Chapter 1 A New Beginning

Many reporters crowded at the entrance of the Xianghe training base, hoping to get news about Qiu Suhui’s first training session and to learn about the training situation of the new players. After all, everyone’s first time is worth paying attention to. However, all these reporters were blocked by Dong Jin, the Chinese Football Association's press officer: "This is a closed training session. Without instructions from higher-level leaders, no reporter interviews are allowed."

"What's going on! When Shen Weiguo was here, the closed training wasn’t like this!"

"Will there be a press conference?"

"Coach Qiu Suhui has no plans to arrange a press conference."

"What? The press has the right to know about the National Olympic team's training situation and inform the public!" someone protested loudly.

This time, Dong Jin was unusually good-tempered. He didn't lay a hand on anyone, but simply stood in front of the reporters. Whenever a reporter asked a question, he would answer with the same sentence:

"I'm sorry, this is the instruction from above!"

This is the instruction from above...

In the National Olympic team's meeting room, thirty-five players sat, some silent, some whispering, and some gloating. It had been decided that normal training would take place this morning, but the brawl last night changed the original plan. Now they were sitting in the meeting room waiting to be reprimanded.

The arrival of Qiu Suhui and Zhu Qiang silenced the players, but unexpectedly, Qiu Suhui did not ask the players involved in the fight to make a self-criticism or announce any disciplinary measures. He simply announced a few simple points of his "management methods": "I know that everyone comes from all over the country, with different backgrounds and speaking different dialects, which makes management difficult. Therefore, I require everyone in the team to use Mandarin. In addition, because the dormitories are concentrated in one building, I hope everyone won't disturb others when they are entertaining themselves. Okay, now go to the training ground, let's start training!"

Qiu Suhui once again surprised these players. They originally thought it would be a deep meeting of criticism and self-criticism, but they didn't expect that in less than ten minutes, Qiu Suhui announced the end of the meeting and told them to go to training!

Someone stood up and walked out, followed by more and more people leaving the meeting room. Only Li Suisheng, when leaving, looked back at Qiu Suhui's ambiguous smile.

Qiu Suhui stood by the field, shading his eyes with his hand to look at the sky. It was past ten in the morning, and the temperature was already a bit high. Had Beijing’s summer arrived early?

The players completed their running laps under the guidance of the fitness coach and were resting on the sidelines. Qiu Suhui's first training session did not introduce anything new, but followed Shen Weiguo's training methods. He still needed to observe.

Qiu Suhui looked at his watch, then walked towards the players: "Next, we will conduct a split-squad scrimmage, eleven on each side, full-field game, two twenty-minute halves with a ten-minute break in between! Any questions?"

"No."

"Louder!"

"No!"

"I can't hear you!"

"No!!!" This time many people shouted at the top of their lungs, and Qiu Suhui was barely satisfied. "Not bad. Remember to answer my questions as loudly as possible in the future. I have trouble hearing. Okay, now let's start assigning personnel. Red team, goalkeeper Sima Hongxin, center back Liu Peng..." Qiu Suhui didn't even look at the player list, but randomly pointed at the players in front of him, and then announced their names and positions one by one.

Li Suisheng was the center back of the white team, which played a 3-6-1 formation, the same formation Shen Weiguo had insisted on since the 2001 World Youth Championship. And all five original National Olympic team players were on the white team: forward Jiang Hao, defensive midfielder Hu Lin, attacking midfielder Xu Chong, center back Li Suisheng, and center back Zhang Feng. The red team didn't have a single original National Olympic team player. Qiu Suhui's intention seemed clear: he wanted to see who was weaker and who was stronger, the new players or the old players.

But… Li Suisheng looked at Xiang Tao not far from him, who was also playing center back like himself. Why would the coach put this guy with himself? The three-center-back formation required a high degree of coordination. He and Zhang Feng didn't have much of a problem, since they had been playing together for four years. But with this Xiang Tao, he couldn't stand the sight of him, let alone talk about coordination. Could it be that the coach deliberately wanted his side to lose the game?

