When Hu Lai was a fan, he always felt strange - why do Chinese professional players, who obviously live in football and are considered "industry insiders" when it comes to world football?
They don’t know as much about many things as an ordinary fan, and it’s not very common to see them watching events like the European League and the Champions League?
Now that he is a professional player, he understands a little bit of the reason:
Most European games take place in the middle of the night, especially the World Cup.
Professional players must strictly abide by reasonable work and rest regulations to ensure their good condition.
If there is training the next morning, how can the players stay up late to watch the game like ordinary fans do?
At first, Hu Lai wanted to watch every World Cup like an ordinary fan.
But he soon realized that this was impossible.
The group stage is okay, because this World Cup is held in the Middle East, and the time difference from China is not too far away. There are two games every day in the group stage that are played before 24:00 Beijing time, one in Beijing
The time comes at six o'clock and nine o'clock in the evening.
It was almost 10:30 after I finished watching the nine o'clock show, so it was okay to wash up and go to bed.
But the remaining two games kicked off at zero o'clock and three o'clock in the morning the next day. As a professional player, Hu Lai couldn't watch the live broadcast anyway - although other players on the team were still on vacation,
He has been required to go to the training base to receive targeted training, so it is impossible to stay up late to watch football every day. Wang Guangwei has to seize the time to learn to drive, so he cannot stay up late to watch football.
The two people can only learn about the results of these two games through the news reports the next day.
But whether it is news reports or watching highlights, it is far more intuitive than watching live broadcasts.
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As the World Cup progressed, the French team led by Louis Francis, the oldest of the "Four Kings", surprisingly failed to even reach the knockout rounds and went home after finishing the group stage.
It's very sad.
Although he has the title of World Cup champion on his personal honor list, his desire to truly win the World Cup with his own strength may never be realized-four years later in the 2026 World Cup, he will have already won the World Cup three times.
At the age of eighteen, it is almost certain that you will no longer be able to participate.
After entering the knockout stage, the defending champion Germany was also eliminated in the quarter-finals. Aylmer failed to complete the task of leading the team to defend the title. This once again confirmed the cruelty of the World Cup and the uncertainty of football.
sex.
The curse of the defending champion being unable to defend his World Cup title will continue for another four years.
In the end, it was the remaining two kings who reached the World Cup finals. The Italian team led by Caesar faced Spain in Cerrados.
Neither Hu Lai nor Wang Guangwei paid attention to this much-anticipated battle for kings.
If you were an ordinary fan, this would have been a battle at Tianwang Mountain that you would have prepared early for beer and supper, gathered your friends, and stayed up all night.
But for professional players Hu Lai and Wang Guangwei, they are not qualified to stay up late to watch the game - the team has already gathered to start the first phase of winter training.
The World Cup is coming to an end, and all the players from Anton Shining Star have flown to Yunshan Gaoguanshui Market to prepare for the new season.
Hu Lai only found out who the World Cup champion was through the news reports the next day.
With their excellent tactical discipline and defense, the Italian team withstood the offensive of Spain's "golden generation" led by Cerrados, and after a dull ninety-minute game, it entered overtime. In overtime
In the second half, thanks to the superb personal ability of "The Great" Serius Caesar, the Italian team took a one-goal lead.
Next, the Italian team quickly retreated on defense and allowed the Spanish team to bombard them outside without going out.
Even forwards like Caesar also acted as a central defender, using his height and header to help the team push away Spanish crosses from the wing.
In the end, the Italian team managed to survive until the end of the game. They also won the third World Cup championship in history and could embroider three stars on their chests.
Needless to say, there were various articles praising "Emperor" Caesar after the game. It is also normal for Caesar fans and Cerrados fans to quarrel on the Internet.
Amid this commotion, the first World Cup held in winter in history, which had been bustling for nearly a month, also came to an end.
But this is too far away for the shining stars who are training in the winter in Yunshan Changshui, China. Whoever wins the championship will only be excited by the fans and the media. Professional players actually don’t pay much attention to the World Cup...
After all, the World Cup is a carnival for fans and a stage for the world's top players, but for those players who cannot participate in the World Cup at all, it is just a large-scale reality TV show.
If you memorize the lineups of both sides in every World Cup game, it won't help you improve your playing skills.
So the excitement of the World Cup is over, but the life of a professional player continues.
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Zhang Zihao bought the game "The Godfather of Champions 2023" during the World Cup promotion on the Steam platform. It only cost him 110 yuan, while the usual price of this game on the Steam platform is 230 yuan.
,no discount.
This discount can be said to be very large.
During the World Cup, all football games on the Steam platform are discounted with varying discounts.
Zhang Zihao never expected that the latest version of "The Godfather of Champions 2023" could be offered at such a heavy discount.
He wanted to buy this game when it first came out, but as a college student who had to rely on his parents for living expenses, he still couldn't bear to spend two hundred and thirty yuan on a game.
Fortunately, there is a big World Cup promotion.
After Zhang Zihao bought this game, he kept it in his game library and never played it. Now that the World Cup is finally over, he can continue his football dream in the game.
Unlike those players who coach wealthy teams in the "Godfather of Champions" series of games, Zhang Zihao chose to coach his hometown team Anton Shining Stars after creating his own personal image in the game.
"The Godfather of Champions" is a world-famous football manager game. It is released every year until 2022, which is exactly thirty years. It was also called "The Godfather of Champions 1" and "The Godfather of Champions 2". Later, because
There were too many algebras, so I simply used years to represent the algebras.
