Chapter 1 The Season of Restlessness

Star players making promotional appearances, coaches filming commercials, referees investigated for corruption, newspaper sales soaring, bold claims of reaching the top eight, dreams of thrashing the "Brazilian underdogs," World Cup goals of scoring one goal, winning one match, and earning three points… In short, it was a season of restlessness. A kind of madness was slowly growing in people's hearts, and the approaching World Cup made everyone feel uneasy.

In this environment, on May 18th, D University in Dalian, a northern Chinese city, welcomed fifteen universities from all over the country. They would compete here for ten days to determine the champion of the 2000-2002 National University Football League.

Zhang Jun retrieved a can of iced tea from the vending machine and heard a commotion not far away. He peeked over and saw a very familiar tall figure.

Reporters surrounded him, asking him questions. He was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and loose shorts, and it looked like he had been caught by the reporters while taking a stroll.

Li Yongle turned his head and paused for a moment because he also saw Zhang Jun, who was holding iced tea and wearing a baseball cap. Zhang Jun smiled at him as a greeting.

"Li Yongle, R University painfully lost the championship last year. What are your goals for this year?"

Li Yongle still just tilted his head and looked at Zhang Jun, saying slowly, "I don't know about last year, but this year's championship will definitely be ours, R University's!"

"Is that a challenge?" After the reporters left, Zhang Jun and Li Yongle found an inconspicuous corner to sit down. Zhang Jun threw a can of iced tea to Li Yongle.

"Pop!" Li Yongle pulled open the tab of the can, and a burst of air rushed out. "The high school league really is disconnected from the university league… No one even recognizes the top scorer in the national high school league, haha!"

Zhang Jun raised the brim of his lowered cap: "The good players have all been snatched up by professional teams, right? Only a few of us idiots are still in university after graduation. Besides, you're in Beijing, the capital, so naturally you attract attention. But it's good this way. It's no fun to attract attention right from the start. I want to give them a surprise!" Zhang Jun said, looking at the crowds of people coming and going in the hall.

"How is Su Fei?"

Zhang Jun showed off his left wrist, which was adorned with a bracelet that Su Fei had recently woven for him before he left.

Li Yongle looked at it carefully: "Tsk tsk! I can only be envious! We haven't even escaped poverty yet, and you're already living a comfortable life!"

"It's strange. How can you be so tall, handsome, and not have a girlfriend?"

"Hey! I'm not considering romance until I defeat you…"

"Huh? In the three years of high school, you never lost in our matches. It always seemed to be a draw…"

"But I never won either!"

"Oh, oh! How about this? I'll let you win this time so you can find a girlfriend, huh?" Zhang Jun joked.

"No way!" Unexpectedly, Li Yongle suddenly raised his voice, attracting the attention of the surrounding people. Li Yongle lowered his voice and said, "I want you to go all out, and then I'll go all out too. That's the only way it'll be satisfying to defeat you!"

Zhang Jun looked at Li Yongle's earnest eyes and remembered Ren Yudi's smile when he saw him during the Spring Festival after Li Yongle had seen through his thoughts—the helplessness of giving up football, the pain that his body couldn't bear, and a bit of unwillingness from leaving nine times… "He's using tomorrow to gamble on today." As Ren Yudi's teammate for three years, he hadn't seen what an opponent had figured out in a single sentence. Similarly, as Li Yongle's opponent, he seemed to rarely consider the feelings of his opponents. Such an opponent wasn't just about "wanting to defeat you," was he?

Zhang Jun drained the can of iced tea and stood up, looking at Li Yongle.

"Have you seen the schedule? After we get out of the group stage, we'll only need to win one match to meet in the semi-finals. Let me state this first: our goal this year is also the national championship!"

Li Yongle smiled: "If I lose, take the national championship for me. And if you lose, I'll do the same!"

This was a football feast for college students, and also a battlefield between two people.

