Fox in the Penalty Area

When Hu Lai rushed to the school cafeteria, he saw Mao Xiao waving to him: "Here, Hu Lai!"

As soon as he passed by, Mao Xiao stuffed a stainless steel dinner plate into his hand, and pulled him to stand in line with him for dinner.

Dongchuan Middle School has a cafeteria, but it is not open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Now because the school football team needs meals, it is specially opened on Saturdays to provide lunch for the team.

And this meal was not made casually in the cafeteria. Li Ziqiang took out the recipe and asked the cafeteria to make it according to the recipe.

The nutritional mix is ​​reasonable, and it must not be greasy.

In this regard, the school provided the greatest support, and the school cooperated with what Li Ziqiang said. It seems that they are really determined to revive Dongchuan Middle School's honorary title of "Football Traditional Strong School".

Although it is a middle school football team, Li Ziqiang still showed his professional attitude in the football school to ask for it.

He can't control what his players usually eat, but at least he has to take care of the meal before the game.

Hu Lai was in the line, looking at the pale dishes in the front window, he smacked his lips: "I knew I would have eaten more in the morning..."

These dishes are unappetizing at first sight.

Obviously, Hu Lai is not the only one who feels this way. Many team members showed frowning expressions after seeing the meals provided in the cafeteria.

There were also whispers among the players.

You don't need to think about the specific content to know that you are complaining about this seemingly unappetizing meal.

Mao Xiao explained with a smile: "Professional players also seem to ask to eat these things. Although they are not delicious, they are healthy."

In front of the team, where the cafeteria aunts are ordering food, the head coach Li Ziqiang is repeating his words loudly: "Don't eat too much, to avoid indigestion and sleepiness in the afternoon. Don't be afraid of being hungry. There will be bananas to supplement you during the intermission." energy of!"

Mao Xiao continued: "Professional teams usually provide some fruit or snacks during the intermission, so that the players can quickly recover their energy."

Meng Xi frowned at the side: "That's great, our team's food standards are already professional standards!"

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The three of them found an unoccupied four-person table with their dinner plates and sat down.

Mao Xiao and Meng Xi sat side by side, and Hu Lai sat opposite Mao Xiao.

Meng Xi looked down at his referee, picked up the boiled broccoli with chopsticks and said, "I think our coach is thinking too much, no one will eat too much of this thing."

Hu Lai also stared at the broccoli and said, "Why can't the broccoli be made into a cauliflower in a dry pot? Put some fat streaky flowers, fry it hard, boil the oil, cut the broccoli into small pieces, soak it in oil... "

"Stop talking, I can't eat any more!" Meng Xi stretched out his hand to stop Hu Lai.

Hu Lai picked up a piece of boiled broccoli, put it in his mouth, then closed his eyes and chewed, nodded: "Well, I thought about the taste of dried cauliflower in my mind, and this broccoli has an inner taste! "

"That's okay?" Meng Xi frowned.

"If you don't believe me, try it? You think of your favorite food, try to recall the taste, and then eat the food in front of you." Hu Lai instructed.

Meng Xi dubiously picked up the broccoli, put it in his mouth, closed his eyes and chewed carefully, and then... spit it out: "It's far from spicy crayfish!"

Mao Xiao frowned while eating. He also felt that the taste of the food was not very good. Food with less oil and less salt was really unacceptable, but he was still working hard to eat. It's just that when eating, you can't think about what you like to eat like Hu Lai said, otherwise you won't be able to eat the meal at all.

He decided to change the subject: "Hey, I heard that our new jerseys will be issued before this game, and then we will know what number we are. Didn't we conduct a small survey before,

Shall we report our favorite number? "

"What's the use of that? I chose number nine, and I don't believe they can really give me number nine." Hu Lei paused and continued. "If they really dare to give it, I really dare to take it!"

"What's the matter with your expectant tone?" Meng Xi complained, "I think I can definitely get the number I like, so I will choose number one. As the team's main goalkeeper, I will give you number one. Not too much, right? As for you..."

Meng Xi pointed to Hu Lai.

"Don't worry about the number, it's good to have a number."

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Hu Lai held the new jersey that had just been handed out with both hands, and the plastic bag outside it had not been removed.

The main color of the jersey and shorts of Dongchuan Middle School is yellow, but there are blue stripes on the collar and the hem edge of the shorts.

The color of this jersey reminded Hu Lai of a team in another time and space—Sichuan Quanxing. It was a very popular team with unremarkable results in the history of Chinese professional football, and the highest ranking in the top league was only third.

There is no Sichuan Quanxing team in this time and space, and it is certainly impossible for the designer of this set of jerseys to refer to Sichuan Quanxing's jersey style.

The main color of yellow actually comes from the school badge of Dongchuan Middle School. Even the school uniforms of Dongchuan Middle School are yellow-blue sportswear, which is quite different from the uniform blue-white or red-white school uniforms of other schools.

He flipped the jersey over, revealing the number on the back: 14.

This surprised him a bit. He originally thought that he would be assigned No. 36. After all, it was the last number in the row. He didn't expect that it was No. 14, which was much higher.

