Chapter Thirty-Two: Scoring a Goal Without Even Realizing It

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Had Wang Lie's body actually changed after becoming one year younger?

Or was this merely a numbers game, a dazzling golden special effect designed to deceive him into believing he had grown younger, while that surge of spirit and vague mental power made him feel as though he really had?

As he ran back toward his own half, Wang Lie tried breaking into a sprint.

He could indeed sense some subtle changes in his body. It seemed that... sprinting at full speed was no longer quite as exhausting?

But to call the change a complete transformation would have been an exaggeration.

It had worked, certainly, but not by much.

Wang Lie had expected as much, so he was not disappointed.

After all, he had only become one year younger, and he knew perfectly well what condition he had been in a year earlier.

His physical decline had not begun one year ago. Last season, he had scored only nineteen goals in the league, and twenty-five in all competitions. The season before that, 2034–2035, he had scored thirty-one league goals and forty-five in total.

The difference was obvious.

He had celebrated his thirty-sixth birthday on February 17, 2035.

It could be said that both his physical condition and his performances had begun to decline from the age of thirty-six onward.

So restoring his body to the condition it had been in at thirty-six had not really solved his current problems.

Of course, Wang Lie also understood that things had to be done one bite at a time. No one could expect to become fat from eating a single mouthful.

The fact that he could become one year younger with just one goal already made him very happy. Before this, he had assumed that he might need to score five goals, or even ten, before he had any chance of becoming younger by a year.

Watching Wang Lie sprint back to his own half at a hundred-meter pace, commentator Luo Jin could not help praising him.

“That’s Wang Lie! Never satisfied! Even after scoring, even with Tain now leading their opponents two goals to one, there seems to be no such thing as ‘that’s enough’ in his mind! He is always driven by an inexhaustible desire to pursue victory and goals!”

Naturally, to those who had never liked Wang Lie in the first place, this scene was nothing more than showing off, grandstanding, and wasting energy for no reason.

If Wang Lie failed to catch up with even one ball afterward, the haters would bring up this very moment to attack him.

“Weren’t you running pretty fast just now? How come you can’t even catch up with the ball now?”

“Look at you, acting all impressive! You sprinted just to get back to your own half! Go on, keep sprinting! Why’d you stop now?”

But haters could always find an angle and an excuse to attack someone. There was no need to care what they thought. All Wang Lie had to do was slap them in the face—hard enough to leave a mark.

* * *

Wang Lie had come on in the fifty-eighth minute, and he had scored in the sixty-sixth. Including stoppage time, Heringham FC still had half an hour left.

A one-goal deficit was hardly insurmountable. Heringham FC still had every chance to equalize.

After recovering from the initial shock, Heringham head coach Rost made an adjustment—not by strengthening the defense against Wang Lie, but by increasing the attack.

Heringham FC had no other choice. As the team trailing on the scoreboard, they had to attack more aggressively if they wanted to rescue the match.

Rost also knew that one of the most criticized flaws of Tain—the “mercenary army”—was their inability to play from behind. Faced with difficulty, they tended to give up, lie flat, and fall apart.

But on the other hand, mercenaries who played for money were very fond of—and very good at—playing in favorable conditions and steamrolling their opponents. Win easily, collect the bonus. Who would not like that?

So, to prevent the match from turning into the kind of comfortable, one-sided contest Tain preferred, Heringham FC had to push forward and use its attack to suppress the opponent’s arrogance. They absolutely could not sit back and defend, allowing Tain to grow more and more comfortable.

When play resumed, Heringham FC began pressing Tain high up the pitch at head coach Rost’s instruction.

Doing so while Tain’s morale was soaring was a bold decision.

But Rost had no choice.

* * *

“Their high press is definitely affecting us,” McNeil said from the touchline to his assistant, Varo.

“Yes. Even Wang has started dropping back frequently to support the buildup. That means our passing routes from the back and midfield into the attacking areas aren’t flowing smoothly,” Varo replied with a nod. “We need to adjust quickly, or the advantage we worked so hard to gain through Wang’s goal will gradually disappear.”

