After attending UEFA's annual awards ceremony and the Champions League Group Stage draw, he parted ways with his teammates and flew back to the capital, Beijing, from Monaco via several connections, then flew from Beijing to Shenyang.
He was going to participate in the Asian qualifiers for the 2018 Russia World Cup, the Top 12 Tournament.
China's opponents this time were Qatar, Iran, Korea, Syria, and Uzbekistan. None of them were weak overall. On top of that, quite a few China Team players had already passed the age of thirty, so the situation was far from optimistic.
After several legs of travel, Yang Yang arrived in Shenyang on the morning of the twenty-ninth.
At that time, the National Team players were undergoing their final training session before departing for Korea. All twenty-five players except Yang Yang had already returned to camp, while the other overseas internationals playing in the European League had arrived on the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth.
But everyone had expected Yang Yang to be late. They had all watched the live broadcast on television of him once again taking home the European Player of the Year award at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
Therefore, no one in the National Team blamed Yang Yang for being late. On the contrary, everyone was eagerly awaiting his arrival.
It was not only the internationals inside. Since the team was holding a closed training camp, plenty of domestic and foreign media members and fans had gathered outside the training ground, waiting there.
The moment they saw Yang Yang appear, they surged forward and surrounded him.
"Yang Yang, you're finally back!"
"Welcome back, Yang Yang!"
"Come on! You have to win! Take down the Koreans!"
"How's your form lately?"
"Yang Yang, will the long journey affect you?"
The media and fans frantically