Li Suisheng clenched his fists. I won't let you get your way!

Chen Wei looked at an envelope on his desk, which was bulging with content. "Zhu Qiang, that guy, really went to a lot of trouble!" He sneered, then tore open the envelope and shredded the "relevant report on Xiang Tao leading the fight within the National Olympic team" into several pieces and fed them into the paper shredder.

The report went in and came out as unreadable shreds of paper, which were then swept into a nearby wastepaper basket by Chen Wei.

"Good ball!"

"Beautiful!"

The red team players applauded and cheered, and Wu Shangshan from Dalian excitedly waved his fists. He had just broken into the penalty area between Li Suisheng and Xiang Tao of the white team and successfully scored the first goal.

Feng Lin, the goalkeeper who was also from Dalian, was helpless about this goal. He was familiar with the strength of his teammate Wu Shangshan in Dalian, but he didn't expect such a clear gap to appear between former National Olympic team captain Li Suisheng and Xiang Tao, allowing the extremely fast Wu Shangshan to easily break into the penalty area.

There was no coordination between the defensive midfielder and the center backs, or between the center backs themselves. How could they play like this?

Five minutes later, Wu Shangshan repeated his trick, breaking into the penalty area through the gap between Li Suisheng and Xiang Tao. But this time, Feng Lin was prepared and blocked Wu Shangshan's shooting angle. But Wu Shangshan didn't choose to shoot this time, but passed the ball to the far side. The tall and sturdy Li Jie squeezed past Zhang Feng, and then easily headed the ball into the goal! Although Feng Lin tried his best to turn around and save, he only saw the ball hit the net.

This time, Li Suisheng couldn't take it anymore. He yelled at Xiang Tao: "How are you positioning yourself? Why are you pulling out to the wing on this kind of ball?"

Xiang Tao didn't show any weakness either. He waved his hand towards the wing: "Ge Laozi…" He suddenly remembered that the coach had just announced that everyone had to speak Mandarin, and quickly changed his words, "Are you blind! The opponent's winger was making a late run, and our winger didn't fall back in time! What am I supposed to do if I don't cover? It's your responsibility, why didn't you come up to cover my position in time?"

"I'm a center back, what should I do if I go to the center?"

"Did you play any role in the center? Didn't we still concede a goal?!"

The two were talking closer and closer, until they were face to face. Like two enraged bulls, butting heads, breathing heavily through their noses, and glaring at each other. If the other players hadn't arrived in time to pull them apart, the unfinished fight from yesterday might have continued on today's training ground.

The assistant coach quickly blew the whistle to stop the training, but Qiu Suhui shouted loudly from the sidelines: "Continue the game! Don't mind them, continue the game as normal!"

Continue the game?!

Everyone was taken aback. The game was still continuing in this situation? Even the assistant coach didn't understand and stared blankly at Qiu Suhui, the whistle still not blown.

"Blow the whistle! Continue the game!" Qiu Suhui reminded the assistant coach again.

"Toot!" The whistle for the game to continue finally sounded.

In the subsequent game, the red team suddenly found that the white team's defense had become unusually fierce, especially Li Suisheng and Xiang Tao. They seemed to be competing with each other, if you made a beautiful tackle, I would make an excellent headed clearance.

Wu Shangshan still wanted to slip through between the two, but he forgot that he was no longer facing backs, but two enraged bulls.

The 1.86-meter-tall Wu Shangshan was actually staggered by the 1.83-meter-tall Xiang Tao, and naturally lost the ball. Xiang Tao's collision was legitimate, and the assistant coach didn't blow the whistle. Everyone would think that Xiang Tao would honestly pass the ball out, except for the other three people who were also from Sichuan.

Wang Yu of the red team rushed straight to Xiang Tao from his defensive midfielder position. He knew what Xiang Tao was going to do next. It was because of this that the coach of the Rongcheng youth team was unwilling to let him play, because in the coach's eyes, it was just too crazy!

