Football's Soft Rice King: Sister, I Don't Want to Work Hard Anymore
Chapter 18

Scored twice in a match, the birth of a legend!

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Arsenal overturned the score in the final minutes, nearly driving Liverpool manager Hodgson to his grave with rage.

"Damn it! That wretched little brat!" At that moment, Hodgson was grinding his teeth in fury at Li Yufei.

Being overturned by their most direct rival at home in Anfield?

Hodgson could already imagine how Fleet Street's media would kick him while he was down after the match.

"No, we have to win this game!"

Having made up his mind, Hodgson shouted and gestured wildly from the sidelines, signaling for an all-out attack.

There was no point in playing conservatively now, since they were already trailing.

Losing by one goal meant zero points, and losing by two still meant zero points.

With that in mind, Liverpool had nothing to lose and everything to gain, stripping down to fight tooth and nail for survival.

As for considerations like goal difference, it was still just the first round of the league, so no need to worry about that yet.

Match time: 86th minute.

After conceding, Liverpool pushed forward en masse, adopting a stance of no surrender.

First, Gerrard unleashed a thunderous strike from 30 yards out.

The ball was saved by Almunia, but it didn't travel far before Maxi collected it.

Under Clichy's tight marking, Maxi swept the ball to Torres inside the box.

Torres received it, turned in one fluid motion, and fired off a shot, shaking off Vermaelen's defense with a single technical move.

Fortunately, Koscielny stepped in just in time to block the shot as Torres released it.

The ball ricocheted off Koscielny's leg and bounced to the right side of the box.

Arsenal's Right Back, Sagna, took control of the ball, then drove it 30 meters forward before threading a through ball to Walcott, who was already sprinting at full speed.

The pass had just enough lead, allowing Walcott to catch it without slowing down.

By now, Agger, who had been repeatedly burned by Walcott's pace, was completely out of the race.

A wide-open stretch of dozens of meters lay before Walcott, so he cut diagonally straight into Liverpool's box.

On the other side, Li Yufei had already surged ahead to the left side of Liverpool's box, even before Walcott.

Arshavin and Van Persie weren't about to be left behind either, charging toward the center of the box.

In an instant, Liverpool's front line was outnumbered 4-on-3, with Carragher, Skrtel, and Glen Johnson defending against Arsenal's four-man attacking group.

Seeing Walcott charging straight to just 20 yards from goal, Skrtel gritted his teeth and abandoned his mark on Arshavin to turn and stop Walcott.

For once, Walcott kept his cool instead of losing his head, and as Skrtel closed in, he passed the ball straight to Arshavin.

Now temporarily unmarked, Arshavin adjusted slightly to the rolling ball and unleashed a powerful drive.

At the critical moment, Reina pulled off an unbelievable, last-ditch save, pinning the fast-flying ball just before the goal line.

But he couldn't hold it—Arshavin's close-range strike was simply too forceful.

Reina could only trap the ball on the goal line, unable to control its direction.

After bouncing up, the ball flew toward the left side of the goal.

Then, out of nowhere, Li Yufei appeared like a phantom, darting into the ball's trajectory before anyone even realized it.

Facing a wide-open net from point-blank range, Li Yufei lifted his leg and booted the ball in with a motion like a kick to a person.

Reina was helpless against such a shot and raised his hands in surrender.

The moment Li Yufei scored, Liverpool players immediately raised their hands to the referee, claiming he was offside and the goal should be disallowed.

But the Main Referee saw the linesman hadn't raised his flag, so he blew his whistle and pointed to the center circle, signaling the goal stood!

"GOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!"

"He's done it!!!"

"Number 13, Frye, he's scored again!"

"In his very first Premier League match, he's Scored twice in a match!"

"Plus an assist to Van Persie—that means this kid has created three goals in less than 30 minutes on the pitch!"

"Remember, this is the Premier League, and his opponent is Liverpool!"

"Against this level of competition, against this caliber of opponent, to deliver such a dazzling performance is simply unbelievable!"

"We have every reason to believe that Frye will become a world-class superstar in the near future!"

After Li Yufei scored his second goal, Wenger on the sidelines couldn't help but clap in excitement.

To be honest, Li Yufei putting up such an efficient performance in his debut game had truly caught Wenger off guard.

In Wenger's vision, while Li Yufei was incredibly talented, that talent needed time to mature.

His current on-field ability was certainly no match for established stars.

But now, that notion had been seriously shaken.

Wenger still needed time to observe whether Li Yufei had simply exploded in this match or if this was his true level...

After Li Yufei scored Arsenal's third goal, Liverpool completely collapsed.

Having been down a man since the first half, Liverpool had already given their all to hold on this long.

In the second minute of stoppage time.

Diaby intercepted the ball in midfield and passed it to Nasri, who sprinted all the way forward.

When he reached 30 yards from goal and saw the Liverpool defenders hesitating to press up, he drew back his bow and let fly with a Long Shot.

The shot had plenty of power but was too central—normally, it wouldn't pose much threat.

But whether from a shattered mentality or a basic error, Liverpool goalkeeper Reina pulled off a classic butterfingers, and the ball rolled unexpectedly into the net.

"Oh, my God!!!"

"Reina actually had a butterfingers moment at the last minute! Such a basic mistake should never happen to him."

"The match is completely over. Arsenal scored three goals in the final ten minutes, utterly breaking Liverpool!"

"And the biggest hero behind all this is a young player who just made his professional league debut—this is like a fairy tale!"

"Perhaps someday in the future, when we look back, we'll be very glad we happened to broadcast this match live."

"Because this could very well mark the birth of a great legendary player!"

"BEEP BEEP, BEEEEEEP—"

With two short blasts and one long, the Main Referee blew the final whistle.

In the end, Arsenal crushed Liverpool 4:1 away from home!

It was something of an upset!

After all, while Arsenal's current squad strength was a notch above Liverpool's, it wasn't enough to produce a 4:1 blowout!

Especially at Anfield, the infamous devil's home ground across all of England—that made it all the more remarkable.

In short, after this battle, Li Yufei had thoroughly cemented his reputation as a "prodigy."

End of Chapter
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