Chapter 47: Starting Lineup

Saturday, matchday, morning.

When Tang Lin got up today, Mr. Berger had already prepared breakfast, so all he had to do was eat.

Ever since he taught Mr. Berger how to use a Chinese steamer to heat up various kinds of steamed buns and dumplings, Tang Lin's breakfast no longer had to revolve around the monotonous trio of "toast, toast, toast."

Unexpectedly, Mr. Berger adapted very well to the Chinese breakfast style and could not stop praising the various fillings of the buns.

As a result, whenever Tang Lin had free time now, he would go out to buy fillings and make steamed buns at home.

He did not find it troublesome at all, because his own Chinese stomach urgently needed some comfort as well...

While eating a pork and scallion stuffed bun with milk, Tang Lin was asked this question by Mr. Berger:

"Tang, aren't you going to watch today's match? This game is a showdown between two Chinese players!"

Tang Lin was slightly stunned. He recalled his previous burst of interest in football and wondered why football was able to bring about such a massive transformation in Mr. Berger.

It was almost more miraculous than modern medical science.

Could it really save a poor soul on the brink of despair from suffering?

Was it because being a Tyne fan provided the positive feedback of enjoying the joy brought by victory?

The problem was that Tyne was not a strong team, and their results were poor. In truth, they could not offer Mr. Berger many positive feedbacks like the joy of winning.

At first, Tang Lin had assumed that during the darkest period of Mr. Berger's life, his beloved team, Tyne, had ignited the light in his heart with victory after victory and championship honors, ultimately helping him get back on his feet and fall in love with life again...

Therefore, after Wang Lie's debut for Tyne, a curious Tang Lin specifically searched the internet for the history of the Tyne Football Club.

He wouldn't have known if he hadn't searched, but the search gave him a fright.

Founded in 1872, Tyne was considered one of the earliest football clubs established in English football, and even European football.

It now boasted a history of one hundred and sixty-five years.

However, in the long river of these one hundred and sixty-five years, the honors won by this team were so few that encyclopedias had to use various "runners-up" to save face—at the very least, it showed that the team had once broken into finals, which wasn't too shabby.

Tyne's most recent championship victory was thirty-two years ago in the 2004-2005 season, when Tyne won the English Championship and earned promotion to the Premier League through that achievement.

As for the top-flight championship of English football, one had to trace it back one hundred and thirty years to the 1906-1907 season...

China was still in the feudal dynastic era back then!

As for continental competition titles?

In the 1958-1959 season, they did win an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

This was the predecessor of today's UEFA Europa League, but it was not officially recognized by UEFA.

Therefore, as for European titles officially recognized by UEFA, Tyne had zero.

After reading through the pitiful history of the Tyne club, Tang Lin's doubts were not answered at all; instead, they deepened!

One must realize that even these pitiful honors were mostly won before Mr. Berger was born... In the decades that Mr. Berger had been a Tyne fan, there had been only one English Championship title, which the encyclopedia stated was merely the title of England's second-tier league, and its value could not possibly compare to a top-flight league championship.

With such a mediocre and unremarkable team, what kind of energy could Mr. Berger possibly harvest from it?

Just imagine: if a child loved playing football very much, but was terrible at it, and nobody wanted to play with him, forcing him to kick the ball against a wall alone for self-amusement. He received no positive feedback from playing football, reaping only the mockery of others, his father's slaps, and his mother's scoldings...

Would that child continue to love football?

In Tang Lin's view, Mr. Berger being able to draw the courage to keep living from a team like Tyne was as unbelievable as that child continuing to love playing football.

He completely failed to understand the logic, reasoning, and causality behind it.

Therefore, after learning about Tyne's team history, he became even more curious: was it Tyne, his hometown team, that gave Mr. Berger energy, or was it the magic of the sport of football itself...

This morning, when Mr. Berger asked him out of routine, unlike previous times, Tang Lin was genuinely moved this time.

It was just that remembering how he had always rejected Mr. Berger in the past, he really felt too embarrassed to suddenly change his attitude now; he was afraid of the awkwardness.

