Chapter 1 Training Begins

Because he had finished his physical and strength training, Zhou Yi could return to the team and practice with the other players. So, that evening in the restaurant, Sun Pan and Yang Muge gave Zhou Yi a small celebration.

Although Zhou Yi had only been with his teammates during warm-ups for the past two weeks, and couldn't see them at other times, thanks to Sun Pan's endless chatter, Zhou Yi actually knew quite a bit about the team.

Sun Pan would vividly recount everything that happened on the training ground every day during meals.

For the past two weeks, the team had been practicing offensive and defensive tactics. In the offense, He Ying, Zhou Yi's teammate, was naturally the core. Since He Ying's individual ability was the strongest on the team, who else could be the core?

Although Sun Pan disliked He Ying's aloof personality and his popularity, he couldn't deny He Ying's ability, so he could only humph and then fall silent.

After two weeks of training, the team's starting lineup had basically been fixed. Now they were working hard to integrate this starting lineup, hoping to cooperate more tacitly and achieve an effect greater than the sum of its parts.

He Ying was definitely a starting main player, and Sun Pan was also the starting goalkeeper. Despite only having started playing soccer four years ago, Sun Pan's athletic talent was still outstanding. As a goalkeeper, his reaction speed was very fast, and he could often save difficult shots.

Of course, he wasn't without weaknesses. The weakness was that he might not be able to catch some mediocre shots. This was all due to poor basic skills. After all, compared to others, he had only been practicing goalkeeping for four years.

Yang Muge was also in the starting lineup. He was a defensive midfielder, specializing in defense.

To be honest, when Zhou Yi first heard that Yang Muge's position on the field was a defensive midfielder, he was very surprised—he found it hard to associate such a gentle, fair-skinned boy with a laborer who specialized in doing dirty work on the field…

Later, in the virtual system, during the joint training phase, he had faced the virtual player that mapped Yang Muge and learned something about Yang Muge's playing style.

As a defensive midfielder, Yang Muge wasn't like those burly men with crude and exaggerated movements. He relied more on positioning and interception. Although they only had two nights of joint training, Zhou Yi could see that Yang Muge's positioning in defense was very good. Especially after Zhou Yi switched to playing attacking midfielder, he could be said to be directly facing Yang Muge.

Many of his passes were directly intercepted by Yang Muge on the passing route. He seemed to be able to see through his passing intentions and move to the passing route in advance, and then Zhou Yi's pass would fall into the trap.

Yang Muge had a wide range of movement, good stamina, and accurate positioning. If there was a weakness… Zhou Yi felt that Yang Muge's personality was a bit soft. In life, this kind of personality might be quite likable, because he didn't compete with the world.

But on the field, putting this kind of temperament on a defensive midfielder made people feel weird.

To put it bluntly, his movements weren't tough enough. Sometimes when he should have fouled, he didn't, and as a result, he let the opponent pass.

This playing style was in line with his personal temperament, but as a defensive midfielder… sometimes he should be a little more savage.

And another person Zhou Yi knew was too savage…

Guo Nu.

Zhou Yi had a conflict with this person as soon as he entered the team, and he was almost beaten. Since then, Zhou Yi and Guo Nu had hardly crossed paths. He trained in the gym every day, while Guo Nu trained on the field. The dormitories they lived in weren't on the same floor, and Zhou Yi went in and out with Sun Pan and Yang Muge, so he couldn't get in touch with Guo Nu at all.

But he could see him, in the restaurant.

In the huge base restaurant, there were two people who always ate alone.

One was He Ying, and the other was Guo Nu.

But the situations of the two were different. Although He Ying always ate alone, it didn't mean that no one wanted to sit at the same table with him, chatting while eating, like Zhou Yi, Sun Pan, and Yang Muge. It was just that no one could break through the cold-as-ice AT Field around He Ying.

Guo Nu ate alone because no one really wanted to eat with him.

No one wanted to eat with him, and no one wanted to train with him. Sun Pan had more than once told Zhou Yi with great excitement how painful it was for people who were assigned to train with Guo Nu on the training ground every time.

No one wanted to play with Guo Nu, and no one wanted to be Guo Nu's friend, including his roommate. His roommate was Liang Qiqi, the team's main attacking midfielder, but Liang Qiqi never spoke to Guo Nu or interacted with him in any way, as if Guo Nu were a puff of air.

Why was this?

Because Guo Nu had beaten his teammates as soon as he entered the team.

Because Guo Nu was ugly.

Because Guo Nu spoke Mandarin with a heavy country accent and stuttered.

More than once, Zhou Yi had heard people whispering about Guo Nu in the cafeteria and when passing by the door of a half-closed dormitory room. The meaning was about the same, nothing more than ridiculing his appearance, mocking his stuttering, and mocking the small country place he came from.

But none of these people dared to say these things in front of Guo Nu, because they were afraid of being beaten by Guo Nu.

They secretly gave Guo Nu a nickname and usually used this nickname to refer to Guo Nu—"Mad Dog."

In their eyes, Guo Nu was like a mad dog. No one wanted to be bitten by a mad dog and have to get a rabies vaccine. Who would want to do something that had no benefits at all?

So they had two faces in front of and behind Guo Nu. In front of Guo Nu, although everyone disdained him, they didn't dare to show it. They could only stay away from him, afraid of him.

