Chapter 1 After Entering the System

When Zhou Yi entered the system, he discovered that what greeted him wasn't Chu Ling and the training ground, but... a cutscene!

In the animation, he took a plane from China to Barcelona, Europe, just like his real-life experience. Then, there were flashbacks of various street scenes in Barcelona.

Finally, a map of the European continent reappeared. On this map, the cities of Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Dortmund, London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Milan were successively highlighted.

These would be the cities where the teams they were going to challenge were located.

Subsequently, these highlighted cities shone like stars on the deep blue European map, radiating light that grew stronger and stronger, eventually connecting together and turning the entire space white.

The light was so dazzling that Zhou Yi couldn't help but turn his head, squint his eyes, and raise his hand to shield them.

After about two seconds, the white light disappeared, and Zhou Yi found himself back in that familiar training ground, with Chu Ling standing in front of him.

"What's going on?" Zhou Yi asked.

"A new map has been opened," Chu Ling replied. "The European map. And a new quest line has also started."

"New quest line?"

"What did you come to Europe to do?"

"Uh, to challenge the youth training camps of those big clubs..."

"That's right. The system has this task too. You can now compete here, against the opponents you're going to challenge," Chu Ling explained.

This news invigorated Zhou Yi. He had been using the system for over a month, but it had just been training, training, and more training. It seemed like it was just a system for training.

But now he could actually compete here!

Even if training could improve his strength, it was still monotonous. Zhou Yi preferred competition.

Besides, Chu Ling had also said that he could improve his abilities during matches.

Moreover, for certain specific skills, the improvement gained through competition might even be greater than through training.

That's why in the football world, there's a saying: "Substitute training with matches."

Matches can replace training to some extent, and that's correct. Furthermore, the training and improvement gained in real, intense matches are greater than those gained in training. This kind of improvement is more meaningful.

Otherwise, what's the point of being able to dribble through all the cones like Messi or Ronaldinho in training?

What's the point of performing a *Rúnbǎisài* feint, followed by an *Aceh* Flick, then a Cruyff Turn, followed by a *Lacthao*, and finally a pendulum dribble to send the ball into an empty net?

You could juggle the ball a thousand times in a row with any part of your body during training, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can protect the ball for even a second under the pressure of opposing players in a real match.

Therefore, no matter how well you train, if you can't test the results of your training in a match, the training is meaningless.

So Zhou Yi couldn't wait to start competing, challenging the first opponent of this "European Kickabout Tour," Barcelona's Under-17 team!

After a match, Zhou Yi stared dumbfounded at the score of 0:17 on the scoreboard.

"The gap... is this big?"

"That score only represents the gap in performance between the two teams in this particular match. It doesn't represent the true gap between the two teams. But even if the true gap isn't that exaggerated, it's close," Chu Ling said.

"Alright, let's go again!"

"Again? With this team?" Chu Ling was a little surprised.

"That's right," Zhou Yi nodded. "Let's go."

"Uh, you can only play one match per day in system time," Chu Ling said.

"What kind of rule is that?" Zhou Yi exclaimed.

"This is also to strive for realism. You can't handle a high-intensity match every day in reality. So in the system, you can only play one match per day, you can't exceed this frequency."

"What if I exceed it?" Zhou Yi was very curious.

"Just like a CPU that keeps running beyond its capacity and burns out, your brain will also be burned out, and you'll become a vegetable, forever asleep and never waking up," Chu Ling said.

Zhou Yi shuddered: "That's so scary? Then forget it... One match a day is fine. But my day has just started, what do I do the rest of the time?"

"Of course you train. Do you not train except for matches?"

"Alright, train, train!" Although he was unwilling to lose to the *La Masia* youth team, Zhou Yi could only choose to train now. Because this was still a purely football virtual system. Apart from training and matches, there was nothing else.

At the same time, Zhou Yi also hoped to improve through training and make some progress in the match on "the next day." At least he had to be able to score a goal, right?

※※※

When Zhou Yi woke up from his sleep, it was already the next morning in reality.

