Chapter 9

Most professional teams train twice a day, with one session in the morning and another in the afternoon. Unless they need a rest, they only train once a day.

At noon, players can go home for lunch or stay at the training base to eat.

However, for easier management, coaches require players to stay at the training base for meals and rest unless there is a special need.

Only a few star players on the first team enjoy certain privileges.

After lunch, there are dormitories specifically for them to rest, as well as billiard rooms and video game rooms for entertainment.

Generally, youth team players eat in the cafeteria.

At noon, the cafeteria is the busiest, with players from the first team and the youth team gathering here, sitting in groups of three or five. From their seating arrangements, it's easy to tell which players have better relationships and which have tense ones.

Rongguang held two plastic trays, each piled high with all kinds of food, almost covering everything the training base cafeteria could offer.

His mouth was stuffed with three chicken sandwiches, making his cheeks puff out, which looked quite comical.

As he walked past someone, that person was startled, thinking the food was moving on its own... After hurriedly stepping aside, they realized it was Rongguang and couldn't help rolling their eyes.

Almost everyone was looking at him, and at that moment, he was the star of the cafeteria, the center of attention.

These gazes contained various emotions: curiosity, ridicule, amusement, surprise, disdain, and more. Some pointed at him and whispered to each other.

The buzzing in the cafeteria made it hard to hear clearly.

But Rongguang paid no attention to these complex gazes, calmly walking through them to a table where only one person was sitting.

Then he placed the two trays of food, which looked like small mountains, on the table.

A young mixed-race man, who was eating opposite him, looked up, his gaze passing over the two mountains and landing on Rongguang's face, hidden behind them.

He noticed that Rongguang's mouth was still stuffed with three sandwiches.

"It seems you've surpassed yourself again, Rong!" Lucas Sutton said. "I remember you only had two sandwiches in your mouth yesterday, right?"

Rongguang "spat" out the three sandwiches and sighed, "But I don't feel like I've reached my limit, Lucas."

"Do you plan to challenge yourself with four sandwiches at once?"

"If I can."

Then Lucas looked at the mountain of food in front of him and said enviously, "To control my fat intake, I have to follow a strict diet. You, however, can eat so recklessly, which is really annoying!"

"Because I need to gain muscle and weight, Lucas. They all say I'm too skinny," Rongguang said, sounding helpless, though he was smiling.

"I know, I know," Lucas Sutton, the young man with blond hair and fair skin, nodded. "You have Mr. Santos' approval..."

The "Mr. Santos" Lucas mentioned was João Santos, the club's nutritionist.

Santos first noticed Rongguang a month and a half ago, when Rongguang had just joined São Paulo. It has been a month and three weeks since then.

When Rongguang heard that the cafeteria offered free lunch with unlimited servings, his eyes lit up like an explorer who had discovered a secret treasure, radiating a light that could rival the stars.

On the first day, he carried three large trays of food, becoming a legend in the cafeteria of the Bragança training base. Since the base was built, no one had ever seen such a voracious eater! And the most crucial point was that, despite the cafeteria's food being hard to swallow, someone could eat three large trays in one go! It was truly bizarre!

Santos heard about Rongguang's "fame" that day and came to talk to him. He criticized Rongguang's eating habits, believing they were harmful to his body.

Rongguang didn't take Santos' criticism seriously because he had always been a big eater and had never felt his body was in bad shape—perhaps his parents agreed to let him come to Brazil because they couldn't afford to feed such a big eater at home?

In the end, Santos dragged Rongguang to a medical check-up, but found no issues.

The excessive fat content he was worried about didn't exist; instead, he found that Rongguang's fat content was too low, and his weight was too light, which explained why Rongguang looked so thin.

So Santos revised his opinion, allowing Rongguang to eat as much as he wanted, as long as he didn't overeat to the point of illness. Rongguang needed to gain weight and muscle, and with his current body, he would be at a disadvantage in intense matches. However, Santos strictly required Rongguang to eat certain types of food, such as fried and high-sugar items.

Thus, Rongguang became the only person in the cafeteria who could eat so much without being criticized—of course, even without criticism, few people could eat as much as he did... They all suspected that the Chinese boy's stomach was connected to another dimension.

"But you love eating, don't you, foodie!" Lucas teased.

Rongguang bit off a large piece of chicken sandwich, chewed a few times with a frown, and swallowed the food.

"But it doesn't taste good," Rongguang said while stuffing more into his mouth.

The chicken in the sandwich wasn't like the chicken from KFC; it was boiled in water without salt, oil, or any seasoning. It had no flavor, and the texture was poor, all lean meat with no fat, making it feel like eating tree bark...

"Then why do you eat it!"

"You know, Lucas. I'm just trying to gain fat and weight," Rongguang said with a smile.

Lucas rolled his eyes.

He decided not to dwell on this topic. In the past month and a half, he had seen enough of Rongguang's greed and love for food—of course, Rongguang had also seen enough of his lewdness and lust...