R University, as the runner-up of the previous year and the champion of the Northern District Finals, was the top favorite to win the championship. In the group stage, they won all three matches, scoring 15 goals and conceding only two, taking the lead in qualifying from the group stage. Li Yongle shone brightly in every match, demonstrating the concept of a "complete midfielder" to the people. Due to his outstanding performance in the preliminary rounds, he had already attracted the attention of his opponents. Therefore, in order to more effectively attack his opponents, Bai Hongfei did not fix Li Yongle in his original defensive midfielder position, but allowed him to move freely, giving full play to his characteristics of good physical fitness, solid defense, accurate passing, and decisive offensive insertions. Therefore, his shadow could be seen almost everywhere on the field, in his own penalty area and in the opponent's penalty area, truly a "free man." Bai Hongfei also formally established Li Yongle's core position, requiring both offense and defense to revolve around him. Logically speaking, as long as they marked the core player closely, R University would not function properly, but judging from Li Yongle's average of 13 kilometers run per game, which was an astonishing record among college students, his opponents hadn't been born yet who could keep up with his shadow.

If R University had such excellent performance because they were a traditionally strong team and it wasn't news, then the performance of U University, which had entered the national finals for the first time, could be called a "sensational explosion."

In the first group match, facing C University from the Western District, Zhang Jun gave this team, which was determined to win the championship, a head-on blow right from the start. In the 5th minute, he received a wonderful pass from Zhu Hui in the penalty area, dodged to find an opening, and then shot, the football went through the legs of the unprepared goalkeeper, giving them a 1:0 lead!

Just when many people thought this goal was a fluke, Yang Pan's powerful long shot from 25 meters away completely shattered C University's hopes of equalizing. This goal, which silenced the entire stadium, appeared in the 35th minute of the first half. When the ball went in, the goalkeeper was still standing in place without any reaction. 2:0! U University extended their lead.

In the second half, U University still used their offensive football of central penetration and distribution to the wings to overwhelm their opponents. In the 67th minute, Zhang Jun once again showed his killer instincts. He received Yang Pan's cross after a breakthrough at the near post, a powerful header, a sword drawn from its sheath, a flash of cold light, and the football went into the net. 3:0! Zhang Jun scored twice, a very typical Zhang-Yang style collaboration.

The score of 3:0 excited many spectators, but it wasn't over yet. Zhang Jun continued his performance. In the 73rd minute, Yang Pan once again forcibly broke through on the right wing with his speed and crossed the ball powerfully. The ball flew to the far post, and Zhang Fan, who seemed to have been overlooked, jumped high in the crowd. Just when the goalkeeper thought he was going to shoot, he flicked the ball into the middle, Zhu Hui cleverly let it through, Zhang Jun rushed in, and he took a powerful shot, sending the ball into the upper near corner of the goal. All the C University players could only watch the ball and sigh. 4:0! Zhang Jun completed his first hat-trick in the national finals!

In the remaining time, C University completely collapsed. Zhang Fan scored his first national finals goal in the 80th minute, poking the ball into the net in the chaos. This "half-forward, half-defender" was quite unconventional on the field, but he was very practical. One assist and one goal, it was already perfect.

In injury time, U University still had a chance to extend the score, but Yang Pan's shot from the corner of the penalty area was bravely saved by the goalkeeper, and captain Xie Yun, who followed up with a shot, missed the goal.

However, the big score of 5:0 was enough to make any U University player happy for a long time. Before the match, they were rated as the dark horse of this competition, and U University lived up to expectations, showing people what "dark horse" meant: being dark to the end, thoroughly dark.

In the next two group matches, Zhao Yu replaced Zhang Jun and other main players in the second half, letting the substitutes come on to practice. Even so, they still won every match by a large margin, from 4:0 to 7:2. Some people exclaimed, "U University is crazy!" They also jumped to become a favorite to win the championship, and no one dared to underestimate this newly emerging team anymore.

With three wins in three matches, scoring 16 goals and conceding 2 goals, U University proudly qualified from Group D, and their popularity even surpassed that of the top favorite to win the championship, R University. But Zhao Yu was not complacent because of a little achievement. As early as before qualifying, he had seen from the schedule that R University would be the biggest obstacle on his team's path to the championship. Both sides were first in their respective groups, so according to the pairing principle of A1 vs. D2, A2 vs. D1, B1 vs. C2, and B2 vs. C1, the two teams would definitely meet in the semi-finals. Therefore, he had been collecting information on R University from the beginning. The most outstanding player in R University was naturally their midfield core, the freshman number 10, Li Yongle. Zhao Yu knew when he was researching Zhang Jun and Yang Pan's past that this Li Yongle was the person who had competed against Zhang Jun in high school, fighting Zhang and Yang alone for three full years, so his strength should not be underestimated. Especially since R University's coach had brought Li Yongle's role to the extreme, many teams wanted to contain him, but none had succeeded. And U University was originally a team that was strong in offense and weak in defense, could he succeed?

