Fox in the Penalty Area

"Damn it, Matt, why are your dark circles getting heavier?" When colleague Harry Speed ​​saw Matt Dawn in the office, he exclaimed.

Matt answered him weakly: "Because I didn't go to bed until 4:30 in the morning, and then got up at 8 o'clock..."

"My God, Matt, even if you died heroically for the club, there is no way to name any stand of the 'Castle Stadium' after you..." Harry said exaggeratedly.

"Maybe a toilet could be named after me? If that's the case, I hope it's a women's toilet..."

Harry laughed loudly: "Well, when I heard you were still joking, I knew you wouldn't die. The boss told you to go over, maybe he has a new job to arrange for you."

"Okay, thank you Harry, I'll go now." After finishing speaking, Matt got up from his seat, then picked up the tablet and walked towards the head coach's office.

Looking at his colleague who was walking so sloppily that he almost floated out of the office, Harry shook his head helplessly, but at the same time he felt emotional in his heart, fortunately Matt was a twenty-six-year-old young man, and his body could bear it. It would have been too much for me to stay up late for two consecutive days.

※※※

"Boss, are you looking for me?" Matt knocked on the door of head coach Tony Clark's office, and then pushed the door open.

I saw a middle-aged man with a full beard inside, stood up, and opened his arms to him: "Ah, dear Matt, you are here...Huh? Why do you look like this?"

Apparently he also noticed Matt Dawn's sluggish look.

"Well, I've slept less than eight hours in the past two days..."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't expect that the analysis video I asked you for yesterday cost you so much energy..." Tony Clark said as he recalled the memory, "No, wait, you just uploaded it yesterday morning. The video was handed over to me, so why did you stay up late last night?"

"Well, here it is, boss, I was playing CGF yesterday," Matt explained.

"The Godfather of Champions?"

"Yes, it's The Godfather of Champions."

"Matt, it's not the first day we met. I know you're a crazy CGF player, but I've never seen you play like this. If I didn't know you very well, I would even suspect that you and the two Ten women got ten rounds each, ha!" Tony Clark grinned.

Faced with the head coach's boring joke, Matt Dawn rolled his eyes: "Actually, if I didn't think that I would have to come to work today, I might not choose to go to bed at 4:30 in the morning, but would continue to sleep. go down."

"A new version of "The Godfather of Champions" is out? No, isn't it coming out in October?"

"Uh, here's the thing. I stumbled across a post on the Burst community..."

Matt Dawn told Tony Clark everything that had happened to him yesterday.

"...So you are saying that you found a talented player on the Internet, so you decided to go to the game to verify it, and it turned out that it was indeed what the person said. This person's attributes did not look very good, but he was really capable. Goal?" Tony Clark summed up what he just said in a succinct way, and successfully smashed the author's conspiracy to use this opportunity to count words.

"Yes, I played two teams in the game, played many seasons, it was the same. Especially the second team. He even helped the team reach the Europa League. Boss, you know What team am I coaching?"

"I don't know..." Tony Clark shook his head.

"Castle Hammond!"

Tony Clark was stunned for a moment, then suddenly asked as if he remembered something: "Wait, you coached my team?"

"Yes, boss..."

"Where did I go?" the bearded Clark asked Matt Dawn, pointing to himself.

"Uh... I don't know about that, boss. Every player who enters the game,

You don't even care about the fate of the predecessor you replaced... Besides, boss, are you concerned about the wrong point? The point is that the young player is okay? "Matt felt baffled.

"That player, of course, he was really, really good in the game. But Matt, you know, a game is a game, no matter how real it is, it's a game. And the database that "The Godfather of Champions" is most proud of Actually it's only true enough for European league players. As for a young player from China...God, the only thing I've ever had a relationship with China in my life so far is a Chinese restaurant in Portsmouth, I used to eat there ..."

Matt interrupted, pointing to Clark's clothes, "Clothes, boss."

"What happened to the clothes?"

"Your clothes, jeans, sneakers under your feet, this coffee cup on the table, this pair of sunglasses, sun hat... Oh yes, and this, the carpet under your feet..." Speaking of which, Ma Te knelt down on one knee, leaned over and lifted a corner of the carpet, found the label and confirmed it, "Well, yes, the carpet, all of these have something to do with China, and what they all have in common is 'Made in China' 'of."

Matt stood up and held out his hands to his boss.

Tony Clark was speechless: "So I'm like standing on top of China now?"

"You can think of it like this, Boss, your life is full of Chinese elements." Matt said, then suddenly pointed to a small player-shaped ornament on his table and said: "And this, Boss, this is also from China."

"Are you kidding me, Matt? This is a commemorative statuette of me retiring at Hammond Castle. It's me on it. Look, it's so lifelike. It's like I'm shrunken down and standing on it!" Dong Nicky Clark picked up the player figurine, held it next to his face, and showed it to Matt Dawn.

"Oh, that means the modeling technology of the Chinese factory that produced this is very good." Matt took the statue from Clark, then turned it over, and pointed to the label below.

Clark took it and took a closer look at the label Matt pointed at:

Made in China

He widened his eyes: "Damn it! Old Tom told me that it was hand-made, and there is only one in the world!"

"Old Tom" Tom Chichester is the chairman of Hammond Castle Club. When Tony Clark retired from the club four years ago, he took over such a statuette from the chairman of the club. As a commemoration and tribute to the player who only played for the Hammond Castle team in his career.

