Thursday, August 21, 2003, at exactly 3:00 p.m.
Northern Spakenburg, IJsselmeervogels Club, Wismart Stadium.
The town had only a few thousand residents, but its football culture was exceptionally strong. Two semiprofessional teams from the third tier were based in the northern part of town, sharing six full-sized training pitches and each possessing a professional stadium capable of holding over a thousand spectators.
Whether it was the training grounds or the football stadium, the quality of the grass was excellent, and the daily maintenance was meticulous. Even Yang Yang could not help praising it. Training grounds and stadiums of this standard were extremely rare back home, but judging from his experience playing matches all over the Netherlands these past few months, they were incredibly common here.
The strength of the football culture was also reflected in the fans. Even on a weekday, the area around the stadium was still packed with people.
Wismart Stadium had only two stands and could accommodate just a few hundred fans. Normally, it sold seated tickets to the public, but there was nothing blocking off the area around the stadium, allowing all the fans to come and watch from the perimeter.
For this match against Ajax's Second Team, the fans had surrounded the stadium so tightly that not even a drop of water could pass through.
There was only one reason: Marco van Basten was leading the team.
IJsselmeervogels' head coach was Phillip de Haan, a man in his forties, but he looked like an obsessed Van Basten fan. The moment Ajax's Second Team arrived at Wismart Stadium, he immediately brought his players over to welcome them and asked Van Basten for an autograph and a photo together.
But the friendly atmosphere before the match did not carry over onto the pitch.
As a third-tier team,