"Damn, Matt, why are the dark circles under your eyes getting worse?" Colleague Harry Speed exclaimed when he saw Matt Dawn in the office.
Matt answered him weakly: "Because I went to bed at 4:30 this morning and got up at 8 o'clock..."
"Oh my God, Matt, even if you die heroically for the club, there is no way that any of the stands in the Castle Stadium will be named after you..." Harry said in an exaggerated tone.
"Maybe a toilet can be named after me? If that's the case, I hope it's a women's toilet..."
Harry burst out laughing: "Well, when I heard you could still joke, I knew you wouldn't die. The boss asked you to come over. He might have a new job to arrange for you."
"Okay, thank you Harry, I'll go now." After saying that, Matt stood up from his seat, then picked up the tablet and walked towards the head coach's office.
Looking at his colleagues who were walking frivolously and almost floating out of the office, Harry shook his head helplessly, but at the same time he sighed in his heart. Fortunately, Matt was a twenty-six-year-old young man and his body could bear it. It would have been him.
Staying up late like this for two consecutive days is already unbearable.
※※※
"Boss, are you looking for me?" Matt knocked on the door of head coach Tony Clark's office and pushed it open.
I saw a middle-aged man with a beard inside. He stood up and opened his arms to him: "Ah, dear Matt, you are here... Huh? Why are you acting like this?"
Apparently he also noticed Matt Dawn's sluggish appearance.
"Well, I've slept less than eight hours in the past two days..."
"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't expect that the analysis video I asked you for yesterday cost you so much energy..." Tony Clark said and then thought about it, "No, wait, you put it in yesterday morning
I gave the video to me, so why did you stay up late last night?"
"Well, it's like this, boss, I was playing CGF yesterday." Matt explained.
""The Godfather of Champions"?"
"Yes, it's "The Godfather of Champions."
"Matt, this is not the first day we have met. I know you are a crazy CGF player, but I have never seen you play like this. If I didn't know you very well, I would even suspect that you and Er
Ten women each came with ten rounds, ha!" Tony Clark said with a wide grin.
Faced with the head coach’s boring joke, Matt Dawn rolled his eyes: “Actually, if I hadn’t thought about coming to work today, I might not have chosen to go to bed at 4:30 in the morning, but would have continued to sleep.
Go down."
"Is there a new version of "The Godfather of Champions" again? No, wasn't it released in October?"
"Well, here's the thing. I accidentally found a post on the popular community..."
Matt Dawn told Tony Clark exactly what happened to him yesterday.
"...So you are saying that you found a talented player on the Internet, so you decided to verify it in the game. It turned out that it was exactly what that person said. This person's attributes didn't look very good, but he was really good.
Goal?" Tony Clark summarized what he just said in a concise and concise way, successfully shattering the author's conspiracy to use this opportunity to reduce the number of words.
"Yes, I changed two teams in the game and played for many seasons. It was the same. Especially the second team. He even helped the team reach the Europa League. Boss, you know
Which team am I coaching?”
"I don't know..." Tony Clark shook his head.
"Hammond Castle!"
Tony Clark was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly asked as if he remembered something: "Wait, you coached my team?"
"Yes, boss..."
"Then where did I go?" the unshaven Clark asked Matt Dawn, pointing at himself.
"Uh... I don't know about that, boss. Every player who enters the game will not care about the fate of the predecessor he replaced... Also, boss, are you concerned about the wrong point? The focus is on the young player.
Okay?" Matt felt confused.
"That player, of course, he performed really well in the game. But Matt, you have to know that a game is a game after all, no matter how real it is, it is still a game. And the database that "The Godfather of Champions" is most proud of
In fact, it is only true enough for players in the European League. As for a young Chinese player... God, the only relationship I have with China so far in my life is the Chinese restaurant in Portsmouth, where I once dined.
…”
Matt pointed to Clark's clothes and interrupted him: "Clothes, boss."
"What happened to the clothes?"
"Your clothes, jeans, sneakers under your feet, this coffee cup on the table, these sunglasses, sun hat... Oh, by the way, and this, the carpet under your feet..." At this point, Ma
Te knelt down on one knee, leaned down and lifted up a corner of the carpet, found the label and confirmed it, "Well, that's right, carpets. All of them have something to do with China. What they have in common is that they are all 'Made in China'."
'of."
Matt stood up and opened his hands to his boss.
Tony Clark was speechless: "So it's like I'm standing on top of China now?"
"You can think of it this way, boss, there are Chinese elements everywhere in your life." Matt said and suddenly pointed to a small player-shaped ornament on his table and said: "And this, boss, this is also
from China."
"Are you kidding, Matt? This is the commemorative statuette of my retirement at Hammond Castle. It's me. Look, it's so lifelike. It's like I've shrunk and stood on it!"
Nick Clark picked up the player statuette, held it up to his face, and showed it to Matt Dawn.
"Oh, that shows that the modeling technology of the Chinese factory that produces this is very good." Matt took the statue from Clark, turned it over, and pointed to the label below and said to him.
Clark took it and took a closer look at the label Matt was pointing at:
Made in China
His eyes widened: "Damn it! Old Tom told me at the time that it was hand-made and customized, and there is only one limited edition in the world!"
"Old Tom" Tom Chichester is the chairman of Hammond Castle Club. When Tony Clark retired from the club four years ago, he received such a small statue of him from the club chairman. , as a memorial and tribute to this player who has only played for one team, Hammond Castle, in his career.