What this game is most proud of is its detailed and real database, which covers almost all professional players in the world. It is said that the game production company has specially insured their database with high amounts of insurance.
Based on this huge database, the game company has produced a game that is almost comparable to the real football world. Countless players dominate the game, become world-famous coaches, and enjoy the sense of accomplishment of commanding world-class stars.
There are really amazing examples of players of this game becoming the head coach of a professional team.
Of course, Zhang Zihao does not expect to become the head coach of a professional team. He plays this game purely as a hobby and out of love for his hometown team. He wants to lead the Stars to become the overlord of Chinese football. The World Cup is such a lively global event.
, but has nothing to do with the Chinese team, he can only play in the virtual game, coach his hometown team, train local players like Hu Lai, and then strive to become the head coach of the Chinese team in the game, recruiting
Join the direct line that you have cultivated like Hu Lai, and then lead the Chinese team to the World Cup...
After choosing a coaching team and selecting a database, Zhang Zihao entered the game.
After a simple opening animation, he entered the game screen.
He threw aside the congratulatory letter from the club president in his inbox and the expectations for the season, and went straight into the team lineup without even looking at it.
This game was released in October. At that time, Zhang Qinghuan was still in the Flash Star team, and Zhang Qinghuan was also in the game. However, Zhang Zihao’s release date is January 2023, and Zhang Qinghuan is still in the team. It seems that this game defaults to Zhang Qinghuan.
Continue to stay in Shining Star...
Zhang Zihao didn't care about Zhang Qinghuan. He just took a look at the name and then looked for the person he was most interested in in the team lineup.
Hu Lai.
He quickly found the name and clicked on it to see Hu Lai's attributes.
Without installing the avatar package and team logo package yourself, most players' avatars will be gray due to portrait rights and copyright reasons.
The same goes for Hu Lai.
Zhang Zihao glanced at Hu Lai's basic data:
Nationality Chinese, age 19, date of birth September 9, 2003, plays for Anton Shining Stars, worth 500,000 yuan, position forward (middle), dominant foot, right foot, height 1.75 meters, weight 60
Kilogram.
Height 1.75 meters?
Zhang Zihao remembered that before the winter training of Flash Star, they updated the basic data of each player on the official website, including height and weight. Hu Lai seemed to have grown to 1.78 meters, and his weight also increased to 66 kilograms.
This data is really backward...
However, if you think about it, this height and weight data should have been collected by the investigators from the official website of Flash Star. Maybe Hu Lai's height last season was indeed 1.75 meters.
This is not important, it will be correct when the winter transfer database patch is applied at the end of March next year.
Zhang Zihao paid more attention to Hu Lai's attributes.
In terms of mental attributes, defensive positioning is 2, work input is 3, concentration is 4, determination is 6, leadership is 3, aggression is 3, vision is 4, teamwork is 8, running without the ball is 9, imagination is 5, willpower is 5, and bravery is 4
, Anticipation 6, Calmness 7.
Physical attributes: explosive power 5, jumping 6, agility 8, endurance 6, balance 7, strength 3, speed 6, and constitution 8.
"What the hell is this?!" After reading all Hu Lai's data, Zhang Zihao let out a strange scream in the dormitory.
"Rat, why are you shouting so loudly?" The roommate was startled by him.
"Are the data on "The Godfather of Champions 2023" so inaccurate?" Zhang Zihao pointed at his computer screen and said excitedly, "What the hell kind of data is this Hu Lai? Ah? Only seven shots!? Only eight stops?!
The number of runs without the ball is only nine! All the data are not even in double digits! Can you believe it?!"
When his roommate heard what he said, he slipped out of bed and went to his computer to look at it: "It's really terrible. These large gray numbers, I thought they were gray players that came out of the system... No, the ones that came out were even worse.
This is strong!"
"Hu Lai, who was the top scorer in the Flash Stars last season and scored 11 goals in half a season, is like this?" Another roommate also joined in, and after reading Hu Lai's data, he also complained about it.
The third roommate was lying on the bed without moving, and his voice came from above: "It's normal, Flash Star is only a Chinese League One team. Originally, the Chinese league was not taken very seriously, especially China's low-level leagues...
Besides, even the Chinese Super League doesn’t have investigators for every team. Our Flash Star is under trusteeship, and we usually have investigators from Shigeyama Chiho taking care of it. How can they give us the data of the Chinese Super League teams?
It is estimated that the investigators have not even watched Hu Lai's game, so they just filled in the information casually based on a few words in the news."
Zhang Zihao looked at the game interface on the laptop screen, frowned and complained: "Why did I spend more than a hundred to buy "The Godfather of Champions 2023" just because I wanted to coach Hu Lai? In the end, Hu Lai only had this data, then
What a fool I am! Isn’t "The Godfather of Champions 2022" delicious?"
"Use the editor to change it yourself..." my roommate advised.
"No." Zhang Zihao shook his head, "Hu Lai is such a powerful player, I don't allow others to think he is a gray trash. If this data is posted online, Hu Lai will be laughed at..."
"What can I do if I am laughed at?"
Zhang Zihao remembered that he had seen someone recruiting investigators in the "Godfather of Champions" section of the "Goal" website.
"I'm going to apply to be an investigator on Flash Star! I want all the players of "The Godfather of Champions" to know how powerful Hu Lai is!"