Chapter 100: Hold Your Ground for Me

Niu Ren pressed his hand against Long Bisheng’s back. Long Bisheng had a massive frame, making it nearly impossible to reach the ball he was shielding with his body from behind. However, Niu Ren was not worried in the slightest; a center forward who couldn't penetrate the penalty area—especially a top-heavy "target man"—was essentially dead weight. The only utility such a player had over a piece of firewood was the ability to pass the ball to teammates.

Niu Ren stretched his neck from behind Long Bisheng to get a look. He felt relieved: Dai Guangming, Zhang Yi, the overlapping Zhao Yi, and Zhong Tao, who had pushed into the penalty area, were all being marked by at least one defender. Even if Long Bisheng managed to accurately pass the ball to any of them, it would pose no threat to the Dalian Dongfang goal.

Once reassured, Niu Ren felt the pressure radiating from Long Bisheng and immediately pressed his entire body against him, squeezing tightly.

He then felt Long Bisheng’s center of gravity shift to the left. Niu Ren immediately followed, but in the next heartbeat, he felt Long Bisheng execute a swift half-turn, brushing against his body to break toward the right!

Caught completely off guard by this move, Niu Ren found himself pushing against nothing but air. With the space ahead suddenly empty, his momentum carried him forward, and he stumbled several steps, unable to regain his balance.

Long Bisheng had already completed a perfect, forceful half-turn dribble. The ball obediently traced a semicircle with his foot and rolled right in front of him.

Except for Ding Yu, who stood on the sidelines with clenched fists and a body trembling slightly, no one was prepared for this.

This included Long Bisheng’s own teammates. His position wasn't ideal; although he practiced turning and shooting from the edge of the penalty arc more than anything else in training, there were at least four or five players from both sides in the box, making it a poor time to attempt a breakout. In their estimations, if Long Bisheng were to use this move for the first time in a match, it should have been during a counterattack, one-on-one against a defender, to achieve the best effect.

Everyone watched in stunned silence as Long Bisheng used a nimble half-turn to forcefully break past Niu Ren. He took one touch forward, wound up his right foot, and struck the ball with power!

Zhang Jian reflexively lifted his leg but failed to make contact. The ball flew past him, skimming the turf toward the bottom right corner of the goal.

Ding Yu had mentioned before the match that Dalian Dongfang’s goalkeeper, Fan Tong, had a wide range of control and excelled at saving aerial balls, but struggled with low shots. Even in the split second of turning and shooting, Long Bisheng had taken that into account.

Fan Tong was equally stunned by the sudden, agile turn and breakthrough, which caused his reaction to be a beat slow. By the time he saw the ball flying past Zhang Jian’s feet, it was too late to dive.

The ball zipped across the grass and into the bottom right corner of the net.

Fan Tong’s fingers were only five centimeters away from the ball, but on a football pitch, five centimeters can sometimes feel like a world apart.

“Tweet!” The referee’s whistle blew, and he pointed toward the center circle.

“Oh!”

The college students on the sidelines erupted. They didn't care who scored; they only cared that a goal had been scored. At that moment, they were the purest of fans, without bias, cheering solely for the act of scoring itself.

“Oh!”

Ding Yu leaped up from the sidelines with his arms wide, cheering louder than he ever had when his players scored during his time as the coach of Yunjia Tianyu. A surge of pride swelled in his heart—look at that, that was a player he had cultivated! When he first joined the team, he was so clumsy he couldn't even run ten meters with the ball! And now? He could execute such a beautiful turn-and-shoot maneuver in a real match!

“Oh!”

All the Yunjia Tianyu players were shouting. The substitutes on the bench rushed out, while the players on the pitch swarmed Long Bisheng. None of them could lift him, so they just slapped his back vigorously, venting their joy. We’re in the lead! And the team we’re leading against is last year's champion, Dalian Dongfang! And we’re doing it with one man down! How about that? We, Yunjia Tianyu, are the number one youth training club in the country with the best results!

“Ah!” The girls on the sidelines let out shrill screams, nearly damaging the eardrums of everyone nearby.

But he was still happy. If they had lost this match, he wouldn't have been able to forgive himself. Everyone knew what it meant for a team to be a man down from the start, especially when facing an opponent of similar or equal strength.

