Ender's Football

Rewind the time before today's game started.

This is Ender's first official game - not to say that the games he played before were not regular, but this game is too regular!

The Germans have a complete system in youth training. Their D-Jugend level game is a U13 league against regular youth clubs in the entire Baden-Württemberg region. Above this level, there are U15 C-Jugend, U17's B-Jugend, etc., and starting from U17, the scale of the league will become larger. The whole of Germany will be divided into three divisions: the south, the west and the north. rivals from other states.

There are special coaches and referees for this kind of competition, and there are points and rankings. If you win the championship, there will be a trophy at that time!Ander saw the trophies won by the young players in the previous years at the youth training base in Uwensburg, and touched them with his hands.

Therefore, this match made Ender a little excited.

Before the game, he also got his own jersey from the equipment custodian grandfather, with the name "Ander" clearly printed on it, and his number: No. 19.

Ander actually wanted to choose No. 10. He favored this number very much. Pele, Maradona, Baggio, Zidane, Messi... No. 10 can be said to be the most legendary number in football. It will also be the core number of the team.

However, Ander joined Uwensburg later than all other teammates. Most of the smaller numbers have been selected by others, and there are not a few high numbers left.So he could only settle for the next best thing and chose No. 19*.

19，1和9，1+9=10。

Take the numbers apart and add them up, and it can be considered a number ten.

Ender comforted himself in this way.

He put on his jersey, untied his shoelaces, and waited for Tierner in their dressing room.

However, what happened next made him dumbfounded. Mr. Tierner did come with his little notebook. This fat old German man was still praising him two days ago, praising how good his skills are. , Encourage him to practice hard, but today he just smiled at him, and then started to read the starting list.

The names on the list were read out one after another. Nathan was called first, then Grande, and then one boy after another... Until he read the last name belonging to their goalkeeper, Ender didn't listen. to be selected.

He looked at this coach who was always cheerful and always praised him with surprised eyes, his eyes were full of disbelief and sadness.

Tierner didn't smile at him anymore, he patted the children whose names were read and encouraged them: "Do well, boys! Remember what I said to you during the game, concentrate , go all out and let me see your progress, okay?"

All the boys responded excitedly, and Ender sat behind them. He felt his chest tightening, and his nose was a little sore. He felt a little uncomfortable, more of a grievance, but he couldn't cry in the room right now. , so I had to inhale desperately, and took several deep breaths silently, trying to hold back the tears.

This method seemed to work, only the corner of his right eye had a little splash, and the rest of the tears did not fall due to the little man's desperate patience.

Ender quickly wiped the corner of his eye with his hand when no one was looking at him, and wiped the tear on the back of his hand.

But the boredom and grievance in his heart persisted for a long time. He went to the field to warm up with the big team, and then sat back on the bench with a few boys.He doesn't even know what he's doing when he's doing this, he just goes with the flow, his brain is completely out of work, and he doesn't want to care about the outside world at all.

Then Li Mei and Stanzel also entered the arena. They stood in the stands and smiled when they saw Ender, but soon, Stanzel and Li Mei found that the child did not play.

Ender felt that he must be extremely ashamed.He reservedly and happily invited Li Mei and Stanzel to watch the game the day before yesterday, but they came today, only to find that he was just a substitute...

The more he thought about it, the sadder he became.

He looked at Tierna with some grievances again.

To be honest, he doesn't know now if he feels too good about himself.

During the training, Tierner obviously liked him very much. Although they didn't quite understand each other's meaning for the time being, Tierner has always paid attention to him and always praised him vigorously.

They used to engage in group confrontation training. Team A only wore jerseys, and team B wore a vest over the jerseys.When Ander was in Team A, he was the top scorer of Team A. He scored 6 goals by himself. The excited Tierner kept rubbing his head.Later, he was assigned from team A to team B, and he also performed very well. After the game, according to the statistics of the coaching staff, he scored the most goals among all players, and his skills were obviously one of the best.

Grande later told Ender that Tierner had been telling them about Ender, saying he was a genius, gifted, with a "golden right foot."

Ander's training subjects were also revised by Tierner himself, and an assistant coach who can speak English was specially brought in to give him a sentence-by-sentence translation of why he should practice this event and how to practice it well.

With so much praise and concern, Ender always thought that Tierner admired him very much.

...Forget it, Ender thought self-destructively, it is useless to think about it now, anyway, it turns out that "Coach Tierner favors him" is just his illusion.

He rested his chin and quietly glanced at Li Mei and Stanzel behind him from the corner of his eye.

And... to be honest, it's a shame that he can't play with his family in the stands.

——After Li Mei and Stanzel arrived at the stadium, Ender insisted on not looking back, and only dared to look at them secretly from the corner of his eye, which was also caused by pride.

But Ender can only hold on, although he has experienced many moments that children of his age would not dare to imagine, but he is only 13 years old after all, and he has not cultivated the thickness of an adult's face, so he can only be stiff. Sitting on the bench, trying to maintain a superficial calm.

Li Mei and Stanzel probably did not expect this scene, the husband and wife looked at each other and communicated with their eyes.

"Why don't we leave now?" Li Mei asked, mouthing, "It might be a little embarrassing for Zizai to see us... Why don't we just leave now and tell him that we have something to do today?"

"We can't be adults who break our promises," Stanzel said in a low voice. "We must do what we promise our children, otherwise we will have no trust with Helena and Ender in the future."

"But Ender would be very sad if we were there," Li Mei said.

"But what if he sees it? Will he think we left because he didn't play? Maybe we can comfort him by staying."

"What you said is not unreasonable..."

"Uh……"

"It's just... you have to know, little boys really need face." Li Mei added.

"..."

"So I think it's better for us to leave now."

The two discussed for a while, but they were still not sure whether they should leave now or not.

Because there was no result discussed, Stanzel quietly looked down at the lower bench seat. His downward gaze just happened to meet Ender's gaze turned to the auditorium, and the two of them looked at each other for a split second.

Stanzel: "..."

Ender: "..."

Stanzel became even more stiff. He showed a smile that was uglier than crying, and raised his hand to greet Ender.

Seeing him like this, Li Mei was puzzled, followed his gaze and saw her son turning his head to look at them blankly.

Li Mei: "..."

She could only force a smile, and also beckoned to Ender.

"He saw us." Li Mei said in a breathy voice.

In fact, they were still quite a distance away from the bench. As long as they didn't speak too loudly, they didn't have to worry about being heard by Ender.But Li Mei and Stanzel both ignored this problem.

The couple's faces were very close, and Stanzel also said in a breathy voice: "Think of something good, at least we don't have to think about whether to leave or not.