Regardless, since they weren’t planning to withdraw from the competition, they had to give it their all.
After criticizing the organizers’ grouping, the students began carefully observing their Group Stage opponents and the match schedule.
Due to the home-and-away format, the entire Group Stage was relatively long.
The students would travel to three different cities to play a total of six matches.
Yongchuan was the provincial capital, while Yuzhou and Shencheng were cities near the provincial capital, with the farthest being just a three-hour drive away.
Overall, the organizers had indeed grouped the teams based on regional proximity.
Lin Wanxing recorded the dates of the six matches in her phone’s calendar, then looked up and asked the students, “When you’ve competed in other cities before, did the organizers provide accommodation and meals?”
“Some did, some were same-day trips,” Fu Xinshu said. “We’ve never made it to the main competition in the National Youth League before, so we’re not sure.”
Lin Wanxing nodded, thinking seriously. “If we have extra time, could we do some sightseeing after the matches? Have any of you been to Yuzhou Lake?”
Qin Ao immediately protested, “Why are you only thinking about having fun?”
“Huh?” Lin Wanxing straightened up. “What else am I supposed to do? Do you have some deep misunderstanding of me, Qin? I don’t even know what these three teams are like.”
“At least analyze our opponents or something!” Qin Ao turned and shouted, acting like he was tattling to a parent. “Coach, do something about our teacher!”
“She’s not wrong,” Wang Fa said lazily from the back of the classroom, raising his hand. “You’ll have to do the work and give her a rundown.”
With Wang Fa’s suggestion, the students immediately seized the opportunity as if given a command.
They crowded around the podium, insisting she sit down and listen carefully. Lin Wanxing waved Wang Fa over to her seat, signaling that he should share in the “fun.”
Over the past few days, Lin Wanxing had let the students take turns teaching, so they were quite familiar with using the projector and the entire setup.
“First up, Yuzhou Silver Elephant!” Qin Ao opened Baidu on her computer, typed in the name, and the club’s Baidu page was projected onto the screen.
The massive Silver Elephant logo came into view.
As the entry stated, Yuzhou Silver Elephant Football Club was founded in 1994. It is a professional football club based in Yuzhou City, currently competing in the Chinese Football Association Super League. Additionally, Yuzhou Silver Elephant is one of the founding clubs of the Chinese Football Association Super League.
“Seems like they’ve been around for a while,” Lin Wanxing remarked from her seat. “Are they a strong opponent?”
“Student, please don’t automatically equate ‘old’ with ‘strong’!” Qin Ao scolded. “Can’t you read the second line? In terms of club honors, Yuzhou Silver Elephant has been playing for over a decade and only managed a third-place finish in 2016. Where’s the strength in that?”
“Well, you were so panicked earlier, I thought they were all formidable!”
Lin Wanxing mimicked Qin Ao’s tone, and he immediately glared, flustered. “Don’t talk nonsense! Who was panicked? I’ll sue you for spreading rumors! Besides, even a starved camel is bigger than a horse. Yuzhou Silver Elephant is still a Super League club—showing some respect isn’t wrong, is it?”
“Not at all~” Lin Wanxing agreed. “So, Teacher Qin, do you think you can beat them?”"Vulgar!" Qin Ao criticized again. "I asked you to study the various Chinese Super League teams, why are you only asking if we can beat them? Let me tell you, Yuzhou Silver Elephant's youth training program is quite mediocre. They're a bottom-tier team that basically only sells players without buying any, and they have their own football school. They might not even send their professional youth team to participate—it could just be a school team slightly better than ours..."
"Oh, if they're stronger than all of you, how strong must they be?" Lin Wanxing immediately praised.
"When you compliment us, it sounds like an insult," Qi Liang remarked casually from the side.
Lin Wanxing laughed.
"However, Yuzhou Silver Elephant is indeed the weakest among our opponents."
"Right, and we have a coach too. We should be able to take them down, right?"
"Don't get too full of yourselves. What if Yuzhou Silver Elephant sends their U19 team to compete?"
Although the students spoke as if they were being cautious, the joy in their eyes betrayed their true feelings.