So he could only go against his true feelings and find an excuse: "You know I don't like football, Mr. Berger. And today is matchday, surely tickets for such a high-profile match are hard to buy by now?"

"I have the tickets, Tang."

"I know you definitely have tickets, but I don't..."

"I mean, I have your ticket too."

"Ah?" Tang Lin looked at his landlord in surprise.

Under his dazed gaze, Mr. Berger, as if performing a magic trick, pulled two sheets of A4 paper out of his jacket pocket, each printed with a QR code.

"I am a Tyne season ticket holder, and so was my wife. Every home matchday, we always went to watch the game together. After she passed away, I stopped going to Leazes Park Stadium to watch matches because of the grief, since our seats were right next to each other. Every time I went, I couldn't help but think of her, and that empty seat seemed to remind me over and over again that she was gone, gone forever..."

Mr. Berger recounted the past in a calm tone to Tang Lin sitting opposite him.

"Later on, I started heavy drinking and almost drank myself to death, and then as you know... I returned to the stands of Leazes Park Stadium once more, but all by myself... Although I had old pals like Robbie and the others, sometimes I still felt unaccustomed to it. Much later, I started buying her season ticket again, so that every time I went to watch a home game, I would always feel like she was still by my side."

Saying this, Mr. Berger pulled out one piece of paper and placed it in front of himself: "This ticket is mine."

Then he placed the remaining one in front of Tang Lin: "This ticket was my wife's. Now it's for you."

***

"Old Guo, look at what I just captured!"

In the media stand of Leazes Park Stadium, Liu Zhong showed his mobile phone to Guo Xuequan.

On the phone screen were the backs of two fans walking towards the ticket inspection gates of Leazes Park Stadium. They looked like Chinese fans because they both had yellow skin and black hair, and both wore China national team jerseys.

The two fans appeared to be a couple, as they were walking arm in arm.

***

But none of that mattered.

The interesting part was the jerseys the two were wearing.

Two red China team jerseys; the one the girl wore had the number 10 printed on the back, along with Chi Zhen's name: "CHI.ZH".

The China team jersey worn by the boy had the number 9 and Wang Lie's name printed on it: "WANG.L".

Seeing this scene, Guo Xuequan could not help but laugh.

Liu Zhong chimed in with a bitter complaint: "I am particularly curious right now as to how the two of them manage not to break up."

After laughing, Guo Xuequan said, "Actually, it's normal. Not all fans of Chi Zhen and Wang Lie are extreme crazy stans; there are always normal people."

"If all fans of the two could be like this pair, that would be wonderful." Liu Zhong sighed as he looked at the couple he had captured on camera. "Today's match is bound to stir up some kind of bloody storm on the domestic internet... It wasn't this exaggerated in the past. I remember when Chi Zhen first joined the national team, wasn't it quite harmonious?"

Guo Xuequan let out a laugh: "That's because back then, Chi Zhen couldn't threaten Wang Lie's position yet. The battle for the core, the battle for status, the battle for the number one spot in Chinese football... Fighting back and forth, to put it bluntly, it's because Wang Lie is old and has lost his dominance, while the younger generation wants to seize power, yet Wang Lie is reluctant to hand it over... Just think about it, isn't this very similar to the relationship between emperors and crown princes in our ancient history?"

"Speaking of crown princes..." Liu Zhong also smiled. "The former crown prince Fu Xiaofeng probably has something to say: 'Where is there a crown prince of seventy years!'"

Guo Xuequan shook his head with a smile: "Therefore, with Fu Xiaofeng's cautionary tale right before Chi Zhen, how could he possibly wait forever? The crux of the matter is that Chi Zhen's talent is genuinely exceptional; he can be said to be the number one person in Chinese football after Wang Lie. His ability, performance, and his positioning in the team do not match, which naturally leads to many contradictions.