Xiang Tao made a slight adjustment and dribbled the ball forward, seeing Wang Yu closing in. He ignored him, just dribbled the ball forward, then braced his right arm to block Wang Yu from getting close. Then he suddenly accelerated, squeezing past Wang Yu!

Xiang Tao, who had passed one person, still didn't intend to pass the ball, and continued to dribble forward! The red team players didn't understand what was going on and had already let him quickly pass through the midfield!

A center back was attacking with the ball!

"Pass the ball quickly! Are you trying to die!" Li Suisheng shouted from behind. He was one of three backs, but now he was carrying the ball forward to attack, was he trying to kill himself?

"Stop him!" Liu Peng had just shouted when Xiang Tao passed the ball, he flicked the ball with the tip of his right foot and passed it to forward Jiang Hao.

"Pass to me!" Xiang Tao, who had passed the ball, quickly moved forward, while pointing ahead with his hand and shouting loudly to Jiang Hao.

Jiang Hao was frightened by Xiang Tao's crazy momentum and passed the ball out, completely forgetting that he had been kicked by Xiang Tao last night.

After easily getting past the back with a one-two, Xiang Tao got the ball again. Liu Peng had no choice but to close in, he was the last line of defense in front of Sima. He had never seen such a powerful back in the U21, daring to dribble the ball by himself, passing several people in a row, and crossing the entire field to charge single-handedly. But he wasn't someone to be trifled with either, he was just about to let this new teammate see the strength of the U21's best defender, when he saw Xiang Tao lower his body, poke the ball with his toe, and quickly slipped past Liu Peng, a nutmeg!

Liu Peng obviously didn't expect Xiang Tao to dare to nutmeg him, and he was stunned on the spot without blocking him. Sima Hongxin came out to attack, but he underestimated Xiang Tao's explosiveness. Xiang Tao's body lunged forward and poked the ball from under Sima's arm into the goal one step ahead!

The ball went in!

The ball actually went in!

The assistant coach hesitated for a moment before blowing the whistle to signal that the goal was valid. After scoring, Xiang Tao didn't celebrate, but ran into the goal, picked up the ball and ran towards the center circle. His actions surprised both teams. The game had only been going on for twenty minutes, and he was already eager to equalize?

Xiang Tao slammed the ball hard on the kickoff point, then continued to run back to his position. "You!" he pointed at Li Suisheng and said loudly, "I've pulled one back, don't drag me down!"

Li Suisheng sneered: "It's not certain who's dragging who down!"

Near the end of the first half, the white team got a corner kick. This time, Xiang Tao and Li Suisheng ran to the other team's goal at the same time. Xiang Tao waited at the far post, while Li Suisheng roamed outside the penalty area.

Xu Chong took the corner kick, not to the near post, nor to the far post where Xiang Tao was waiting, but... Sima Hongxin planned to intercept the ball in the middle, since Liu Peng was there, he was at ease. But Xiang Tao suddenly saw Li Suisheng rushing from the edge of the penalty area in the chaotic penalty box, and then leaping up with all his strength! The 1.87-meter Li Suisheng was like a roc spreading its wings, heading the ball powerfully in the air!

And at this time, Liu Peng was just about to jump, but he was pressed down by Li Suisheng!

Sima Hongxin didn't expect Li Suisheng to come out diagonally and head the ball successfully, pressing down on Liu Peng, and watched helplessly as the ball flew into the goal.

The white team had tied the score!

After scoring, Li Suisheng also picked up the ball from the goal and put it back in the center circle, then held up one finger to Xiang Tao, who had already returned to his position: "I've also pulled one back!"

Qiu Suhui looked at this scene on the field and smiled: "Interesting."

The game ended in a 2-2 tie, with neither side scoring again. But Qiu Suhui's purpose had been achieved. The score wasn't important, and neither was winning or losing. The atmosphere within the team was gradually improving, turning the anger from the fight into the motivation to compete. This was the hope for the National Olympic team.