McNeil said to him, “Go and get Dean. It’s time for him to come on.”

* * *

“McNeil is making another substitution. He’s bringing on striker Sonny Dean for midfielder Tommy Biggins... What is he planning? Are they switching from a four-four-two to a four-three-three?”

The commentators voiced their confusion.

Only when Dean ran onto the pitch and took up his position did everyone realize that he had not appeared on the front line at all. He was standing in midfield.

Before McNeil took charge, and before the team’s main center forward Peter Olive suffered his injury, Tain’s regular formation had been a four-three-three.

Peter Olive played through the middle, Vittini operated on the left, and Dean played on the right as a winger.

Both Dean and Vittini were also capable of playing as forwards.

But now McNeil had not sent Dean on as a winger, nor as a striker.

Instead, he had placed him somewhere between the forward line and midfield.

The reason was that Dean possessed a reasonably good ability to play threatening passes.

Like Dean, Vittini had pace and excellent close control, but he lacked Dean’s ability to deliver dangerous passes.

The Brazilian youngster’s talent was obvious to anyone, but he was still too young—only twenty-two—and looked somewhat raw compared with the twenty-seven-year-old Dean.

Judging by their positions, Tain still appeared to be playing a four-four-two. In practice, however, once their attacks developed, the formation would resemble a four-two-two-two.

The two forwards were Wang Lie and Vittini. Behind them were Sonny Dean and starting left midfielder Gabriel Barreto.

Behind those four came Van Ginkel and defensive midfielder Gianfranco Ramosa.

Van Ginkel would drop slightly deeper, while Dean would move inward from the wing into central areas, adding another link between the back line and the attack. This could ease the pressure on the Dutch attacking midfielder and ensure that the passing routes remained open. At the same time, it gave Tain another player capable of delivering a dangerous pass—and another scoring threat—closer to Heringham FC’s penalty area.

Even though Wang Lie had scored, McNeil had not forgotten why he had sent him onto the pitch in the first place.

Still, this was the first time Sonny Dean had played in such a position during a match, and McNeil himself was not entirely confident about it. This substitution had not been part of his original plan, and there had certainly been no targeted training for it. It was simply an adjustment made on the spot after seeing Heringham FC’s high press.

That was why, once play resumed, McNeil kept directing his gaze toward Dean.

Dean’s first touch after coming on came in central midfield, with his back to the direction of attack.

He received the ball with his back to goal and tried to turn and carry it forward. But as he turned, Heringham FC’s holding midfielder Daniel White stuck out a foot to block him. Dean stumbled past, but the ball remained at White’s feet.

He had lost possession.

“Dean doesn’t seem to have found his rhythm yet,” Varo muttered beside him.

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“We’ll give him a little more time,” McNeil said.

After all, Dean had been on the pitch for less than two minutes. Not everyone could enter a match without an adjustment period and find the rhythm instantly. Sonny Dean, at least, was not one of those players.

* * *

Before receiving the ball, Dean deliberately turned his head in every direction to survey the situation. Wang Lie was stationed up front, so Heringham FC’s defenders did not dare push too far forward.

That created a small pocket of space in the area where Dean was standing.

This time, Dean received the ball side-on rather than with his back to the direction of attack.

Heringham FC’s holding midfielder White came at him again.

Dean was ready this time. He feinted as though he were going to pass to Wang Lie, prompting White to stick out a foot. But Dean merely sold him a dummy, kicking at empty air. As his foot came back, he used the sole to drag the ball in front of himself, then immediately pushed it behind White with the inside of the same foot.

He burst forward on the spot and left White behind.

“Beautiful!”

“What a move!”

Seeing Dean escape his marker, Wang Lie immediately cut diagonally into the channel. After the goal he had scored earlier, Heringham FC center-back Burgess did not dare leave him unchecked, and Wang’s movement dragged open a gap in the middle.

Dean charged into it with the ball and, before Heringham’s other center-back Billington could close him down, struck a shot!

The ball sailed high over the crossbar.

