A Hot Event! A Hot Powder Keg!

On September 18, the seventh round of the Championship kicked off one match after another.

In this round, Sheffield United were still at home, and their opponent was Portsmouth from a coastal city in the south.

They had once been an established powerhouse, and had even won the FA Cup two years ago. But because they had overspent on players, the club was currently in administration.

Most of that old group of players had also been poached by top-flight clubs, leaving behind only a squad of Championship-level players.

On Bar Street, inside a forty-five-year-old shop.

"Quick, help out! Carry the advertising board outside!"

After Kodall confirmed at the pre-match press conference that Maël would still start, he quickly called people over to carry the advertising board out the door, while he himself held several small banners.

These were the signs and banners related to the fan event that had just been made over the past few days.

They clearly stated that spending 200 Pounds at a table would earn a finely made gift signed by Maël, or that spending over 50 Pounds in the shop allowed a customer to buy one gift separately for 50 Pounds.

The limit was twenty-five per week, and the event would run for four weeks.

In truth, compared with what Kodall had put in, even if all these gifts sold out, he might not make much.

But when running a shop, the main thing was to cultivate customers' habits.

If this event could help gather some fans who recognized their fan bar as the place to go, then it would bring long-term benefits.

"Actually, I wanted to put it out last match."

After Kodall and the staff finished bustling around, he looked at the newly done storefront with anticipation and sighed. "But for some reason, I had a feeling back then that the home match against Scunthorpe might be lost, maybe even badly.

"Didn't expect my prediction to be pretty accurate. Good thing I didn't rush it, or the fans wouldn't have been very enthusiastic at the start of the event."

One of the staff smiled and turned to ask him, "Then putting it out today, is that because you've got a feeling Sheffield United will win this one?"

"Hard to say if they'll win."

Kodall shook his head. He knew what kind of state the team was in this season, but there was one thing he could still hope for. "But I feel Maël has a chance to score. Who knows, he might give us a surprise."

Seeing the staff laughing, he waved a hand and walked inside. "Don't doubt an old man's intuition. It's even more accurate than a woman's sixth sense."

"Hahahahaha." That made quite a few people laugh again, many of them throwing their heads back.

Kodall snorted twice. Sometimes, the older a person got, the more they became like a child. After entering the pub, he personally sat in front of the bar and waited for customers.

Before long, several regulars walked in first. After ordering some beer, they sat down and waited for the match to start.

They asked a few questions about the event, but for now, they did not seem very interested.

It was not until the match was about to begin, when fans who had failed to get scalped tickets hurried over to Bar Street one after another, that the whole street instantly became lively. Quite a few people also noticed the event here.

"Let's go in and have a look."

"Maël's signature? Are kids this commercially aware now? Hahaha."

"Not bad. If he performs well today, I can consider buying one."

With the logic that they had to spend money drinking somewhere anyway, so they might as well take part in an event, many people gradually sat down inside.

Kodall had not expected the results to be this good, and he immediately greeted everyone with a beaming smile. The staff also got busy.

"You're sure it's Maël's signature?"

Some fans who had money to burn and rather liked Maël even pulled out cash as soon as they came in, ready to buy.

"No cheating old or young."

Kodall opened his phone, tapped into Maël's social platform, and showed them the pinned advertisement on Maël's Social Media.

"I'll buy it!"

Many people ordered 50 Pounds' worth of alcohol and directly spent another 50 Pounds to buy a signed gift. They chose for themselves whether they wanted a scarf, a hat, a hip flask, or a bottle of alcohol.

At this moment, most fans chose scarves and hats bearing the club's double-bladed crest.

Once the liquor in the flask or bottle was finished, it was gone, and they were not convenient to carry. Taking them home and putting them there did not really feel like a collectible either.

Amid this lively atmosphere, the start of the match drew near as well.

At Bramall Lane Stadium, beside the arc of the center circle.

"You are a light in the darkThat there's only the road down the dark!!"

Listening to the fans singing all around him, Maël fixed a sharp gaze on the opposing goal, his desire to score and his will to win both reaching their peak.

He could feel an extremely powerful force in the song. It seemed to emanate from the depths of people's hearts, something passed down and carried forward by generations of Sheffield fans.

At this moment, he deeply felt the strength of community football.

They had clearly suffered a heavy defeat last match, and even he himself had been so downhearted. Seeing the fans leave with dark expressions had made him feel utterly powerless and guilty.