"Haha!" Matt laughed, "Congratulations, boss. Maybe when you travel to China in the future, you will see many 'you' in the store..."
Clark was also amused: "It looks like I should go to China. Maybe I will be a household name there, and everyone will have a statue of me in their home... Oh, it feels wonderful to think about it!"
After he finished laughing, he straightened his face again, grinned and said to Matt: "But Matt, the Tony Clark statuette of 'Made in China' is different from the players of 'Made in China'. The former has only one mission. , that is, placed on a table, shelf or other place for people to admire. And the latter needs to go on the court to play football. Do you think there are excellent players in China? At least I haven't heard of it...and, moreover."
Seeing that Matt seemed to have something to say, he quickly raised his hand to stop him, and continued: "And, Matt. As I just said, in the mainstream European leagues, Sports Rangers can guarantee their The player database is authentic and trustworthy, but what about in the far East, in places that Sports Rangers has no time to take care of? We know nothing about what happened there, so how can Sports Rangers guarantee that the player data there is authentic and reliable? Do you believe it? There is such a Chinese player you like so much in the game, he looks like a 'genius'..."
Having said this, Tony Clark raised his hands, with two fingers on each side, making a "quotation mark" gesture.
"But it may also be due to the national pride of the local investigators. In reality, Chinese players cannot reach this level, so they can only satisfy themselves by exaggerating the reported data... Do you still remember those top monsters from GF in the past? There are a few young monsters whose statistics in the game look like the most perfect players you can imagine, but what happens? In reality, they are found to be ordinary players who are extremely mediocre. So, Matt, don’t Don’t take it too seriously, it’s just a few lines of game code.”
Of course, Matt Dawn knew the stories about the monsters his coach told him, he was even familiar with them.
But he still felt that this was the case at that time. At that time, the influence of "The Godfather of Champions" was still very limited, and Sports Rangers was just an independent game studio working in a garage, because there was no way to collect player data from mainstream European leagues. Naturally, attribute values can only be imagined out of thin air. This is why some of the top geniuses in the game are nobodies in reality.
But now, Sports Rangers has a large team of volunteer investigators in many countries. For example, he himself is such an investigator. He believes that in such a large market in distant China, it is impossible not to have dedicated investigators.
…
Of course, now was not the time to argue with the boss about this. He remembered that the boss had called him here for something, so he asked: "Boss, did you call me here to discuss the game with me?"
"Ah." Tony Clark slapped his forehead, "You made me forget the real thing. I originally wanted you to help me make an analysis video of our next round opponent York United, but I saw
With your current mental state, I'd better find someone else to do it..."
Matt said quickly: "No, I'm fine, boss. In fact, my brain is very clear. I just look tired..."
Tony Clark looked at his young video analyst and nodded in agreement: "Indeed, you can discuss with me here for a long time a country that none of us have been to. Okay, then this afternoon the team
I need this video when I finish training."
"No problem, boss!" Matt took the order and left.
After he walked out of the office, Tony Clark, the thirty-eight-year-old young head coach, picked up the statuette on his desk again and carefully looked at his miniature self.
So realistic and lifelike...it was actually made on an assembly line?
※※※
After training in the afternoon, not long after Tony Clark returned to the head coach's office, Matt knocked on his door again.
"Boss, the video you want." He put the USB flash drive in his hand on the desk in front of Clark.
But he did not leave, but handed his mobile phone to Tony Clark again.
"What is this...'transfer window'? Why are you showing me this?" Tony Clark raised his head and looked at Matt Dawn in confusion.
"Transfer Window" is an internationally renowned football data website, which contains almost all football-related data in the world, from players to staff, from clubs to national teams, all football-related data are available on this website.
can be found.
Of course, now is the era of mobile Internet, and this long-established website has also launched a mobile APP client, allowing people to conveniently check the player information, transfer trends and other information they want directly on their mobile phones.
What Matt Dawn showed Tony Clark was the mobile client interface of this website.
"Lai Hu! This is the Chinese player I told you." Matt Dawn said, pointing to a player's mugshot on the screen of his mobile phone.
Tony Clark looked down at the smiling young player on the mobile phone screen with a childish look. He raised his hands: "Yes, a real player. I didn't say he was fictitious.
Matt.”
"No, that's not it. Look down and see his game record. This is his Chinese Football League record this season... By the way, the Chinese League is different from ours. They started at the beginning of the year.
, ends at the end of the year, not New Year's Eve. This year's Chinese League One has played eight rounds, and he has scored seven goals in the league..." Matt swiped the screen of his mobile phone to introduce it to Tony Clark.
"He didn't score or play in the first three rounds of the league. That's because he went to participate in an international competition called the East Asian Cup. He played three times on behalf of the Chinese national team, scored five goals, and won the best award in that tournament.
Striker. After returning, he scored seven goals in the league and three goals in their domestic cup competition - similar to our FA Cup competition. In other words, this season, he played nine times in various competitions.
times, scoring a total of fifteen goals.”
Matt Dawn held up the phone screen in front of Tony Clark's eyes and listed the numbers in a very calm tone, just like the daily work of a data analyst.
"I don't know if the Chinese investigators have falsely reported the values, and I don't care if the post on the popular community is exaggerating. I only believe in the data, boss. That Lai Hu is only nineteen years old. He was selected for the Chinese national team. He
Played in international competitions...no matter what competition he played in, he scored a lot of goals. That's what the data tells us, and boss, the data doesn't lie."
Tony Clark stared at the tables and numbers on Matt Dawn's phone and said nothing.