"Hey, Rong, did you know? The new first-team coach lost his first match!"

Rongguang looked up, surprised. "New coach? What about Waldemar?"

Waldemar de Oliveira was once the youth team coach and Rongguang's coach, teaching him for a month, making him the most familiar coach to Rongguang.

Later, the former first-team coach, Nelsinho Baptista, was dismissed, and Waldemar was promoted to interim coach.

But why was there a new coach now?

"You're really out of the loop. Waldemar was fired a week ago..." Lucas said with a smirk.

"Why?"

"Poor performance, of course." Lucas shrugged. "Haven't you been following the news? São Paulo's news focus has been on our team. The first team is almost decimated, with injuries and suspensions... We don't even know if we can field a full 18-man squad for the 'Clássico Paulista' against Corinthians... Tsk tsk."

However, his tone didn't show any concern for the first team; instead, he seemed excited.

"Even Kaká is injured, and we don't know if he'll be fit for the match against Corinthians... This is our chance, Rong! To join the first team and become famous with one goal!"

First team?

Rongguang's eyes lit up, and he stopped eating. He and Lucas Sutton looked up, starting to dream about life after joining the first team.

"Once I score against Corinthians, I'll be famous! I'll wake up every morning in a 200-square-meter bed, surrounded by over a hundred beautiful girls! Tsk tsk! I won't even want to come to training! Living like this for the rest of my life would be great!" Lucas' dreams always included beautiful women.

"Every morning, I'll wake up on a bed full of money, eat six meals of Brazilian barbecue a day! I'll send money home so my parents can buy a house in Shanghai, my sister can go to college, my brother won't have to drop out of primary school, and my grandparents won't have to work in the fields every day..." Rongguang's dreams always included money and food.

The two of them fantasized about their future lives, making their meal both enjoyable and satisfying.

***

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

During the afternoon youth team training session, a series of heavy, rhythmic thuds came from outside the training ground, as if someone was pounding a drum.

Some hearts seemed to beat in time with the rhythm.

Even though everyone knew what was happening, some couldn't help but look in the direction of the sound.

Outside the changing room, Rongguang was kicking the ball forcefully against the wall, stopping it with his foot when it bounced back, and then kicking it again.

This cycle repeated, the ball hitting the wall and making a heavy, rhythmic thud.

Rongguang was practicing powerful passing and receiving.

He was about 20 meters from the wall, and the wall had three red circles painted on it. The ball had to hit one of these circles, bounce back, and then be stopped.

The wall was covered with marks of varying shades, left by the ball hitting it.

From these marks, it was clear that Rongguang's accuracy was quite good.

When he first joined the team a month and a half ago, he didn't even know you couldn't use your hands in soccer. He started with the basics, like juggling the ball.

Now, he could pass the ball accurately from 20 meters away...

How fast!

Even the youth team players who looked down on Rongguang had to admit that his learning ability was strong...

This made them even more annoyed with him—why should a rookie learn faster than them?

Only Lucas knew that Rongguang was a genius... no, a monster.

After spending over a month with Rongguang, Lucas understood his abilities.

Rongguang was a rookie, but his progress was much faster than average!

Every time he saw Rongguang's rapid improvement, Lucas thought that maybe Rongguang beating Kaká... wasn't impossible.

Some players glanced at Rongguang with disdain and turned away, while others ignored his efforts and progress completely.

In their minds, they were still better than Rongguang.

But they couldn't ignore the sound.

Each heavy thud was like a drumbeat in their hearts.

Waldemar had come up with this wall-training method before he moved to the first team.

Lucas couldn't always train with Rongguang; he had his own training and matches to attend.

So Waldemar had Rongguang train against the wall, similar to his rooftop training.

Every day, Rongguang kicked and received the ball against the wall, as if in penance.

Every day.

By early March, São Paulo was already in autumn, with cooler, pleasant weather. Even so, Rongguang was drenched in sweat.

Sweat dripped from his chin, soaking through his shirt from his chest and back.

With each repetition, layers of fat tissue formed around the axons of his neurons, wrapping them and extending along the axons.

Under this fat, the speed of nerve impulse transmission gradually increased, and the precision of Rongguang's ball control and passing improved unconsciously.

From not knowing to knowing, the secret was repetition. Repeating difficult techniques, making the neurons in the body remember the feeling of performing these techniques. Through repetition, controlling the body with more precise neural fibers to transmit the information needed for the skills.

While Rongguang was focused on his wall training, two people entered the training ground from the other side.

Their arrival caused a stir on the training ground.

The youth team players, who were training, turned to look at them, their eyes filled with longing and excitement. They slowly stopped their training.

Even the youth team coach didn't stop them but went to greet the newcomers.

Mauro, the youth training director and assistant coach of the first team, and the newly appointed first-team coach, Oswaldo Oliveira, had come to the youth team training ground.