Reporting to the National Team

"Lin Feng was called up to the national team? Is that for real?"

"The squad list has already been announced. How could it be fake?"

"That's amazing. Brother Linzi accidentally set the record as the youngest international player. If he gets on the pitch in the East Asian Football Championship, even as a substitute, he'll set another record as the youngest player ever to appear for the national team!"

"Records aren't important. What matters is that this time, we're going to beat the crap out of those little Japanese and Koreans on the field. Didn't they brag before that they'd show us how good they were?"

"Right, I remember that Keisuke Honda from the Japan team talking big before. He said the China Youth Team only won the Youth World Cup because they didn't face Japan earlier, and that if they had, Japan would've beaten the shit out of them. Heh, this time I want to see how he plans to beat the shit out of the Chinese team!"

Japan had also participated in the Dutch Youth World Cup. Keisuke Honda was a key player for the Japan Youth National Team, but they had been eliminated early in the Round of 16 after losing to Morocco.

"Keisuke Honda is nothing but a clown. He was only just selected for the Japan National Team, so he might not even get to play. Still, Japan has quite a few big-name stars, especially their midfield star Hidetoshi Nakata. He's someone we absolutely can't take lightly!"

"Hidetoshi Nakata probably won't be coming, right? Didn't the Japan Football Association say they wouldn't call up their overseas players?"

"Seriously? Are the Japanese really that arrogant? I heard the Football Association values this East Asian Football Championship a lot and is negotiating with Munich 1860, where Shao Jiayi plays, to release him for the tournament. If Japan is taking this lightly, then we might really be able to take them down this time!"

Japan had a decent number of overseas players, both in quantity and quality. They were among the best in Asia.

They had Koji Nakata at Olympique de Marseille in Ligue 1, Hidetoshi Nakata at Fiorentina in Serie A, Atsushi Yanagisawa at Messina, and Junichi Inamoto at Cardiff City in the English Championship.

The two sides had a long history of bad blood, and Chinese fans absolutely hated the Japan team.

But the National Football Team simply was not strong enough to beat them, leaving all that resentment with nowhere to go until it turned back on itself.

It could be said that the National Football Team's current public opinion crisis had a great deal to do with losing to Japan in the Asian Cup Final held on home soil.

If they could avenge that defeat this time, it would allow Chinese football to erase its humiliation and might even turn public opinion around.

By then, trophies and honors would not matter. As long as they could knock down the Japan team and the South Korea team, it would all be worth it!

Before the 1980s, Chinese football had developed earlier and could keep Japan firmly suppressed on the pitch. At one point, it had even maintained an unbeaten record against Japan for sixty years.

But by the 1980s, Japan's rise had already become difficult to stop.

From 1981 to 2005, the Chinese team and Japan team faced each other eighteen times over twenty-four years. The Chinese team managed only five wins, three draws, and ten losses, with their win rate falling below thirty percent.

The last time the Chinese team defeated Japan had been seven years ago, in the East Asian Football Championship held on May 7, 1998, when two goals from Li Bin gave China a 2–0 victory over Japan.

Since then, the Chinese team had found it impossible to beat Japan again. Even a draw had become a luxury, and Japanese football had become an insurmountable mountain before Chinese football.

Seven years without a win had even given many National Football Team players and fans Japan phobia.

They desperately wanted to defeat Japan and settle old scores, yet they had no confidence in their own strength and were instead afraid of facing Japan on the field.

But speaking of Japan phobia, the National Football Team's Korea phobia was the truly incurable one.

Since their first meeting in 1978, the National Football Team had gone twenty-seven years without a win against the South Korea team.

Even if they shamelessly counted China's 1986 victory over a South Korea team made up mainly of university players in the Nehru Cup, they had still gone nineteen years without defeating South Korea.

Compared to Japan, South Korea was truly the National Football Team's nemesis among nemeses.

With their tough style, abundant stamina, ferocious challenges, and strong discipline, the South Korea team was naturally built to counter the Chinese team tactically.

On top of that, South Korea's professional league had developed earlier, and they had more players abroad, including Asian ceiling-level stars like Cha Bum-kun.

This meant that South Korea had always been ahead of China in terms of raw strength. When the Chinese team faced South Korea, it was like a father beating his son, and China was the son getting beaten.

Like Japan, South Korea had also chosen not to recall large numbers of overseas players for this East Asian Cup.

Although the East Asian Football Championship was an A-level competition whose results could directly affect FIFA points and rankings, neither the Koreans nor the Japanese took it very seriously.

Perhaps in their eyes, even without recalling overseas players, their domestic players could still easily defeat the National Football Team.

Chinese football was, at best, second-rate in Asia in their eyes. It simply was not on the same level as them.

If that was the case, why use a sledgehammer to kill a chicken?

The National Football Team's fans understood this perfectly well, especially considering what they knew about the current squad's strength.

There were truly not many fans who believed before the match that the National Football Team could defeat Japan or South Korea. Everyone's greatest hope was simply not to lose again.

Of course, if they really could defeat Japan or South Korea, that would naturally be even better.

Even beating Japan or South Korea without their overseas players would have great positive significance for Chinese football. At the very least, it would let National Football Team fans finally vent the anger they had suppressed for so long.

"Old Zhao, Brother Chen, what's the situation over on the national team side?"

Lin Feng had been extremely surprised when he learned that he had suddenly been called up to the national team.

The National Football Team had not given him any advance notice, leaving him completely unprepared.

But joining the national team and even representing it on the pitch was undoubtedly good news for Lin Feng.

Right now, he urgently needed to play for the national team so he could activate the system's functions more quickly and increase the development level of its existing modules.

The Serie A league season was about to begin. To deal with the challenges of various opponents and multiple fronts in the new season, Lin Feng needed to continuously improve his own strength.

If he could accelerate the development of the Kaka template, combined with his own rigorous, disciplined training, his growth would be extremely rapid. Then he would have far more confidence in establishing himself in the Serie A league.

So after confirming that the news was genuine, Lin Feng immediately contacted Zhao Xuri and Chen Tao to ask them about the national team.

Both of them had previously been selected for the national team. Zhao Xuri had even made a substitute appearance, and the Chinese team's current record for youngest player to appear had been set by Zhao Xuri.

They could only be considered fringe players in the national team, but they had at least been part of it and knew those internationals.

Compared to them, Lin Feng had never interacted with those people. He knew little about their tempers, personalities, or the factions behind them. What he did know came from vague media reports from his previous life, and their accuracy was questionable.

When they heard Lin Feng's question, Chen Tao and Zhao Xuri patiently explained everything to him.

After hearing their introduction, Lin Feng could not help frowning.

This National Football Team really was a shallow pond full of turtles, a small temple crawling with demons!

Its internal situation was even more complicated than he had imagined.

Forget it. He would treat it as a chance to gain experience.

If those people truly could not be relied on, then at least the 85 Generation could replace them.

As long as the China Youth Team achieved good results at the Olympic Games three years later and established themselves in the Big Five Leagues, fully replacing these people in the future would not be difficult.

After packing his things, informing the club of the situation, and taking leave, Lin Feng boarded the nearest flight and set off back to China.

He was officially heading to report to the national team!