The sky outside the hotel was still dim, but Zhou Yi couldn't sleep anymore. He had slept too much yesterday, and now his mind was very clear.

Zhou Yi didn't get out of bed, but lay in bed recalling the matches in the virtual system.

At night, he had spent eight days in the *FIFAL3* system. In those eight days, one match against *La Masia* Youth Team B every day was a required subject. In those eight matches, he and his virtual teammates had not won a single victory. All losses! And not even a single goal scored.

The number of goals conceded ranged from a dozen to eight or nine.

The gap was simply despairing.

Zhou Yi had no concept of this before. He thought that if we were going to challenge Barcelona's youth team, losing was inevitable, but at least we wouldn't lose by too much, and we would score goals, at least one goal. He had even fantasized about scoring that goal himself.

But the reality was... he didn't score a single goal. He was completely suppressed in the match, and he couldn't use any of his skills at all.

It wasn't just that there was a big gap between the team and the other team, there was also a big gap between the individual players.

Zhou Yi had already seen his teammates' stats and knew that He Ying was the strongest in this team, with the highest stats. But even He Ying didn't have the upper hand when playing against *La Masia*'s youth team.

Not to mention the performance of the others.

By the way, Zhou Yi was indeed the weakest member of this team, and his stats were the lowest in the whole team...

※※※

After a night of rest, the Chinese teenagers officially began training for the preparation. During training, three camera crews followed them, filming and recording their training.

In addition to training on the football field, the young players also had to do some recreational games and complete some tasks. According to the rules, completing some key tasks could even earn them playing time.

This seemed a bit childish. How could playing time be earned by doing well in games? Shouldn't it be based on who performs well in training?

But there was no way around it. This was a TV reality show. It had to be a little entertaining, right?

If it was too professional, the general TV audience wouldn't like to watch it, and the ratings would be terrible. If the ratings were terrible, the show might be canceled before it even finished airing, right?

After all, this show hoped to attract viewers who weren't very interested in football. Relying on football fans alone wouldn't work.

So they had to add some entertaining elements.

Therefore, it was understandable that the professional football reporters at the airport had looked down on this show, believing that they were desecrating football.

How could this kind of childish approach ensure the team's combat effectiveness?

At that time, every match might be a disgrace to Chinese football...

However, Hao Dong and the production team had obviously considered this issue as well. How could they increase the entertainment value without affecting the team's strength?

Very simple, write the script in advance, establish rules, and ensure that players who were already the team's mainstays wouldn't lose in the games. Moreover, not all mainstay players had to compete for starting positions through games. Only two starting spots in a match were determined through games, so if there were any accidents, it would just be considered a rotation... Of course, it was best if there were no such accidents.

With this team's strength, it would be difficult for them to defeat the youth teams of big clubs even if they went all out. How could they have the luxury of rotating players?

※※※

The Chinese Youth Expeditionary Force would be campaigning in Europe for two months, playing twelve matches against eleven teams, including two matches against Barcelona's youth team—the first and second matches.

After all, *La Masia*'s youth training is the strongest in today's football world, having produced many world-class superstars. Closer in time there's Messi, and further back there's Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Guardiola... all of these people came from *La Masia*.

Ever since Cruyff, the Dutchman, came to Barcelona to coach and established the importance of the *La Masia* training camp, this place has been continuously producing excellent players.

Therefore, the city of Barcelona is both the starting point and the ending point.

Two months, twelve matches, an average of one match every five days.

The four days passed quickly.

Regardless of whether the team was ready or not, the Chinese Youth Expeditionary Force was about to usher in their first match.

Thinking that this was part of a variety show, this match would not be broadcast live.

Moreover, for the entire city of Barcelona, a visiting Chinese team had not attracted much attention. Many Barcelona fans didn't even know that there was such a match in their *La Masia* training camp.

Of course, this match was not intentionally closed to the public. In fact, the match was open, and anyone could come to watch, but it had not been promoted, so many people didn't know that there was such a match.

But no matter how unaware they were, if fans happened to be watching training at the youth team, they would still be able to see this match.

They might just be a little strange: why is Barcelona's youth team playing with a group of Asian kids?