Chapter 60: The Key

What is a qualified midfielder?

It is not about having extraordinary technique!

It is not about having flashy dribbling skills!

Nor is it about executing a mesmerizing long pass!

The very definition of the midfield position is the transition station between offense and defense; both attacking and defending must pass through this area.

When attacking, it is about how to deliver the ball to the most sensible position.

When defending, it is about how to disrupt the opponent and alleviate the pressure on the defensive line.

Adapting different playing styles to different situations.

Ignite the attacking potential of the front line!

Alleviate the defensive pressure of the backline!

This is the fundamental definition of a midfielder.

For this, Wei Lai could achieve it without needing overly flashy skills.

Based on his reading of the game, he helps teammates create numerical superiority in specific zones, simplifying the attacking pattern through a series of correct decisions while intensifying the offensive pressure.

This is exactly what Wei Lai is doing!

Bang!

Chen Shaojie swiftly shifted the ball to a teammate, then immediately turned his head to look at Wei Lai.

"How did it suddenly become so easy?"

Unlike the first half when he was making decisions himself and struggling for ages to find an open teammate, ever since Wei Lai took charge of the passing decisions, Chen Shaojie only needed to raise his head to invariably find passing space and available teammates.

The game had become much easier, and playing felt far less exhausting.

He didn't know what magic Wei Lai had cast; the guy was just running left and right, receiving and passing the ball just like usual.

There were no spectacular vertical breakthroughs to be seen, nor any sharp, piercing passes.

It was simply using one ordinary, yet exquisitely sensible pass after another to connect the entire team.

The Green Lion Cubs began to ease up, which meant the pressure had shifted to Torino U15.

And that was indeed the case; Torino U15's backline could barely hold up against the continuous pressure exerted by He Chaoyue and Xiang Ming on the flanks.

At this moment, He Chaoyue passed the ball back, and Chen Shaojie sent a horizontal pass to Wei Lai.

Wei Lai gently cushioned the ball, but instead of rushing to pass, he gazed ahead with sharp, piercing eyes.

"Press him!"

"Tackle him!"

"Don't let him pass the ball again!"

Torino U15 players rushed toward Wei Lai all at once, intending to intercept the ball.

Three players charged at Wei Lai from different directions, yet he still didn't pass, waiting for a brief moment instead.

As soon as they had taken two or three steps forward, opening up space behind them, Wei Lai used the most ordinary instep push imaginable to thread the ball right through the gap among the three opponents.

This vertical through ball directly tore through Torino U15's midfield defensive line while accurately finding Yu Jiahe, who was lurking behind their midfield and moving laterally.

"Holy crap!!"

Tong Xianfeng couldn't help exclaiming aloud.

The moment Yu Jiahe received the ball, Yang Fang and Santos also surged forward in support. Combined with the front three, they instantly formed a six-against-four situation in the opponent's half.

The live broadcast chat instantly exploded.

'That pass was... so saucy!'

'The ultimate art is often the most ordinary!'

'Such vision! Such timing on the pass! Gives me goosebumps!'

'They're surging up! They're surging up! Can they score another one?'

The six little lions rushed into the opponent's penalty area en masse. Yu Jiahe held onto the ball until the very last moment, refusing to distribute it until they reached the box and the opposing central defender couldn't help but step up—only then did he pass the ball to the left front.

Xiang Ming immediately followed up and delivered a low cross across the face of the goal.

The ball traveled at an extremely fast speed, skimming right across the edge of the six-yard box all the way to the far post, where He Chaoyue followed up with a simple tap-in.

Swish!

The ball hit the net!

In the 67th minute, the Green Lion Cubs struck again.

Green Lion Cubs 2:0 Torino U15.

"Solid work, Old He!"

"Two goals!! Hahaha! Leading by two goals, we're going to win!"

"Seeded team? Elite youth academy? We eat elites for breakfast!"

"Brilliant! Beautiful!"