McNeil, who had been watching him intently from the touchline, suddenly lurched to one side. He had not expected such a promising piece of skill to end with an attack like that.

“Oh, Dean! The way he beat his man was beautiful, but the finish left something to be desired...” Luo Jin was being rather kind to Sonny Dean.

This was not merely a case of the shot “leaving something to be desired.”

It had been dreadful—dreadful beyond belief.

Dean himself had not expected his long-range effort to be so wildly off target. He clutched his head with both hands and stared wide-eyed at the stand behind Heringham FC’s goal, where the ball had finally come to rest.

* * *

Robbie Dixie withdrew his gaze from the stand behind him. The ball had landed there moments earlier, prompting the fans to scramble for it like ripples spreading across a pond after a stone had been thrown in.

Of course, whoever ended up with the ball had to throw it back. They were not allowed to keep it.

“What kind of garbage was that?” Dixie cursed after turning away.

“The way he beat his man was good,” Jon Berg said objectively.

“What good was it? He didn’t score, and he didn’t even create a real threat. Dean should have passed that ball to Wang!”

Berg laughed. “Are you hoping we lose faster? How could he possibly have passed it to Wang? Wang’s movement was meant to create the opportunity for Dean...”

Dixie continued to complain. “What a waste! If Dean hadn’t squandered that chance, we’d be two goals ahead by now. Heringham would be reduced to nothing more than a dying struggle... Damn it!”

Heringham FC’s high-pressing response after conceding had indeed caused Tain trouble. It was understandable that Tain’s supporters were still on edge, unable to relax.

After all, their team was a notorious “mercenary army,” and this was hardly the first time they had thrown away a promising situation.

There were certainly many people who thought like Dixie.

* * *

That fine piece of skill was one of the few bright moments Dean had produced since coming on. In terms of the actual duties McNeil had assigned him, however, he had not done particularly well.

He held onto the ball too long, and the tempo of his circulation was too slow.

If things continued this way, Heringham FC seemed likely to weather the period immediately after conceding—a time when teams were most vulnerable to disorder and another goal.

Tain had failed to create any further truly good scoring chances.

Standing on the touchline, Coffey Rost had already begun silently calculating how his team should play the remainder of the match.

Since Sonny Dean had come on, he had not been in sync with the rest of the team. They could afford not to worry too much about him.

Vittini was in excellent form today. They needed to keep pressuring him, harrying him, provoking him, and disrupting his rhythm.

As for Wang Lie... that goal had merely been lucky. Vittini was Tain’s real engine in this match. As long as they strangled Vittini, Wang Lie was nothing to fear.

Whenever they had possession, they should continue focusing their attacks down the left. After all, Tain’s right-back Barnabas was already on a yellow card...

Rost glanced at the smart watch on his wrist. There were fifteen or sixteen minutes left until the end of the match.

Could they score twice in that time?

Nothing was impossible. But...

If this had been the third round of the league, played at home, Rost might have ordered the entire team forward without hesitation, committing everyone to the attack. That was exactly what he had done back then.

But now, whenever the thought surfaced in Rost’s mind, the image of Wang Lie’s goal would appear as well—and suppress it.

Was today’s match really any different from the one played last September?

The opponent had changed managers, and they had gained a new player...

More importantly, after equalizing, they had failed to press on and take the lead. Instead, they had conceded another goal.

Perhaps they should stop expecting their team to complete a comeback away from home and win the match.

They needed to be realistic. An equalizer and a point would be enough.

Yes. That was it. At the very least...

Rost hesitated.

At the very least, neither Wang nor I had won this confrontation. He had not beaten me, and I had not lost to him...

Coffey Rost came back to himself. When he looked toward the pitch again, Tain were launching an attack.

This attack appeared no different from the previous few.

As they approached the final third of Heringham FC’s defensive shape, they would pass the ball to Vittini.

Clearly, Tain’s manager McNeil and the players all knew who posed the greatest threat in this match.

* * *

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“Vittini receives the ball out on the wing... He has been extremely active today, and so far his performance has fully deserved the title of man of the match!”

