Chapter 291: Yang Yang, You Can Do It

Chapter 291: Chapter 284: Yang Yang, You Can Do It

The evening of April 30th. Arnhem, Netherlands. The Gelredome Stadium.

Round 31 of the Eredivisie. Ajax faced Vitesse in an away match.

The first half ended in a 0-0 draw, with neither side able to score.

However, after switching sides for the second half, Ajax suddenly unleashed their power. Yang Yang and Maicon executed a brilliant, telepathic combination down the right flank, culminating in Maicon cutting into the box and rifling a shot into the net to score.

Afterward, Vitesse tightened up their defensive formation, giving Ajax no openings whatsoever.

Eager to score, Yang Yang was brimming with fighting spirit. He first checked in with the head coach on the sideline to signal that he could keep playing, all while relentlessly hunting for opportunities on the pitch.

Right flank, center, left flank…

To shake off the Vitesse defenders, he constantly shifted his position on the field.

Ajax was in firm control of the match, and all his teammates were doing their best to help Yang Yang score.

Yet, a goal always seemed just out of his reach.

Vitesse, for their part, clearly had no intention of granting Yang Yang his wish. They consistently shut him down, which frustrated him immensely, but he had to keep reminding himself to stay calm.

The clock ticked past the seventy-five-minute mark, and Yang Yang seemed to slow his pace.

Had he given up?

The answer was, no way!

Just five minutes later, Ajax launched a quick attack down the left. Maxwell sent a direct pass forward to find Pinaar, and the South African international charged into the box with the ball, only to suddenly lay it off to a teammate just outside.

And there, standing just to the left of the arc at the top of Vitesse’s box, was none other than Yang Yang.

After making the pass, Pinaar continued his run toward the penalty spot, drawing his marker away with him.

A Vitesse midfielder positioned himself on Yang Yang’s right, blocking his path toward the center.

The reasoning was simple: they all knew Yang Yang was right-footed. From that position, all he needed to do was cut inside to line up a shot with his dominant foot, and his success rate was incredibly high. He had already scored several goals just like that this season.

But Yang Yang didn’t wait for the ball to reach his feet. He burst forward, taking Pinaar’s pass on the run and knocking it back into the penalty area, slipping right past the right-back who had been marking Pinaar.

The Vitesse midfielder stayed tight on Yang Yang’s right side, shoulder to shoulder, neither man giving an inch.

This was where Yang Yang’s strength training over the past six-plus months finally paid off. His upper-body strength allowed him to keep his balance perfectly under the opponent’s jostling, and he maintained steady control of the ball. After reaching the left side of the penalty spot, he saw his opening and unleashed a shot with his left foot.

The Vitesse goalkeeper was positioned close to the left post, but Yang Yang deliberately aimed for the far corner.

The ball traveled in a diagonal line, crashing into the inside of the side netting at the far post.

“GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!”

“In the eighty-first minute, after trying time and time again, Yang Yang has finally broken through and scored!”

“Two to zero!”

“Oh my God! Right after taking the shot, Yang Yang was knocked to the ground by the Vitesse midfielder, Yakubu, but the ball still rolled steadily into the Vitesse goal!”

“Two to zero! Ajax has all but secured the victory!”

“Many of the Vitesse fans here in the stadium can’t help but cheer!”

“That’s right. Their applause and cheers are for Yang Yang.”

“Vitesse gave it their all. Their defenders never stopped marking Yang Yang, but it’s a shame that even the tightest defense can have a single lapse, and Yang Yang seized his one opportunity.”

A collective gasp went through the stadium, followed by faint sounds of applause and cheers.

The player of African descent, Yakubu, extended a hand to Yang Yang on the ground. “Well done, mate.”

“Thanks.” Yang Yang grabbed Yakubu’s hand and, with a pull, got back to his feet.

Yakubu’s defending just now had been clean, with no dirty tricks.

Of course, that might have been because Yang Yang was already inside the penalty area.

After getting to his feet, a nearby Pinaar rushed to Yang Yang’s side and threw his arms around him.

His surrounding Ajax teammates swarmed in, forming a tight circle around him.

“This is Yang Yang’s twenty-fifth league goal of the season!”

“To all our viewers watching at home, please remember this great and historic moment!”

“This is Yang Yang’s twenty-fifth league goal of the season!”

“Exactly ten years ago, in Round 29 of the Eredivisie, during an away match for Eindhoven against Maastricht, the Brazilian prodigy Ronaldo, having just turned eighteen, scored his twenty-fifth Eredivisie league goal.”

“That goal made Ronaldo the youngest player in Eredivisie history to score twenty-five goals in a single season, and that record has stood for a full decade.”

“Ten years later, here in Vitesse’s Gelredome Stadium, we are once again witnessing the birth of a brand-new historical record.”