Zhang Jun and Yang Pan had not been in good shape recently. In the last game against Roda, Zhang Jun played for sixty minutes without scoring a goal and was practically invisible. And Yang Pan played for ninety minutes, but showed neither speed on the right wing nor took advantage of his long-range shooting. It could be said he was unremarkable. Therefore, the result of this game was not good either. Volendam lost to Roda 0-2 away.

Adriánse was considering whether to let them play in the next league game at home against Eindhoven. There were only five rounds left in the league, and the relegation battle had become fierce. Although the team was currently outside the relegation zone, who could say that they would still be outside the relegation zone when the season ended?

In the last five rounds, Eindhoven, Heerenveen, and Ajax were all strong teams. If they lost all three of these games, Volendam would definitely be relegated.

But Adriánse also understood the reason for the pair's poor form. SARS was raging around the world, and China was the hardest hit. The two must be worried about the safety of their families. In this situation, how could they be expected to give 100% on the field? In addition, Zhang Jun and Yang Pan's physical condition was also getting worse and worse. As their first season as professionals, it was a miracle that they had been able to persevere until now. It should be known that promoted team Volendam had been fighting on two fronts!

On the training ground, Zhang Jun was making a solo breakthrough! Westerlop rushed out in a panic, but Zhang Jun's shot seemed to be a pass back and went straight into the goalkeeper's arms.

Adriánse finally decided to exclude Zhang Jun and Yang Pan from the sixteen-man squad. He gave up on them for the game against Eindhoven.

When Zhang and Yang heard that they could only sit in the stands and cheer for their teammates in the next league game, they were not too surprised. In their current state, it was indeed not realistic to want to play. It was better to leave the opportunity to their teammates, especially Ochwo, who was eager to prove himself.

The SARS epidemic in China had spread to Volendam in the Netherlands. Yang Pan made almost one phone call home every day. And Zhang Jun made two calls a day, one to his parents and one to Su Fei. Although they both said on the phone that they were doing well, disinfecting every day, and rarely going out, just listening to their voices still made people worry from afar in the Netherlands. The situation was really terrible!

Even worse was yet to come. In the game against Eindhoven, Volendam lost 1-3 at home to their opponents, and were only two points away from the relegation zone. In the Dutch Super League, only the last team was directly relegated, while the sixteenth and seventeenth teams would play in the promotion/relegation playoffs with the second to seventh teams from the First Division. The playoffs were divided into two groups, and the top team in each group would be directly promoted to the Super League, while the others would all be relegated to the First Division. Volendam had been promoted to the Super League through the playoffs. The relegation zone referred to the teams between sixteenth and eighteenth place, and Volendam's situation was not optimistic.

Wang Hua brought the latest and most accurate news from China. The government had fully intervened in the SARS epidemic and had removed the original heads of the two health departments, and was announcing the epidemic situation every day. In many places, the SARS epidemic had begun to be controlled. As long as people went out less often, went less often to crowded and poorly ventilated places, and paid attention to personal hygiene, SARS would not be as terrible as people initially said.

Hearing this news, Zhang Jun and Yang Pan breathed a sigh of relief, and were in the mood to joke. "Hehe, good! Zhang Jun, your dad can finally stay at home and spend time with your mom!" Yang Pan said with a smile after Zhang Jun finished calling home.

"Yeah, that's right. He can't sit still at home all day, my mom says he must be a monkey."

"Ah, I suddenly remembered, Li Yongle is in Beijing, that's a disaster area..."

| "I asked him, he's strong and pays attention to personal hygiene, so there's no problem. It's just that he's very sorry, saying that the final of the University League in May has been postponed indefinitely -- he also wants to take our path, relying on Philips' sponsorship to go to the Netherlands."

"Let him join our team, haha! Just right, Sais (Kozier) will most likely be going back to Ajax next season." Yang Pan laughed. If Li Yongle really came to the Netherlands, he really wanted to be teammates with this rival from three years of high school, it would be very interesting.

"I told him the same thing, but now with the SARS outbreak, nothing is certain." Zhang Jun spread his hands, very regretful.