Initially, they had thought they were up against an unbeatable, formidable opponent, but as they talked, it suddenly seemed less intimidating. This was probably the endearing quality of boys.
Yuzhou Silver Elephant didn't seem like much of a problem. The next opponent was Shen Cheng Hai Bo.
The boys assigned Yu Ming, who was from Shen Cheng, to explain.
"Uh, actually, I grew up in Hongjing. I only go back to Shen Cheng during holidays every year..."
"But you're still from Shen Cheng, aren't you? Cut the nonsense and give her a proper lesson!" Qin Ao commanded again. "Don't copy me and look it up on Baidu Baike."
"That's too hard... I, I haven't kept up with Shen Cheng Hai Bo in a long time!" Yu Ming was a bit flustered.
"It's fine, I don't know much about them either," Lin Wanxing said, resting her chin on her hand. "Is the football atmosphere in Shen Cheng really strong? I remember Shen Cheng Hai Bo is quite famous—wasn't there a TV drama about them?"
"Yeah, my dad was a fan of Shen Cheng Hai Bo when he was young. Back then, when the national team made it to the World Cup, there was a wave of national football fever. The TV drama was produced by Shen Cheng Television. That's when my dad sent me to train with our coach."
"So you know quite a bit about it."
"Not really. My dad stopped being a fan later because Shen Cheng Hai Bo got relegated at one point, changed coaches and management, and broke the fans' hearts."
"So, are they still strong now?" Lin Wanxing asked.
"I heard—from my dad—that their training base is almost sold off, and they're about to go bankrupt," Yu Ming said.
"Holy shit!"
"Bankruptcy is great!"
The students suddenly got excited, startling Lin Wanxing.
"Their base is almost sold off! Then they must be pretty poor, right? Do they even have a youth training program anymore? Would they just forfeit?"
The boys chattered on, almost as if they were ready to profit from the "shipwreck."
"Uh..." Lin Wanxing raised her hand. "If I may be blunt, everyone, we struggle to pool money for a gym membership. No matter how poor they are, they're still richer than us, right?"
"You be quiet and listen!" the students said in unison.
Just then, another hand beside Lin Wanxing suddenly went up.
Comrade Wang Fa, who had been looking at his phone all along, indicated he wanted to speak.
"Coach, please go ahead," the students immediately changed their tone, becoming exceptionally ingratiating.
"I just checked the Chinese Super League standings. Shen Cheng Hai Bo is leading," Wang Fa said thoughtfully. "Does selling off their base inspire the players' potential?"
The students looked at each other, then drifted off into their own thoughts, pretending they hadn't heard Wang Fa's latest update."Coach, with you here, why should we fear a Chinese Super League team?" Yu Ming flattered.
"I think they are quite strong," Wang Fa said.
"Even if they're strong in the CSL, it doesn't mean their youth training is necessarily good," Chen Jianghe added.
In any case, since they were going to be overconfident, they might as well go all the way.
No matter how the main team performed, in the students' minds, a team that was about to sell its training base surely had a youth academy that was nothing to fear.
So now, only their final opponent remained on the schedule—Yongchuan Evergrande.
Qi Liang was responsible for explaining this team.
He lazily picked up a piece of chalk, stared at the four large characters "Yongchuan Evergrande" on the blackboard for a long time, slowly drew a circle, put down the chalk, and said, "We can't beat them."
The classroom fell into complete silence. For the first time ever, not a single one of the usually rowdy boys objected to Qi Liang's conclusion.
In the quiet air, Lin Wanxing glanced at Wang Fa.
"Damn, what a twisted fate!" On the podium, Yu Ming was also looking at Wang Fa as he said this.
"I really want to crush them!" Qin Ao let out a heavy breath and said angrily, "I hate this damn team the most."
Lin Wanxing was curious: "Have you played against Yongchuan Evergrande before? Do you have a grudge?"
"They tried to poach our coach, and you say there's no grudge?" The students were shocked.
"What's this called again?" The students started showing off their literary knowledge. "It's like in those novels—the hatred of killing one's wife, the resentment of stealing one's husband?"
