Chapter 195 The Secret of Zhou Yi

After Zhou Yi finished training, he and Kotana drove away from the training base and came to another soccer field.

Here, his agent Schulze was waiting for him.

But Schulze wasn't the only one waiting for him. In addition to the film crew, Zhou Yi was surprised to see a player who had been retired for a long time—Robert Pires.

When Zhou Yi saw Pires, his eyes widened in disbelief.

Pires smiled and extended his hand to Zhou Yi, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Zhou Yi."

"Uh, it's also a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pires." Zhou Yi returned the greeting.

Another person emerged from beside Pires and also extended his hand to Zhou Yi, "It's also a pleasure to meet you, Zhou Yi. I'm Mark Lawrenson."

Upon hearing this name, Zhou Yi immediately said, "The Liverpool legend? Mark Lawrenson, who's now a commentator on the BBC?"

Lawrenson was a little surprised that Zhou Yi was so familiar with him, and also a little proud. He smiled happily, "That's right, I am that Mark Lawrenson. I never thought a young man like you, Zhou Yi, would know me."

"You are very famous!" Zhou Yi placed another high hat on Lawrenson's head.

Lawrenson waved his hand, but smiled even more happily.

"Robert and I are here for this filming..." After the pleasantries, Lawrenson introduced to Zhou Yi. "We have a mission."

"Mission?" Zhou Yi was puzzled.

"Yes, we are trying to find the secret behind your success..."

Zhou Yi became nervous—he thought Mark Lawrenson wanted to dig out the virtual world in his brain...

Mark Lawrenson completely didn't notice Zhou Yi's change. He continued, "You are already a world-class midfielder at such a young age, so you must have something extraordinary. Although I am a British commentator, I have commentated on many of your games. When commentating on your games, I always have a strange feeling that I really want to understand..."

Kotana, who was standing next to Zhou Yi, noticed Zhou Yi's abnormality. Although she didn't know why Zhou Yi had suddenly changed, she felt that the other party was talking eloquently while her boyfriend was distracted, which was not good.

So she subtly pinched Zhou Yi lightly from behind.

The pinch made Zhou Yi jump, and he happened to hear Mark Lawrenson's next words: "...Watching you play always gives me the feeling of watching a chess player play chess. Robert and I have talked about it, and he has the same feeling. It seems this isn't just my illusion. I just want to ask, Zhou Yi, do you have this feeling yourself?"

"Huh?" Zhou Yi was surprised. He didn't expect Lawrenson to be talking about something other than the virtual space in his brain.

Seeing Zhou Yi's blank expression, Mark Lawrenson thought that Zhou Yi didn't even know how awesome he was, so he smiled and said, "So the purpose of our filming today is to figure out this question."

Afterward, Zhou Yi followed the others into a studio that had been temporarily converted from a locker room.

There, he greeted the staff one by one, and then the director asked him to change into his soccer uniform and shoes.

After changing into his uniform and shoes, someone came with a strange pair of "glasses" to put on Zhou Yi.

"What's this?" Zhou Yi asked curiously.

"Glasses with a camera." Mark Lawrenson explained from the side. "...We are going to do a small test. This special instrument has three cameras, one in the front and two in the back. The two in the back record the movement of your eyeballs, while the one in the front records what you see."

"Interesting..." After putting them on, Zhou Yi tried shaking his head and found that they were secure and wouldn't fall off easily.

Next, the film crew put an elastic headband on him, with a GoPro action camera attached.

This was to shoot from a first-person perspective.

Then he walked out of the studio and appeared on the soccer field.

He discovered that there were already more than twenty players on the field. Zhou Yi didn't know them, but they all obviously knew Zhou Yi. They all greeted him after seeing him.

So Zhou Yi also returned the greeting.

Like himself, they were also wearing those strange glasses.

"This small test is very simple. You will play an eleven-on-eleven practice match with them." Mark Lawrenson pointed to the players and said. Some of them were wearing blue jerseys, while others were wearing red jerseys, the same as Zhou Yi.

"They are all amateur players that the film crew found. Although they are amateurs, they have been receiving professional training for many years, but they are just in amateur teams now."

Zhou Yi turned around and found Robert Pires wearing a blue jersey and also wearing those glasses.

"We are opponents." Pires said to Zhou Yi with a smile.

Mark Lawrenson explained, "We hope to bring in a top-notch player as a reference."

"Former." Pires corrected.

"Don't be modest, you are in very good physical condition." Lawrenson joked. Then he threw the soccer ball in his hand to Zhou Yi, "Get used to the stuff on your head."

Zhou Yi raised his foot and steadily stopped the soccer ball thrown by Lawrenson, then juggled it a few times and didn't feel that the glasses he was wearing caused any interference.

Then he passed the soccer ball to Pires, who cushioned it with his chest and also skillfully juggled the ball without the slightest discomfort.

After everyone was ready, the test officially began.

