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

As consciousness returned to reality, the morning light of Cologne was already streaming into the villa through its floor-to-ceiling windows.

Sun Yang sat up from the large Simmons mattress and wiped the fine sweat from his forehead.

The 0.5-second lapse in balance that flashed through his mind was like a fishbone stuck in his throat, making him feel uncomfortable all over.

The lack of stamina in the system training camp was indeed exhilarating, but he overlooked a crucial element: the uncontrollable pressure from real opponents.

Without high-intensity real-person combat testing, even if he practiced it ten thousand times in his dreams, he still wouldn't be able to accurately find the muscle and nerve feedback mechanism that should exist in actual combat.

As I walked downstairs to the dining room, a beautiful figure was busy at the kitchen counter. Catherine, dressed in loose loungewear, was heating up oat milk.

Sun Yang pulled out a chair and sat down, then picked up his water glass and poured half a glass of warm water to moisten his throat: "I haven't had a proper competition in over ten days, my joints are practically rusting. Let's find a place to run a couple of laps together."

Catherine rolled her eyes, pushed the oatmeal porridge towards him, and adopted the authority of a personal therapist: "You haven't replied to Professor Karen's follow-up email yet? Your leg was just targeted so intensely by Bayern, I have to keep an eye on you around the clock. Let me make it clear beforehand, only low-intensity exercise is allowed, absolutely no physical contact."

"Don't worry! I'll just find a secluded spot to wander around and get a feel for the ball brushing against my instep."

After breakfast, Sun Yang went to the garage, started the engine, and drove the black Mercedes-Benz G-Class away from the Cologne villa area with Catherine in his car.

Twenty minutes later, the car stopped outside a high-end private football club on the banks of the Rhine.

Membership here is extremely exclusive, and security is tight. Paparazzi with their big guns and microphones simply can't get in. It has always been the preferred leisure spot for many retired veterans and current star athletes.

Sun Yang walked in carrying his shoe bag, stepping on the lush green natural grass beneath his feet. The quality was absolutely comparable to that of a top-tier home stadium in one of the top five European leagues.

It wasn't the weekend, and a few dozen VIP members were sitting in twos and threes in the outer stands, killing time.

Sun Yang walked to the outside of the wire fence of court number two, and his gaze naturally fell on a seven-a-side baseball game that was taking place on the court.

After watching just two rounds, Sun Yang raised his eyebrows with great interest.

The dozen or so players on the field moved incredibly slowly, at a pace reminiscent of a neighborhood grandpa taking a leisurely stroll after dinner. Strangely, however, the ball's trajectory under their feet was cunning and strategic, even displaying a tactical sophistication as if measured with precision calipers.

An elderly man of short stature with graying hair precisely blocked the path that the opposing striker had to take to receive the ball in the backfield.

He didn't need to make any extra leg movements to intercept the ball; he simply used his torso, which was positioned two steps ahead of him, to block it and effortlessly steal the ball from the opponent.

Immediately afterwards, the short old man flicked his ankle smoothly, and the ball rolled quickly along the grass towards the center circle.

In the center circle, a tall, middle-aged man met the ball without hesitation, swinging his right outside of his foot and elegantly transferring the ball to a large open space on the right flank.

The timing of that pass was so perfect, it felt like every pore on my body was being turned upside down.

A slightly overweight middle-aged man on the right flank arrived quickly, easily slipped off his chest, and then went down to the bottom.

Ram, Barak, Matthäus.

Upon recognizing the three familiar faces, Sun Yang grinned broadly.

No wonder the game presented such a strange situation of slowing down yet remaining perfectly organized. These three veterans of German football, even if they are physically exhausted and can no longer run, can still make most amateur experts lose their bearings just by having their tactical memory like a supercomputer in their minds.

There was a dead ball on the sideline, and Matthäus was panting heavily with his hands on his hips when he turned his head and saw Sun Yang standing outside the wire fence as a spectator.

The eyes of this former German football icon suddenly lit up, and he raised his hand and waved to the sidelines.

"Dortmund's number 10, are you just standing there like a statue in the wind? Come down and work up a sweat!" Matthäus shouted in his signature loud voice.

The members in the stands immediately stirred, pulling out their phones to take pictures. The Bundesliga's hottest double MVP had actually come here to fish!

