Football Sprite

Du Ziteng had never expected that after finally pulling strings to get himself released, he would be sent back in because of some damn travel blogger.

And this time, he would not be getting out for several years.

Of course, Chen Anno would never have expected that after being gone for nearly two months, he would somehow make the trending searches again.

Titan Sports, Soccer News, and other sports outlets all reported on Chen Anno scoring a hat-trick in his Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A debut.

Online, the video posted by Xu Lang was reposted by major websites, with total views surpassing one hundred million.

Back before the number-one app in the universe had even launched, fans mostly gathered in Football Bar to talk, and Football Bar was absolutely buzzing at the moment.

[Hiss... I seriously can't understand it. A genius player like this spent two years in the country and couldn't even get a game in the Chinese Super League. Is our football really this terrifying?]

[Give me a break! What kind of shitshow is the Chinese Super League? Who the hell can't see it? Want to get on the pitch here? Even if Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo came over, they'd have to hand over two cartons of premium cigarettes first.]

[You're looking down on them too much, man. You think two cartons of cigarettes are enough to brush off beggars? Didn't you hear that leaked recording last time? Chen Anno paid 100,000 yuan and still couldn't get on the pitch!]

[Hahaha... I'm dying here. We actually handed a talent like this over on a silver platter!]

[Honestly, it might not be a bad thing. If Chen Anno had stayed here, his talent might really have been buried for good. Getting out was better.]

[Exactly! I support that! He'd better not come back. He should just join the Brazil national team. Maybe then he'll even win a World Cup.]

[Tch...! You idiots, he was Brazilian to begin with, okay? He stayed here for two years and you started treating him like one of us? I think the reason Chen Anno never played in China was because he never considered this place home. Otherwise, there were reasons he didn't play for the National Youth Team, sure, but why couldn't he play for any club either?]

[Bro, how much did that ** club pay you? Introduce me too, would you? I've got plenty of time—I can post it all over the internet.]

The internet was in an uproar. Some were stirring the pot, while others genuinely wished Chen Anno well.

In the vast ocean of the internet, where nobody knew anyone else, one could encounter every kind of creature.

These past few days, Chen Xiaolong had practically become an online war god. Every day after school, he would camp online. Whenever anyone badmouthed his big brother, he would immediately rally his classmates to swarm them, never tiring of it.

But no matter what happened online, Chen Anno, far away in Sao Paulo, knew nothing about it.

Even if he had known, he probably would not have cared. He was busy training.

At Sao Paulo's training ground, Chen Anno sent a free kick sailing several meters over the crossbar.

"Woo... Anno, that won't do," the old captain Ceni instructed from the side.

Yes, it was Sao Paulo's veteran captain, the forty-year-old goalkeeper Rogerio Ceni.

A goalkeeper teaching Chen Anno how to take free kicks?

Anyone unfamiliar with football, or who had not followed Brazilian football, would have no idea how much weight the name Ceni carried.

When it came to renowned South American goalkeepers, many fans had heard of Paraguay's legendary keeper Chilavert and Colombia's "Madman" Higuita.

But few might have known the name Rogerio Ceni.

To put it simply, Ceni was, to date, the highest-scoring goalkeeper in the history of football.

Over the course of his career so far, he had scored 131 goals.

What did that mean? Plenty of strikers did not even score as many goals as he had over their entire careers.

And of Ceni's 131 goals, 62 had come directly from free kicks.

What kind of concept was that?

The player with the most free-kick goals in football history, Brazil's famous star Juninho, had scored 77.

England's legendary David Beckham, renowned for the Beckham Bend, had scored 65 in total.

The football king Maradona had scored 62. Ceni's free-kick tally was the same as Maradona's!

It was simply badass Plus!

That was why the club had assigned Ceni to be Chen Anno's free-kick coach.

"When taking a free kick, it's best to stand slightly behind and to the side of the ball, at an angle of fifteen to twenty degrees. That lets you swing your leg more naturally during the run-up, while also keeping the wall from blocking your view.

"You should stand three to four steps away from the ball. Accelerate over the final one or two steps, and plant your supporting foot about twenty centimeters beside the ball. That makes it easier to generate power from your leg muscles."

Ceni taught with great care, holding nothing back. As he explained, he also demonstrated the movements for Chen Anno.

"If you want to curl the ball, you need to strike it with the inside of your foot, right here..."

"If you want that knuckleball effect, then you need to use your instep. And when you strike it, the power comes entirely from the explosive force of your knee muscles. I suggest you use that method less often, because taking knuckleballs for a long time can damage your knees."

"Come on, Anno. Let's try again..."

On the training ground, Chen Anno struck the ball again and again, while Ceni tirelessly corrected the teenager's errors and technique over and over.

As the sun set, their shadows stretched long across the emerald grass.

After entering June, Sao Paulo's schedule eased up somewhat following their Copa Libertadores defeat.

On June 3, the entire Sao Paulo squad arrived in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, six hundred kilometers from Sao Paulo.

They would face Atletico Mineiro away from home in the third round of the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A.

Chen Anno felt that Sao Paulo and Atletico Mineiro really were fated to cross paths this year. Including their previous Copa Libertadores clashes, this would already be their fifth meeting of the year.

Chen Anno was looking forward to this match, because his idol Ronaldinho was here.

However, Ramalho apparently had no intention of satisfying Chen Anno's wish to play alongside his idol so soon. He was placed on the bench.

Contrary to expectations, Atletico Mineiro did not rotate their lineup despite having played a Copa Libertadores match just three days earlier. Instead, they fielded all their regular starters.

Tardelli, the Sao Paulo academy product who had once played for Eindhoven; Jo, who had played for both Manchester City and Everton in the Premier League; and Ronaldinho, the football wizard—all appeared in the starting lineup.

At 6:30 p.m. local time, the match kicked off at Mineirao Stadium.

From the opening whistle, Atletico Mineiro used their home advantage to launch attacks against Sao Paulo.

To deal with Mineiro's offensive pressure, Ramalho deployed a formation with three defensive midfielders, hoping to use their numerical advantage in midfield to withstand the opposition's attacks.

After all, aside from the final Copa Libertadores group-stage match where the points had practically been handed over, Sao Paulo had not held any advantage in their previous encounters.

Chen Anno sat on the bench. Aloisio beside him had been replaced by Silvinho, because Guofulu had been given a starting spot today and was currently out there running on the pitch.

From the very start of the match, Chen Anno's eyes had remained fixed on the football wizard, whose figure had clearly grown somewhat heavier. He could not bear to look away for even half a second.

In Chen Anno's heart, a wizard was a wizard, even if he no longer possessed even thirty percent of his former ability.

As long as he was still on the green pitch, he would forever be that football wizard who played with joy.