Succeed or Die!

Technique: poor; physique: poor; tactics: poor; mentality: average.

When the whistle blew to end training, Su Dong collapsed onto the grass, panting like an ox.

Coach Lionel Pontes came over and handed him a freshly completed evaluation report. The results were extremely dispiriting.

Su Dong shook his head helplessly and gave Pontes a bitter smile.

The Madeira Island coach casually took out another evaluation report and handed it to Rony.

The youth-team genius had not fared much better.

Technique: good; physique: average; tactics: poor; mentality: poor.

"Lionel, did you make a mistake? How did my mentality get rated poor? I worked hard the whole time. In a fifteen-minute scrimmage, I didn't stop for even a moment," Rony said, looking deeply wronged.

Pontes nodded. "That's true, but focus and effort alone aren't enough. Look at the comments."

Su Dong leaned over and looked at the comments together with Rony.

"Acceptable focus, plays too selfishly, obsessed with showing himself off, prone to impatience."

Rony was immediately left speechless.

This was his first training session with the first team, and his performance had indeed been terrible.

If the worst-performing player in the whole team had been Su Dong, then he was definitely second from the bottom.

Rony had more chances on the ball than Su Dong, because as a forward, Su Dong had been facing the Brazilian veteran Cruz the entire time.

This defensive center back had come out of AC Milan. Though he was a little old, he was rich in experience, and dealing with a rookie like Su Dong was simply far too easy for him. Throughout the entire small-sided match, Su Dong had been frozen out with no ability to struggle at all.

That was also why all three major categories for Su Dong were rated poor.

Rony's biggest issue was mainly psychological. He was too eager to show what he could do.

"Sometimes the more anxious you are, the easier it is for problems to appear. This is a big issue, and you must do your best to overcome it," Pontes advised.

Rony nodded, though it was unclear whether he had taken it in.

Deep down, he was still very proud. He did not believe he would lose to anyone, but today's first-team training had left him feeling powerless.

"When I used to watch from the sidelines, I always felt that training with the first team seemed like nothing much, pretty easy, even. Sometimes I thought those mistakes were too stupid. But when I took part in it myself, it felt completely different," Rony said with a frown.

Clearly, his first training session with the first team had shaken him greatly, or perhaps dealt him a blow.

"What about you?" Pontes looked at Su Dong.

"Me?" Su Dong gave a bitter smile. "The only thing I felt was tired. I tried every possible way to get away from Cruz, but in the end, there was still nothing I could do. I felt like he could guess what I was thinking and always get one step ahead of me. It was really depressing. I even felt like I was about to break down."

"That's exactly right," Pontes said with a smile.

Su Dong and Rony both found that strange. How was that right?

Pontes squatted down in front of them and looked at the two young players before him, who still seemed very immature. Even though they had performed terribly in the training just now, he remained full of confidence in them.

"Do you know? Whether it's the media, the fans, or players in the youth team, people often think of the first team as far too simple. So simple that when you dominate everything in the youth team, you naturally feel that once you reach the first team, you'll be able to do the same. But in reality, that's not how it is at all."

The expression on Su Dong's face began to turn serious.

Being good at listening to other people's advice was one of his great strengths.

"Perhaps you think the gap between you and the first team is the gap in strength between you and Quaresma, or at most the gap in strength between you and Jardel. But in reality?"

Pontes did not intend to let them answer. He gave the answer himself.

"The gap between you and the first team is the gap between you and more than twenty Quaresmas and Jardels. Between you lies an enormous chasm, one that many people can never cross in their entire lives."

At that moment, Su Dong suddenly thought of Edgar Marcelino.

He had been a genius in the youth team, but after reaching the first team, he seemed unable to stand firm and could be sent back to the reserves at any time.

"The first team has never been a place for developing people. The youth team and the reserves are. Once you reach the first team, whether in training or matches, everyone will give everything they have to show themselves. Every touch of the ball, every defensive action, even every run—they are all giving their all."

"So you'll find that even in training, the first team's tempo is very fast. The passes come so quickly that you can barely receive them. The players run very fast. If you hesitate even slightly, the chance is gone and the ball is intercepted."

What Pontes said truly matched Su Dong's and Rony's own experiences.

"You two are considered among the best in the youth team, but once you reach the first team, you'll find you can only sit at the very bottom. Do you know why?"

Su Dong and Rony both shook their heads.

"Strength is one part of it. Another part is that you are used to the youth team's style and tempo of playing. You need to integrate yourselves into the first team, desperately keep up with the teammates around you, keep up with the whole team's pace and rhythm, keep up with the way everyone else plays, and then merge into it and bring out your own strength."

