"On June 1, 1998, the Portuguese Football Association held the Portuguese Diamond Generation Invitational Tournament in order to dilute the pain of failing to qualify for the World Cup for twelve consecutive years."
"The aim is to discover domestic talented players aged 12-15, emulate the current Portuguese golden generation, and light up the future of Portuguese football."
"This event has received strong support from the Portuguese Super League clubs such as Sporting Lisbon, Porto, and Benfica."
"The organizers have invited Portuguese football legend "Black Panther" Eusebio and Luis Figo, the new king of Portugal, the core of Barcelona and one of the few foreign captains of Barcelona, as youth sponsors."
"They will form their own teams and have a peak showdown at the Alvadra Stadium in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital."
"So far, Figo has invited talents from the youth training of major teams such as Hugo Almeida, Bruno Leiva, Miguel Veloso, Ruben Amorim, etc."
"The most eye-catching one is Cristiano Ronaldo from Madeira! Three years ago he shined in the Portuguese Golden Boy Cup and was awarded the top scorer in the tournament."
"There is news that Chris will officially transfer to Sporting Lisbon this summer!"
"The Panthers are composed of Sporting Lisbon youth training centre-back José Fonte and Portimão youth training midfielder Joao Moutinho..."
Benfica first team assistant coach Triguera shook his head while listening to the news on TV.
This game is destined to be a one-sided game.
People nowadays are too forgetful.
Too few quality players choose to join the Panthers.
The real geniuses are actually in the Figo team.
Because today's young people love Figo more.
Perhaps in more than ten years, new fans will not know that there is a legendary star named Eusebio.
It seems like it has only been three years. Who still remembers Deng Kai, who beat Cristiano Ronaldo to win the Golden Boy Cup Best Player Award?
Beep beep beep!
Trigla's phone rings.
He put down the wine glass in his hand and pressed the hands-free button: "What's wrong, Pereira, is there a change in time the day after tomorrow?"
Pereira is the head of player recruitment at Sporting Lisbon.
The day after tomorrow, they will attend the "Diamond Generation Invitational Tournament" event with the club chairman and watch the game live.
But it wasn't Pereira's voice that came over the phone.
But a childish voice.
"Coach...I want to play football!"
Then there was silence on both ends of the phone.
In just a moment, Trigla knew who was on the other end of the phone.
Kai!
Deng Kai!
He finally called!
He is finally willing to continue playing football!
Three years ago, in order to celebrate the Portuguese national team entering the European Cup, the Portuguese Football Association held the Golden Boy Cup.
The best defensive player of the tournament, José Font, performed well, but encountered the Madeira Nacional youth training team led by young Cristiano Ronaldo in the semi-finals, thus stopping in the semi-finals.
After the game, Fonte was invited to the Lisbon youth training team.
Cristiano Ronaldo, the tournament's top scorer and the tournament's Golden Boot player, scored twice in the semifinals, single-handedly led the team to the finals, and also scored twice in the finals.
After the game, Ronaldo received a grand invitation from Sporting Lisbon.
However, for safety reasons, Ronaldo's parents hoped that he would live alone in Lisbon when he grew up. Therefore, Ronaldo did not publicly join the Sporting Lisbon youth training, but he used Sporting Lisbon's training program early and was branded with Sporting Lisbon. .
But Ronaldo's team was the runner-up at the time.
The championship belongs to another little-known team.
In that game, Ronaldo scored twice.
But the opposing team's midfielder Deng Kaiyan surpassed the rest and completed a hat trick of assists. He won the game 3-2 and took away the championship trophy!
Deng Kai was also awarded the best player of the tournament for his outstanding performance.
After the game, the youth training departments of the three major Portuguese Super League clubs sent invitations to Deng Kai.
But Deng Kai refused them all.
Just when the Portuguese Super League teams were confused, a reporter broke the news that Barcelona also sent Deng Kai an invitation to youth training.
Because on the day of the Golden Boy Cup final, the football legend "Dutch Flyer" Cruyff, who was the head coach of Barcelona at the time, was present.
He went there for Figo's transfer, but he didn't expect that this trip not only took away Figo from Sporting Lisbon, but also allowed him to discover a good midfielder.
Cruyff asked Barcelona's youth training department to buy Deng Kai.
This is Barcelona!
Who can say no?
However, Deng Kai refused!
Once the news was reported, most of the football world knew about it.
It is said that this also became another rift between Cruyff and Barcelona management, which indirectly led to Cruyff's dismissal a year later.
But now that Barcelona has sent out invitations, many clubs have given Deng Kai trial invitations with the mentality of giving it a try, regardless of whether they have never seen Deng Kai play.
These include Barcelona’s rival Real Madrid, the Premier League duo Manchester United and Arsenal, the Bundesliga’s southern king Bayern, Serie A’s three giants Juventus, Milan, Inter Milan...
But without exception, Deng Kai chose to refuse them all.
Some people thought that Deng Kai was waiting for a price, but he got away with it.
Because there is the word "Kay" in his name, some media ridiculed Deng Kai as the "Football Caesar".
The German football emperor Beckenbauer is also called Caesar, but the media obviously does not mean that Deng Kai is the next Beckenbauer.
They are saying that Deng Kai is like Carlos Caesar, the biggest liar in Brazilian football in the 1980s. He has no strong strength or talent at all and is just a liar in name only.
Carlos Caesar has dominated Brazilian football for more than 20 years and has not played a single game, but he has always been regarded as a super star.
And Deng Kai refused invitations and trials from all teams and turned himself into a peerless talent, which is really similar to Carlos Caesar.
"Really? Are you sure you want to play football? Instead of studying sports data analysis at the University of Lisbon?" Triguera is the only person who has been paying attention to Deng Kai's news in the past three years.
He is a person who accepts death. He believes more than anyone else that Deng Kai will play out and even become a superstar.
He will never forget the last conversation he had when he invited Deng Kai to join Sporting Lisbon.
"Son, I don't ask you to join Sporting Lisbon, but you should at least choose one of the Red Devils, Gunners, Real Madrid, Double Meters and Juventus! If you don't play football, it will be your loss, and it will be a loss for the world football team. The altar’s loss!”
"Coach, I will play football, but not now. I have more important things to do now!"
"Kay, please think about it again. Your technical characteristics will definitely have a bright future in Barcelona! How about I help you contact Mr. Cruyff?"
"Thank you Mr. Triguera, but no need. When I want to play football, you are the first one I come to!"
After that, Deng Kai quit the football school where he was and returned to the Portuguese twelve-year compulsory education system.
In just three years, he completed all the twelve years of compulsory education.
And he got excellent results in the two major exams in the eleventh and twelfth grade.
Finally, this year I was admitted in advance to the sports data analysis major at the School of Information and Technology, University of Lisbon, the best university in Portugal.
But such a top student actually said that he wanted to play football.
This is as incomprehensible as Deng Kai's choice to go to school after achieving success in football three years ago.
Triguera completely understands how the president of the University of Lisbon feels at this moment.
There has never been anything like this in the world.
There is only sympathy for each other.
A genius's ideas will never be understood by normal people.
