Fox in the Penalty Area

After his father left home, Hu Lai waited in the room for another five minutes before getting up and finding his mother who was tidying up in the kitchen: "Mom, today is my classmate Song Jiajia's birthday, and he invited me to his birthday party , but it's busy, I may be late to go home..."

Xie Lan didn't speak, just looked at his son quietly.

Under her mother's eyes, Hu Lai finally told the truth: "Okay, mom, we are actually going to Jincheng to play a game, the Anton Cup final, and there should be an award ceremony after the game. So today... I may It will be a little late to come back. If Dad comes back, you can tell him as I said earlier, okay?"

After he finished speaking, he was still a little apprehensive, for fear that his mother would disagree.

Unexpectedly, his mother looked at him and smiled: "Okay, you can go."

It went smoothly beyond Hu Lai's expectation.

He added: "And that... I have to go out a little early today, we have to go to school to gather first, and then go to the East Railway Station to take the high-speed train together..."

Mom still agreed happily: "Okay."

Seeing that his mother did not object to him at all, Hu Lai heaved a sigh of relief, with a smile on his face: "Mom, you are so kind!"

Seeing his smirk, Xie Lan shook her hands: "Go, go, do your homework!"

"Excuse me!" Hu Lai took the order and left.

※※※

When Li Qingqing came down from the second floor to wash in her pajamas, she saw her father pushing the door in, holding two plastic bags full of vegetables.

"Dad, have you gone out to buy groceries?" Li Qingqing asked with a frown.

"Yes, you wash up first, and I'll heat up your breakfast. Then I'll make your lunch and dinner, and then you only need a microwave..." Li Ziqiang walked quickly to the kitchen with the vegetables in his hands. While talking. By the time he mentioned the microwave, he had already entered the kitchen.

Li Qingqing caught up and snatched the plastic bag from his father: "Dad, I can cook by myself, so don't do this every time. Besides, today is the final, so you still have time to go shopping?"

"What are you cooking for? Delaying your studies..." Li Ziqiang turned on the gas stove and heated up the steamed buns and boiled eggs in the steamer.

However, Li Qingqing took the plastic bag and went to the refrigerator to make vegetables: "What is the delay in studying? Those who can write were finished yesterday, and those who can't write will spend a day today and still can't write."

Hearing this, Li Ziqiang's hands trembled in anger: "You are quite righteous! What if you don't study hard?"

"Dad, are you okay?" Li Qingqing looked at her father from the kitchen door. "Didn't you tell me to stick to the football path? Then it doesn't matter what my academic performance is, right? I don't want to go to college, right?"

Li Ziqiang was so choked by his daughter that he couldn't speak.

"So Dad, don't worry about me, you should worry about the finals. Didn't you say that Jiaxiang High School is very good?" Li Qingqing came in and pushed Dad out of the kitchen.

"What is there to worry about in the finals? I have prepared everything that needs to be prepared, and the next step is to watch the performance on the spot."

"What if they stare at Luo Kai to death?"

"I have a backup plan." Li Ziqiang said.

Li Qingqing's eyes lit up: "What backup plan?"

She knew that her father specially asked Hu Lai to only practice shooting, and now she wanted to hear her father say Hu Lai's name personally, such as "I'm considering using Hu Lai as a backup plan, and sending him on the field when Luo Kai is marked to death by the opponent." Kind of words.

But Li Ziqiang said: "I asked Luo Kai and Tang Yuan to switch positions, so that Tang Yuan, who is good at right foot, can cut inside and try to shoot. In addition, Chu Yifan should be more active in the penalty area, looking for opportunities to shoot. When the opponent puts all their defensive attention on Luo Kai, it is Chu Yifan's opportunity. We have been practicing this tactic in training this week."

Hearing what Dad said, the light in Li Qingqing's eyes dimmed.

But the smile on her face didn't change much, she still smiled and said to her father: "That's good, I'm worried that we won't be able to score after Jiaxiang stares at Luo Kai..."

"Your father is not stupid." Li Ziqiang raised his hand and stroked his daughter's hair.

"Hey!" Li Qingqing smiled and lowered her head.

Where she couldn't see, Li Ziqiang's expression changed.

The daughter may think that she is hiding it well, but Li Ziqiang can see it clearly, her expression can be pretended, but the light in her eyes cannot be concealed.

