"Mr. Wealthy, this child Huang Fan has surpassed many children we've trained in his effort and physical condition. However, some things are innate and difficult to change with human effort; it's normal for him not to be as good as other children."
Mr. Huang specially invited Huang Fan's two professional coaches. These were top youth coaches, dedicated to Huang Fan, formulating professional training plans for him, and also the people who understood Huang Fan's situation the most.
According to these two coaches, Huang Fan was indeed very diligent, but talent was beyond reason.
Although Huang Fan was ranked first among all the goalkeepers selected for the training camp through targeted training, it didn't mean Huang Fan's talent was the best. It only meant his overall performance was first.
The issue was that Huang Fan had received the most professional nutritionist's care since childhood, followed by half a year of professional player training. Most of the children Huang Fan competed against had never even touched a football in their lives.
When they began receiving the most professional football training, these children's talents gradually emerged. Two children, in terms of goalkeeping, had already surpassed Huang Fan.
Furthermore, according to the two professional coaches' observations, at least four other children had superior talent to Huang Fan. However, these four children were far less diligent than Huang Fan, often slacking off and evading training, which resulted in them not performing as well as Huang Fan.
Once they started exerting themselves, Huang Fan might even slip further down the rankings.
"Gentlemen, I just want to know, if my child becomes a professional player in the future, what level will his ability be among professional goalkeepers?" Huang He asked.
"That's a difficult question..." The two coaches found it hard to answer immediately. After racking their brains, they told Mr. Huang that if Huang Fan could continue training at his current pace, he would likely be capable of serving as a second-string goalkeeper for a Premier League team.
This answer was quite clever. On the one hand, being a second-string goalkeeper for a Premier League team made Huang Fan's ability sound impressive.
However, the problem was that most second-string goalkeepers spent the entire year on the bench. Goalkeepers rarely got injured and rarely suffered from fatigue. Therefore, a normal goalkeeper could play not only a full game but also a full season.
Thus, unless a first-string goalkeeper was injured or an unavoidable situation arose, Huang Fan would be stuck on the substitute bench for his entire career.
That said, even as a second-string goalkeeper, meeting the threshold of a Premier League team meant his ability would absolutely outshine almost all goalkeepers in China.
"If Huang Fan were to participate in the World Cup, would he perform outstandingly?" This question made the two foreign coaches very uncomfortable.
They wanted to tell Mr. Huang that if Huang Fan participated in the World Cup, he might cause some trouble in the group stage if they didn't face strong teams. But if they encountered top teams, especially attacking powerhouses like Brazil and Argentina, Huang Fan shouldn't be thinking about outstanding performances, but rather whether he could avoid gifting the opposing star players a hat-trick.
Since Mr. Huang asked about outstanding performances, he would definitely want his child to shine on the World Cup stage. Otherwise, they wouldn't understand why Mr. Huang had invested tens of billions of dollars in football.
Therefore, Mr. Huang's question wasn't about whether he could perform outstandingly, but rather how they could make Huang Fan perform outstandingly in the World Cup.
This immediately made the two professional coaches distressed. If it weren't for the $100,000 monthly salary Mr. Huang paid them, they would have already fled this terrifying place.
Of course, they had to answer Mr. Huang's questions, or they wouldn't get paid.
Fortunately, these two were indeed professional coaches. After a few minutes of thought, they found a suitable answer.
"Actually, Huang Fan has a technical indicator and talent that is exceptionally outstanding. No other child among all the children can surpass him in this talent!" one coach said.
"What talent?" Huang He asked curiously.
"It's his judgment technique for set pieces," the coach replied. "During training, we found that when opponents take free kicks or penalties, Huang Fan has a high probability of directly predicting the ball's trajectory and saving it in time!"
"Yes!" another coach quickly added. "According to our statistics, in internal training, Huang Fan can block 91.2% of free kicks, and against the most dangerous penalties, he has an astonishing save rate of 48.3%."
"Yes, this data is incredible. The second-best save rate in our training camp is only 19.2%."
"And in international competitions, the average save rate for all goalkeepers is around 17.3%. The world's top players usually don't exceed a 40% save rate on penalties. Huang Fan's 48% is phenomenal; in terms of this data, his talent has surpassed the world's top goalkeepers!"
What the two coaches said wasn't false; the data was real and reliable. After all, all of Huang Fan's training videos were recorded, and Mr. Huang could review the relevant footage at any time if he didn't believe them.
In this light, Huang Fan seemed quite formidable.
However, the problem was that for an excellent goalkeeper, saving penalties was never their main job. The number of penalties awarded in a game is very small, and except for some knockout matches, penalty shootouts rarely occurred in regular games. Therefore, a goalkeeper's penalty save record was usually not within the scope of attention for coaches and spectators.
What truly mattered for a goalkeeper was when an opposing player, with the ball, rapidly approached the goal. The goalkeeper had to make the correct judgment immediately: whether to leave the penalty area and dive towards the opponent's feet or stay in the penalty area and wait for them to shoot before blocking the ball.
Furthermore, shots taken during movement had incredibly varied trajectories, making it difficult for Huang Fan to judge how the ball would be kicked and where it would go. At such times, Huang Fan's save rate would plummet.
Sometimes, Huang Fan was very aggressive and liked to leave the penalty area to dive at the opponent player's feet to win the ball. This often led to Huang Fan's saves resulting in an open goal, with the opposing player easily dribbling past him and scoring.
This was precisely why they felt Huang Fan couldn't make it to the first team of a Premier League club. He was an extremely unstable player who could potentially bring catastrophic disaster and humiliating heavy defeats to the entire team.
Under normal circumstances, a team would never choose such an unreliable goalkeeper. But since Mr. Huang asked, they had to try their best to compensate in this regard.
So, one coach suggested, "We believe Huang Fan can specifically practice penalty saves, further improving his penalty save rate, and be trained as a specialized penalty-saving goalkeeper."
"In fact, for a long time, many football spectators have had a misconception that in a team, other players can be substituted, but goalkeepers cannot."
"This is actually a classic misconception among spectators. Goalkeepers are the same as other players; if the head coach deems it necessary, they can directly replace the goalkeeper on the field."
Even before a penalty shootout, as long as the referee and the opposing team agreed, a goalkeeper could be changed on the spot. If they feared the opponent's refusal,
They could directly substitute Huang Fan, the penalty-specializing goalkeeper, a few minutes before the penalty shootout began.
Once the penalty shootout started, he could then rely on his penalty-saving ability to send the opposing team home.
"Are you saying that in the future, the most frequently substituted players on the national team won't be ordinary players, but our goalkeepers!" Huang He said.
"Not necessarily. We can't predict the future. This is just an idea!" the two quickly replied. Huang He didn't press them further and merely sighed.