[football] walk side by side

The next day, when all the Porto people who bought the newspaper of the day opened the newspaper, they were all surprised to find that what was placed on the front page of the newspaper was not any league game in the Portuguese Super League in the new season, but about Cyril Sly News that Germany is very likely to leave football!

"Porto star chooses to fall: Cyril Slade may leave the pitch. ----"

"After the players retire, their employment problems arise again. What should they do when they leave the court? "

In a more serious Portuguese sports newspaper, the reporter wrote: "As we all know, Cyril Slade, the best rookie in the Portuguese Super League last season, did not appear in the match between Porto and Hannover. It has attracted the attention of many people. After investigation, this newspaper found that because Cyril Slade's parents refused to let him continue to play football, this Porto star is likely to leave football and return to school."

"After interviewing Cyril Slade's parents, Mr. Shen told us his thoughts very frankly. He said, 'If killing a football genius can let Cyril have a comfortable life for the rest of his life, I don't think there's anything unworthy of it'."

"From the perspective of an ordinary fan, I certainly don't want Cyril Slade to stay away from the green field. After all, he is really a very talented player. I also hope that one day he can play for the national team and become a national team. Portugal's new legend."

"But at the same time, we have to admit that Mr. Shen has indeed pointed out a helpless phenomenon among today's football players: except for a small number of big-name players who can become coaches after retirement, and some who have established themselves for the club. Players who have made great achievements can enter the club's management, but most players are often frustrated in finding jobs after retirement because they do not have enough cultural knowledge, and even live in embarrassment."

"In this respect, I think Mr. Shen's words are completely understandable."

Under Shen Xianze's deliberate guidance, the fans who originally planned to trouble him, and went to Cyril's house to beg him to stay, all chose to give up their original ideas, because what Shen Xianze said was the truth. When a parent makes a rational choice because he considers his child's future, no one has reason to blame him.

Afterwards, the reporters also interviewed Porto's coaches and first-team players, except that Mourinho dropped the sentence "Now I don't want to talk about this topic" with a look of displeasure, all other players who were asked chose Responding to silence.

It is undeniable that today's Porto first team can be said to have no stars, that is to say, in this Porto, the players are also very likely to face the embarrassment of life after retirement.

Faced with this somewhat cruel question, the players are not too willing to think deeply.

However, out of concern for Cyril, many players who had a good relationship with him in the first team still called to ask about the ins and outs of Cyril. For these teammates in Porto, Cyril always expressed hesitancy and needed help. Considered it for a while, and revealed nothing else.

It's not that he doesn't trust his teammates, but it's purely out of a cautious mentality. You know, the team's main goalkeeper Baia was also thrown away by Mourinho because of an interview with "Record". The reserve team, and Cyril can't guarantee whether his teammates will slip up in the media interview.Cyril does not want the media to get involved in this kind of too personal issue.

After the teammates expressed to Cyril one by one the idea of ​​"we will support you no matter what decision you make", the conversation ended here, but soon, Shen Wei, who got the news from the media a little later, and Christie Jarno, Cech, and even Barcelona's Messi and Cesc Fabregas all sent messages seeking confirmation, but among them, Shen Wei and Cristiano chose to call directly.

"I believe you will not leave the field so simply." - Petr Cech.

"Hey! Why do you give up playing football when you are so good? Are you afraid of playing against me?" - Cesc Fabregas.

"Did something happen? I hope you can think carefully about it." - Messi.

Cyril was not busy replying to his players and friends, but first answered Shen Wei's call, "Did Shen Xianze say something to you again?"

Compared with the player friends who didn't know the truth, Shen Wei's reply was obviously more sharp to the point, or in other words, years of familiarity made her understand what kind of person Shen Xianze is.

It seems that Shen Wei really doesn't have a good impression of Shen Xianze, but that's okay... Such thoughts just flashed through his mind, and Cyril quickly comforted him: "He did say something to me—but Don't worry," when he said this, Cyril's lips curled into a very shallow smile, and it could be seen that he was actually in a good mood at the moment: "Soon, he will return to where he should go .”

The meaning of Cyril's words is obvious, Shen Wei of course also knows that his son is not a simple and innocent child, revenge is his life creed, but still can't help but feel a little worried: "Cyril, listen to me, No matter what Shen Xianze says, don't believe him..."

"I know, Mom," Cyril interrupted Shen Wei, he knew that Shen Wei's intentions were wrong, and he might have thought that he would take some extreme measures: "I promise, what I'm doing now will never Put me in danger, don't worry."

Shen Wei didn't feel at ease because of Cyril's explanation, but Cyril's attitude was very firm, she wanted to say something, but when she reached her mouth, there was only a sigh.She didn't try to persuade her anymore, but secretly decided to come back early.

If the child is not around, nothing can be assured.

After finishing the call with Shen Wei, Cyril returned his attention to the text messages. For those three people, Cyril chose to tell them bluntly that he was solving a private matter, and he would return to Porto after the matter was over.As for Cristiano, the more impatient former Lisbon winger chose to call directly:

"Cyril, are you crazy! Or was it April Fool's Day yesterday? If so, then I can congratulate you for successfully fooling everyone—so now, can I ask you to tell me the truth? Or are you really To leave football and go to that bloody Porto school?"

Cyril felt deeply guilty for a second that he forgot to notify his friend, and then he decided to end the hurdle quickly, so as to prevent his friend from being bombarded because of this reason: "No, that's not the case— —Although I don't plan to give up my studies, I also don't plan to give up football, which is also very important to me."

Of course, Cristiano would not be satisfied with this answer. He asked: "Then why did the media say that you are leaving the pitch?"