Because it was a practice match, the intensity of the competition wasn't very high, and this kind of training wasn't difficult for the players on the field.

Zhou Yi also performed normally, constantly running to get the ball and passing it.

And under his leadership, the Red Team's offense also had the style of Dortmund, passing back and forth very skillfully.

Mark Lawrenson watched the game from the sidelines, and couldn't help but sigh, "That's it. Zhou Yi should be playing with these players for the first time, but he can always cooperate with them tacitly. His passes can always accurately find other people... This kind of ability is really enviable."

※※※

The practice match ended after half an hour.

Next, they would have to call up the footage shot by the glasses everyone was wearing on the spot.

It was said that this content would show everyone Zhou Yi's outstanding qualities.

Everyone gathered around, especially the players, who wanted to see how they were different from Zhou Yi.

While extracting all the footage, Mark Lawrenson pulled a few players aside and asked them what they thought of Zhou Yi's performance.

"He can always find me and pass the ball to me..."

"Yes, yes, even if I'm behind him, he can pass the ball over... As long as I can run into an open space..."

"I think he can always run into the gaps in the defense, and then he can receive the ball relatively easily..."

"I just feel very relaxed. It's very easy to play with him. I even have a feeling that I can go play in a professional league with my performance!"

"That's your illusion!"

"Hahaha!"

Everyone laughed.

But Lawrenson shook his head with a smile, "It's hard to say whether you can play in a professional league, but Zhou Yi can indeed make his teammates perform better."

He had commentated on the Chinese Olympic team's games. That Olympic team had excellent players such as Sun Pan, Guo Nu, He Ying, and Yang Muge, but there were also many local Chinese players. Without Zhou Yi, they should be able to enter the knockout stage. But that wasn't enough.

With Zhou Yi, the team eventually won the championship, and Zhou Yi's role in it was very important. He played the role of the team's adhesive, lubricant, and catalyst.

※※※

While everyone was chatting, all the footage was processed.

Everyone gathered around the TV screen again, watching the staff start playing the footage.

First, they played the footage of ordinary players playing soccer.

There was a small circle in the middle of the screen.

Mark Lawrenson explained to everyone, "This is what the eye-tracking technology shows. The small circle represents the target you are looking at. It keeps changing, which means you are constantly moving your eyeballs."

No matter who it was, most of their small circles were concentrated in the center of the screen, especially on the soccer ball.

What does this mean?

It means that everyone is paying more attention to the soccer ball during the game.

But when they played the footage observed by Zhou Yi, the situation was different.

First of all, the footage shot from Zhou Yi's first-person perspective was very, very... shaky.

This shaking wasn't caused by Zhou Yi running. Although everyone had similar shaking, the amplitude and frequency of the shaking were very slight.

"This is Zhou Yi constantly turning his head." Mark Lawrenson introduced.

After he said this, everyone suddenly understood.

Zhou Yi does always turn his head back and forth during the game. This was evident both when watching Zhou Yi's games and when playing with Zhou Yi just now.

In addition to moving his head back and forth, the small circle representing Zhou Yi's line of sight in the footage was also constantly changing position.

This represents that Zhou Yi has been constantly changing the target of his focus, not aimlessly looking around.

From the trajectory of the small circle's stay, everyone could clearly see what Zhou Yi was paying attention to.

He wasn't just watching the ball, and it could even be said that he spent very, very little time watching the ball.

More often, he was looking at his teammates, looking at his opponents, looking at where they were. When he didn't have the ball, his gaze was almost constantly sweeping across all the players on the field.

Especially when the soccer ball was passed up, his gaze would follow the soccer ball and survey the surrounding situation.

In this process, he would understand the situation of the game.

The small circle flashed almost like lightning in the screen, constantly and quickly changing positions, making the onlookers feel dizzy...

Someone closed their eyes.

"How can someone play soccer like this..." someone groaned.

"This is how Zhou Yi plays soccer. He constantly observes to obtain everyone's position on the field, and at the same time, he predicts the next trend of the game based on your movements. This is how he can find gaps, find opportunities, and then pass the soccer ball over." Pires said.

After listening to his explanation, everyone looked at Zhou Yi.

Everyone here played soccer, so they naturally knew that the situation on the field was changing rapidly. Everyone was constantly moving. The position of the previous second was completely different from the position of the next second. With twenty-two people, he had to remember everyone's position, and then constantly update this position, and then analyze and predict...

How could he do it?

Everyone knew that in many cases when playing soccer, the brain couldn't think at all and could only rely on the body's instincts. But Zhou Yi's brain was constantly recording and analyzing data. In such a complex situation, his mind could always maintain such a calm state of work... It was really terrifying!

It was precisely because everyone played soccer that they knew how difficult this was. Most of the time, they could only stare at the soccer ball. Even most professional players played soccer like this.

Everyone looked at Zhou Yi again with a bit of terror in addition to admiration—was this person a monster?!