The boys formed a circle and celebrated excitedly.

Wei Lai did not join them; instead, he silently walked back to his own half.

However, the pounding of his fiercely beating heart told him that his inner self was not as calm as he seemed. The first attack he had actively initiated had ultimately resulted in a goal, which naturally sparked a deep sense of joy within him.

Since the beginning of last semester, in the span of just three months, Wei Lai had grown almost explosively.

Starting from a baseline of lacking in various aspects, he gradually transformed into a puzzle-piece defensive midfielder, and now he was orchestrating passing decisions.

Along this journey, every bit of effort and sweat he put in had entirely translated into strength.

This feeling was truly beyond description!

"Simply terrifying!"

George put his notebook back into his bag; this thing was no longer useful.

What Wei Lai had displayed was known in the football world as implicit talent.

Talent is divided into two types.

One is explicit talent: ball control, physical coordination, body-ball integration, and so on... all these visible things fall into this category.

But at the same time, there is implicit talent. This kind of talent cannot be explicitly defined by the naked eye; it requires data, experience, and even intuition to make a judgment.

Penalty-box awareness, three-dimensional spatial sense, vision, reading of the game, tactical understanding, and the like all fall under this category.

And what Wei Lai was currently displaying gave George a creeping sensation of goosebumps.

Implicit talent is 'implicit' precisely because it is elusive and hard to observe, requiring long-term attention and analysis to draw a conclusion.

Even so, many top clubs often misjudge it.

One could say that when facing implicit talent, most of the time it's just a gamble!

A gamble on a player's future!

After all, this stuff is even rarer than explicit talent. You either have it or you don't; it is an absolute matter, something that cannot be trained into existence.

Yet the reason Wei Lai was terrifying was that this near-qualitative implicit talent was manifesting in a 15-year-old player.

No analysis or observation was needed; it could be seen almost at a single glance.

The way Wei Lai played the game was qualitatively different from everyone else.

It wasn't to say that Wei Lai's technique was exceptional—purely in terms of technique, there were plenty of players much better than him. European youth academies of elite clubs practically had one such freakishly talented prodigy per team.

However, owners of implicit talent on Wei Lai's level were few and far between.

At the same time, this kind of talent was precisely what European youth academies fanatically craved.

The reason was simple: owners of this implicit talent were assigned a specific term in Europe: 'Key'.

A key meant liberation.

Yet it was often metaphorically referred to as the 'core seedling'.

"Pass it over!"

"Me! Me! Me! Over here!"

"Pass! Pass! Pass! Hurry up!"

"I'm coming! I'm coming! Give it to me! Give it to me!"

As soon as Wei Lai received the ball, shouts rang out from all directions, making his head ring with buzzing noise.

He passed the ball back to avoid falling into a pressing trap, while involuntarily grimacing.

He finally understood why Chen Shaojie had said that a decision-maker would feel like it was too noisy.

Listening to the surrounding teammates endlessly shouting for the ball, their mouths never resting, it gave Wei Lai a headache.

"Old Wei! I'm right here!"

"Give it to me! Give it to me!"

"Go forward!"

"Just punt a long ball!"

"Lay it back! Lay it back!"

Wei Lai's head felt a bit heavy, and he failed to make the pass in time before an opponent crashed into him and snatched the ball away.

Fortunately, Wei Lai sprinted back in pursuit and made a timely sliding tackle to disrupt the play.

After getting back to his feet, an unnamed anger welled up inside Wei Lai as he turned around and roared:

"Shut up! Stop yelling! With all that energy for shouting, couldn't you just run a couple more steps? Whoever yells the most is not getting the ball!"

With that, Wei Lai turned around with a gloomy face and walked away.

He was practically driven mad by the annoyance!

Everyone yelling nonstop had completely scrambled his train of thought.

At this moment, Wei Lai finally understood why Chen Shaojie had felt such a sense of relief and liberation when he handed over the decision-making power.