Su Dong understood.

Why had Marcelino and Quaresma entered the first team at the same time, only for one to shine brilliantly while the other stayed sluggish throughout?

Perhaps at the moment they entered the first team, the two of them had been about equal in strength, but Quaresma had integrated very quickly and rapidly improved his match ability, allowing him to bring out his own strength.

Unfortunately, Marcelino had done very poorly in this regard, so that even now, his performances were still not good.

For those who could enter the first team, there was no major issue with their most basic strength. At least, it was not unreachable. The key was being able to integrate into the team, keep up with the team's pace and rhythm, and bring out their own strength. That was the hardest part.

"Do you know why the whole team, including the head coach, is so cold toward you?" Pontes asked.

Su Dong and Rony both shook their heads again.

"The reason is simple. From the youth team to the first team, those who can cross this chasm are always an extreme minority. Failure is the most likely outcome. So no one is optimistic about you. That's very normal."

After Su Dong and Rony heard that, they exchanged another look, each seeing the defiance in the other's eyes.

Neither of them had had an easy road to get here, and neither had ever been someone who gave up easily.

"Lionel, generally speaking, how long does it take to fit into the first team?" Rony asked with concern.

"It's hard to say. Some people are quick, some are slow. And you two came in midway through the season, which is very disadvantageous, because the first team's entire technical and tactical system has already been built and is very stable. Everyone else has figured it out, while you're still completely in the dark. That's also why many teams don't like signing players during the Winter Break."

"Ricardo has one advantage, which is that he had almost two months of summer training camp and warm-up matches to gel with the team. But you don't have that at all. So there's no way to measure or demand the same standard of yourselves as him. Still, Edgar's lesson is worth learning from."

Using Quaresma and Marcelino as positive and negative examples was very direct, but not entirely appropriate, so Pontes spoke very quietly, afraid others might hear.

"You should have half a year. At the latest, by summer training camp, if you still can't fit in..."

Pontes did not finish, but the answer was already perfectly clear.

The first team gathered Sporting Lisbon's best and highest-quality resources and gave its players the best environment. It was impossible for them to keep players who could not contribute to the team forever.

If, by summer training camp, Su Dong and Rony still could not fit into the first team and could not prove their ability in training, Sporting Lisbon naturally would not give up on them, but they could only send them back to the second team to be reforged and trained further.

And very soon, the club gave them a warning.

On the morning of the first day of the team's Winter Break training camp, after the training session ended, Edgar Marcelino was called to first-team head coach Boloni's office.

Before long, after returning to the locker room, he silently walked to his locker, packed up his things, and left.

Su Dong stood at the locker-room entrance, watching him carry his backpack through that chain-link fence, his back looking incomparably dejected and defeated.

"I wonder if he can still return to the first team after suffering a blow like this?" Su Dong said, feeling a chill of sympathy.

Rony shook his head. "If it were me, I'd come back even if I had to risk my life. But other people... who knows?"

After saying that, the youth from Madeira Island turned and left.

Su Dong, however, kept looking at that chain-link fence. Marcelino's figure was already gone from there, but he seemed to see the African-descended player struggling and desolate on the other side of the wire.

Succeed, or die trying!

Suffering a sharp wake-up call in the very first training session sobered Su Dong up considerably from his beautiful expectations of the first team.

He even became calm all over.

Although he had the help of Path to the King of Football, and although he possessed certain advantages others did not, in the end, he still was not good enough.

But interestingly, as the first team's training level rose, his own ability also climbed bit by tiny bit along with it.

Though it was very slow, at least it was faster than when he had been at Sporting Portugal.

Another thing was that King of Football Points came faster too, especially when he faced Cruz directly. His efficiency was not at all inferior to Rony's.

After one training session, he could often scrape together several thousand, even more than ten thousand, King of Football Points.

For Su Dong, this was actually an extremely pleasing gain.

The only trouble was that he and his first-team teammates still seemed out of place, and he could never quite keep up with the rhythm.

Pontes comforted him, saying this sort of thing could not be rushed, and the more impatient he got, the more likely it was to backfire.

"Stay calm and rational. Keep a level head. Advance steadily, improve yourself step by step, and slowly, you'll get to that point."

Though Su Dong was anxious, he also knew Pontes was right.

And so, after following the first team through a week of training camp and being brutally tormented by Cruz for a week, Su Dong tempered himself amid a blend of pain and joy, not daring to slack off in the slightest.

After entering 2002, the Portuguese Super League soon reignited the flames of battle.

Su Dong also welcomed his first match after joining Sporting Lisbon.

During the new book period, I humbly beg for tips, favorites, and recommendation tickets! Many thanks!