Sometimes he really wanted to ask his daughter frankly, what attracted you to that brat?

But he was afraid that it would hurt his daughter. After all, it was easy to ask this question, but what happened after it was asked? How does his daughter face him, and how does he face his daughter?

So he could only suppress his emotions in his heart.

※※※

Xie Lan bought a handful of garlic sprouts and a piece of pork belly in the vegetable market, and planned to cook twice-cooked pork with garlic sprouts for her son and husband tomorrow.

After buying vegetables, she dragged the small cart loaded with vegetables back, stopped when passing the fruit stand, and cast her eyes on the red Fuji apples placed outside.

Although they are all red Fuji, they are divided into three piles, with different sizes, colors and prices. The cheapest apples were all thrown into one basket, with some bruises and insect eyes on the outside. The most expensive apples are carefully arranged into a pyramid, each one is round and big, with red skin and attractive luster, they are delicious at first sight.

Xie Lan neither went to pick from the cheapest pile of apples, nor did he look at the most expensive pile of apples with an attractive color, but directly chose two apples that were not big but looked the best among the middle-priced apples. The good apple was handed to the boss: "Weigh it for me, boss."

The boss took it and put it on the electronic scale, looked at it and said, "Beauty, you can choose a smaller one, let's make up ten yuan."

Xie Lan shook his head and said, "No need, just these two."

At the same time, he took out his mobile phone and prepared to scan the QR code to pay.

These two apples are bought for Hu Lai. She and her husband don't eat them at home. There is no need to buy too many apples. Just buy two more when you go grocery shopping in a few days.

After paying the money, Xie Lan looked at the time when he put away his mobile phone. It is now 10:37 in the morning. I don't know if his son has arrived at the train station.

Thinking of helping her son lie to her husband at night, Xie Lan was still a little nervous.

It had been a long time since she had lied to her husband. After all, she seldom goes back to Jincheng's natal family now, so naturally she doesn't have to hide her husband's nasty words from her natal family.

No, you have to practice in front of the mirror when you go back, and you can't wear clothes.

Xie Lan made up his mind. The son entrusted himself with such an important matter, so he couldn't mess it up and let his trust down. After that, he might not believe in himself, and he wouldn't tell himself anything.

Now she is very grateful to football, because football has given her and her son a common secret.

※※※

Hu Lai sat on the window seat on the high-speed rail, Mao Xiao sat in the middle, and Meng Xi sat near the aisle.

Half of this carriage is filled with members of the Dongchuan Middle School football team. Everyone is laughing and chattering, making the carriage seem a bit noisy.

Someone in the carriage was very dissatisfied with their noise and glared at them repeatedly, but seeing the size of the group of sixteen and seventeen-year-old boys, they did not dare to make a sound.

Others noticed the uniforms of the Dongchuan Middle School football team on them, guessed their identities more or less, and looked at them with relief and approval.

The Anton Cup is an event that existed for many years before the unified national competition, but it was not well-known before. Except for the participating players themselves, no one else knew about it.

In recent years, with the national competition, the Anton Cup in the province has gradually gained a greater reputation. Everyone knows that if you win the Anton Cup, you can qualify for the national competition.

So they didn't take it seriously when they met such a group of people on the train.

After all, youth always has to be noisy.

This is not the first time that Hu Lai has played an away game with the team, nor is it the first time to take the high-speed train to an away game. It's just that before, I always came back immediately after the game, so I was able to rush back before my father came home.

But this time, considering that it was the final, and there must be an award ceremony after the game, the timing was uncertain, so he asked his mother to help him cover it up.

Mao Xiao really knew about the national competition, and was introducing the venue of the final to Hu Lai: "...the final is in the Provincial Sports Center, the best stadium in our province, with natural turf, and the hardware conditions are fine..."

Meng Xi who was next to him snorted, "What's the use of the best conditions? Isn't it used for concerts? So many people have stepped on the turf, even the best natural grass has been trampled bald!"

"The stadium also needs to be profitable. How can you make money if you don't rent it out to singers for concerts? Maintenance of the turf is not a small expense." Mao Xiao explained. "Who made our province not even have a super team?"

