Football: He suffered a broken leg at the start of the game, but partnered with Haaland!

The dull thud of the tactical board hitting the leather shoes startled everyone in the lobby.

Ignoring the pain in his instep, Cannavaro shoved aside the Chinese tour leader blocking his way and strode toward the hotel entrance.

The former World Player of the Year stared wide-eyed, grabbed Sun Yang's arm with both hands, and looked him up and down as if he were examining a priceless treasure.

"Coach Fabio, it's a pleasure to meet you," Sun Yang greeted in fluent Italian. His multilingual support made communication completely seamless.

"Thank God. That stingy Zorc actually let you out." Cannavaro patted Sun Yang's strong forearm muscles. "I watched your two games against Paris. That volley was simply art. Especially that series of dribbles from midfield, you used Neymar and Mbappe as your stepping stones."

"How are you feeling? Has the long flight caused any muscle stiffness?"

"No problem. I can run 10,000 meters right now." Sun Yang stretched his neck.

"Great! Excellent!" Cannavaro turned and yelled at assistant coach Mario, "Go tell the physiotherapy team to move all the physiotherapy equipment to the sunny room! Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, get those kids still sleeping in the room to the training field!"

Diana walked over in her high heels and handed a document to the Chinese team leader.

"The registration documents and special approval documents are all here. You'll be in charge of training him from now on. I need to go talk to those sponsors who came looking for me about the broadcasting rights." Diana was decisive and efficient, walking straight to the business center in her high heels.

The next morning, outside the Songkhla City Sports Center.

Temperatures in southern Thailand were already approaching 30 degrees Celsius by early morning. The sweltering, humid air felt like a thick, airtight net wrapped around people.

The members of the national Olympic team stood in two rows on the grass, stretching and warming up.

Whispers arose from the crowd.

Zhu Chenjie, the main center-back of Shanghai Shenhua, wiped the sweat from his forehead and whispered to Zhang Yuning next to him.

"I heard from the team leader that Dortmund's young mixed-race midfielder arrived yesterday."

Beijing Guoan striker Zhang Yuning stretched his legs and glanced in the direction of the locker room.

"A Bundesliga starter, valued at eight million euros. He's certainly famous. But twenty years old is still too young. Our squad is already weakened; can he carry us alone?"

Liu Yu, the midfielder from Shandong Taishan, also joined in.

"Don't get your hopes up too high. European football and Asian football are two different systems. Aren't there plenty of overseas players who have had trouble adapting to the new environment? Besides, I've heard he has a pretty tough temper. What if he acts like a big shot on the field and we don't even know how to coordinate with him?"

The players harbored doubts. In their view, football is a team sport. No matter how strong an individual is, in this hastily assembled, crippled squad with a defense riddled with holes, they would most likely sink along with the rest of the team.

A series of crisp footsteps of spiked shoes could be heard.

Sun Yang, wearing a bright red national Olympic team training uniform, walked out of the player tunnel. He ignored the whispers among the team members and went straight to the equipment manager on the sidelines.

"Give me ten soccer balls, please." Sun Yang pointed to the net over there.

The administrator paused for a moment, then quickly carried a bag of brand-new match balls to the edge of the penalty area.

Sun Yang lined up the ten balls in a row, exactly thirty meters from the goal.

Chen Wei, the starting goalkeeper for the national Olympic team, was drinking water in front of the goal line. Seeing Sun Yang's posture, he quickly threw down his water bottle, put on his gloves, and crouched down to prepare for a save.

Cannavaro stood on the sidelines, arms crossed, watching the scene with interest. He didn't intervene; he knew the rules of a team's locker room. Getting these proud domestic players to obey wouldn't work with the coach's whistle; it required real skill.

Sun Yang took six large steps back and stood to the side and behind the ball.

In his mind, the power-up mechanism of Carlos's heavy cannon in the Dream Training Camp and the muscle memory of Batty GO were instantly activated.

There was no unnecessary observation, no complicated tactical hand signals.

Sun Yang strode forward, his left foot slamming heavily onto the grass. Using the momentum of his forward thrust, his right foot, like a swinging hammer, slammed into the center of the first ball.

"Bang!"

A dull thud echoed across the empty training ground.

Chen Wei only saw a flash of white light before his eyes, followed by the sound of the net being violently torn apart behind him.

The ball, with a strong downward arc, struck precisely in the top right corner, without even touching the goalpost.

Chen Wei's legs were still in a half-squatting position, and he was completely frozen in place. He didn't even have time to turn his head to look at the net.

Sun Yang didn't pause and strode towards the second ball.

"Bang!"

The second ball skimmed along the grass, like a heavy cruise missile, grazing Chen Wei's left shoelace and disappearing into the lower corner.

The third.

the fourth.

The only sound on the field was the chilling thud of the ball hitting the ground.

Zhu Chenjie gasped. Zhang Yuning and Duan Liuyu's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Ten balls, ten powerful direct free kicks. All of them hit the top corner. Chen Wei made three saves on the goal line, but missed every time; the edge of his glove was even painfully scraped by the spin of the ball.

After kicking the last ball, Sun Yang jumped twice to relax his calf muscles, then turned to look at his teammates lined up.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm Sun Yang."

The queue was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

A few seconds later, Zhang Yuning swallowed and whispered to Zhu Chenjie.

