Stunning

Du An walked through the old streets of West Derby. He arrived at the Kirkby Training Ground in the north. A full hour of long-distance running was no great burden for him. His physical fitness was already above average. By now, the sky was fully bright. After explaining himself clearly to the gatekeeper, Du An found Steve Heighway's office. Seeing Du An arrive on time, Heighway showed a hint of approval. He himself had only arrived a short while earlier. Water still dripped from his body. Du An, meanwhile, had soaking wet hair. Heighway then pointed to the training bag on the sofa. "Those will be your gear from now on. Remember to take care of them." Du An nodded, picked it up, and took a quick look. Roughly two training kits, plus matching football socks, thickened shin guards, and other football gear. Du An was no longer a complete football novice; he had learned about football properly with Ethan the night before. He now understood many of the basics. Heighway looked at Du An. "Today I'll train you personally. I won't assign you to any age-group team for now." When Du An heard talk of business, he immediately became serious. Heighway explained his arrangement: "Your situation is quite special. Your age is in between, and your football foundation is completely blank. If I put you in a younger age-group, the training pace would be too slow—you wouldn't be able to show your talent, and it would be a pure waste of time. But if I put you in an older age-group, your complete beginner status would be a fatal shortcoming, and you couldn't keep up with the high-intensity training." "So for now, train with me individually on the fundamentals. Once your basic technique is formed, I'll assign you to the most suitable age-group based on your progress." This arrangement was very thorough. Du An understood clearly and nodded quickly. He had already decided: whatever the arrangement, he would obey. He would do whatever Heighway said. He treated it like a job—110 pounds a week! Hey, that was quite a lot. The two walked out of the office building together toward the most secluded training pitch at the base. It was still early. The entire youth academy was quiet and deserted, with no players training in sight. The base usually only became lively in the morning, when players from the various age-groups would gradually arrive to start the day's training. "Let's warm up first." Heighway gestured with his hand. Du An immediately said, "Boss, I ran all the way from West Derby. I'm already thoroughly warmed up." Heighway paused in mid-motion, somewhat surprised. "You live in West Derby? And you ran here?!" Du An nodded solemnly. Heighway couldn't help but exclaim repeatedly, "Remarkable, kid. It seems Kenny wasn't wrong at all. You were born with a pair of iron lungs." "This is a gift from above. You have to understand that on the football pitch, stamina is one of the irreplaceable top advantages. When all the players on the field start to see their stamina drop sharply around the seventieth minute and their movements fall apart, you can still keep running. That will be an advantage that wears down the opponent. Stamina is the foundation of football!" Then, he reined in his admiration, his expression turning serious. "Listen, Du An." Du An unconsciously straightened his back. "I know your situation. Thirteen years old, and you've never touched a football. In outsiders' eyes, starting from zero at this age is already too late—it seems almost impossible to make something of yourself." "But in my eyes, you are a clean, blank sheet of paper. You have no bad habits and no rigid thinking. That's far more promising than those so-called geniuses full of ingrained flaws that are hard to correct." "I won't train you to be a player who just mindlessly runs back and forth and only does the dirty work. I want to cultivate a field general who can stay calm under pressure on the big stage and control the tempo of the whole match." "Besides, your endurance is your talent. It means that over the course of a full match, when other players collapse in the later stages, your stamina will let you move like a fish in water and start controlling the game. No matter how good the technique, it can't be executed without stamina." "For now, my preliminary plan is to train you to be the team's metronome. Either a deep-lying playmaker, like Xabi Alonso, using passes to control the team's attacking and defensive tempo, or a complete midfielder, like Gerrard, covering the whole pitch, combining attack and defense." "I won't teach you flashy, impractical street football moves. It's mostly fundamentals. I want your touch to be as natural as breathing, and your passes to have the precision to pierce through the opponent's defense." "Ready?" Du An's eyes were extremely firm. He nodded hard. "I'm ready!" "Good." Heighway pointed to one side of the pitch, where there was a low wall used for training. "Our first training session today, and the foundation of all technique—passing." "This week, we won't do