After staying away from Guo Nu, they would spit on the ground: "Tch! Mad Dog!"

Guo Nu was not only violent in personality, but also in his playing style on the field. He defended fiercely, with great range of motion. Whenever he rushed towards the opponent's attacking players, it would always give people the illusion that he would kick the opponent in the heart in the next second.

In fact, there was nothing wrong with being fierce in defense. Many defensive generals in professional football were like this. For example, AC Milan's defensive midfielder Gattuso.

But Gattuso's ferocity was controllable, Guo Nu's ferocity was… completely uncontrollable.

In addition, there were already Yang Muge and others in the defensive midfielder position that Guo Nu played, so there was no place for him.

Therefore, Guo Nu was a substitute.

※※※

This wasn't the first time Zhou Yi had practiced with the team. In the virtual system, he had practiced with the team many times, but he was always abused miserably every time.

So in fact, he knew about the abilities of his teammates.

But he was still full of anticipation and longing for the first time to practice together in the real world.

That moment finally arrived.

After completing the warm-up training with the team, assistant coach Xu Yang didn't ask him to go to the gym to find the physical trainer. The physical trainer, Li Hao Rui, was on the training ground, not waiting for him in the gym.

Because they were all young players, basic training still accounted for a large proportion of the training courses. At least half a day was spent on basic skills training, such as shooting and passing.

Tactical training was in the afternoon.

This was a good thing for Zhou Yi. He could both not delay basic training and conduct tactical training with his teammates.

According to Chu Ling, this was of great help to his strength increase.

After the warm-up for today's training session, there was simple passing training in groups of two, followed by a circle-grabbing training in groups of five.

So the coaching staff would first start dividing into groups of two for passing training.

At this time, Zhou Yi noticed that the expressions of the teammates around him suddenly became serious, and they seemed to care about this grouping. The feeling was like waiting for the lottery to be drawn.

Zhou Yi gently touched Sun Pan next to him: "What's wrong?"

"No one wants to be in a group with Guo Nu…" Sun Pan said in a low voice.

"Is the grouping random?"

"Isn't it? If it was fixed, wouldn't the person who was grouped with Guo Nu have to commit suicide?" Sun Pan's expression seemed very relaxed.

"Then why aren't you worried?" Zhou Yi found it strange to see Sun Pan looking like he was watching a good show.

"What do I have to worry about? I'm a goalkeeper, whether it's passing training or other training, I'm always in a group with Lai Cong."

Lai Cong, whom Sun Pan was talking about, was another goalkeeper, now his substitute.

"Besides… even if I were grouped with that kid, I wouldn't have anything to worry about. I'm not those cowards who only dare to say bad things behind people's backs! I'm not afraid of any 'Mad Dog'…"

While Zhou Yi and Sun Pan were whispering, assistant coach Xu Yang began to group them.

He was completely random, because he didn't have a piece of paper and start reading names from it.

He just looked up at the team, his eyes constantly switching, and randomly blurted out some names from his mouth.

"He Ying, Yang Muge." Two people Zhou Yi knew were grouped together.

"Liu Nian, Liang Qiqi."

Liang Qiqi breathed a sigh of relief when he heard his name being called—he was probably the one who least wanted to be grouped with Guo Nu. He was beaten because he was grouped with Guo Nu on the first day of training.

Xu Yang was calling out names one by one. Anyone who was called out and wasn't grouped with Guo Nu was very happy.

Then Xu Yang said: "Zhou Yi."

"Here!" Zhou Yi replied reflexively, causing Xu Yang to turn his gaze back, and the surrounding teammates burst into laughter—this kid must have been distracted, thinking it was roll call.

Amidst the laughter of everyone, Zhou Yi scratched his head.

Xu Yang just glanced at Zhou Yi and then shifted his gaze away. Next, he said: "Guo Nu."

"Wow!" This time it wasn't laughter, but some unclear sounds. Everyone turned their attention to these two people, Zhou Yi and Guo Nu.

Even Guo Nu himself changed his expression when he heard that he had been grouped with Zhou Yi. He pursed his lips, frowned, and wasn't very satisfied with this grouping. But he didn't show weakness and turned around to give Zhou Yi, who was standing behind him, a fierce glare.

After hearing that Zhou Yi and Guo Nu were grouped together, Sun Pan was also a little surprised and worried, after all, he knew the story between these two people. But after seeing Guo Nu's eyes, he immediately pointed at Guo Nu: "What are you looking at!"

"Sun Pan!" Xu Yang shouted sternly.

Sun Pan's hand went down, but his eyes were still fixed on Guo Nu, full of provocation. The meaning was—you have the ability to come at me!

He certainly wouldn't allow his friend to be bullied by Guo Nu.

It seemed that it wasn't right to say that "Mad Dog" had no nemesis. For example, right now, when Sun Pan glared at Guo Nu, Guo Nu immediately shifted his gaze and turned his head back. He didn't cooperate with Sun Pan to complete the following classic dialogue:

What are you looking at?

What if I look at you!

Try looking again!

Just try it!

…

This was really a pity.

Guo Nu turned his head back, Xu Yang continued to call out names for grouping, and Sun Pan said to Zhou Yi: "Don't be afraid, if he dares to provoke you, I'll beat him to death!"

Zhou Yi smiled and said: "Don't worry, I'm fine!"