But when a new round of league matches began, these people once again rallied and sat in the stands, using every means they had to cheer the team on, still holding hope and expectation for everything.

"Beep!!"

When the referee officially blew the whistle to start the match, he was the first to charge forward, running toward the left side of the opponent's defensive line, longing to receive the ball.

He once again thought of the advertisement he had helped Kodall post before the match, and of that 4,000 Pounds still carrying the warmth of a palm.

Those people were probably all watching his match closely today, weren't they?

His first brand partner—he couldn't ruin his own name. He had to give it everything he had and use his influence as much as possible to drum up business for Kodall's bar.

And his influence had to be built with goals and assists.

Although quite a few media outlets had already reported on him, the number of people paying attention still wasn't large. Everywhere, it was only in small circles.

He had to keep deepening his impression in the fans' minds with one brilliant moment after another!

"Thump, thump. Thump!"

After moving with the team's formation for a few minutes and touching the ball twice to warm up his feel, Maël didn't grow impatient. He was no longer who he had been before.

After the tempering of several professional matches, his match experience had improved noticeably.

It was like training a sharpshooter. Aside from the talent and growth potential he had to possess himself, he also needed to be fed a massive number of bullets.

The more he fired, the more naturally familiar it became.

Maël had never felt that he could only rely on long shots and crosses to score. With his playing time right there, chances would come even if he only stumbled into them.

And as long as a chance arrived, he could still seize a one-on-one opportunity, or even a header at the near point! This was composure, the composure of adapting to the Championship.

"Beep!"

In the twelfth minute, Gilbert was brought down by an opposing player while carrying the ball forward through the middle, and the referee blew his whistle to signal a foul.

But unexpectedly, the opposing midfielder who had committed the foul, Michael Brown, suddenly bent down, brought his head close to Gilbert's face, and glared fiercely. "Arsenal kid, if you think you're so precious, then piss off back to Arsenal!

"The Championship isn't suited to you, and it isn't suited to that companion of yours either. You'll be ruined here."

With that, he slammed his forehead heavily against Gilbert's head, then straightened up and prepared to leave.

"What did you say?!"

Gilbert was a young lad too, so naturally his temper wasn't small. He immediately got up and quickly followed. "You're thirty-three, aren't you? You've spent your whole life holed up here! All you can do is envy people like us, because you have nothing."

"What?" Michael Brown whipped his head back, eyes bulging as he thrust his forehead forward and pressed it against Gilbert's.

A head-to-head clash, a classic scene on a football pitch!

The smell of gunpowder spread across the field, and players from other areas on both sides rushed over.

"What are you doing!"

Maël arrived first and shoved Michael Brown away. Both sides were in a state of confrontation on the pitch; there was no need to indulge anyone.

Gilbert had gotten into a conflict with someone, so he had to come up and help him out.

Feeling the heat all around him, a blaze of anger also surged in his chest. When you ran into this kind of football thug, you couldn't handle it by ordinary rules.

"Beep, beep, beep!!" Seeing that the situation was about to spiral out of control, the referee blew his emergency whistle and sprinted over, placing himself between the two sides.

The two sides stood off like that, and personal grudges had been mixed into what had originally been pure football competition.

"Boooo!" Boos rang out from the Sheffield United fans in the stadium. Quite a few fans threw water bottles and miscellaneous objects in their hands down onto the pitch, venting their dissatisfaction.

This was their home ground, and the opposing player had provoked things first—where was the justice in that? "Isn't that a straight red?"

By the side of the pitch, Gareth Speed rushed out from the coaches' bench and stormed toward the fourth official at the touchline. "He threatened our player and directly smashed our player's face with his head. You didn't see that?

"Tell him through the headset, now!"

The fourth official kept a cold expression, avoided meeting Gareth Speed's eyes, and didn't say a word into the headset.

A farce unfolded just like that, then was quickly calmed by everyone's belated reason.

After the referee showed Maël and Michael Brown a yellow card each, the players from both sides gradually separated.

Only Michael Brown, who felt he had been insulted, was still gritting his teeth before he was pulled away, throwing out a threat. "You two kids had better watch yourselves!"

In a place he wasn't paying attention to, Maël had carried the football to the free-kick spot and was preparing to take this free kick.

The team's first-choice free-kick taker was Janu Hans; he had only gained responsibility as the corner-kick taker two weeks ago.

But this time, he was going to take the kick.