The Yunjia Tianyu squad was celebrating, while the Dalian Dongfang players were stunned. Fan Tong lay on the ground, staring blankly at the ball resting quietly in the net. Niu Ren had regained his balance, but upon seeing the goal, he fell back to the ground with a thud. Jiang Qi stood with hands on his hips, watching the ball helplessly from just outside the penalty area. Chen Yongjun let out a fierce curse, and Fan Pengfei stood far away near the center circle, biting his lip hard.

“Last year, he was clearly a center forward who had no dribbling ability whatsoever once he got the ball.” Chi Shangbing muttered, looking somewhat dazed. “Chen Yongjun said this guy hadn't made any progress after training at school for half a year. But why, in the mere three months from summer vacation until now, has he improved to this extent? Ding Yu, oh Ding Yu, what kind of magic did you cast on this kid?”

“Whatever magic it is, the fact is we are now trailing.” The assistant coach gave a bitter smile. “We had a one-man advantage from the start, yet we haven't been able to break down their defense, and instead, we’ve conceded a goal. If we lose this match, we’ll be a laughingstock.”

“The advantage of having more players.” Chi Shangbing sneered. “Perhaps it is precisely this so-called advantage that has tied our hands and feet. We keep trying to win the game in the 'proper' way. But there is no such thing as an absolute advantage in football. Every victory is hard-won, and none comes without a price.”

“Tell all the players: from now on, stop thinking they are a man down... A target man who can turn and dribble can easily occupy two defenders. We don't have any numerical advantage at all. Abandon our safe, methodical style of play. The only thing we can exploit now is that their players' stamina will deplete faster than ours. Press them, turn it into a chaotic brawl! Break them with our physical fitness!”

***

At this moment, the sense of satisfaction in Long Bisheng’s heart was incomparable.

In the previous matches, Long Bisheng’s performance had been decent, but having to constantly remind himself to use only his head and minimize the use of his feet had made him feel awkward. In this match, finally letting himself go, he had been unable to give his all because he wasn't fully adapted and the team was a man down, leaving few opportunities for ground attacks. Although this had, to some extent, confused Dalian’s coach, Chi Shangbing, it had also kept him bottled up. Now, having successfully used the turn-and-shoot move he had practiced so hard for in an official match for the first time—to put it bluntly—it felt like finally being able to relieve a long-held urge. Anyone would feel great after that.

That was why he was smiling so happily after the goal, surrounded by his teammates, beaming as if he had won the lottery.

After the match restarted, he ran with even more intensity. Although he didn't track back, he constantly patrolled the center circle. Whenever the opponents had the ball in their half, he went up to pressure them. After all, his stamina was excellent, and running back and forth didn't tire him out.

However, he soon noticed something was wrong. After the restart, Dalian Dongfang’s attacks became much more fierce. Aside from the two defenders, Niu Ren and Long Xing, everyone else had crossed the halfway line. Chi Shangbing was now treating Long Bisheng as the primary attacking threat, leaving two defenders with little offensive capability in the back specifically to deal with him alone.

Jiang Qi had pushed up to the attacking midfield position, with Zhang Han behind him responsible for ball progression. This left Hu Gandang quite confused, as he couldn't mark two people at once, yet neither could be left unguarded.

Fortunately, Ding Yu made an immediate adjustment, bringing on defensive midfielder Shan Xiaowu for forward Zhong Tao to strengthen the defense in the middle, which allowed Hu Gandang to breathe a sigh of relief.

Replacing a forward with a defensive midfielder wasn't a sign that Ding Yu wanted to protect the one-goal lead. After this substitution, Yunjia Tianyu’s midfield and defense were quite complete. Though they only had Long Bisheng up front, his ability to hold and control the ball meant his presence was just as intimidating as having two strikers.

Ding Yu’s biggest worry now was that while Yunjia Tianyu had taken the lead thanks to Long Bisheng’s brilliant performance and hadn't been outplayed, this was built on the foundation of massive physical exertion. Ding Yu could see that, apart from players with renowned stamina like Hu Gandang, Li Jie, and Long Bisheng, and those like Dai Guangming who knew how to pace themselves, the others were already showing signs of fatigue—their movements were becoming distorted. This was the precursor to total physical exhaustion.

Currently, because they were in the lead, their mental strength was keeping them going. But there were still over twenty minutes left. If the team suffered a collective physical collapse, they could very well fall apart in the final moments of the game.

“Hold on, you boys,” Ding Yu whispered to himself.