Vittini himself knew perfectly well that he was in excellent form.

In fact, ever since scoring that goal, he had felt as though he had entered some wondrous state. The ball at his feet seemed to have become a pet dog he had raised for years, one that understood his every thought.

Whatever move he wanted to make, he could make.

If he wanted the ball to roll left, it would never go right!

Facing Heringham FC midfielder Johnson Seven, who had come across to defend him, Vittini trapped the ball between both feet and flicked it up from behind himself.

The ball rose into the air, sailed over the heads of both Vittini and Seven, traced a parabola, and dropped ahead of them.

The thirty-five-year-old veteran Seven had genuinely never imagined that an opponent could toy with him in such a manner.

His moment of stunned hesitation was enough for Vittini to slip past him.

The stands of Lize Park erupted in deafening cheers.

The commentators erupted as well.

“A rainbow flick!”

“My word! Vittini is putting on a show!”

“Vittini is enjoying himself out there!”

After leaving Johnson Seven behind, Vittini chased down the ball. By then, a second Heringham FC player had arrived.

Right-back Arthurie Konesmagi.

As he caught up with the ball, Vittini swung his left leg as though preparing to cross.

Konesmagi extended a foot to block him.

But Vittini’s left foot merely hooked the bouncing ball back down.

The ball slipped perfectly between Konesmagi’s legs and into the penalty area.

The cheers grew even louder.

So did the commentators’ voices.

“Vittini! Vittini! Vittini is running wild!”

“He’s through! He’s into the box!”

“Vittini is unstoppable!”

As Vittini tore through Heringham FC’s defensive line near the edge of the penalty area, Wang Lie suddenly accelerated from the edge of the box and charged straight toward goal through the middle.

Heringham center-back Joey Burgess had already rushed toward the wing alongside Konesmagi the moment Vittini beat Seven.

At that instant, only the other center-back, Charlie Billington, remained guarding the central area in front of goal.

He spotted Wang Lie’s forward run in time and moved across to him.

That was when Vittini played the pass.

But he did not send it to Wang Lie.

Instead, he swept the ball toward the area between the six-yard line and the penalty spot.

Just as they had practiced in training.

Vittini would cut in from the wing, drawing the attention of the first wave of defenders.

Then Wang Lie would run toward the goalmouth, drawing the attention of the second wave and pinning them back.

That would create an opening inside the opponent’s penalty area. Whether it was Van Ginkel or some other teammate, anyone who made a timely run into that space would have a clear shooting opportunity.

And this time, the player who appeared there was...

Sonny Dean!

After coming on as a substitute, his task had been not only to serve as a link between midfield and attack, but also to exploit the space and opportunities created by Wang Lie’s movement and score.

Dean launched himself at the incoming ball and powered a header toward goal.

The ball collided head-on with Heringham FC goalkeeper Adelstensen, who had turned and dived back from the near post.

Adelstensen had no time to make any effective response. He could only react instinctively, throwing out a hand to palm the ball away.

He did not even have time to consider where he was sending it.

“Dean—! Oh, no!”

“He headed it straight at the goalkeeper!”

“Heringham have survived!”

The gasps from the stands and the commentators had not yet faded when another sudden twist unfolded in front of the Heringham goal.

The ball punched away by Adelstensen neither went out over the goal line nor flew far from the goal. Instead, carrying heavy spin, it bent through a strange arc and floated toward...

the far post.

Center-back Charlie Billington watched the ball sail over his head. He hurriedly turned and twisted around, only to see someone already suspended in the air ahead of him, his body leaning slightly backward as though he were a bow drawn taut.

“Wang!”

“Wang Lie!”

For the height the ball had reached, Wang Lie had jumped just a little too high.

But to Wang Lie, that was an insignificant detail.

He drove his hips and abdomen forward, dipped his head, and met the incoming ball with his forehead, directing it down toward the ground.

The ball traced a white V-shaped streak, bounced off the turf, and crossed the line into the net!

* * *

P.S. Two updates again today!

The next update will be at six in the evening!

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