Meng Xi rolled his eyes: "What does it have to do with me, I just hope that the venue will be better during the competition, but don't just finish the concert, it will become a vegetable field by then..."

"Don't worry, Meng Xi. For this Anton Cup final, the Provincial Sports Center hasn't held any large-scale events for half a month, so there must be nothing to say about the venue conditions."

Hu Lai found it strange: "I thought the final was at Jiaxiang High School's own court, but I didn't expect it to be on a neutral ground..."

"What neutral ground? Isn't it still the home court of Jiaxiang High School?" Meng Xi pouted. "What's the difference between this and playing in their school? Let me tell you, every Anton Cup final is held in the Provincial Sports Center, which is actually a high school that is blatantly biased towards Jincheng. At least they don't have to get up early in the morning to take the train to play." Competitions. And they can also organize their own people to be cheerleaders. The Anton Cup final is open to the public, and no tickets are sold. Anyone who wants to go can watch it. But how can we organize people from schools outside the city to cheer? It’s more troublesome to spend money without talking about safety issues, which school is willing to make such a fuss? So when the time comes, we will have a thorough away experience.”

Hu Lai didn't care about the away experience and the home experience, he listened very carefully, because no matter what Mao Xiao said or what Meng Xi said, it was a very fresh experience for him.

In the world he traveled to, it was impossible to play the finals of a middle school football game in a city in the best stadium in the city, and being able to play in a university stadium was considered a high priority.

And here, the provincial high school football finals are held in the best stadium in the provincial capital. In order to ensure the quality of the turf, all large-scale events have been declined half a month in advance. worlds apart.

"Is there a live broadcast?" he asked.

"No. But when it comes to the national competition, there will be a live broadcast. The last one was broadcast live on the Internet platform. This time it is said that it will be broadcast live on satellite TV." Mao Xiao introduced. "Capital Satellite TV bought the broadcasting rights for three years. In the past, the broadcasting rights were almost all given away, and they were not worth a lot of money. But now, as the popularity of the national competition is getting wider and wider, they can finally earn some licensing fees. ...In addition, it seems that the Football Association has organized domestic professional clubs to send representatives to observe this national competition. It just wants to open up the channel between the campus league and professional football, and show those professional clubs the outstanding players in the campus league. See if there are any The lucky ones can be picked up by professional clubs and taken away directly, then they will jump from a student to a professional player. Sigh, we have caught up with a good time..."

Mao Xiao was still babbling, while Hu Lai listened and cast his eyes out of the window. The high-speed rail EMU travels between the farmland and the green trees at high speed, and the display screen at the junction of the carriages is updating the current speed in real time. In the fully enclosed carriages, the roar of the outside cannot be heard, and only when the two cars meet will the obvious vibration be felt .

He is no stranger to the scene outside the window. Before traveling here, he has also done this line of high-speed train trains from Dongchuan to Jincheng. The two cities are closely adjacent. Take the high-speed train from Dongchuan East Station to Jincheng, the provincial capital. It only takes thirty-five minutes to get to the city, with only one stop in between.

When the high-speed rail was built, the media was promoting the so-called "half-hour living circle", depicting the life blueprint of people living in Dongchuan and relying on the high-speed rail to commute to Jincheng, the provincial capital, so that housing prices in Dongchuan rose accordingly. a wave...

An article has analyzed that China's well-developed high-speed rail transportation network has made inter-city inter-school football exchanges in many provinces more convenient, and objectively promoted the development of domestic middle school football games. Of course, in those provinces with a large area, their middle school student football matches adopt a tournament system-all participating teams gather to finish playing within a certain period of time to determine the champion, avoiding running back and forth, which affects learning.

China's national football competition for middle school students is different from the Japanese high school football competition that Hu Lai learned about in Japanese comics and on the Internet. It refers to some systems in Japan, but also combines China's own actual situation.

Chinese football is trying to go another way.

Just like the high-speed trains they are in, China also imported technology from Japan, Germany, and France at the earliest, but after its own exploration, development and improvement, it finally became a high-tech with independent intellectual property rights in China.

Now, a group of teenagers who are full of longing for the national competition, sitting in a train car made in China, is driving at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour to the venue of the final of the national competition Anton Provincial Qualifiers, and they are also rushing towards their dreams and making them happy. Looking forward to the endless future.