May 6, 2012.
Barcelona, Camp Nou Stadium.
The thirty-seventh round of La Liga was underway, with Barcelona hosting Espanyol.
This was Barcelona's final home match of the season, as well as the farewell day for the team's legendary coach, Guardiola.
A total of 97,000 spectators had come to the match, and the enormous Camp Nou was packed to capacity.
Although their opponent was merely a weak team that posed no threat to the mighty Barca, the fans' enthusiasm was extraordinarily high.
Before long, the match became Messi's personal stage!
With his sharp dribbling and flawless ball control, he firmly drew the attention of the entire crowd to himself.
In the eleventh minute, Espanyol fouled Messi as he carried the ball in front of the penalty area, and the referee awarded a free kick.
Messi scored directly from the free kick. Barca 1:0 Espanyol.
In the sixty-fourth minute, Messi flicked the ball past a defender inside the penalty area. His turn was so quick that Espanyol's towering defender Gomez could not keep up with the rhythm. When Gomez rushed in to challenge, he could not stop in time, and his elbow touched the ball.
The referee was nearby and saw Gomez's handball clearly. He immediately awarded a penalty and showed Gomez a yellow card.
Messi took the penalty. After fooling the goalkeeper, the ball struck the post and bounced into the net.
The score became 2:0, and Messi had scored his second goal of the match.
Ten minutes later, Messi received a long pass from Adriano in the backfield. After swiftly getting past Espanyol's defender, he went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and scored again, completing his hat trick.
Five minutes later, Espanyol's number 22 defender fouled Busquets inside the penalty area, and Messi once again stepped up to the spot.
He did not waste the opportunity his teammate had created. With one clean strike, he scored his fourth goal of the match and completed an incredible four-goal feat.
When Messi scored his third goal and sealed the victory, Camp Nou had already begun singing his praises.
When he scored his fourth, every fan in the stadium rose to applaud and cheer for the King of Camp Nou!
It was not just the ordinary fans. Even the young players from Barca's youth team who had come to watch were completely conquered by Messi!
"Messi! Messi! Oh my God, did you see that? He was practically a god!"
Among the youth players, Gerard Deulofeu, who also played as a winger, was as excited as a child. He shook the shoulders of the youth teammate seated beside him and spoke excitedly.
Sitting beside him was a young player wearing the youth team's number 4 jersey. He had yellow skin, black hair, and a handsome Asian face.
His name was Lin Quan. He was sixteen years old, a starting midfielder for Barca's youth team, and also a transmigrator.
He was an orphan who had been adopted by a Spanish couple and had grown up in Spain.
His adoptive father had once been a professional player, playing in midfield.
Influenced by him, Lin Quan had been exposed to football from an early age. Since he had considerable talent and his adoptive father's connections, he joined La Masia early and was trained as Xavi's successor.
Hearing Deulofeu's words, Lin Quan nodded in deep agreement.
The Messi of 2012 was undoubtedly at the most insane point of his career.
That year, Messi scored a total of 91 goals in all official competitions, breaking the world record held by Gerd Müller.
At that time, Messi had speed, explosiveness, dribbling, the ability to beat defenders, pass, organize attacks, and link play. He was almost omnipotent.
On the pitch, he was practically every opposing defender's nightmare.
When faced with Messi advancing with the ball, there was almost no particularly good way to stop him besides fouling him.
But unfortunately, the fatigue accumulated from excessive appearances, combined with his opponents' rough fouls,
caused Messi to suffer repeated injuries in 2013. A string of injuries severely affected his form and brought an end to his peak.
After that, Messi was still powerful and even became more complete.
But compared to his peak, his dribbling ability declined considerably.
But what did that have to do with me?
I'm a midfielder. Of course I should be studying midfielders like Xavi and Little White. Messi was too monstrous, and his position was completely different from mine. Studying him was meaningless for me.
Just as Lin Quan was grumbling internally, a long-lost voice sounded in his mind:
[The system has detected a player who meets the Football King standard. Would you like to copy him?]
Lin Quan froze for a moment. This damn system had come back to life?
When he was six, he had unexpectedly obtained a Football King System. Back then, it had merely instilled some football knowledge and techniques into him before disappearing.
Over the past ten years, he had constantly searched for ways to awaken the system, but he had never succeeded.
Just when he was preparing to give up and had even begun to doubt whether obtaining the system had been real or merely a hallucination, the damn system came back to life.
Lin Quan was both shocked and delighted.
Although he had always called it the damn system, without the help it had provided back then, there was no way he could have made it this far.
So after hearing the system's prompt, afraid that it would disappear again, he immediately made his choice:
Copy!
Boom!
In an instant, countless fragments of memory surged into Lin Quan's mind like a tide, and scenes from the past appeared one after another.
They were all scenes of a small player breaking through, beating defenders, and shooting on the pitch.
"These are memories from Messi's professional career?"
Lin Quan immediately recognized the small player. It was Leo Messi, the King of Camp Nou who was racing across the pitch at this very moment.
The memories of Messi's professional career gradually merged with Lin Quan's own memories, giving him the experience of Messi's eight-year professional career.
[Memory modification complete. Physical modification will be carried out tonight!]
The system's modifications were utterly unreasonable. Memory modification was one thing; it was difficult for others to notice.
But physical modification was a drastic overhaul that would cause obvious changes to a player's body.
If it were done on the spot, leaving others aside, the few teammates around him would easily notice the changes in him.
So the system's arrangements were quite thoughtful.
Still, when he heard that the system would modify his body, Lin Quan felt somewhat uneasy.
To be honest, no one could refuse Messi's talent.
That was top-tier talent at the level of a Football King. Who would not covet it?
But Messi was only 1.7 meters tall!
Much of his talent had come at the cost of his height!
If he gained Messi's talent, would that mean he too would be capped at 1.7 meters, just like Messi?
Hiss, that price felt a little too steep!
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