"That doesn't seem quite the same," Lin Wanxing glanced at Wang Fa again and laughed. "What does the coach think?"
"Don't you think so, Teacher Lin?" Wang Fa suddenly put down his phone and asked slowly.
Under his sincere gaze, Lin Wanxing suddenly felt her heart skip a beat for no reason.
In any case, when it came to teasing each other, she was far inferior to Wang Fa.
Lin Wanxing decided to admit defeat: "Actually, I visited Yongchuan Evergrande's base before. Our department used to be a partner with them."
She changed the subject.
"Then did you meet Zhou Miao?"
"What about Shen Lei?"
"I like Wu Gang! Did you get his autograph?"
The students' attention was immediately captured, and they all started asking questions.
Lin Wanxing looked at Wang Fa.
"They're all national football stars," Wang Fa reminded her.
"Ah? Then no," Lin Wanxing shook her head. "We were just small potatoes. We had some cooperation and visited their base. The base is really big and quite professional."
"What kind of cooperation?"
"You had cooperation with them?"
"What did you cooperate on? You really didn't get any autographs? Wasn't that a huge loss?"
The students pressed on relentlessly.
"Let's talk about Yongchuan Evergrande's youth training instead," Lin Wanxing shook her head, feeling like she was digging her own grave. "Do we really have no hope at all? Can we absolutely not beat them?"
"They were last year's champions!" Qin Ao said.
"In their U19 team, they have at least six National Youth Team-level players. They're absolute favorites to win the championship. No matter how overconfident we are, we still know our own limitations," Chen Jianghe said seriously.
"Is the National Youth Team the national youth team?" Lin Wanxing asked.
"Yes," Fu Xinshu said. "Teams like Anning Experimental are strong, but they're still roughly at our level. A behemoth like Yongchuan Evergrande might even have overseas players. There's no way we can beat them."
Fu Xinshu said somewhat despairingly.“We can still give it a shot, right? Back then, you also thought we couldn’t beat Green View International, but didn’t we win in the end?” Lin Wanxing asked.
“How do we even explain this to you?!” Qin Ao scratched his head in frustration. “It’s just that the teams are on completely different levels, you get it?”
“Here’s a simple example,” Qi Liang chimed in at just the right moment. “Even at our Hongjing No. 8 Middle School, there are top students who can get into Yongchuan University and then there’s us—the laughable failures.”
“Damn.” The students glared at Qi Liang but couldn’t come up with a retort.
Fu Xinshu picked up where Qi Liang left off, continuing the explanation: “The quality of youth training programs varies widely across clubs. Some are genuinely committed, some just set up youth football schools to swindle local government funds, and others don’t even bother pretending—they’re just coasting.” The level of Yongchuan Evergrande’s youth training, he noted, is akin to Southampton’s standing in English football.
Fu Xinshu’s words made Lin Wanxing realize that, even if they occasionally acted overconfident or cheerful, they were well aware of the gap between themselves and professional youth teams.
As Qi Liang finished his introduction to Yongchuan Evergrande, the classroom fell silent. The boys looked down at the floor, out the window, or at her, as if hoping she would say something more.
“Anyway, the top two in the group advance,” Lin Wanxing said. “Shall we give it our best?”
Such encouraging words clearly didn’t satisfy the students.
They turned to Wang Fa again, seeking a response from the person they trusted most.
Fu Xinshu tentatively asked, “Coach, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Whether we can win—if there’s any hope of us advancing?”
Lin Wanxing also looked over, waiting for Wang Fa’s assessment.
“To be honest, I never think about the possibility of winning or losing a match,” Wang Fa replied.
The projector’s light flickered.
On the podium, the students stared in unison at their coach below.
“If there were no hope, why would we even step onto the field? Even if the score is set in this match, we still have the chance to pursue victory in the next one.”
Wang Fa’s voice wasn’t loud, and it didn’t sound like some rousing declaration.
Yet, gradually, a glimmer returned to the students’ eyes.
What is football, and what will it bring?
Perhaps no one knows the answer. Or perhaps, everyone is on this path, trying to find their own.
OpenNovel