Chapter 14 He's Actually Quite Good

In the evening, when Zhou Yi entered the world of fifAoL3, the first thing he did was find Mark Wagner among his teammates.

He hadn't been able to name Mark Wagner during the day because he had played against the Dortmund youth team once before, so he remembered the name of a substitute player who sat on the bench for a minute without ever playing.

The reason he recognized Mark Wagner was simply because, since confirming his move to Dortmund, he had been training with the Dortmund youth team in this virtual world for almost a month, so he naturally knew every player.

But this time he planned to get to know Mark Wagner properly.

Previously, he had always been assigned by the system by default, and the system default was the Dortmund youth team's main lineup. Mark Wagner couldn't be seen in this lineup, so Zhou Yi only knew that there was such a person in the Dortmund youth team, but he didn't know the specifics about this person.

Now he planned to understand him in depth.

After finding Mark Wagner among his teammates, Zhou Yi opened Mark's attribute panel and learned about the person's abilities by viewing his attribute data.

The attribute data showed that Mark was justified in being a substitute. His strength was indeed not outstanding in this team. As a forward, he couldn't compete with Schneider.

However, Zhou Yi still noticed Mark's advantages, namely his high tactical awareness of seventy-seven and positioning of seventy-five.

As a youth team player under the age of eighteen, this number was already very good. You have to know that in the Dortmund youth team, apart from Gotze, many players could only be considered geniuses if their single attribute could reach seventy.

So why was Mark, with his two outstanding single attributes, a substitute in the Dortmund youth team?

Simple, his other offensive attributes were really very average.

As a forward, his shooting skill was only forty-four, too low. Zhou Yi's shooting skill was already fifty, and he was a midfielder, so he didn't have much shooting training. Of course, Zhou Yi had a golden finger, and his training results improved faster than ordinary people.

But it could also be seen how bad Mark's shooting skill was.

A forward who couldn't shoot well naturally wouldn't get too many chances to play.

Mark's shooting power was also only forty. He wasn't the kind of player who was good at powerful shots. Long shots were thirty-nine. With low shooting power, long shots wouldn't be very good either. Heading was slightly better, fifty-five, but unfortunately… Zhou Yi visually estimated during the day that Mark wasn't much taller than himself. With such good heading data, but not enough height, if jumping and strength couldn't keep up, then good heading technique was useless.

Zhou Yi quickly looked at Mark's jumping and strength. Jumping was forty-seven, quite average, and strength was forty, also very average.

Okay, this data determined that Mark couldn't grab any headers in the middle of strong center backs. He would be sent flying if he entered the penalty area.

However, Mark's balance was not bad, at sixty, and his reaction was fifty-seven, and his agility was sixty-four, so he could be considered an agile forward…

In terms of speed and acceleration, Mark also had no advantage at all. He wasn't the kind of cheetah who could run with the ball and no one could catch up, nor was he the kind of speed-type player who sprinted without the ball like a track and field athlete.

As a forward, apart from being agile and having good positioning, he was useless.

With such attributes… If he were the coach of the Dortmund youth team, he wouldn't let him play either.

So miserable…

In the past two months, Zhou Yi had traveled to several European countries with the reality show. Whether in Spain, Germany, England, Italy… these countries had one thing in common: a very large number of people participated in football.

When children were only seven or eight years old, they would be sent to the football club teams near their communities to receive training. They weren't full-time training, but also had to take into account their studies. It could be said that football was just their extracurricular activity, and learning was their main focus.

The vast majority of these children wouldn't be able to make it. During the training process, as they grew older, the gap between their bodies and talents would become apparent.

Those children with average talent or who couldn't keep up with their physical development would gradually be eliminated. Football would become their hobby, and they would choose other development directions, such as going to school.

By the age of seventeen or eighteen, those who could make it had already emerged from a very large base, but they still had to face fierce competition and elimination.

Talented players like Mario Gotze would be promoted to the reserve team and the first team, entering the world of professional football.

And young people with mediocre abilities who could never adapt to the requirements of professional football, after failing to sign a professional contract with the club, would either try another weaker club, or find another way out, not taking the path of professional football, but going to college or going to work.

It seemed that these people were all quite unfortunate.

They devoted more than ten years of their youth, but in the end they couldn't realize their dreams.

But it was precisely because of these thousands of children who participated in this huge talent selection mechanism that these European countries were so strong in football.

These children were the soil and the cornerstone. Without them, the prosperity of professional football and the national team would be water without a source, a tree without roots, a castle in the air, and a mirage.

In Zhou Yi's view, this Mark Wagner would most likely become an ordinary cornerstone of German football, paved on the road to Germany's world championship.

And what about Zhou Yi himself?

He had to train hard to avoid becoming a cornerstone himself. Not that the cornerstone was bad, the cornerstone was very important, but Zhou Yi had higher pursuits.

If he just wanted to become a cornerstone, why would he travel all the way to Germany?

Wouldn't it be better to play carefree on the school's football field?

After understanding Mark Wagner's abilities, Zhou Yi exited the attribute panel. He didn't have any ideas. This was his teammate, and he couldn't interfere with whether he became a cornerstone or a professional player.

He should take care of his own business first.