any opposing drills or tactics. We're just helping you find your feel for the ball." "See that wall? Pass against the wall. One hundred times with each foot per set. I want to hear crisp sounds, no dragging things out, and every pass must be steady and accurate!" "Remember the core essentials: plant your foot firmly, keep your plant foot's toes always pointing at the passing target and fixed in place, lock the inside of your kicking foot, keep your ankle stable!" Saying this, Heighway stepped forward to demonstrate personally. He planted his foot, pushed the ball with the inside of his foot, and the football struck the wall and rebounded. "Understood?" Du An watched his movements closely, went over the details in his mind, and nodded solemnly. "Understood." "Then begin." Du An stood before the wall and began his first football training in his life. In the first few dozen kicks, his unfamiliarity was especially obvious. His plant foot occasionally shifted, and he couldn't control the angle of force with the inside of his foot. As a result, the football either went wide or the rebound rhythm became chaotic. At first he could still receive the rebound, but then it got more and more messy. But Du An was very focused. After every few dozen kicks, he would quickly review what happened. He kept adjusting based on his mistakes, again and again. In the process of touch after touch, Du An also noticed that the three beads in his field of vision were quietly changing. The blue bead on the left was rising at a speed visible to the naked eye, its growth rate far exceeding before. After finishing one set, during the break, Du An also figured it out. Being a complete beginner was actually his greatest advantage. It meant he had enormous room for improvement! The tedious basic training became, in his eyes, the fastest shortcut to improving himself. At first, Heighway on the sidelines would occasionally step forward to correct details. "Plant your foot firmly, don't wobble!" "Apply force more gently, don't kick too hard. Control the passing strength!" "Don't let your ankle lose power!" But gradually, as training went on, Heighway's corrections became fewer and fewer. He gradually noticed this, somewhat surprised. Over the years coaching at the youth academy, he had brought countless prodigies, but he had never seen a complete beginner with such terrifying adaptability. Du An's learning ability and innate ball sense completely defied common sense. Ordinary children starting from zero on passing needed days or even weeks to fix stiff movements. But Du An had only trained for a little while and was already slowly getting the feel of applying force. Mistakes were quickly corrected. His movements went from initially unfamiliar to standardized, and the sound of the football striking the wall and rebounding became crisper and crisper. Thump, thump, thump... The rhythm began to stabilize. The most shocking thing was his physical condition. Two hundred kicks per set, five sets totaling one thousand passes of continuous passing training—repeating a single tedious motion throughout was a huge drain on focus and stamina. Even some of the main players in Kirkby's age-group teams would be breathing heavily after one thousand passing drills. But Du An remained stable, just slightly out of breath. Thump! The last kick! One thousand basic passing drills were successfully completed. Heighway suppressed the shock in his heart. He was observing Du An—not just his adaptability, not just his stamina—he had also discovered something even more shocking. He walked up to Du An and asked, "Kid, after training for so long, which foot do you feel more comfortable passing with—left or right?" This was the most crucial question in youth academy selection. The vast majority of players have a clear dominant foot. A weaker foot is a common problem across the football world. Extremely rare are evenly balanced two-footed players; they are precious, scarce talent. And what he had just seen was that Du An seemed to have no difference between his left and right feet. Du An lowered his head to think for a moment, seriously recalling the feeling and the sense of force from training with both feet alternating just now. Then he looked up and answered, "About the same. No real difference. Passing with my left and right feet feels almost equally comfortable." He naturally didn't know anything about weaker feet. But this simple answer, landing in Heighway's ears, sent a tidal wave through his heart. Likely no weaker foot! A thirteen-year-old boy touching football for the first time, in his first systematic training session, showed nearly perfect balanced two-footed talent! Ultimate stamina, first-class spatial awareness on the pitch, plus the learning and correction ability and ball sense he had shown... now add a scarce talent of having no weaker foot! Heighway smiled. He knew all too well. Du An—this wasn't a blank sheet of paper at all. This was a super genius personally delivered by the heavens to Kirkby, to Liverpool!