The Most Special Gift in the World

For everyone in football, this was a special year.

Established stars, while maintaining their form, paid even more attention to protecting their bodies.

None of them wanted to be troubled by injuries at such a critical moment and miss the once-every-four-years World Cup.

You could see many stars consciously beginning to limit their playing time in league matches.

Even in matches they could have fought harder in, they chose to hold back.

The coaches understood this without needing to say it aloud. They rotated when necessary and protected players when necessary.

After all, nobody wanted the core player under their command to fall just before the threshold of a major international tournament.

The young players who had yet to make a name for themselves had an entirely different mindset.

They showcased themselves like madmen, giving everything in every match, hoping to earn a reputation and catch the last train to Russia.

A brilliant assist or a crucial goal could become the key that opened the national team's door for them.

Across the Top Five Leagues, you could see many young players like this, their eyes burning with an almost all-or-nothing desire.

That was the charm of a World Cup year.

Veterans carefully guarded what they had, while newcomers fought desperately for their chance.

Everyone was making different efforts toward the same goal.

Although more than half a year remained before the World Cup began, many media outlets and self-media bloggers had already started generating buzz for the Russian World Cup.

Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two representatives of the post-1980s superstars and once peerless rivals, were thirty-one and thirty-three respectively. Many people wondered whether this would be their final World Cup.

One media outlet analyzed, "Messi is already thirty-one, and Cristiano Ronaldo is thirty-three. In four years, they will be