Chapter Sixty-Six: What is Yours is Mine

That cool guy coach had no idea how to teach anyone; in fact, he could hardly speak human language.

Wei Lai asked him how to pass the ball accurately.

He replied, "Just feel it!"

Wei Lai asked how to control the power.

He replied, "Just feel it!"

Wei Lai asked yet again how to control the spin.

He finally stopped saying "feel it" and instead declared...

"You can't learn this stuff! This is pure talent!"

Wei Lai really wanted to strangle this guy, if only he could!

"Fine, I have no talent, I don't know how to pass accurately, and I don't know how to control the power. You don't know how to teach either—at the very least, you have no clue how to teach me—so..."

Wei Lai tossed the ball back over.

The cool guy coach caught the ball with both hands and looked up. "What?"

Wei Lai said viciously, "Kick it for me! Kick it over and over again! Hundreds, thousands of times! Keep going until I figure it out, or else I'll report you!"

Yielding to the threat of Wei Lai's complaints, the cool guy coach had no choice but to demonstrate repeatedly.

Meanwhile, Wei Lai sat on the lawn, staring intently at the cool guy coach.

"Don't put any spin on it, just a normal long pass!"

The cool guy coach adjusted his form once more.

Wei Lai raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he was beginning to grasp the trick.

"The amplitude of the leg swing, the angle of the follow-through, and the exact part of the foot making contact are all crucial... No wait, the angle of this guy's upper body lean is also weird!"

At this thought, Wei Lai got up. "Let me try!"

The cool guy coach shrugged and stepped back.

Wei Lai immediately stepped up to the ball, carefully recalling the cool guy coach's movements.

"Body needs to lean, leg swing must be large, follow-through must be decisive, and don't lift your foot prematurely—let the ball rise up!"

Hiss!!

As soon as he assumed the stance, Wei Lai felt a stabbing pain in his ankle.

He completely miscued the kick.

"There's no way to get that kind of body lean!"

Wei Lai gritted his teeth, rubbing his ankle—he had almost sprained it.

The cool guy coach shrugged. "Your ankle is just weak! What does that have to do with me?"

"Not enough ankle strength?" Wei Lai pondered.

The cool guy coach added, "And your ankle flexibility sucks too."

Wei Lai asked, "Flexibility and strength—are those the keys?"

With that, he looked up and said, "Look! You know how to do it, you just refuse to teach!"

The cool guy coach laughed helplessly. "I know the principles, but I don't know how to teach them! How to improve your ankle strength, how to make your ankles super flexible—I have no idea how to train those things!"

Wei Lai asked, "Then how did you train?"

"Train?" The cool guy coach looked bewildered. "Do you even need to train for this?"

Wei Lai: "......"

...

Wei Lai went to find the hairdryer coach.

"Ankle strength and flexibility training?" The hairdryer coach looked at Wei Lai.

He slowly stood up and said, "How do you usually train? Show me!"

Without hesitation, Wei Lai grabbed a barbell and hoisted it onto his shoulders.

He had barely lifted it when the hairdryer coach waved a hand and said, "Put it down, you're training wrong!"

"Huh?"

Wei Lai was puzzled.

"That's training for your calf muscles, it doesn't put nearly enough stress on the ankle joint."

With that, he dragged over a leather platform from the side and brought out three bumper plates.

He placed the leather platform at the back and the three plates in front, forming a triangle.

"Rest the instep of your left foot on the platform, and use your right foot to tap rapidly and rhythmically across these three plates on one leg!"

Wei Lai immediately followed instructions.

In the era of big data, he had scrolled past similar training videos before.

However, compared to the videos, the rhythm demanded by the hairdryer coach was much faster.

"Speed up!"

"Faster!"

"Are you a snail? Keep speeding up!"

Wei Lai gritted his teeth and accelerated the frequency of his single-leg movement.

"Move your arms! Faster! One! Two! One! Two! Move!"

Under the continuous high-speed movement, his ankle quickly began to burn with a sore, numb sensation.

"It's burning! It's burning!" Wei Lai gritted out.

"Keep going!" the hairdryer coach roared. "This is just the beginning! Pick up the pace, no slacking off, you brat!"