"Damn SARS!" Yang Pan cursed in a low voice, but saw Zhang Jun get up and go into the bedroom. After a while, he came back with two white vests. "What are you doing?" Yang Pan asked, puzzled.

"I think we should also do something to fight SARS." Zhang Jun laid the two vests flat on the coffee table in front of him. "Even if it's for our parents, for Su Fei, we should show something." He picked up a dark blue marker and neatly wrote the following sentence in Chinese on one of the vests: "Fight SARS, we are together!"

"You... are you planning to celebrate like this after scoring?" Yang Pan made a gesture of lifting his jersey.

Zhang Jun nodded: "We are not doctors, and we are not in China, we can only do what we can do."

"Zhang Jun, you're really good at stirring up emotions... But what if the coach doesn't let us play? Our recent performance hasn't been very convincing!"

"Then we'll convince the coach again in training, haha!" Zhang Jun wrote the same words on the other vest, then held it up in front of his chest and said to Yang Pan: "Do you want it?"

Yang Pan tilted his head and looked at it for a while, then said: "Your handwriting is too ugly..." Seeing that Zhang Jun was about to take it back, he quickly reached out and snatched it away, "I'll just make do with it!"

Adriánse found that he could completely understand that the situation on the Chinese side was becoming more stable without even watching the news. Because Zhang Jun and Yang Pan's form was gradually recovering, and they had repeatedly played amazing combinations in training. It seemed that they would have to play in the next game against Utrecht. Adriánse would definitely not give up on a game against a mid-table team like Utrecht.

When Adriánse announced the starting lineup for tomorrow's game, Zhang Jun and Yang Pan's names were impressively listed. The two looked at each other and smiled. In addition to using victory to lay the foundation for survival, they had another mission in this game.

When Zhang Jun opened the door, the morning sun poured in, and he couldn't help but squint his eyes. What a beautiful day! Yang Pan came out wearing his shoes: "Let's go!" Zhang Jun nodded, and the two went out and turned onto the forest path.

They had only run two steps when they saw Kozier coming out of his house in sportswear. "Morning!"

"Morning!"

After a simple greeting, Kozier followed with tacit understanding, and the three walked side by side in the Dutch morning, running and enjoying the sunshine. Everyone was silent, and besides the sound of the breeze blowing through the leaves and the birds chirping in the forest, there was only the rustling sound of shoes on the ground. They would do this morning run before every home game, and the game day would begin from this moment.

Although it was only a small stadium with 6,000 people, Zhang Jun felt that the cheers here were the loudest he had ever heard in any stadium. Because here, he could clearly hear thousands of people cheering his name together.

"Zhang--Jun! Zhang--Jun!! Zhang--Jun!!"

Zhang Jun put his hands to his ears, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the cheers that belonged to him. The feeling was simply wonderful!

Only four minutes into the game, a back pass error by the opposing back gave Zhang Jun a chance to intercept the ball, and then he easily pushed a shot into the far corner of the goal in a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper, 1-0! He scored his fifteenth goal in the league!

Volendam fans' celebration only lasted for fifteen minutes. The tenacious Utrecht equalized the score in the nineteenth minute, also taking advantage of a defensive error by Volendam.

The game then fell into a stalemate, with both sides making mistakes. Adriánse was a little anxious, and he often rushed to the sidelines to shout at the field, reminding the players to maintain pressure on Utrecht, not to fall back, and to fight actively...

Zhang Jun, who had been "benched" in the last game, was indeed very active. His three shots in the penalty area were all close to scoring, but the goalkeeper and the post combined to stop him.

In all of Zhang Jun's league games this season, his goals had been scored inside the penalty area, but this time, after receiving a pass from Yang Pan, Zhang Jun took a low shot from the edge of the arc, and the ball rolled along the grass past the goalkeeper's hands and into the far corner! A brace! Volendam took the lead again!