"That damn ball speed! If it hit the wall, it'd be headed straight to the ER. Is this how this guy beats defenders in the Bundesliga?"

The shock is not over yet.

In the ensuing rondo drills, Sun Yang completely demonstrated to his Olympic teammates what it means to be a midfield commander with a full-map cheat code.

He doesn't need any extra dribbling. His "point-and-shoot" ability and 99-point passing attribute are at their peak.

Once the ball reaches his feet, it will never stay at his feet for more than a second.

Facing a triple-team press, Sun Yang didn't even look at them. With a gentle push of his right instep, the ball always managed to penetrate through the most unbelievable gaps in the defensive line.

Duan Liuyu sprinted wildly down the left flank, thinking he had passed the ball too far. However, the ball, with an extremely gentle spin, rolled a short distance on the grass before slowing down and landing right in front of Duan Liuyu's toes. He didn't even need to adjust his footing; he could simply lift his foot and cross the ball.

"That was such a clever pass, it was practically fed to his mouth!" Duan Liuyu shouted at Zhang Yuning after finishing a round.

Cannavaro was watching with bated breath from the sidelines. Unable to contain his excitement, he tossed the whistle around his neck to assistant coach Mario.

"Take off my sun protection clothing. Mario, you blow the whistle."

Cannavaro, wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt, strode into the center of the stadium.

"Yang. What you just did was a warm-up. In the match against South Korea, their defensive intensity will be more than three times that of this kind of rondo. They will use all sorts of dirty tricks to harass you closely."

Cannavaro clapped his hands and lowered his center of gravity. "Let me mark you myself. Let me see if you can still be so composed when facing the close marking of a world-class defender."

The Chinese Olympic team players on the sidelines all stopped what they were doing and spontaneously formed a large circle.

Although Cannavaro has been retired for many years and his stamina and speed are not what they used to be, his Ballon d'Or-winning defensive instincts and positioning skills are absolutely world-class. No striker in China can break through Cannavaro's one-on-one defense in training.

Zhang Yuning set up a ground ball for Sun Yang.

Just as the ball reached Sun Yang's feet, Cannavaro, like a cunning old fox, slid along the grass to get behind Sun Yang. His left shoulder slammed into Sun Yang's back, his right hand subtly tugged at the hem of Sun Yang's jersey, and at the same time, his right foot stretched out from the side, attempting to intercept the ball.

A classic Italian-style sticky defense. They don't give you room to turn around, nor do they give you the distance to accelerate.

Sun Yang received the ball with his back to the goal and immediately felt the pressure coming from behind.

If it were his previous attributes, he would have fallen to the ground along with the ball by now.

But Sun Yang now possesses the abnormal core power added by the lungs of the Kant perpetual motion machine.

Sun Yang spread his legs wide, his lower body like an old tree with roots firmly planted. He suddenly exerted force backward, using the solid muscles of his back to withstand Cannavaro's impact.

Immediately afterwards, Zidane's personally taught "shoulder drop feint" was activated.

Sun Yang suddenly leaned his upper body sharply to the left, and used his right foot to flick the ball forward and to the left.

This continuous deception of the center of gravity is so realistic.

With his years of defensive instincts, Cannavaro immediately judged that Sun Yang was going to force a turn and break through from the left. He immediately shifted his weight to his right foot to prepare to block the route.

Just the moment Cannavaro shifted his weight.

Sun Yang suddenly pulled the ball back sharply with his right foot, and his whole body used the strength of his waist and abdomen to smoothly complete a 360-degree spin.

Zidane makes a Marseille turn!

The ball grazed Cannavaro's toe as Sun Yang, like an eel, cleanly and deftly slipped past the defense on the right.

Losing his balance, Cannavaro slipped and landed hard on his backside on the grass.

The gasps of astonishment from the onlookers among the national Olympic team members rose and fell.

He knocked the former World Player of the Year and Italian defensive master to the ground with a simple fake?

Cannavaro remained seated on the grass, not in a hurry to get up. He watched Sun Yang dribble away with the ball, paused for two seconds, and then burst into a hearty laugh.

"Damn! That core strength! That sense of rhythm when changing direction! You not only have a powerful shot, you're a monster who dances ballet on the edge of the penalty area!"

Cannavaro got up from the ground, brushed the grass off his pants, and strode towards the sidelines.

Mario quickly grabbed his tactical board and came to meet him.

"Fabio, do we still want to practice the same three-center-back defensive formation?" Mario asked.

"An impenetrable fortress? To hell with it!"

Cannavaro snatched the tactical board, picked up a marker, and roughly crossed out all the densely drawn defensive lines.

He drew a large circle in the center of the tactics board and wrote Sun Yang's name on it.

"We're having a team tactical meeting tonight. Tell those lads who just cower in the backcourt."

Cannavaro jabbed Sun Yang's name heavily with the tip of his pen.

"Our only tactic for tomorrow's game is to pass the ball to Yang immediately after the defenders receive it, without any transition! The two wingers and the forwards should pull the ball to the sidelines as much as possible, draw away the South Korean midfield defenders, and create space for Yang to break through on the flanks."

"The entire team of ten will revolve around this one core player, playing a total offense and defense strategy!"

Cannavaro completely abandoned his conservative tactics, which he had been developing for a month, and placed all his bets on Sun Yang alone.