying still couldn't break through or create any shooting opportunities.

While He Ying had the ball, Zhou Yi was still observing the situation on the field.

There were still no gaps. Zhang Tao wouldn't run and stood still. When He Ying had the ball, he couldn't run either. The positions of the forwards were basically fixed, and the opposing defenders were also fixed. It was especially easy to defend against.

Seeing that there was no chance to shoot or break through, He Ying first turned around to protect the ball.

Although he protected the ball, he was also facing away from the direction of attack, making it difficult to threaten the goal again.

He saw Zhou Yi.

So he passed the ball back to Zhou Yi.

Manchester United was finally tired of letting the Chinese players pass the ball back and forth in front of them like this, and they decided to be more aggressive.

So a Manchester United youth team player rushed towards Zhou Yi with the ball, intending to directly intercept the ball and launch a counterattack!

The ball was rolling towards Zhou Yi, but Zhou Yi's eyes were not on the ball. Even at this moment, he didn't give up looking for gaps.

He suddenly looked up at the goal.

Since there were no gaps for him to pass, why not try a shot?

He found that the Manchester United youth team's goalkeeper was standing slightly to the left and also a little too far forward.

He quickly found a relatively large gap near the far post of the goal.

If he couldn't find gaps between the players on the ground, then he would go to the sky, to the goal, to find gaps!

This gap could be exploited!

Zhou Yi had an idea in his mind.

Just as the ball was about to roll in front of him, the Manchester United youth team player was about to rush up.

Zhou Yi swung his right leg towards the ball, not to stop it, not to pass it, but… to directly curl a shot!

His right ankle turned outwards, the inner instep scooped up the ball, and his calf exerted force like a whip, pulling outwards.

The ball flew up before the Manchester United youth team player could block it, flying towards the far side of the goal!

The players on both sides in front of the penalty area looked up at the ball at this time, their necks like radars, turning with the ball.

Everyone who saw this shot had the same thought in their minds—this ball is definitely going over!

The ball flew very high, giving people the feeling that it was "going straight for the corner flag."

The Manchester United youth team's goalkeeper also had this idea. When he saw the ball fly away, he stood in front of the goal and didn't move, but just turned his head, intending to watch the ball fly out of the baseline.

Xu Yang, who was off the field, was also complaining: "Zhou Yi handled this ball too hastily!"

He believed that Zhou Yi should not have chosen to shoot. The difficulty of shooting directly without stopping the ball was too great, and the scoring rate was also very low. The ball going out basically meant that the Chinese team's attack had come to an end, and possession would return to the Manchester United youth team. As for what would happen next, it was hard to say…

Liang Qiqi snorted coldly in her heart: Give him a little sunshine and he'll shine brightly. He assisted a few goals and thinks he's omnipotent! Hmph! I would actually lose to someone like this!

But just as everyone was watching, the ball suddenly turned in the air! It curved towards the upper right corner of the goal in a very exaggerated arc!

Then, the ball flew in with a swoosh at the junction of the goalpost and the crossbar, hitting the net!

Goal!