Amidst the cheers of Veronica, Zhang Jun gestured for his teammates not to come and "pile on" him. Then he was seen running to the sidelines and lifting his jersey in front of many cameras, revealing the words on the white vest underneath:

"Fight SARS, we are together!"

Yang Pan, who was running from the side, also lifted his jersey to reveal the words inside.

It could be imagined that this photo would appear in the main position of major media and websites in China. Real Madrid's superstars had once held up signs to fight SARS in front of the camera to express their attitude, and Chinese sports star Yao Ming had also launched a fundraising campaign in the American NBA. Against this background, our own soccer players were also expressing their support in the simplest way: in the name of soccer, fight SARS!

The reporters were taken aback. They didn't expect the two children to be so thoughtful and think of expressing their inner feelings in this way. But the flashes, out of habit, flashed in front of the two men’s chests.

Adriánse finally understood another important reason why the two of them were suddenly in such good shape again. He smiled, these two kids!

The game ultimately ended with Volendam winning 2-1 against Utrecht, but Zwalou, who was behind them in the standings, also won, so the gap between the two teams' points was still two points, so the road to survival was not over yet, and they still needed to work hard. But no matter what, SARS was about to pass, and Zhang Jun and Yang Pan's form had also recovered, so everything would be fine. Yes, everything would be fine...

ps: Here are the answers to some of your questions.

Dream Illusion Two: "Are you fierce, chicken?" is a Chongqing dialect. The authentic Chengdu dialect would say 'Are you fierce, hammer?'."

Answer: Well, Xiang Tao is not from Chengdu, he is from Zigong, so what he says naturally won't be authentic Chengdu dialect, and in Zigong, "chicken" means "****". Hehe!

mimi1984: Da Da Tingtao, is the captain of Coach Qiu's National Olympic team Liu Peng or Li Yongle? Will Li Yongle go to the National Olympic team??

Answer: Li Yongle will go back to the National Olympic team, but not now. He is not famous now, and Qiu Suhui doesn't understand his ability.

zy615: Big brother, don't you know that Van der Vaart and Van der Meyde are from Ajax???????????????

Answer: Someone always asks me this question, but I look at what I have written, and it doesn't seem like I said that the above two are from other teams, right? Could it be that I didn't look carefully? I hope that friends who are clear can point it out to me specifically, thank you!

youngboy: Chinese coaches don't have that much power yet, to be able to completely replace the national team, because that so-called Football Association is too rubbish, it is impossible to give power to others

Answer: That's why I set up a high-ranking official within the Football Association. With his management, many things are easy to handle.

Small Hui: Lin Da, how do I think Qiu is like messing around? Is it really good to put such a team together? It's like that Xiang doesn't deserve to enter the National Olympic team. China is harmed by that group of uncultured players. Why not recruit some good people? Personality doesn't necessarily have to be so rude.

Answer: I don't think there's anything bad about it? It's impossible for a team to be full of gentle people, right? In that case, the team will lack the momentum to cope in many situations. That's why I designed a rude Xiang Tao. Although he is rude, he is only like that when others provoke him. At other times, he doesn't just start punching people. Rudeness and lack of quality are completely two different concepts, and like Xiang Tao, maybe he really didn't read much, but people who don't read much may not necessarily ruin Chinese soccer. The high-ranking officials of the Football Association have read a lot, right? What's the result? Hehe, and Xiang Tao will be a relatively important second-tier character in the future, and his existence is also crucial for the Chinese team, of course, the most important thing is his character. Without this kind of character, Xiang Tao would not be Xiang Tao.

Depressed Milk Powder: Lin Da Da, why didn't Zhang and Yang enter the National Olympic team? Is it an age problem? Aren't two overage players allowed?

Answer: These two were not selected for the National Olympic team's training camp list, not that they were not selected for the National Olympic team. People like Zhang Jun and Yang Pan no longer need to work hard in the training camp list for a spot, the most important thing for them is to play well in every game in the Netherlands. Moreover, Volendam will definitely not let two absolute main players return to China just to participate in a training camp. Overseas players have to return to China three days before the game, and will not return to China for general training camps.