Only when Wei Lai felt his ankle go completely numb and lose all feeling did the hairdryer coach finally call a halt.

Yet he was given zero time to rest.

"Switch legs and keep going!"

Wei Lai had to endure the aching swelling, switch legs, and resume the training.

Hiss~~~ Hoo~~~

Hiss~~~ Hoo~~~

Hiss~~~ Hoo~~~

"Pick up the frequency!!——"

Hiss! Hoo!

Hiss! Hoo!

Hiss! Hoo!

"Whoa~~~ It burns! It burns! It's numb! It's numb!"

Wei Lai felt as though his ankle was about to lose sensation entirely.

However, the hairdryer coach tossed him a balance pad.

"Hold the barbell plates, jump onto it on one leg, and hold it for 30 seconds!"

Wei Lai said in astonishment, "Huh? I'm going to sprain it!"

"You won't sprain it!"

"Seriously! My ankle is already numb!"

The hairdryer coach roared, "Damn it! Are you questioning me? Jump on right now!"

The man made a gesture as if to kick him, so Wei Lai hurriedly grabbed the barbell plates and obeyed.

Creak!

Ah!!!!!!!!——

Wei Lai clutched his ankle, screaming in pain.

The hairdryer coach stepped forward to check. "You sprained it."

Wei Lai grimaced in pain. "I told you I was going to sprain it!"

"What's the big deal!"

The hairdryer coach stood up, tapped the area ahead of him, and the pain in Wei Lai's ankle vanished instantly.

"Huh?" Wei Lai moved his ankle.

"It doesn't hurt anymore!"

"Status refreshed," came the hairdryer coach's cold voice. "Practice the steps from just now again, until you don't sprain it anymore!"

Wei Lai: "!!!"

Talk about Spartan training!

It really is: as long as it doesn't kill you, train you to death!

...

Morning, hotel gym.

In foreign hotels, a gym was practically a standard amenity.

At 6:00 AM, it was still early, so there were only a few people in the gym.

Some were running, others were lifting weights.

In the resistance band zone, a teenager placed one foot on a bench while the toe of his other foot rapidly tapped the floor.

His frequency was high, his movements swift, yet the rhythm was impeccable—there was no sense of chaotic, random stamping.

Wei Lai trained while dripping with sweat, muttering under his breath all the while.

"Trying to act cool, huh? You're a genius? Your talent is my talent! I'm claiming this ankle flexibility of yours!"

Ever since he witnessed the cool guy coach's long passes, Wei Lai had lost all fascination for ordinary long passes.

Those straight, pedestrian long passes possessed zero aesthetic value.

Meanwhile, the cool guy coach's long passes—curving through the air almost like rainbows—maximized both practicality and visual appeal.

Still, Wei Lai knew that reaching the cool guy coach's level was impossible in the short term.

That curved arc!

That pinpoint landing spot!

That sudden drop!

That combination of power and speed in a long pass!

The current Wei Lai couldn't pull it off.

However, Wei Lai had set two goals for himself, dividing it into two distinct long-passing styles.

Since he couldn't combine all those elements into the cool guy coach's rainbow pass just yet, he would break them apart.

One style: a long pass with heavy spin and an exaggerated arc!

The advantage of this long pass was its high deceptiveness; the defense couldn't accurately judge the landing spot. The downside was the slower ball speed, requiring specific match scenarios to be effective.

The other style: a straight, 45-degree diagonal long pass possessing both speed and power, though its landing spot was easy to read. It needed to be deployed at the right moment during fast counterattacks.

Right now, these two split styles of long passing were the targets Wei Lai had to master!

Only by doing so could he launch attacks directly from the backline, adding a whole new dimension to his offensive capabilities.

Wei Lai was confident in his reading of the game and his acute sense for finding open spaces, but he had been held back by a lack of technical execution, leaving him unable to launch attacks.

Once he mastered these two techniques, his overall contribution would skyrocket.

Of course, this wasn't something that could be achieved overnight, but he could definitely do it within a year!

At the very least, he had to master them before the start of the U-17 World Cup!