"Mr. Chivu, I don't think I can do this anymore!"
"Men don't say they can't do it. Come on, one last set of flyes. You've made more progress than I expected. Keep going, keep going!"
"Huff—huff—"
At Inter Milan's vast training complex, only the dense Oak Forest kept Tang Long and Chivu company.
Tang Long's special training didn't let up, even during the winter break.
Everyone was on holiday, and the club cafeteria was closed.
Chivu simply brought Tang Long to his home in Milan, where he supervised his daily training one-on-one and even cooked all his meals himself.
Ever since Tang Long had activated Chivu, Inter Milan's treble-winning legend, as his hidden training partner...
His progress in the AI Cloud Training Ground had been nothing short of explosive!
In just half a month, his passing stat had reached 75.
That put his passing at the level of a regular starting midfielder for a lower-middle Serie B team.
But that wasn't even the best part.
What excited Tang Long even more was how much his physical attributes had improved!
To complement Chivu's physical training, Tang Long had devoted more time in the AI Cloud Training Ground to stamina, strength, and similar drills.
Chivu remained his training partner.
Just as Chivu had been a versatile player during his career, the Romanian in the Cloud Training Ground also wore many hats!
He spent the day sweating in a real gym, then continued sweating in the gym inside the Cloud Training Ground at night.
The training routines were more or less the same.
But training in the Cloud Training Ground was clearly more efficient!
Tang Long's stamina had risen to 71, his strength to 75, and his jumping to 70.
The improvement showed up directly in his real-world training sessions with Chivu.
In the gym.
"You're a real prodigy, Tang! In just half a month, you've raised your bench press from 68 kg to 80 kg, but your body weight has only gone up by 2 kg. How did you manage that?"
On the training ground track.
"Beautiful! You can run 2,900 meters in twelve minutes now. Once you can break 3,000, you'll have the stamina to play seventy minutes of a Serie A match!"
By the vertical jump testing equipment.
"Haha! You can jump as high as I can now. But you've still got to keep working, Tang. I've been retired for over a year, and I weigh 81 kg—I'm 10 kg lighter than you!"
Only his speed hadn't improved much. It had risen from 65 to 68, then stopped.
Tang Long figured it was probably because Chivu had never been known for his speed as a player.
But that was fine.
Inter Milan's tactics didn't require Tang Long to use his speed to take on opponents.
As long as he passed the ball well and improved his stamina and physicality, he could make up for his weaknesses to a great extent.
Even so, Tang Long's progress still left Chivu amazed!
After every training session, he recorded Tang Long's results.
Chivu was astonished to find that Tang Long's stats were rising like a stock chart on a breathtaking bull run. It filled him with delight!
"It's unbelievable, Tang. When I was coaching the youth team, how did I fail to see your potential?"
Whenever Chivu asked him that, Tang Long would laugh it off and brush the question aside.
"I'm only eighteen, Coach. I'm young, and I'm very confident there's still plenty of room for me to improve!"
While Tang Long sweated buckets at the training complex, forcing himself to swallow low-oil, low-salt fitness meals despite feeling sick...
Mancini quietly showed up in China.
SH City, Chongming Island.
The temperature outside was 1 degree Celsius, and the cold dampness seeped into everything.
A chilly wind swept by, carrying the tang of iron filings.
Outside a farmhouse restaurant on the outskirts, two little stools sat by the lake.
Mancini sat shivering on one of them, bundled in a thick down jacket.
Beside him, Eriksen wore the red jacket issued by Shanghai Port FC and stared intently at the float on the lake.
Watching Eriksen fish so calmly, Mancini couldn't help asking him:
"Teacher, aren't you cold, fishing in weather like this...?"
"Quiet! The fish is about to bite!"
A sharp glint flashed behind Eriksen's thick lenses. He sprang to his feet and pulled on the line!
After a two-minute struggle with the big fish below, he dragged a large grass carp onto the bank.
Mancini hurriedly scooped up the fish with a net and dropped it into a red bucket.
"Heh, not bad. At least five pounds. That'll do!"
Eriksen looked at the big fish thrashing in the bucket and beamed.
Dinner was freshly grilled grass carp.
The enticing aroma made Mancini's mouth water!
He scraped off a piece with his fork and stuffed it into his mouth with some fish mint.
The pungent, fishy taste of the fish mint shot straight to his head, and Mancini nearly spat it out!
"Hahaha, you're not used to this herb? I love it. I can eat a whole handful in one bite!"
"Teacher, did you eat this herb in Sweden too...?"
"No. I only started eating it after I came to China to coach. We Swedes are descended from Viking pirates, hahaha. We're very adaptable!"
Why had Mancini traveled all the way from Milan to SH City?
Under Inter Milan owner Thohir's plans, Inter wanted to become a club with global influence. It would take more than a slogan like "We are brothers of the world."
The first step was to export its culture, learn from the Premier League, and build its brand around the world.
Especially in East Asia, with its huge population.
To that end, Thohir had drawn up a plan to build an Inter Milan football school in SH City, where talented Chinese children could be recruited to play.
On the day the school opened, he had specifically sent Mancini to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The ceremony itself lasted only five minutes, but speeches from the various officials went on for three and a half hours.
Still jet-lagged, Mancini listened until his eyes were spinning, then returned to his hotel and collapsed into bed.
The next day, he had another important person to visit.
That person was Eriksen, the current head coach of Chinese Super League club Shanghai Port FC.
Mancini had no interest in the Chinese Super League and knew little about it.
The only reason he was so eager to see Eriksen was that Eriksen was a teacher he deeply respected, the man who had shown him the way in his coaching career!
By then, Mancini was Inter Milan's head coach. He had won countless trophies and had long since joined the ranks of the world's top managers.
But there was one matter he couldn't make up his mind about. He needed his teacher to help him find an answer.
Time ticked on.
Then it turned back to the Apennine Peninsula in the previous century.
As a player, Mancini had flourished in the number nine role and made a name for himself across the footballing world.
People in football had once described him this way:
"If Baggio didn't exist, Mancini would be Italy's only legend in the past twenty years!"
After fifteen years with Sampdoria, making 567 appearances and scoring 171 goals, he had won the Serie A title, the Italian Super Cup, the European Cup Winners' Cup, and other honors.
In 1997, at the age of thirty-three, Mancini moved from Sampdoria to Lazio for a transfer fee of four million euros.
In the 1999–2000 season, Lazio won both the league title and the Coppa Italia, but Mancini's playing career had reached its end.
He had failed to score in twenty league appearances and, disheartened, announced his retirement.
His appearances for the national team had also stalled at thirty-six.
That season, Lazio's head coach was the Swede Eriksen.
At fifty-two, Eriksen was in the prime of his life, full of confidence and at the peak of his coaching career.
He had keenly spotted Mancini's gift for understanding tactics and extended an offer to the footballing genius:
"Roberto, come be my assistant. You'll make an outstanding coach!"
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