"Chi Zhen himself probably doesn't harbor personal animosity toward Wang Lie, but his fans—especially those who only entered the fandom in the past year or two—hadn't even started watching football during Wang Lie's peak era, so naturally, they have no sense of awe toward Wang Lie. And in the eyes of Wang Lie's fans, the words and actions of these Chi Zhen fans are tantamount to regicide; it's sheer disrespect!

"Looking at it rationally, the demands of Chi Zhen's fans seem reasonable enough; since Wang Lie is no longer up to par, he should step aside for Chi Zhen. That would also be the best outcome for the China team. Wang Lie indeed acts a bit on his seniority, which on a small scale is annoying, and on a large scale harms the interests of the national team.

"But emotionally speaking, especially for people like us who grew up watching Wang Lie play, seeing a bunch of newcomers rush into this circle and then point at a scene in the FA Cup where Wang Lie couldn't even outrun a Championship player and say, 'First time watching football, is this the Chinese football king you guys talk about?' is really... making it very hard to peacefully accept these newcomers' attitude toward Wang Lie."

Liu Zhong also sighed: "Since ancient times, renowned generals and beauties alike are not permitted to show white hair in human eyes... That's why I actually despise those who say 'being bad is the original sin.' When Wang Lie swept through European football back then, was he ever bad? Now that they call him bad, they had better pray that Chi Zhen can stay forever youthful, otherwise the boomerang will sooner or later hit their own idols. Because everyone grows old, no one can stay young forever..."

Guo Xuequan said: "The so-called 'being bad is the original sin' is actually deconstructing a complex matter into a simple label, trying to deal with everything by sticking labels on it. It is actually a very low-level, childish, and naive way of dealing with this complex world. It certainly fits the current status quo of subculture prevalence; there are social, economic, political, cultural, and various other reasons behind the popularity of such rhetoric. I can only say... 'being bad is the original sin' has a certain logic to it, but using this logic to explain everything is a typical case of taking a part for the whole and sophistry."

Liu Zhong nodded: "It's a pity that today's society is so impetuous and fast-paced, that only this simple label-sticking method can be recognized by the public and widely spread. Take what we just chatted about; not to mention making a ten-minute video out of it, even if it were written down in text, it would take one or two thousand words. Who has the patience nowadays to read a dense block of one or two thousand words? Let alone hoping they can accurately understand what we want to express from those texts and extract the central idea... They will probably just think it's 'water' [ fluff ]."

Guo Xuequan was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled again: "I just thought of it, actually 'being bad is the original sin' can have another angle of interpretation—isn't it just 'the winner takes all'! The winner takes everything, and whatever the winner says is right. Thinking about it this way, it seems we aren't all that different from the people we look down upon... Sigh!"

He shook his head: "So at the end of the day, the dispute between Wang Lie and Chi Zhen still depends on their respective performances. Whoever performs well is the winner. The winner's farts even smell sweet—Wang Lie let out plenty of farts back then, didn't we chase after and praise them?"

"Yeah..." Liu Zhong had to admit that he was also a vulgar person, equally unable to be exempt from the phenomenon they had just criticized; he was probably no more high-minded than those fans of Chi Zhen.

Guo Xuequan continued: "So this brings us back to the match right in front of us. If Chi Zhen helps the Scousers defeat Tyne, and his individual performance overshadows Wang Lie, Coach He will lose a few less hairs—he's coming to watch the game in person today after all. Conversely, if Wang Lie helps Tyne defeat the Scousers, and his personal performance outperforms Chi Zhen... Oh my, never mind Coach He, even just thinking about it gives me a headache! Absolutely thrilling!"

***

He Zhenyong sat in his designated spot—on a sofa in a private box.

The soft genuine leather massage sofa made him feel a bit unaccustomed.

This was his first time coming to Tyne's home ground to watch a match.

Because this was the first time the Tyne team had a Chinese player.

Such a nouveau riche club...

He Zhenyong stroked the genuine leather upholstery of the sofa, emitting the same sentiment in his heart that Chinese journalists like Guo Xuequan and Liu Zhong, as well as Wang Lie, had felt initially.