"Haha!" Matt laughed, "Congratulations, boss. Maybe when you travel to China in the future, you will see many "you" in the store..."

Clarke was also amused: "It looks like I should go to China, maybe I will be a household name there, and everyone will have a statue of me in their home... Oh, it's wonderful to think about it!"

After laughing, he straightened his face again and said to Matt with a grin: "But Matt, the statuette of Tony Clark in 'MadeinChina' is not the same as the players in 'MadeinChina'. The former has only one task, and that is to put It is appreciated on a table, shelf or other places. And the latter needs to play football. Do you think there are good players in China? At least I have never heard of it...and, and."

Seeing that Matt seemed to have something to say, he quickly raised his hand to stop him, and continued: "Also, Matt. As I said just now, in the mainstream European leagues, the Sports Ranger Company can guarantee their The player database is authentic, but what about in the far east, where the Sports Ranger company has no time to take care of? We don't know anything about what happens there, so how can Sports Ranger guarantee that the player data there is authentic? Believe it? The Chinese player you like so much in the game, he looks like a 'genius'..."

Having said that, Tony Clark raised his hands, showed two fingers each, and made a "quotation mark" gesture.

"But it's also possible that the national pride of the local investigators is just causing trouble. In reality, Chinese players can't reach this level, so they can only use exaggerated reporting data to satisfy themselves... Remember those top monsters in GF? There are a few young monsters whose stats in the game are as beautiful as the most perfect players you can imagine, and the result? In reality, they are found to be mediocre players. So, Matt, don’t Take it too seriously, it's just a few lines of game code."

Of course Matt Dawn knew the stories about those demons that his coach told, he was even familiar with it.

But he still feels that this time and that time, the influence of "The Godfather of Champions" was still very limited at that time, and Sports Ranger was just an independent game studio working in a garage, because there was no way to collect player data from major European leagues, many Naturally, attribute values ​​can only be imagined out of thin air, and this is why some jokes about the top geniuses in the game are unknown in reality.

But now, Sports Ranger has a large number of volunteer investigators in many countries. For example, he himself is such an investigator. He believes that in such a large market in distant China, it is impossible for there to be no conscientious investigators. ...

Of course, now is not the time to argue with the boss. He remembered that the boss called him here for something, so he asked, "Boss, did you call me here to discuss the game with me?"

"Ah." Tony Clark patted his forehead, "You made me forget the real thing. I originally wanted you to help me make an analysis video of our next round opponent, York United, but I see In your current state of mind, I'd better find someone else to do it..."

Matt said quickly, "No, I'm fine, Boss. My brain is actually pretty clear, I just look tired..."

Tony Clark looked at his young video analyst and nodded in agreement: "Indeed, you can talk to me here for a long time about a country that neither of us has ever been to. All right, what about the team this afternoon?" When I finish training, I need this video."

"No problem, boss!" Matt led away.

After he walked out of the office, Tony Clark, the 38-year-old young head coach, picked up the figurines on his desk again and carefully looked at himself in miniature.

So lifelike and lifelike...it was actually made on an assembly line?

※※※

Not long after Tony Clark returned to the head coach's office after practice in the afternoon, Matt knocked on his door again.

"Boss, the video you want." He put the USB drive in his hand on the desk in front of Clark.

But he didn't leave, but handed his mobile phone to Tony Clark.

"What is this...'transfer window'? Why are you showing me this?" Tony Clark raised his head and looked at Matt Dawn suspiciously.

"Transfer Window" is an internationally renowned football data website, which includes almost all football-related data in the world, from players to staff, from clubs to national teams, all football-related data is available on this website can be found.

Of course, now is the era of the mobile Internet, and this old-fashioned website has also launched a mobile APP client, allowing people to conveniently inquire about the player information, transfer trends, etc. they want to inquire directly on their mobile phones.

What Matt Dorn showed Tony Clark was the mobile client interface of this website.

"LaiHu! This is the Chinese player I told you about." Matt Dawn said, pointing to a player's headshot on the phone screen.

Tony Clark looked down at the smiling young player on the screen of the mobile phone, with a childish look, he raised his hands: "Yes, a real player. I didn't say he was a fictional one, Matt."

"No, it's not this. You look down and look at his game record. This is his record for the Chinese Football League this season...By the way, the Chinese league is different from ours. They started at the beginning of the year. , It ends at the end of the year, not New Year's Eve. This year's Chinese League One has played eight rounds, and he scored seven goals in the league..." Matt slid the phone screen to introduce Tony Clark.

"He didn't score or play in the first three rounds of the league. That's because he went to participate in an international competition called the East Asian Cup. He played three times on behalf of the Chinese national team, scored five goals, and won the best player in that competition. Goal scorer. He has scored seven league goals since his return and three goals in their domestic cup competition - similar to our FA Cup competition - which means he has made nine appearances in all competitions this season. times, scoring a total of fifteen goals."

Matt Dawn held the phone screen in front of Tony Clark's eyes, and listed the numbers in a very calm tone, just like the daily work of a data analyst.

"I don't know if the Chinese investigators falsified the numbers, and I don't care if there are exaggerations in that explosive community post. I only believe in the data, boss. That LaiHu, who is only nineteen years old, was selected for the Chinese national team. He participated in In international competitions... no matter what game he plays, he scores goals. That's what the stats tell us, and boss, the stats don't lie."

Tony Clark stared at the forms and numbers on Matt Dawn's phone, but didn't speak.