"Have you heard? The Chinese team is coming soon!" In the changing room of the Angers youth team, a group of youngsters were discussing animatedly.
The biggest news in the circle recently was that a Chinese team was coming to participate in a competition. This was something that had never happened in the entire history of the French Football League, so even these young players were very excited.
It wasn't that they wanted to warmly welcome these friends from China, but rather leaked news from the club's coaches indicated that the club was about to introduce a series of reward policies to encourage players to score goals in matches against the Chinese team.
Indeed, a few days later, the coach of the Angers youth team announced the exciting news to all the players on the training ground.
First, the club decided that when playing against the Chinese youth team, they must field their strongest lineup, and everyone must show full spirit to score goals. The entire goal of the match was how to achieve a greater goal difference.
In addition, the team offered rewards for every goal scored. The player who scored the goal would receive a reward of 1000 Euros per goal, while the player who assisted the goal would share an average reward of 500 Euros. Every player in the entire team would also receive an additional reward of 50 Euros for each goal.
Calculating this, the club would pay approximately 2100 to 2300 Euros in bonuses to all players for each goal. However, compared to the 50,000 Euros reward per goal difference offered by the Jiangnan Group, one could see how shrewd these capitalists were. The young players who actually scored only received less than 1/20 of the total bonus, which was simply tragic.
But the players were still very happy, because these youngsters, being part of the club's team, received almost no salary, only some subsidies which amounted to about 500 Euros per month.
After all, the entire youth team would never make money. At the same time, these players had to eat and drink with the team, and receive various training and support from the team, which were all quite expensive matters. It was already very generous for the team to provide a subsidy of 500 Euros.
Now, a single match could earn them hundreds of Euros in rewards, so these players were almost overjoyed, wishing they could play against the Chinese team immediately and blast their goal to smithereens.
Of course, some players cautiously asked, "Coach, how is the technical skill of these Chinese players? I heard that China has a population of 1.3 billion, so these players are the strongest chosen from among 1.3 billion people, right? Will their strength be great?"
"Strong?" The coach seemed to have heard the funniest joke, and even couldn't help but laugh. "Sorry, little John, I can't answer that question, because in all the international competitions I've participated in, I've never encountered a team that has 'slid down'. They can't even get through the qualifiers, so I really don't know what makes them strong."
"Asians are naturally lean and weak, unlike us French people who have been strengthened by Black blood. Their thighs are not as thick as your arms. So you can play with all your might during the match. As long as you don't foul, these Chinese will be like crumbled tofu, easily falling before you. Scoring goals will be as easy as eating bread."
"Of course, you still need to restrain your strength, otherwise I'm afraid that too many Chinese players will get injured, and if they can't field a full team to play, they will have to withdraw from the league early, and we will lose such a valuable opponent!" The coach's words caused the players to burst into laughter, and then everyone became enthusiastic.
"But Coach, I've watched movies where Chinese people cultivate. If there are any cultivators among them, we won't be their match!" one player said with some worry. He liked watching the "Myriad Realms Immortal Path" series the most.
It was a pity that after the nine movies of "Myriad Realms Immortal Path" were filmed, the Chinese announced that the main series of "Myriad Realms Immortal Path" movies had all been released. Fortunately, a spin-off movie was released every year, and many cultivators from the United States and Europe embarked on journeys to the universe, making people's blood boil.
This young player's original dream was to become a cultivator, but he could never sense the spiritual energy within him, so he ended up playing football. However, he firmly believed that there must be cultivators in China, which was why he asked such a worrying question.
"Don't worry, cultivators are not interested in playing football. They only like to sit and meditate, accumulating power to break through their realms!" The coach said very seriously, which immediately calmed many players.
Finally, the coach announced another exciting piece of news: according to the recently arranged match schedule, their Angers team would be the first team in the entire youth league to play against the Chinese team. The match would be held in a week, so the players were asked to warm up and prepare for this very easy battle.
Thus, with the players' diligent warm-ups, the match finally began a week later.
Before the match started, the players were all discussing the Chinese team.
For example, one player received astonishing news that the child of the world's richest man might be on the opposing team.
"If possible, we must try to find an opportunity to befriend him!" The oldest player among these children earnestly advised the others, "This is the son of the world's richest man. If you can become friends with him, then your birthday gifts will no longer be a wind-up toy car without batteries, but a big, genuine BYD Tang 4WD electric vehicle!"
"However, if you don't have the chance to befriend the son of the world's richest man, then you might as well find an opportunity to beat him up. For example, give him a hard tackle, or bump his head from behind, leaving him with as many painful memories as possible."
"This way, in the future, you can brag to your younger siblings that I once beat up the world's richest man!"
"Hahahaha!" The children burst into laughter, and everyone's morale and fighting spirit were once again ignited. At this moment, the coach also came into the changing room, giving each person a piece of paper and a pen, asking them to write down a number.
"This is the goal you are setting for the team. Write down how many goals you will score into the opponent's net as your self-motivation for the next match," the coach said cheerfully, and the players confidently wrote down their expectations.
The most offensively skilled forward players even wrote down two-digit numbers.
The midfielders were not to be outdone, with the lowest expecting to score 6 goals.
The defenders were a bit unlucky, because according to the team's arrangement, it was difficult for them to go to the opponent's half to score. Therefore, each of them only wrote down 2-3 goals.
As for the last goalkeeper, he was completely depressed. He complained to the coach, "This is unfair. They all have the chance to score, but I don't!"
"How about this!" The coach thought for a moment, then said with a smile, "Just write down how many certain goals you can save."
Then the goalkeeper gloomily wrote down the number "0."
"Oh, my dear Shania, are you that lacking in confidence in your abilities?" Seeing the number, the coach asked in surprise.
"No, I have great confidence in myself, I can block all the soft shots from the Chinese, but I don't think my teammates will let the Chinese get near the penalty area. Their shots will be stolen by my teammates before then, and I'll just be watching from the goal!" The goalkeeper said dejectedly, which earned another burst of laughter in the changing room.
To be fair, if the French national team's changing room had this atmosphere, they would have won the 2022 World Cup.
After this joyful atmosphere, it was finally time for the match to officially begin. The young players walked into the tunnel and finally met their opponents from China.
"These people are indeed not very strong and tall, except for the goalkeeper at the back!" This was the initial impression of the Angers players of the Chinese players. Although most of the Chinese players were very strong, they were still somewhat inferior to the French players. Two of the forwards were quite slender and looked like monkeys compared to the other players.
However, among the Chinese team's defenders, there were quite a few heavyweight players, who were extremely strong in height and build, not inferior to the French players.
And the strongest was their goalkeeper. Although his height was not very tall, his entire physique was very robust.
However, the French players did not pay much attention to these details. Being robust did not mean having exquisite skills; they would teach them a lesson with the ball at their feet.
Since this was the Chinese team's first match after entering the league, it was widely watched by French and Chinese media. More than 600 journalists attended the stadium, in addition to over five thousand spectators, which was an unprecedented spectacle in the youth league.
Therefore, there were inevitably more formalities outside the match, with speeches from the Football Association and club executives, as well as media interviews. Thus, some French players found nearby Chinese players and asked, "Can you really cultivate?"
Some also asked, "Do you know the name of Dan Feng's water god? Do you have any news about Uncle?"
Unfortunately, no one answered their questions. It wasn't that the Chinese young players were too proud, but rather that they had never learned French in school, and the team was entirely composed of Chinese players. Therefore, they couldn't understand what the opposing players were saying at all, and could only respond with a friendly smile!