So in the virtual Brackel training base, Zhou Yi and his virtual teammates began training again.

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Today was the day Zhou Yi officially began training with the Dortmund youth team. Because he and his teammates and coaches still couldn't communicate in the same language, Tim Kist acted as Zhou Yi's translator and accompanied him.

In the morning, Tim Kist drove to the hotel where Zhou Yi was staying to pick him up, and then together they went to the Brackel training base, which was about ten kilometers away from the hotel.

"How did you sleep last night?" Kist asked while driving.

"Not bad," Zhou Yi said.

"Have you adjusted to the time difference? Not getting enough rest will affect your training performance. If the coach sees it, it will leave them with a bad first impression. The first impression is very important..."

"Mr. Kist, you remind me of my dad..." Zhou Yi said helplessly.

Kist smiled. He was indeed a bit long-winded, unlike his usual self.

Because today was Zhou Yi's first day participating in team training. As he said, the first impression was very important, so this training session was also very important.

As the player he strongly urged Klopp to introduce, if Zhou Yi performed poorly, then his vision and ability as a scout would be questioned.

He didn't want that to happen.

"Well, I can't go into the players' changing room. Later on the training ground, I can only translate for you on the sidelines. In fact, most of the time you have to rely on your own understanding. Don't be too nervous, and don't be too pressured. Even if you don't perform well, considering your actual situation of just flying over here, no one will think anything of it..."

"Mr. Kist, I think you seem more nervous than I am," Zhou Yi spread his hands. Kist's words were contradictory. Before, he told him that he must perform well, and now he was telling him that it didn't matter if he didn't perform well. So did he have to perform well or not?

Kist smiled again and asked Zhou Yi, "Aren't you nervous?"

"Not nervous," Zhou Yi replied decisively, his tone very firm, making Kist want to roll his eyes—you're good at talking, how could you not be nervous? Kids want to save face and don't want to admit their insecurities. Kist didn't expose him, but he still couldn't let it go, and his mind was full of images of Zhou Yi making frequent mistakes on the training ground because he couldn't understand the coach and his teammates, causing the youth team coaches and players to shake their heads.

Ah, damn it, I swear to God, I wasn't this nervous when I sent my child to school for the first time!

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When they arrived outside the changing room, Kist didn't let Zhou Yi in right away, but seemed to be waiting for someone.

"Mr. Kist, why won't you let me in?" Zhou Yi asked, pointing to the door of the changing room.

"Wait, wait a little longer..." Kist looked outside. "That Wagner kid isn't here yet... Is this kid late for training too..."

He muttered in a low voice.

Zhou Yi could tell that Kist was waiting for Wagner to come and take him into the changing room.

However, Zhou Yi didn't think that he couldn't even enter the changing room without Wagner. It was good to have a friend in the team who treated him warmly, but it didn't mean that he had to rely on him for everything.

So Zhou Yi didn't greet Kist, but directly pushed open the door and shouted in German, "Hello everyone!"

Then he went in and greeted each of his new teammates one by one, and finally came to his position.

Kist watched Zhou Yi's performance behind him and shook his head.

This kid, he's more outgoing than the Chinese people he knows...

But integrating into the team can be done this way, but training is still real.

Players still have to look at training...

Kist was always worried.

It was rare for Kist to worry so much about Zhou Yi. Perhaps it was precisely because he had been following Zhou Yi for so long and had high hopes for him that he didn't want him to fail.

He hoped that after a year, Zhou Yi would be able to smoothly adapt to training and life in Dortmund, and then gradually get on the right track.

However, when training started, Kist, as Zhou Yi's translator, was also taken aback on the sidelines—he found that Zhou Yi understood the head coach's training intentions very thoroughly!

None of the problems he was worried about occurred during training.

Zhou Yi seemed to have been training with this team for a long time. He cooperated tacitly with his teammates and naturally integrated into the team.

Even Sasha Ecker, the head coach of the youth team, was surprised by this.

The forty-eight-year-old had a wealth of youth team coaching experience, but he had never seen someone like Zhou Yi before.

Watching Zhou Yi train with his new teammates on the field with tacit understanding, he couldn't help but ask Kist, "Did he really just join our team?"

Kist spread his hands, "I'm also very confused. It looks like he's been training in your team for at least a year."

Ecker shook his head, "It's really strange. I can only say that this kid's adaptability may be better than we all imagined..."

Kist didn't say anything. He was very happy that Zhou Yi had integrated into the team so quickly, and he could finally put down the stone in his heart.

Although he still didn't quite understand why Zhou Yi could integrate into the team so quickly, why he performed so easily during training, as if he was playing football in his own backyard...

He and Ecker certainly wouldn't understand that Zhou Yi had been training with this team for countless days and nights before coming to Brackel. He actually knew this team very well. He knew the playing styles and characteristics of each of his teammates, and he knew how to cooperate with them in training and matches.

And this was probably one of the biggest roles of that system.

If Zhou Yi could appear in the database of the FM game in the future, then his adaptability would definitely be... twenty full points!

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ps, today is also three updates, because one chapter is a leader bonus!

The update time is still at eight in the morning, twelve noon, and six in the afternoon~!

Take this opportunity to ask everyone for monthly tickets!