Chapter 1541 1540

"Good!"

Hang City, at the Wei Family Mansion. After the Hang City Team scored their second goal, Wei Tiansheng couldn't hold back; he slapped his thigh and shouted his approval again and again in excitement.

It's settled! This one is in the bag.

At that moment, the TV cameras cut to the stands.

"Father, look at that Lin Fan kid—two goals down and he still looks so calm. That brat is really good at putting on a show!" said Wei Jiansheng.

Wei Tiansheng snorted coldly. "The more he pretends nothing's wrong, the more anxious he must be inside. But how could anyone keep up the act forever? The first half isn't even over and he's already two goals behind. Wait till they concede another two—let's see if that Lin Fan kid can keep pretending then. His expression is going to be something to behold!"

Wei Jiansheng laughed. "You're absolutely right, Father. The calmer he acts now, the more spectacular he'll look once he can't keep it up. I can't wait to see it."

The father and son really were looking forward to Lin Fan's "wonderful expression"—that was honestly their biggest motivation for watching this match.

But they were going to be disappointed.

Right after Lin Fan called the assistant coach on the bench, the assistant coach began adjusting tactics according to Lin Fan's instructions, switching from defense to offense!

Apart from the Yun City Team, nobody outside knew that for the past two days Lin Fan had personally been training the team and drawing up the tactics and formation.

The coach on the touchline right now was basically just issuing orders on Lin Fan's behalf. In sports, Lin Fan had no interest in becoming famous. If he really wanted fame, he'd just go out there and play himself—and then there basically wouldn't be much room left for anyone else.

But what Lin Fan wanted wasn't just to win matches; it was to cultivate homegrown players. He himself had little interest in playing, but in nurturing talent—there he did care.

In the future, those homegrown players who dominate the scene, who stand proud among the world's elite on the global pitch, who become superstars adored by billions of fans worldwide—they will all come out of the Yun City Team.

Huaxia has a population of 1.4 billion; there are bound to be many football talents with outstanding gifts. So why haven't they been discovered? Why is it that out of 1.4 billion people we can't find 11 decent players? Why have we been mocked endlessly, yet still can't change the situation?

The reason is actually very simple. It's not that there are no decent players; it's that these players never even get the chance to emerge. They're buried, like saplings that are covered over before they can grow. They were meant to become towering trees, but they're never even given the chance to be seen.

What Lin Fan wants to do, put simply, is to find these little seedlings and give them a chance to grow.

Wu Lei, Li Yi—these outstanding prospects would never have made it into an official match if not for Lin Fan.

They're both kids from ordinary families.

After graduating high school, Li Yi didn't go on to college. He scraped by doing odd jobs. He loved football; as a student he was the backbone of the school team and played really well. He'd dreamed of taking it further by joining a youth squad, but he never got the chance.

A football youth training academy had once approached him, saying they could enroll him and that once he finished his studies he'd have a chance to enter a youth team. But there were tuition fees. They also had an elite class that was free of charge—but Li Yi didn't qualify.

The reason was simple: he'd never received formal football training as a child. Though he had good talent, at his age the cost of training him would be relatively high.

What did that mean? In the academy's words, kids should start football as early as possible—ideally as soon as they learn to walk, they should be kicking a ball. Of course: the earlier you start training, the earlier the academy can start collecting tuition. At the end of the day, what they're really after is your fees.

A youth academy charges thirty to forty thousand a year once you add up all the miscellaneous costs, and that doesn't even include other expenses. When little kids go for training, the parents have to accompany them, and those hidden costs are even higher—not to mention the cost in time. How could an average family possibly bear that?

This leads to a situation where, no matter how talented a poor kid is, they simply can't afford to go down this road. And so football becomes a sport for the nobility.

If a child from a poor family loves football, what can he do? All he can do is play street football.

Li Yi grew up on the street pitches. By junior and senior high, he relied on his natural talent to shine on the school team and attracted some attention.

But even for a talent like Li Yi, when the youth academy came knocking, they still demanded tuition rather than offering to train him for free.

The academy's reasoning was that since Li Yi had never undergone formal training, the training costs for him would be too high, so he had to pay.

Their school did have an elite class that was free, but the elite class was selected from students in the regular classes. So to get into the elite class, you first had to spend several years in the regular class. In other words, you still had to pay hefty tuition up front.

Where in the world is there such a thing as a free lunch? As a school whose purpose is to make money, they rack their brains to come up with ways to empty your wallet.

What's even more despair-inducing is that only after you've paid your tuition and graduated from these football academies can you obtain a kind of pass, and only then can you take another step forward—being selected into a youth team and playing official matches.

In that kind of setup, even if you were Pelé, you'd end up buried.

King of Football Pelé was poor as a child. He grew up playing street football at the ends of villages and alleys. Later someone spotted his talent, brought him into a club, and made him a professional player. With his genius skills, he became a legend.

Just imagine if, back then, the person who found Pelé had been a youth academy manager, telling him he could go to their school but would have to pay his own fees. Pelé's parents would have looked into their wallets, then shaken their heads.

Game over.

After Lin Fan acquired the Yun City Team and appointed Wu Da as head coach, he gave Wu Da substantial autonomy, allowing him to pick players freely. As long as Wu Da fancied a player, Lin Fan would sign him straight into the Yun City Team as a player to train within the squad.

Only then did Li Yi's days of doing odd jobs come to an end; he finally had the chance to play official matches.

And Li Yi did not let anyone down. It took him only three warm-up games to prove his worth, and he quickly rose to fame as a scorching-hot new football star.

Wu Lei's situation was quite similar to Li Yi's.

Although Wu Lei was highly gifted, his parents felt that football was a high-risk path, like thousands of troops trying to cross a single-plank bridge. With no connections and a family that wasn't well-off, how could he guarantee he would succeed? If he failed, then all the hard work up to that point would have been for nothing. For kids from ordinary families, this game is too expensive to play.

For a Rich Second Generation, it doesn't matter; worst case, they just go home and inherit the family business.

But the poor have no retreat. If the road ahead is blocked, there's no family riches waiting at home to inherit—you're done.

When you boil it down, so-called "future prospects" are nothing more than money. You might as well call it what it is—"financial future."

But life is just like this: it's all about money. Without money, nothing works. If people could ignore their "financial future," who wouldn't want to do what they truly love?

The masses rush about in a panic, all for just a few shards of silver.

You finish high school and say you don't want to go to university, that you like photography and want to study it. Your family urges you: "Can photography put food on the table? Better study accounting—stable job, then you can marry, have kids, buy a house, buy a car. Which of those doesn't require money?"

Indeed, money is too important. When we have to worry about money, we can only put making money first and our interests second.

Unless we encounter a patron.

For Li Yi and Wu Lei, Lin Fan is that patron.

And now, it's about to be Wu Lei's showtime.