Chapter 129: The First Goal of a Professional Career

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“Long! Take the ball!”

On Qingdao Sea Breeze’s training ground, Liu Ziyan surged forward along the wing before suddenly sending a high cross while still running, shouting as he did so.

“Got it!”

With two powerful strides, Long Bisheng leaped high into the air. He rose half a head higher than Lu Dashan, who was marking him, and headed the ball with tremendous force. It flew toward the upper middle of the goal, but Han Feng reacted immediately, pushing it over the crossbar with both hands.

“Still didn’t go in.” After landing, Long Bisheng shook his head regretfully. Then he reached down and pulled Lu Dashan up from the grass. “Brother Dashan, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Lu Dashan patted himself and shook his head. “You’re incredibly strong… I couldn’t withstand your charge just now. And it’s not as if I’m weak myself. How come I still couldn’t beat you in the collision? How did you build up that strength?”

Long Bisheng smiled. His strength had been forged in the gym and through countless physical battles with Li Jie. During his five years with Yunjia Tianyu, if he trained twelve hours a day, at least two of those hours were devoted to strength training. Combined with his natural physique, it made him stronger even than Lu Dashan, whose body was equally exceptional and who had once done hard labor hauling heavy loads.

Han Feng shook his slightly numb hands and said to Long Bisheng, “Long, there’s a lot of power behind your headers, but your choice of angle isn’t very good. With a header as straight as that, the only way it could go in would be if you headed me into the goal along with it. Otherwise, at most, you’d make me spill the ball. But you can’t use a header to send me flying into the net. Even with a shot, that wouldn’t be possible.”

“Long Bisheng, come here.” Cai Sheng beckoned him over. “The rest of you, keep training!”

Wiping away his sweat, Long Bisheng hurried to the touchline and joined Cai Sheng. None of the others paid much attention. They had seen this too many times during training. Cai Sheng would regularly call Long Bisheng over and give him advice based on his own experience as a center forward.

Clearly, the more Long Bisheng improved at that moment, the more secure Qingdao Sea Breeze’s results would be—and the more secure their winning bonuses would be as well.

Cai Sheng pursed his lips and organized his thoughts. “I remember that a few years ago, you were already very accurate with your headers in youth matches. How did you end up only heading the ball straight at the goalkeeper? Besides, from what I’ve seen, you’re quite good at laying the ball off.”

“I don’t know either.” Long Bisheng scratched his head.

Two days earlier, in the twenty-third round of the league, Qingdao Sea Breeze had once again scraped out a one-nil victory over Dalian Waves, their biggest relegation rival. Long Bisheng had performed well as usual. Using his physical strength and heading ability, he had helped Qingdao Sea Breeze gain the upper hand in attack. But although he had taken seven shots during the match, not one had found the net. In the end, Qingdao Sea Breeze had barely secured all three points through a rebound scored by midfielder Qi Zhi inside the penalty area.

“You have to understand the difference between youth matches and a real professional league,” Cai Sheng said slowly. “Yes, you played in England, and the standard of English youth football was probably no lower than that of our China League One. But back then, you were still playing against boys your own age. Now your opponents are seasoned veterans who have spent years battling their way through the lower divisions.

“Take your challenge with Lu Dashan just now. He may not match you in physical ability or jumping power, but he has fought his way up from the lower leagues. Don’t be fooled by the fact that he’s only a few years older than you—his experience is far greater.

“I think that during the challenge, most of your attention was focused on Lu Dashan, and you didn’t pay enough attention to the ball’s flight. So you could only head it away by instinct. A shot like that naturally won’t have a high success rate.

“A header is still a shot, and every shot requires attention to angle. Power alone cannot beat an outstanding goalkeeper. Headers are already difficult to defend against, and sheer force isn’t the most important thing. The angle is.”

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Long Bisheng nodded thoughtfully. Cai Sheng continued, “When you’re contesting the ball with an opponent, you also need to pay attention to where it will land. You have to gradually adapt to the pace of professional football and this kind of physical battle. In an official match, every scoring opportunity matters. It isn’t enough to create chances—you must also take them.”

“I understand. I’ll pay attention to that.” Long Bisheng nodded, then ran back onto the training ground.

Nodding in agreement was easy, and some things were easy enough to understand. But between understanding something and actually achieving it stood another step: putting it into practice. For Long Bisheng, adapting to the intensity of professional football was far from easy.

In the twenty-fourth round of the league, Qingdao Sea Breeze traveled to face Hunan Xiang River. Despite playing away from home, Qingdao Sea Breeze continued the strong form they had shown in recent rounds, using rugged, forceful attacks that left their opponents struggling to cope.

