The strongest blade in football

Chapter 88
Wang Nuo didn't celebrate with his teammates after scoring a goal. He rushed to the corner, lifted the hem of his jersey and put it on his head.

All eyes were on the words written on his inner clothes——

"To coach Julian Grote."

Some people in the audience began to applaud, and some whispered to each other, trying to find out from their companions who Julian Grotte was.

Few people know who Julian Grote is, and he belongs to the memory of Wang Nuo's initial stage of football.

It was around 2000. Wang Nuo had just been taken to Belgium. He could barely speak Flemish and lived with his mother in the old town of Ghent.

My father sees him once every weekend, he is very busy, he stays in different places every once in a while, Belgium, France, Germany, running around.

Wang Nuo didn't know what business his father was busy with, but he would give the money to the family on time, a lot of money.

Wang Nuo's best playmates are those children who play football with him. They are older than him, some are 11 years old, some are 12 years old.

Not far behind the building where his family lived was the River Leith, and there was a small, passable playing field that they used as a base for a bunch of kids, and they called it the United Nations Field.

The reason why it is called this name is because there are many children from abroad who play football there, such as Turks, Brazilians, and French.

Only Wang Nuo is from China.

There is a swing, a large pool, and a flagpole in the field, and the rest is a bare field. When it rains, the ground is full of mud.

They stayed there after school and played football every day. Wang Nuo had received football enlightenment in China, and it was easy to integrate into it.

In most cases, everyone played happily, but there are occasional exceptions.

Wang Nuo is the youngest among them. When there are enough numbers on both sides, he will be excluded and stay on the sidelines with nothing to do.

Whenever this time, he would go crazy with anger and fight hard to get on the court.

He hates playing without the ball and he hates losing.

At that time, Wang Nuo hadn't grown up yet, and he was so thin that a slight bump would make him fly.

Playing football with older children for a long time forced Wang Nuo to delve into some small skills.

His home is full of Ronaldo videotapes, and Wang Nuo is practicing non-stop every day.

He had to come up with some new tricks to impress the other boys and get a chance to play.

The field space is limited, so you must be flexible in your mind and move quickly with your feet.

Because of this, he was forced to choose a more "smart" way of playing.

For example, if he doesn't compete for the header, he can't compete with them anyway, and for example, he always dribbles and breaks through with the ball, so that he doesn't have to wait for the big kids to take the initiative to pass the ball to him.

Wang Nuo keeps inventing new tricks to protect his ankles and earns cheers that make him happy.

After every appearance, the most important thing for him is not to win, but to perform feints and wonderful kicks.

They would play for a long time at a time, and if everyone was tired, they would play penalty kicks, and whoever lost would have to be a defender or a goalkeeper next time.

Wang Nuo has only been a goalkeeper once, not because he lost a penalty kick.

It was because the goalkeeper called him "Chinese bastard" that day.

He was very excited and rushed up and punched the guy down, and said something like "You are an idiot, I am much better at football than you, and my dad is better than your dad."

The starting goalkeeper ran home crying, and Wang Nuo had no choice but to replace him——

Can't there be no one guarding the gate?

Occasionally conflicts would arise among children, and they were the ones who respected the law of the jungle the most. After Wang Nuo showed his strength, no one spoke strange things in front of him again.

Every day they play from school to evening.

When the time is almost up, the mothers will lie down by the window and shout: "It's getting late, dinner is ready, go home quickly, come upstairs!"

"Immediately, immediately."

They agreed and kept playing, even when it got dark, rained or whatever happened.

Really tireless.

Wang Nuo often sleeps with the ball in his arms, thinking about how to improve his level. With his eyes closed, he is also honing his skills in his dreams.

In this case, he joined the first youth football club, eight kilometers away from home, called "Ghent Base Camp Park Club", and the coach was an old Dutch man.

Julian Grote.

He is Wang Nuo's first football coach in Belgium. He is a big smoker, smoking like a big chimney. He has a hot temper. If someone doesn't play well, he will take off his shoes and throw them over.

Grote is not like Wang Nuo's later coaches, who always encouraged the players, standing on the sidelines and shouting: "Come on, kids, move, you're doing beautifully, that's great!"

He is simple and rude, and has a completely different style. He often uses more than three dirty words in every sentence, and never demonstrates technical actions for the second time.