Then he cast his gaze toward the pitch area; the players from both sides had just arrived at the stadium and had not yet come out to warm up.

The stadium's automatic sprinkler system was watering the pitch to keep it moist.

Fans were entering one after another, gradually filling the stands. Like a coloring game, the blue Tyne fans were definitely the dominant force in the stands of this stadium, while the red Scousers fans were basically compressed into a corner of the second-tier stand.

There weren't many of them, but the momentum generated by the Scousers fans was quite loud.

They even unfurled a banner that read:

"You chose the King, you are finished!"

Some Tyne fans were extremely dissatisfied with this slogan, jeering and hurling abuse, to which the away fans responded with middle fingers.

If the section of the stands where they were located weren't entirely surrounded by police, the fans from both sides might have actually broken out into a physical fight.

In the past, the fans of the Scousers and Tyne didn't have such deep animosity...

He Zhenyong naturally knew why this was the case.

He had seen similar scenes when the Scousers played Salford United, and they were even more intense.

At the time, many people probably thought that was because the Scousers and Salford United were natural arch-rivals.

But now, with Wang Lie coming to Tyne, the Scousers seemed to have brought their hatred over to Tyne as well...

So it was very obvious: while the Scousers and Salford United were arch-rivals, they were also arch-rivals with Wang Lie!

He Zhenyong sometimes couldn't help but wonder if Wang Lie particularly liked this feeling of being treated as an arch-rival by everyone.

Did he genuinely enjoy... "being enemies with the world"?

He wondered what kind of performance Wang Lie could put on today against the Scousers, their arch-rivals...

In addition, he didn't know what kind of performance he should expect from Wang Lie in this match.

If Wang Lie performed poorly, could he logically take the opportunity to continue not calling him up?

Just as He Zhenyong fell into deep thought, the vibration and ringtone of the mobile phone in his palm reminded him of a new message.

He snapped back to his senses and looked down.

A breaking news alert popped up on the screen:

"#TyneVSScousers# Tyne has announced the starting lineup for this match, and Wang Lie will start!"

***

Tang Lin, wearing Wang Lie's number 99 Tyne jersey, stood in the stands of Leazes Park Stadium.

This stadium was right next to his school; he could even see the roof of this stadium from his classroom building.

Yet this was his very first time stepping inside the interior of this stadium.

This was a completely different sensation from what he had seen in pictures.

There were not only visuals, but also sounds.

A boiling cauldron of human voices.

Chants, shouts, curses, and jeers.

Just moments ago, Mr. Berger beside him was flipping off the Scousers fans in the second-tier stand behind them and shouting curses at the top of his lungs.

Looking at that wild appearance, one could hardly tell that he was a seventy-four-year-old man who had once been on the brink of being pronounced dead by doctors in the ICU...

At that moment, he really wanted to persuade Mr. Berger to calm down and not get too excited.

However... in this environment, how could anyone not be excited?

He had no choice but to find a slightly milder topic to chat with Mr. Berger about, to distract him and make him a bit less agitated.

"Didn't they say it's all real-name ticketing? Why was I able to get in so easily?"

Tang Lin had been feeling quite anxious the whole time he was entering the stadium, because he had heard that to prevent scalpers, real-name ticketing had long been implemented in Premier League stadiums.

Mentioning real-name ticketing reminded him of when he attended concerts back in China, which also used real-name systems. He had to provide his ID card upon entry, and the ID information had to completely match the ticket information to get in.

On his way here, he was genuinely worried about being blocked outside because he didn't meet the real-name verification.

He had even prepared an excuse for himself—it's not that I didn't want to satisfy Mr. Berger, it's just that stadium security wouldn't let me in, I really can't be blamed...

Even as he muttered this in his heart, he couldn't help feeling a tinge of regret, feeling that if he were truly turned away at the door, it would be a terribly regrettable thing.

As it turned out, all his mental preparations were in vain—he followed Mr. Berger and the others into the stadium with utmost smoothness.