However, the team’s two forwards seemed determined to compete over who could waste more chances. Lu Baozi had twice found himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper. The first time, he blasted the ball over the bar; the second, he struck it straight into the goalkeeper’s arms.

Long Bisheng, as usual, won plenty of headers. But aside from the few that landed within the frame of the goal or were laid off to his teammates, nearly all his other headed attempts were either too high or too far off target.

Cai Sheng watched from the touchline with repeated sighs. Yet there was no way he could suddenly turn Long Bisheng into a goal-scoring machine who treated chances as worthless. Besides, the team’s excellent current form was entirely due to Long Bisheng fighting desperately for one header after another in attack, giving the team a focal point up front.

From Cai Sheng’s perspective, he did not want Long Bisheng to become distracted at that moment and suffer a loss of form. For Qingdao Sea Breeze, who had only just found an effective attacking approach, that would have been terrible news.

Just as Cai Sheng was sighing over the situation, Qingdao Sea Breeze launched another attack. Huang Zhenghong received the ball in the center and saw Long Bisheng pull out of the penalty area. With another teammate, he might have hesitated, but Huang Zhenghong had once seen Long Bisheng turn and burst forward from the edge of the area in a match several years earlier. Without hesitation, he immediately sent a through ball to Long Bisheng’s feet.

Long Bisheng brought the ball under control, but the defender behind him instantly pressed against him. Instead of turning and breaking forward as Huang Zhenghong had expected, Long Bisheng passed the ball back to Lu Baozi, then spun around and charged into the penalty area on his long legs.

Baozi was suddenly inspired. Without the slightest hesitation, he lifted his foot and lofted the ball directly into the box.

With his back to goal, Long Bisheng leaped high into the air and flicked his head against the ball, sending it toward the net with all his strength.

The goalkeeper had originally intended to rush out and claim the cross above Long Bisheng’s head. A lofted pass like that would not travel particularly fast, giving him plenty of time to come off his line. But who could have expected Long Bisheng to leap and shoot from near the edge of the penalty area while facing away from goal—and to attempt a chipped header at that?

Given Long Bisheng’s height and jumping ability, he could only just graze the underside of the ball. That was why the opposing goalkeeper had decided to come out. If Long Bisheng had waited for the ball to drop lower before heading it, it would already have fallen within the goalkeeper’s reach. Compared with a goalkeeper who could use his hands, Long Bisheng, tall as he was, could never win the contest. And if there were even slight contact, the referee would certainly call a foul for charging the goalkeeper.

But this time, Long Bisheng got to the ball first.

On a football pitch, sometimes everything comes down to being first by that narrowest fraction.

The opposing goalkeeper leaped desperately. There was no time to retreat and reposition himself. He had already rushed forward at speed, and if he now tried to stop, turn, and chase back, it would be far too late. His only option was to use his forward momentum to leap and intercept the ball in midair. Even if he could not catch it, he had to knock it away.

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But he missed.

The ball drifted lazily through the air in an extremely high arc, sailed over his head, and began to descend toward the goal.

A defender sprinted toward the net, intending to clear the danger. But by the time he reached the goalmouth, he saw that the ball’s descending arc was almost brushing the crossbar as it flew toward the goal. Given the way he was running, it would be extremely difficult to save it with either his foot or his head.

He could only use his head. Desperately, he thrust it beneath the ball and did make contact. But the ball rose only a short distance before striking the net.

Goal!

The first goal of Long Bisheng’s professional career had come from a headed lob taken near the edge of the penalty area.

Even Cai Sheng, watching from the bench, was left staring in astonishment. He had scored plenty of headed goals in his own career, but never one from such a distance.

Even if it had been luck, the goal demonstrated Long Bisheng’s ability to read the situation inside the penalty area. Cai Sheng was certain that Long Bisheng had noticed the goalkeeper coming off his line and then chosen to attempt the lobbed header. The timing he had selected had been the most appropriate moment in the entire attack.

“Has the boy finally figured it out? That’s certainly good news.” Cai Sheng rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

On the pitch, however, Long Bisheng stood staring blankly at the ball bouncing inside the net. He felt no joy at scoring his first goal, only bewilderment.

He had imagined what his first professional goal would look like. He had even imagined how he would celebrate. But now that he had actually scored, he had no idea what to do.

It was not until Lu Baozi came from behind and shoved him flat onto the ground that wild delight finally surged through his heart.

I scored! Wait—how much was the goal bonus in my contract again?

After the joy came that thought.

Unfortunately, Long Bisheng’s goal did not bring Qingdao Sea Breeze victory. In the second half, Hunan Xiang River used their home advantage to equalize. After two wins and a draw, Qingdao Sea Breeze had climbed to third from bottom, three points clear of fourth-from-bottom Dalian Waves.

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