While Zhao Yu was still worried about how to contain Li Yongle, Zhang Jun and Yang Pan, two of the team's generals, were enjoying themselves with the core figure of the opposing team in a small restaurant.

"I heard that you've been very arrogant recently! A hat-trick in one match, two goals in two matches, and you're currently ranked first in the scorer list!" Li Yongle said with a serious expression, "So, you're paying for today's meal!"

"Alright, alright!" Zhang Jun waved his hand. "Our coach started to frantically research you after the first group match, thinking about how to contain you, you freak! Therefore, you should treat us to this meal! Our coach is known as invincible in the Eastern District, you're the only one who's giving him such a headache, what an honor!"

"No! No! If we switched places, that coach you mentioned would also be worried about how to contain you, your point is not valid. You should still pay for this!"

"What are you talking about! Even if we switched places, the R University coach would still be worried about how to stop you. So, no matter where you go, the outcome is the same: hurry up and pay the bill! We finally have half a day off this afternoon, it's not worth wasting it here, right, Yang Pan?"

Yang Pan was sitting by the window, slowly sipping the juice in his cup, and listening to the back-and-forth banter between these two "arch-rivals" to relieve boredom. Hearing Zhang Jun call him, he glanced at the two and thought that it was fortunate that they didn't wear their respective school uniforms out, otherwise the fastest spreading news at D University tomorrow would definitely be: "The core of R University and the ace of U University had a big fight over the bill for a 35 yuan lunch, which eventually alarmed 110. The quick-reacting 110 patrol police arrived in time to stop the fight and took the two back to the police station…" and so on.

He shifted his gaze back to the sunny street outside the window, there were so many beauties in Dalian…

"Huh? That's really strange," Yang Pan said. "In the past, as long as one of you was present, you two would always be fighting to pay the bill. What's going on today?"

In the end, the meal was still split equally. Someone firmly disagreed with splitting the bill before the meal, thinking that it was too impersonal to split the bill when friends hadn't seen each other for so long. But when it came time to pay, he couldn't wait to calculate all the n digits after the decimal point obtained by dividing 35 by 3, to show that he had absolutely not taken advantage of the other by even a fraction. The two contradictory sayings of "splitting the bill hurts feelings" and "clear accounts make good friends" became so harmonious and perfect in someone's mouth.

The three walked along the streets near D University. They had been in Dalian for several days, and they were busy with matches and training every day, so they didn't have much time to go out and stroll around. Therefore, the three people who were not familiar with Dalian could only walk around D University, as if they would get lost if they took even one more step.

The three's conversation mainly focused on the semi-finals in a few days, even though they all still had to face a quarter-final.

"Seriously, did your coach come up with any methods to stop us, since he's been trying to find ways to do it?" Li Yongle asked the two.

"No," the two shook their heads at the same time.

"Oh?" Li Yongle raised his eyebrows. "Am I really that difficult to deal with? Do you guys have any ideas?"

"No," they shook their heads again at the same time.

"Come to think of it, in the three years of high school, we never seemed to think about how to stop you!" Zhang Jun looked at the blue sky.

Yang Pan continued, "And we beat you with a total score of 2:1…"

Li Yongle shook his head: "Let me correct you, it's not beat, it's temporarily leading!"

"So stubborn!" Yang Pan muttered in his heart.

"In this national finals, I will tie the score to 2:2, just wait and see!" Li Yongle said with confidence.

"Dream on!" Zhang Jun and Yang Pan replied in unison again.

"Hehe! You two… no wonder you're so in sync!" Li Yongle smiled helplessly.

"Let me correct you, we should be extending the score and performing a hat-trick!" Yang Pan retorted with Li Yongle's previous line.

"Haha!" Li Yongle laughed. "I don't think it makes any sense for us to talk nonsense here. It's useless to say anything now, everything will only be known when we get on the field."

"That's right, football is played with your feet, not with your mouth."

"Then let's use our feet to speak, shall we?"

This time, the three reached a consensus, and so, they began to look forward to the semi-final in three days.

Will it be 2:2, or 3:1?