Moreover, nobody even checked tickets; there was just a row of ticket gates where you inserted that A4 paper printed with the QR code into the entry slot, and after a scan, you passed straight through.

People like him who printed their tickets on paper were in the minority; more fans simply held up their phones and flashed the QR codes at the machines to pass.

Mr. Berger turned his head and explained with a chuckle, "They call it a real-name system, but the club certainly isn't going to check the identity information of every single entering fan one by one. So it's basically just going through the motions."

Speaking of this "going through the motions," Tang Lin also had a profound experience during security checks.

Although there was nobody at the ticket gates, security check points were indeed guarded.

Even though he wasn't carrying any contraband, when he saw Robbie Dixon ahead of him carrying a bulging backpack, walking up to the security checkpoint, unzipping his backpack, letting the security guard glance inside, and then walking right in, he was still deeply shocked—is it really this perfunctory?! Aren't you afraid that bulging bag might contain some kind of homemade bomb or something?!

He considered his personal experience as proof of why Europe was prone to terrorist attacks...

So he nodded: "So security is just going through the motions..."

Mr. Berger shook his head and refuted his statement: "Not at all. The security check on the side where away fans come in is extremely strict. What do you mean bag check? They aren't even allowed to bring bags inside! They have to go to the luggage storage area and check their bags—oh, by the way, luggage storage isn't free, you have to pay for it."

He pointed to the away fan stand on the upper floor behind them.

"This... this is treating home and away fans way too differently!" Tang Lin couldn't help complaining.

"Haha! It's normal, totally normal!" Robbie Dixon on Mr. Berger's other side laughed heartily, waving his hand dismissively, "Not just security, the pathways they use to enter are exceptionally narrow, only wide enough for a maximum of two people to walk side by side. If one of those two happens to be a fat guy, then I'm sorry, walking side by side will get you wedged tight in the tunnel..."

Mr. Berger added an explanation: "Actually, it's about doing everything possible to create trouble for the away team. Away fans are an important component of the away team, so creating trouble for the away fans is a must. We get treated similarly when we go away for matches. Besides, look at the banners they hang up; I still think we've been way too friendly to them!"

Having said that, Mr. Berger and Dixon and the others around him turned around once more, raising their middle fingers at the Scousers fans in the second-tier stand, and shouted at the top of their lungs:

"Fuck off, Scousers! Fuck you!!"

"Motherfucking bastards! You're the ones who are finished! You were already finished last season!"

"Clayton Athletic! Clayton Athletic! You'll never beat Clayton Athletic!"

Some people even turned around and held up a placard for those Scousers, which read: "Thirty-four matches, twenty-three goals, three hat-tricks. That is the Scousers' record against the King!"

Foul language and profanities exploded in Tang Lin's ears, jeers were so sharp and piercing they felt capable of puncturing eardrums, alongside a great deal of low-frequency noise whose contents he couldn't quite make out, making his heart feel heavy and uncomfortable, as if he was struggling to breathe...

This chaos made him feel uneasy, making him feel completely out of place here. He was already starting to regret agreeing to follow Mr. Berger to watch the match.

Sure enough, I still don't like football...

At that moment, Mr. Berger beside him stopped outputting abuses toward the Scousers fans and suddenly cheered: "Wang is starting! This is his first start for Tyne! The right decision! McNeil has made the right decision!"

Then he gripped Tang Lin's arm tightly: "You are so lucky, Tang! Coming here for the very first time, and you get to see Wang start! Although you missed the historic moment of his Tyne debut, you've caught the historic moment of his first start for Tyne! Haha! You lucky boy!"

Tang Lin forced a smile: Ha, do I count as lucky?

Then, whether it was his imagination or not, he felt that the chaotic and disordered noise in the skies above Leazes Park Stadium suddenly diminished, and the burden on his heart eased along with it.

Yet a massive roar erupted once more shortly after, causing his heart to contract violently again, bringing him close to suffocation...

He clutched his chest:

Is it too late for me to regret this now?

***

PS, dual chapters starting today!

Another chapter coming at six o'clock this afternoon!