“Yang Yang, the eighteen-year-old rising star from China, has broken Ronaldo’s record by a full month.”

“Let us congratulate Yang Yang! Congratulations on becoming the youngest player in the history of the Eredivisie to score twenty-five goals in a single season! We have every reason to believe this record will likely stand for another decade, or perhaps even longer.”

The Ajax players rushed over to celebrate with Yang Yang.

This was definitely a goal worth remembering.

Generally speaking, records are tracked at major milestones, such as twenty-five or thirty goals. Currently, the youngest player to achieve both of those records was Ronaldo.

Now, the twenty-five-goal record had been broken by Yang Yang. But if he wanted to break the thirty-goal record, he would have to push even harder.

That was because Ronaldo had broken both records in the very same season.

In other words, if Yang Yang wanted to break his idol’s records, he had to do it this season.

“After tonight, there are three rounds left in the league. Yang Yang still has a very real chance to break another of Ronaldo’s goal-scoring records. Let’s wait and see, and hope that Yang Yang can bring us yet another surprise!”

After celebrating with his teammates, Yang Yang made a point of running to the sideline, where he embraced head coach Ronald Koeman and assistant coach Luther Carroll. He also didn’t forget to face the live camera aimed at him, pressing his palms together in a gesture of thanks.

He had never dared to imagine he could achieve such results, so he had always worked exceptionally hard, never daring to slack off in the slightest. Now, he had really broken his idol Ronaldo’s record, but he didn’t feel the least bit satisfied.

Because there were still more targets ahead of him: Kuyt’s Top Scorer title, and even Ronaldo’s thirty-goal record.

…

…

Yang Yang Breaks Ronaldo’s Legendary Ten-Year-Old Record!

In a very short time after the match, this explosive news spread rapidly throughout the Netherlands, across the European football scene, and even around the world.

Everyone was astonished by Yang Yang’s incredible performance this season. No one had expected that Ajax’s “golden substitute” from last season, an eighteen-year-old wunderkind, would be able to score goals in a flood this season.

At the post-match press conference, Vitesse head coach Edward Stirling told reporters, “Our players did everything in their power to try and stop him, but it’s a shame. Tonight, Yang Yang was unstoppable!”

Ajax’s head coach, Ronald Koeman, also remarked, “From the first minute of the match, I could feel his strength, his desire. He’s like a warrior on the football pitch, refusing to stop until he achieves his goal.”

“To be honest, according to the pre-game plan, I should have substituted him off much earlier. After the match hit the sixty-minute mark, my coach, Kluivert, was constantly at my side reminding me, ‘It’s time for a change, Yang has to come off.'”

“But I told him, I said, ‘Yang, look at him. Do you really have the heart to sub him off at a moment like this?'”

“My coach was convinced, and as a result, we let him keep playing until after the eightieth minute before subbing him out.”

“Frankly, that goal truly moved me.”

“Ten years ago, Ronaldo started in the Eredivisie and created his own history in European football. I believe that from now on, in the next ten years, Yang Yang will forge his own history in European football.”

The high praise from both head coaches sent the Dutch media into a frenzy.

The Ajax fans were even more ecstatic.

When the news reached Spain and media reporters relayed to Ronaldo that Yang Yang had broken his record, the legendary superstar playing for Real Madrid happily stated, “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

“Yang Yang, I know of him. He’s a very diligent, very hardworking, and also a considerably talented young man. I spoke with him last season, and I told him he would have his own moment of glory. And now, I’m very happy to hear this news about him.”

“I think just twenty-five goals is far from enough. So I want to say to him: Yang Yang, hey, my friend, push a little harder and break the thirty-goal record too! I believe you can do it. Go for it!”

When the news reached China, it could truly be said that the entire nation was celebrating.

None of the fans had imagined that Yang Yang would perform so exceptionally in the Eredivisie this season, actually managing to break Ronaldo’s ten-year-old record. It was just too incredible to believe.

Who was this, after all?

Ronaldo!

After the King of Football Pele and Maradona, he was a god-like figure in the world of football!

Even China’s most authoritative media outlets, National Television and the National Daily, simultaneously covered this major news during prime-time news and on their front-page headlines, expressing their pride that a Chinese player could achieve such a feat.

Other domestic media and television stations were even more effusive, showering Yang Yang with praise.

The media and fans alike called on Yang Yang, urging him to follow Ronaldo’s advice, not to be satisfied with his current achievements, to maintain his form, and, ideally, to break Ronaldo’s other historical record.

“As long as you break Ronaldo’s thirty-goal record, even if you don’t become the Eredivisie’s Top Scorer, you’ll still be the best!”

“Go, Yang Yang! You can definitely do it!”

“The entire nation is proud of you!”

“We believe in you! You have to keep going!”