If one of the little guys behaved badly, he would yell at him directly, "You kicked a piece of shit".

Many parents complain about this style, but Wang Nuo likes him very much, because this coach played in the Eredivisie when he was young, and he has real materials!

And he's been great with the little ones off the court, like another dad.

Sometimes he will drive the players home, and occasionally give everyone some money to buy ice cream, or buy some food, which is completely different from the way he was in training.

After getting along for more than half a year, Wang Nuo learned a lot of football skills from him, and his strength improved by leaps and bounds.

Sometimes, Grote will take everyone to play games with other clubs.

The coach will encourage everyone to take out the change and collect it together.

He put in some extra money, usually 2000 Belgian francs, and then stared at Wang Nuo and the others, repeating a sentence over and over again.

"If you lose, there will be no ice cream, no pocket money, and I will have no money to refuel. We are all screwed."

Wang Nuo remembers a game where the coach arranged for him to be a substitute. In the first half, he scored 4 goals. It seemed that the situation was not good.

But in the second half, Wang Nuo was sent on the field. He kept breaking through, knocked down one person after another, and scored 7 goals in a row.

The team won 7-4. Instead of losing money, they won a lot.

Grote was overjoyed. With a cigarette in his mouth, he somehow got the strength to lift Wang Nuo high, just like Rafiki lifted the newborn Simba above his head in "The Lion King".

"Stinky boy, you are a fucking genius, maybe you will be the next Van Basten, hell, don't stay here, go find a real team for training!"

Wang Nuo didn't want to be Van Basten, he thought Brazilians were cooler, "I want to be Ronaldo!"

"You, whoever you fucking want, go find a real team, remember to play like I said, knock everyone down and shoot, don't think about heading!"

A few days later, Wang Nuo met Wang Zhongshi, relayed what the coach had said, and begged his father to take him to the youth training camp in Ghent.

Wang Zhongshi agreed, and since then, Wang Nuo has seriously embarked on the road of football, and later, he went to Brussels to receive more professional training.

Fate is so magical.

It can be said that without Julian Grote, Wang Nuo might just be an extraordinary amateur player on the field.

It may also be because of academics that he left the football field long ago and became an ordinary student.

Except for Wang Nuo, none of the children who played football at the "United Nations Stadium" became professional players, and Wang Nuo hadn't seen Grote for a long time.

It wasn't until the party after the game in Anderlecht last month that someone told Wang Nuo that coach Grote had lung cancer and was about to go to see God.

Wang Nuo was very shocked when he heard the news, and he took the time to visit the old coach.

He saw Grote lying on a hospital bed, skinny and skinny, with yellow and black limbs and listless spirits.

He could no longer swear angrily while smoking a cigarette, he looked very bad, the doctor said he needed to rest, Wang Nuo put down a bouquet of flowers and left.

Until a few days ago, a former friend called to say that Grote's funeral had been held, and told Wang Nuo the address of the cemetery.

As Wang Nuo's first coach, Julian Grote left forever.

Wang Nuo put on the commemorative T-shirt inside before the Europa League, hoping to dedicate the first goal to him.

Julian Grote was his guide. He once gave great encouragement to the thin and short Wang Nuo. Now, Wang Nuo has become a professional player and scored a goal in the European arena, and it was a header!
He did it.

Wang Nuo's messy memories were interrupted by teammates swarming from behind. Their warm embrace brought Wang Nuo back to the game.

Wang Nuo focused his attention on the court, just like he did at the United Nations Stadium back then.

Standard Liege chased after the victory, and soon the second goal came.

The defensive midfielder Mangala jumped high and ferried the set kick to Camargo at the back point. The latter pushed calmly and rewritten the score to 2-0.

Before the end of the first half, Witsel also opened up. He made a supplementary shot in front of the goal to help the team make another victory, and ended the half with a 3-goal lead.

When everyone thought that Standard Liege would seal the victory in one round, Salzburg proved that they were not a soft persimmon.

At the beginning of the second half, they took advantage of Standard Liege and scored two goals in 5 minutes.

After that, the two sides came and went, creating excellent opportunities, but no one grasped them.

The final score was fixed at 3 to 2. In the first round, Standard Liege won by 1 goal at home.

It's a pity that they failed to kill the round, but this result is not satisfactory for them.

(End of this chapter)