After Li Yufei's goal, Blackpool had only just taken their tenth kickoff of the match when the referee eagerly blew the final whistle.
What a massacre! Even the referee couldn't stand to watch anymore.
Watching Li Yufei and Walcott both complete hat-tricks, Wenger applauded from the sidelines.
Whether it was Little Tiger Walcott or Li Yufei, the super-rich second-generation heir and genius player,
both were future cornerstones of Arsenal in Wenger's eyes!
And then there were Fabregas, Wilshere, and Van Persie.
In Wenger's mind, Arsenal's future was something to look forward to!
All he had to do now was do everything he could to keep them healthy and let them grow and develop at their own pace.
As for results over the next few seasons, Wenger didn't have any particular demands.
As long as they qualified for the Champions League each season, that was enough.
Naturally, it would be even better if they could make it as far as possible in the knockout rounds.
As for the League Cup and FA Cup, Wenger basically treated them as opportunities to give the youngsters experience.
Before Fabregas, Van Persie, and Song all defected together,
Wenger hadn't yet become the "thermos cup" master of the future.
Looking across the entire Premier League, Arsenal's squad was only weaker than Manchester United and Chelsea.
They had the edge over all the others!
Wenger still had ambitions for major competitions!
Of course, having ambitions didn't mean that he was in a hurry to win trophies right now.
Ever since he'd seen Li Yufei's performances with the first team over the past few matches, Wenger had been full of confidence in Arsenal's future!
Everything will be all right, Alex. I won't make you wait much longer. I absolutely won't... Wenger swore to himself. He absolutely refused to simply give up his rivalry with Ferguson.
He had to let all of Britain know one thing: Alex Ferguson had only one true rival in the Premier League.
And that was Arsène Wenger!
Li Yufei, out on the pitch, had no idea that the seemingly gentle professor had suddenly spun such a grand drama in his head!
Right now, he just felt great all over. After all, winning a match against a weak side was downright delightful.
After the match, the referee also went over to Walcott and Li Yufei to ask which of them would take the match ball.
After all, it was a football tradition that a player who scored a hat-trick could take the match ball home.
But now there was a problem: two players had scored hat-tricks in this match.
One was Walcott, and the other was Li Yufei.
When the referee asked, Li Yufei noticed that Walcott looked a little hesitant and guessed that he wanted to take the ball home.
So Li Yufei offered to let Walcott, who had completed his hat-trick first, have it.
Little Tiger was grateful. "Thanks, bro. I'll treat you to a fruit platter sometime."
As he spoke, Walcott gave him a look that said, "You know what I mean."
Li Yufei didn't get it at first. But when he saw the lewd expression on Walcott's face, he realized what he meant by "fruit platter."
Once he understood, Li Yufei immediately and firmly refused!
What was he thinking?!
Pulling that kind of thing when Li Yufei's girlfriend Taylor was around was practically asking to die!
Li Yufei knew all too well that his future global pop superstar girlfriend was extremely strict about this sort of thing!
Trying to cheat on her while they were dating would be tantamount to suicide!
At the very least, there was absolutely no chance Taylor would forgive him after he cheated.
If something like that really happened, Taylor would dump him without hesitation and then write a pile of songs dissing him.
And just like that, he'd become famous.
Li Yufei knew he couldn't stop his girlfriend from writing him into her songs, but he couldn't let himself go down in history as a "cheater," either, could he?
He didn't mind his ordinary love life being used as material for songs.
After all, Li Yufei would never turn down free publicity!
Besides, the publicity was positive. Unless someone wanted to keep their private life out of the spotlight, only an idiot would refuse!
But celebrities didn't have any right to privacy to begin with...
In Li Yufei's view, a celebrity's duty was to let the public see their private life.
At the very least, as a celebrity, you couldn't openly oppose that kind of thing.
Otherwise, how were you any different from a courtesan in ancient times who "wanted to be a whore and set up a chastity arch"?
As a celebrity, if you'd already enjoyed the benefits of all that attention,
then naturally you had to shoulder the downsides, too.
Li Yufei had long been prepared for that. To become the GOAT of football, massive public attention was essential.
All he wanted was to maintain a somewhat positive public image.
That sort of public relations work could also help Li Yufei quite a bit in the race for individual honors like the Ballon d'Or!
Why had Messi and Ronaldo won so many Ballon d'Ors in his previous life?
There was no denying that their outstanding ability was one factor.
But the PR teams behind them, their image marketing, and the resources offered by their clubs
were all crucial reasons why the two of them had monopolized the Ballon d'Or for ten consecutive years!
In Li Yufei's mind, no matter how good Messi and Ronaldo were, they couldn't have monopolized the Ballon d'Or for ten years straight.
At least from a purely competitive standpoint, both Messi and Ronaldo had "stolen" Ballon d'Ors.
Why use the word "stolen"?
Because some of those awards, judged purely on that year's honors, statistics, and other footballing achievements, absolutely shouldn't have gone to them.
But there was no helping it. The Ballon d'Or was basically the same kind of thing as the NBA's regular-season MVP award.
Both were the highest individual honors in their respective sports.
And neither was "pure"—both took all sorts of factors into account.
A winner needed not only impressive team honors over the season or calendar year, but also top-tier individual stats.
At the same time, the winner also had to be famous enough!
In the Messi and Ronaldo era, the third-place contenders vying with them for the Ballon d'Or
often lost out because they weren't well known enough.
Plenty of people around the world either didn't follow football or only watched it during the World Cup every four years. Their knowledge of footballers was limited to hugely famous players like David Beckham, Messi, and Ronaldo.
Some of them hadn't even heard of the two legendary old kings, Pelé and Maradona!
Let alone active players who hadn't yet become famous outside the football world.
A player who hadn't crossed over into the mainstream was at an overwhelming disadvantage from the start when competing for a "popularity" award like the Ballon d'Or against Messi and Ronaldo, who had!
That was also why Messi and Ronaldo had been able to monopolize the Ballon d'Or for so many years.
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