System Rewards

The China Youth Team's historic Youth World Cup victory had a huge and far-reaching impact on Chinese football.

The public's passion for football was greatly ignited, and the negative effects brought about by the failed World Cup qualification campaign vanished under the stimulation of the China Youth Team's triumph.

Football went from being a topic people avoided and refused to discuss to a subject of conversation in streets and alleys, before and after meals.

Whether they had watched football before or not, everyone now knew that China had a team that had won a world-class tournament.

Under this influence, the previously sluggish football market rapidly became booming at a visible pace.

The number of people participating in football also noticeably increased. Not only were the pitches packed, but groups of children chasing footballs could be seen throughout the streets and alleys.

The U20 Youth National Team's success greatly raised people's awareness of youth football, and financial allocations and policy support for youth teams at every level increased considerably.

Among ordinary people, parents were no longer so opposed to their children playing football.

As long as it did not affect their academic performance, they could do whatever they wanted.

If they actually made something of themselves, they might even get sent to a professional club and make a living from football.

In this era, football players earned far more than ordinary people!

Thus, a profession once looked down upon by many parents suddenly became prestigious.

When the youth were strong, the nation was strong. With so many young people taking up football, why worry that the great cause would not flourish?

Conversely, if even young people stopped playing football, then Chinese football would naturally have no hope.

Besides that, the greatest impact of the China Youth Team's championship was the change in policy among the upper levels of government.

After the China Youth Team won, the government leadership proposed developing the football industry for the first time and offered greater policy support.

Football was the world's number one sport and also the sport with the most successful commercialization.

Playing football not only strengthened the body, but also brought enormous economic benefits and could even boost national pride and confidence.

The reason those above had not valued football in the past was because Chinese football was weak, struggled to achieve results, could not win medals, and could not bring political achievements.

But this unexpected triumph by the China Youth Team allowed the leadership to see hope for Chinese football to produce results.

Three years later, China would host the Olympic Games for the first time.

If this China Youth Team could win Olympic gold on home soil, the value of that gold medal would likely far surpass that of any other.

For the officials in charge, that would be a genuine political achievement.

Where there was hope, there was naturally motivation to move forward. In the past, no one wanted to touch football because there was nothing to gain and it was easy to get oneself into trouble.

But the situation was different now!

Thus, various support policies followed one after another.

Naturally, the members of the China Youth Team, far away in Europe, knew nothing about these changes in the domestic Football World.

After the Youth World Cup ended, the China Youth Team did not linger in the Netherlands for long.

Including Head Coach Klopp, everyone boarded a charter flight and set off for home overnight.

By the time they arrived at Capital International Airport, the arrivals hall was already packed with people.

Countless fans had been waiting at the airport early just to welcome the China Youth Team players home in triumph.

The young players of the China Youth Team were flattered and overwhelmed; some were even frightened.

When had they ever seen a scene like this?

There had to be over ten thousand fans at the scene, right?

Even top celebrities probably did not receive such a welcome, did they?

"Am I dreaming? Are these people really here to welcome us? Could there be some celebrity on our plane?"

"What celebrity? It was a charter flight. There was no one else on board!"

Chen Tao was also somewhat shocked by the scene. Although he had received plenty of fan support while playing for his club, compared to the fans here, it was utterly insignificant.

"Brother Chen, have we become huge stars?"

"We do not sing or dance, so how could we be celebrities? We should say we've become football stars!"

Gao Lin rather smugly puffed out his chest and put on a show of waving at a group of female fans inside, trying hard to play the role of a "football star."

But he did not look convincing at all, drawing unanimous ridicule from his teammates.

"Stop putting on airs. You are not cut out for this!"

"Exactly. Did you not see that the signs those female fans were holding had Brother Lin's name on them? They were not here for you at all!"

"What a shame Brother Lin isn't here. If he were, at least he could draw a lot of the attention away from us!"

The other players unanimously agreed. A large portion of the fans at the scene had come for Lin Feng.

Not only was he good at football, he was also handsome. Compared with him, everyone else felt like country bumpkins and wanted to dig a hole and bury themselves.

But unfortunately, Lin Feng had not returned home with the China Youth Team, so he did not get to witness this spectacular scene.

The fans who had come to greet the team searched for a long time without seeing Lin Feng and were immediately somewhat disappointed. They could only settle for the next best thing and seek autographs from Chen Tao, Feng Xiaoting, Zhou Haibin, Hao Junmin, and the others.

Several of them found it quite novel. Someone actually wanted their autographs?

So they patiently signed autographs and took Group Photos with the fans until more and more people gathered, forcing the on-site security personnel to intervene.

While his teammates took the charter flight back to China, Lin Feng also packed his things and prepared to leave.

He had been away for half a month. When he came, he had been empty-handed; when he returned, he not only carried two trophies, but also had 210,000 yuan in bonuses from the Football Association in his pocket.

After the China Youth Team won the championship, the Football Association leaders honored their promise and handed out a championship bonus of 3 million yuan to the players on the spot.

As a key player, Lin Feng received the top-tier bonus of 200,000 yuan. Including the 10,000 yuan he had earned for defeating Argentina earlier, he had received a total of 210,000 yuan in bonuses.

The money was not much, but for him, it was an unexpected little surprise.

Before Klopp recruited him, he had never imagined that playing for the national team would come with money.

After all, serving the national team was a player's duty, and there was no salary for it.

But aside from that financial gain, what Lin Feng cared about most was the reward for completing the Youth World Cup mission issued by the system.

[Congratulations, Host, on completing the Youth World Cup mission!]

[Personal Evaluation: S!]

[Mission Reward: Second Module development progress +30%, one Module Fragment Lucky Draw Chance!]

Opening the system with a thought, he immediately saw that the unopened Second Module was noticeably brighter than before.

Including the previous 10%, the Second Module's development progress had reached 40%. It was still a long way from being fully unlocked.

This thing apparently could not be improved by completing matches. For now, he also could not determine whether there were any other ways besides completing system missions to accelerate its development progress.

Lin Feng set it aside for the moment and turned his attention to the development status of the Kaka Module he was currently using.

In this Youth World Cup, Lin Feng played four matches in total. Aside from the match against the German team, where he came on as a substitute, he started all three remaining matches.

After the match against the German team, the system's module development progress had increased by 1%. With the system mission reward added in, his Kaka template development progress had reached 80%.

Now, after three more national team matches, the development progress of his Kaka template in the system had reached 83%.

"So it really is one point of progress per match. The efficiency is indeed much higher than in the league."

The reason many people felt that Lin Feng had become stronger in every match was not an illusion.

After every match, he came closer to Peak Kaka, so his strength naturally increased as well.

For an ordinary player, such an improvement might not have been so obvious.

But for a bug-level existence like Peak Kaka, even a 1% improvement was a massive change.

Unfortunately, the Youth World Cup schedule was too short and did not give him more opportunities to farm progress.

Moreover, the China Youth Team would not have any major tournaments for a long time, so the idea of using the China Youth Team platform to farm progress was probably impossible.

"Ah, if only there were more national team matches! Then I could keep farming progress!"

"Since things have come to this, let's draw first!"