He's still kind of happy.

But Meng Xi's puzzled voice came from beside him: "You can still laugh, Hu Lai?"

"Ah?" Hu Lai was at a loss, not understanding why Meng Xi said that.

"This is the number 14. For our Chinese football, it is a cursed number." Meng Xi said seriously. "In 2001, we were the closest to the World Cup finals. As a result, in the most critical game, Wang Xiaojun scored an own goal, which made us lose that crucial battle and ultimately missed the World Cup finals. And Wang Xiaojun I was wearing the No. 14 jersey at that time! If you want to say that this time is fine, the Asian Cup final three years later will be held at our own home court. What happened? We lost the championship because of a handball goal by the Japanese team , that was the closest we were to winning the Asian Cup, and Koichi Sato, who scored with his hands, was wearing the No. 14 jersey! Look, twice.”

Meng Xi raised two fingers, his expression was exaggerated, and his tone was even more exaggerated: "But do you think it's over? No! In 2005, the Chinese team once again entered the World Cup. This time we simply fell on the road to the top ten. On the way. Zhao Kangming was sent off just fourteen minutes into the game, and that is our main central defender! The third fourteen!"

Meng Xi's raised fingers turned into three.

"And that day happened to be April 14th! It's only three things, but you see it's all four or fourteen! Later, some people said that the number fourteen is cursed, as long as Chinese football has anything to do with fourteen, nothing good will happen." ..."

It was only then that Hu Lai remembered that he had searched a lot of football information in this world on the Internet the day he traveled through, and had seen the so-called "Fourteen Curses", but he just didn't remember it all at once.

There are many differences in football between this world and the one he used to, but some places are familiar.

For example, in that world, no matter how bad the Chinese team is, they have participated in at least one World Cup finals, which was the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. In this world, the 2002 World Cup was indeed held in Japan and South Korea, but the Chinese team finally hated the top ten and failed to participate. Then until now, in 2019, the Chinese team has never participated in the World Cup finals.

Rumors about China's bid to host the World Cup come out from time to time in this world, but every time they come out, they will be ridiculed. You haven't even participated in the World Cup finals, how dare you hold the World Cup? Which of the previous host countries has not participated in the World Cup finals at least once?

As for the Asian Cup in 2004, the two worlds are the same. It was indeed held in China, and the Chinese team did not win the championship in the end. They lost to Japan in the finals. Controversial goal.

It's just that in the previous world, Hu Lai remembered that the player who scored the second goal for the Japanese team with his hands was called Nakata Koji, and the jersey number he wore was not fourteen, but six. Here, it turned into Sato Koichi wearing the No. 14 jersey.

In the 2005 World Cup qualifiers, the Chinese teams in both worlds did not participate in the top ten matches, but the reasons for not participating were not the same. In that world, it was because the black player had never played the West Asians, but here he lost to the opponent cleanly, resulting in missing the top ten.

So in the history of Chinese football in that world, it was just an ordinary number, but in this world, it turned into a cursed number...

"Hu Lai, don't listen to Meng Xi's nonsense, it's just a superstition." Mao Xiao came out to comfort Hu Lai, he was afraid that Meng Xi's exaggeration would scare Hu Lai.

Meng Xi was not happy: "Who is talking nonsense? This is a recognized fact. Since what happened in 2005, which major players in the major clubs of the Chinese Super League would choose No. 14? Of course those players would not They voluntarily admit this, but they all voted with their feet, and they don’t say anything, their bodies are very honest! Besides, fourteen is not an auspicious number in the first place, it’s going to die..."

Faced with the facts, Mao Xiao also had to admit: "The number 14 is indeed given to young players or substitute players by default. Few people would choose this number on their own initiative..."

"There are also those who don't believe in evil." Meng Xi snorted. "But they don't perform as well when they're wearing No. 14. Shall I give you examples of those?"

"Okay, Meng Xi." Mao Xiao stopped his good friend with a very serious tone, and at the same time signaled to him with his eyes, don't sprinkle salt on Hu Lai's wound.

It is already frustrating enough to be assigned to this number that no one wants, and to hear his curse legends, why not just go to the funeral of other relatives and comfort people "Don't be sad, you will be with him anyway sooner or later Reunion" the same?

Meng Xi made a grimace, but kept his mouth shut.

Hu Lai knew Mao Xiao's kindness, but he didn't really care about this so-called cursed number.

He just searched the football knowledge he learned after he came to this world, and found that in the history of football in this world, the number 14 is just an ordinary number in world football. There are indeed some stars wearing it, but this There is no shortage of such stars in the world. After all, even a slightly famous football player can be called a "star", that's all.

So people in this world may not be able to understand the specialness of number fourteen.

This is the number of Johan Cruyff and Thierry Henry!

Hu Lai removed the plastic outer packaging, took out the jersey from inside, and then shook it out so that the number faced him.

In the dark, hands sent this number to him, as if a bridge connected the two worlds.

Those names that he was familiar with, those classic scenes, those legends and legends... all gathered on this number, reminding him that he came from that world.

"I love this number!"

Hu Lai, holding his jersey, said.