"Croqueta!"
"Iniesta!"
"Oh my god, am I seeing things?"
Even Koeman, the head coach on the sidelines, couldn't help covering his forehead with his hand. The players on the pitch were just as stunned.
The eyes of the players who had once fought alongside Iniesta were especially full of disbelief.
The Croqueta was a dribbling move that used a player's legs like chopsticks and the football like a ball of food. The technique looked just like flipping a morsel between chopsticks—an apt image.
Many players had used this move. It was really just a simple, practical way to get past an opponent using both feet: the left and right foot worked together, exploiting speed and the narrowest gaps.
But even this simple dribbling move demanded exceptional ball control. It took tens of millions of repetitions to turn it into muscle memory and make it possible to use so effortlessly.
Li Mingyu's move was practically identical to the Iniesta everyone remembered. It had none of the flashiness of a showy trick, just a smooth, flowing elegance. He slipped past Umtiti as casually as someone strolling down a quiet street in the morning.
Umtiti felt a chill between his legs and hurriedly pulled back his right foot. But his mind was ready before his body was, so he plopped straight down onto the ground.
Well, on Li Mingyu's first touch of the ball, he had beaten three players, slipped past one, and wrong-footed two. He had single-handedly thrown Barcelona's entire reserve lineup into disarray.
After getting past Umtiti, Li Mingyu was face-to-face with the goalkeeper. The three-man defensive line hadn't been able to stop him, and the other defenders were so stunned they couldn't get back in time.
The reserve goalkeeper, Neto, braced himself for the worst. Huesca's goalkeeper had left a deep impression on him the day before.
Like a divine warrior descending from the heavens, Li Mingyu raced toward the edge of the penalty arc. Neto couldn't just stay in goal and wait to die, so he gritted his teeth and rushed out to narrow the angle.
Li Mingyu's right foot swept lightly over the ball. Neto instinctively shifted his weight to follow, only to realize at once that Li Mingyu had faked him out.
Oh no!
Li Mingyu tried the Pendulum Dribble again. Neto knew it was a fake this time, but his body simply wouldn't obey his brain.
Brain: Don't move! It's a damn feint!
Body: I damn well know, but I can't control myself!
Neto let out a desperate cry in his heart and dropped onto his backside. He watched Li Mingyu stride past him with effortless flair and roll the ball into the empty net.
What a terrifying guy!
After scoring, Li Mingyu quickly turned around and offered Neto a hand. He pulled him up with an embarrassed smile and said, "Sorry about that!"
Damn, why did that make him feel so miserable?
Neto could only force a bitter smile. "It's fine!"
Koeman was grinning from ear to ear on the sidelines. Hahaha, Li had another trick up his sleeve. I like it.
Messi, who was playing for the reserve side, ran over too, looking at Li Mingyu in delight. "Li, I didn't know you could do the Croqueta! That was incredible!"
Messi could do the move too, and he was quite good at it. But compared with Iniesta, his version seemed to lack that touch of otherworldly grace.
To describe it in the language of martial arts novels, Iniesta's Croqueta had reached the pinnacle of perfection.
Praised by his idol, Li Mingyu beamed. He scratched his head and said, "I don't know how. I just did it!"
Now that was humblebragging at its finest!
The training match resumed.
During that day's scrimmage, Li Mingyu put the reserve side's defense under heavy pressure. With the back line defending as one, he could no longer charge through them like a cavalryman storming an enemy camp.
But with all their defensive strength focused on Li Mingyu, Griezmann and Dembele were delighted. They let fly with shot after shot, with their feet and their heads, until they had the reserve goalkeeper, Neto, nearly in tears.
Damn it, are you all targeting me?
Why was nobody marking those two? They were getting one-on-ones every time!
When the training match ended, head coach Koeman gave the reserve side's back line a thorough dressing-down.
By then, every player had seen what Li Mingyu was capable of.
This was Barca. Even its reserve lineup could hold its own against the starting lineups of some teams.
And yet they'd been powerless against Li Mingyu's surging attacks.
After criticizing the reserve side, Koeman didn't heap praise on Li Mingyu. He simply patted him on the shoulder to show his encouragement.
Young players couldn't be praised too much. They might get carried away!
Watching Li Mingyu in such high spirits, Messi felt a surge of emotion.
He had already been thinking about leaving Barca. The club was sinking deeper and deeper into the mire, while he had gradually gone from being Barca's darling and savior to being seen as its burden.
The talk was everywhere: Barca couldn't rebuild unless they sold Messi.
It hurt him deeply.
Since he was thirteen, Messi had held one secret wish in his heart: to spend his entire career at Barca.
It was no exaggeration to say that without Barca, Messi wouldn't have achieved the fame and success he had today.
But Li Mingyu's sudden emergence had rekindled a powerful hope in Messi's heart.
Maybe he could give it one more go.
He could be a supporting player, just as Ronaldinho had once done.
But first, Li Mingyu had to prove himself with performances good enough to convince him.
As far as Messi was concerned, Li Mingyu hadn't shown enough yet.
After training, everyone left the training ground, but Li Mingyu quietly stayed behind.
He lived in the dormitory behind the training ground.
Once everyone else had left, Li Mingyu went to the gym and began working on specialized training.
[Host: Li Mingyu Attacking: 80 (85) Ball Control: 80 (85) Dribbling: 75 (90) Speed: 88 (99) Shooting: 85 (90) Passing: 70 (75) Heading: 70 (75) Explosiveness: 80 (85) Strength: 75 (80) Physicality: 70 (80) Stamina: 70 (75) Defending: 40 (50) Tackling: 50 (60)]
Looking at his attributes, Li Mingyu couldn't help smiling.
In La Liga, those stats should put him somewhere above average among attacking players.
His greatest strength was his speed. Although he had gained Ronaldo's Absolute Speed, his physical condition wasn't good enough to unleash the Alien's full pace. He still needed a lot of training.
His weaknesses were obvious: dribbling, passing, strength, and stamina. Those were all areas he needed to improve.
Although he now had Iniesta's Croqueta, it only improved his ability to evade opponents in tight spaces.
Stamina remained his biggest limitation. With a stamina rating of 70, he couldn't last a full match. Unless he solved that problem, he wouldn't be able to hold onto a starting spot.
After all, no coach would give a starting role to a player who could only play well for half a match.
Barcelona's next opponent was Sevilla.
Sevilla hadn't scored as many goals as the top three teams, but they had the second-fewest goals conceded in La Liga, with only two more than the league leaders, Atletico Madrid.
They were a team with a tenacious defense.
That match would be Li Mingyu's true test.
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