Sun Yang waved his hand with a smile and shouted back through the barbed wire fence: "Forget it, Lothar! I'm afraid if I step on the gas, I'll lose control and send your old bones to the Cologne Orthopedics Clinic. Those old bureaucrats of the German Football Association will come after me."

These words immediately stirred up a hornet's nest.

Barak, the tough guy with a buzz cut, wasn't having it. He strode up to the barbed wire fence, his rugged face full of provocation: "Kid, got a salad plate and you think you're all that? Think you're some alien descended from heaven? I bet you've been in a greenhouse too long and need a lesson!"

Barak pointed at Sun Yang through the net: "Come down! Let me weigh how much of that tens of millions of euros in buyout clause is actually inflated!"

Provoked by Ballack's trash talk, Sun Yang's suppressed passion for football suddenly surged.

What he needs most right now is to find a few top-notch players who play football purely with their brains and not their bodies, to test his fatal weakness of having a 0.5-second lead time for power generation.

"You asked for this, Michael."

Sun Yang deftly ripped off his casual jacket and tossed it into Catherine's arms.

Catherine, clutching the still-warm coat, stamped her feet anxiously and quickly whispered, "Don't get carried away! Don't push yourself too hard, hold back!"

Sun Yang gave her an OK sign with his back to her, changed into his spiked sneakers, opened the iron gate, and walked straight into the court.

The game has resumed.

As soon as Sun Yang got the ball, he immediately realized how deep the water was.

Standing in front of him was Lahm, who had held the title of the world's best right-back for many years.

Unlike the hot-blooded young defenders in the Bundesliga who charge forward with bloodshot eyes, Lahm adopted a clever strategy of retreating with small, quick steps. The distance between the two was precisely controlled at about one and a half body lengths throughout.

What's even more terrifying is that Lahm's eyes didn't even glance at Sun Yang's fancy feints; his entire gaze was fixed like radar on the bottom of the ball and Sun Yang's supporting foot.

Sun Yang quickly flicked the ball forward with his left foot, then shifted his body to the right, preparing to eat it.

If it were a Freiburg defender, they would have been completely outmaneuvered and slid to the ground by now. But Ram simply took a small half-step with his right foot, barely touching the grass, and instead of retreating, he advanced, perfectly blocking Sun Yang's only path to the inside, his center of gravity as steady as a mountain.

Interesting, you old fox.

Sun Yang decisively abandoned the idea of ​​relying on his muscular physique to win.

He knew perfectly well that with his modified body, if he floored the speedometer, his explosive power would be enough to smash Ram into dust like a wooden stake. But he was here today to conduct a precise experiment to find weaknesses, and since he had agreed not to use his body, he could only rely on his brain.

Sun Yang stopped his aggressive attack, stepped on the ball with his right foot, and gently pulled it back.

Just as he pulled the ball back, a cool breeze rushed towards him from the side. Ballack had somehow appeared in his blind spot like a ghost, a long leg sweeping across the grass, heading straight for the ball's landing point.

The timing of their double-team was absolutely perfect, a testament to the tacit understanding and muscle-bound skills honed through countless hours of practice when they lifted the World Cup trophy with the German national team.

Sun Yang forcefully suppressed his instinct to exert force and resist, avoiding a head-on collision. Instead, he gracefully flicked the ball with the tip of his right foot.

The ball obediently bounced up in place, just grazing the sole of Ballack's shoe, and landed lightly at the feet of Sun Yang's teammate behind him.

For the entire twenty minutes of the first half, Sun Yang completely suppressed his abnormal physical abilities. He didn't sprint, didn't try to overpower, and didn't force his way into the game. He simply relied on the most basic passing and dribbling skills to play a game of cat and mouse with these veterans who were over a hundred years old combined.

In this agonizingly slow pace, a lightning bolt seemed to strike Sun Yang's mind, and he finally truly understood the origin of his 0.5-second lapse.

In the past, when he was defending or passing, if he discovered a mistake or was tricked, he would rely on his abnormal core strength to forcefully pull his center of gravity back from the ground, which is commonly known as a miracle of brute force.

But now that they're playing at a slower pace, he suddenly understood. Every pass, run, and tackle by Matthäus and his team is never "pre-planned." They always leave themselves a little room for adjustment, like canceling the casting animation in a game, allowing them to change their center of gravity trajectory at any time based on the opponent's reaction.

This isn't playing football; it's practically a bloodless form of Tai Chi.

Sun Yang licked his dry lips. This experience of being outclassed by the German old devil had truly benefited him greatly.