"Uh... because of some personal reasons." Cyril was a little worried. He thought about it, but he still didn't intend to tell him the truth, so he just explained briefly: "I will end all this soon," in order to prevent Christia from Nuo couldn't let go of this question, and he added: "I still dream of having the opportunity to be in the squad for the European Cup next year-even at this point, I will not leave the pitch."

It has to be said that the second half of Cyril's sentence successfully diverted Cristiano's attention. The latter did not care about the specific "personal reasons" he said, but shifted his attention to a new topic: "It would be nice to be picked by Mr Scolari."

For Cristiano, whether it was playing for Portugal or playing with his idol Luis Figo, it was a great temptation.

"If you perform well at Manchester United, I believe Mr. Scolari will be able to see it," Scolari is now the coach of the Portuguese national team. "Speaking of which, I haven't congratulated you yet, Manchester United's new seven No." When he said the last sentence, there was a hint of ridicule in Cyril's tone.

At the press conference for the joining of new players not long ago, the Lisbon teenager wearing No. [-] stunned the whole of England—no one thought that Ferguson would use the new No. [-] after Beckham left the Bernabeu. The jersey was handed over to a young Portuguese kid. All of a sudden, the media in England questioned Ferguson's move more than any other news.

This is also the reason why the media reported that Cyril was going to continue his studies and leave the stadium, but Cristiano was the last to know.

"I didn't intend to ask for the number seven, I know what the number seven means to Manchester United - but the boss insisted on giving me the number seven jersey, and he told me to ignore the nonsense of the media." It can be heard. , Cristiano is full of affection for his new head coach.

"Isn't that nice? It sounds like Sir Alex Ferguson likes you."

The two chatted a lot intermittently, about the new season, the new beginning, and the current life-in short, until the moment he hung up the phone, Cristiano suddenly remembered: Wait!He hasn't settled with Cyril for this sudden shock!

On the other end, Cyril breathed a sigh of relief, he was fine, and successfully fooled him.

As for what to do next time you are caught calculating the ledger?Hmm... this question... let's talk about it later.Cyril thought, maybe the next time we meet, Cristiano himself will forget it?You know, the memory of three-year-old children is always limited.

Throwing the phone back on the coffee table, Cyril recalled his circle of friends, no one should come to him again, right?But just 1 minute later, another familiar yet unfamiliar number appeared on the screen of his mobile phone.

Ricardo Costa.

Not the Jorge Costa who was the captain of Porto, but Ricardo Costa who had a good relationship with Cyril in the Porto youth team very early.

When seeing this number again, Cyril was still in a daze.

The relationship between people is complicated after all. Although it can be said that Cyril and Costa grew up together and rose up step by step from the echelon of Porto, but in many cases, things like feelings are always affected by many people. The influence of external forces—for example, the growing gap between Cyril and Costa.

They were also promoted from the youth team to the first team, but the treatment of Costa and Cyril is completely different. Costa is still an ordinary substitute from the second team, while Cyril is the little boy trusted by the first team players. The younger generation is a proud disciple carefully trained by the head coach Mourinho.

The gap in abilities and identities has made the distance between the two people who were originally close to each other wider and wider. Until now, the two have rarely had any contact with each other.Even if they met in the club, they just nodded like ordinary teammates, and then walked away without looking back.

For this matter, it is impossible for Cyril to say that he has no regrets. He has a hot temper outside and a cold inside. He seems to be friends with everyone, but in fact it is the opposite. He can be called a "friend" in his heart. "There are very few people with two words. For him, teammates and friends are completely different things.

But life is like this a lot of times, you will keep meeting new people, but you will keep losing them.

With mixed feelings, Cyril connected the phone.

"Didn't you tell me that football is the only thing you will stick to forever? So what is it now?" Costa's tone was not as cold as when he met Cyril in the club, more like The casualness of speaking directly when the two have a good relationship.

For the two people who have met each other strictly speaking, these questions are obviously a bit intimate - Costa seems to have discovered this too, but he still insists on waiting for Cyril's answer.

After a long silence, Cyril replied: "Why did I do this, do you really not understand?"

Costa froze.

As one of Cyril's few friends, Costa is certainly one of the few people who understand his nature. The reason why he called and asked without thinking is largely because he was too anxious and ignored the details.

Also, with this person's temperament, he would make such a concession, which obviously has another purpose.

Cyril did not speak, while Costa said dryly "Oh", the two of them did not speak for a while, and after a moment of silence, they only heard a "beep" from the other end of the phone, and then hung up .

***

The math teacher on the podium has been talking about the away game for nearly half an hour, while Grigera is staring at the math textbook in a daze, pretending that he is listening to the class seriously, but from time to time he quickly raises his head and looks at the window on his left. go.

It was noon at this time, and the summer sun lazily passed through the gaps between the branches and leaves, leaving mottled tree shadows on the dark brown desk, and some shadows on the boy's slightly drooping face, It made the face against the light look more and more blurred and unreal.

For every Porto teenager who loves football, this person in front of him is definitely no stranger.

Cyril Slade, the former first-team substitute of the Porto club, was also the best rookie of the Portuguese Super League last season.

But at this moment, most of the people in the classroom are not quite able to adapt to this fact - the idol who could only be seen from a distance on TV or in the stadium suddenly entered the same school as himself, sitting a few meters away from him desk, quietly listening to the teacher lecture.

It is also because of this that from the beginning of this math class to the present, almost all the attention has been focused on Cyril intentionally or unintentionally, and there are very few people who really listen to the lecture as usual.

And for this point, the math teacher with rich teaching experience naturally did not ignore it.

He looked at the students under the podium who secretly looked at Cyril from time to time, and knew that if he didn't do something, he probably couldn't win back the students' attention.He thought about it, and finally decided to attack the culprit——

"Cyril Slade, you answer this question."

The math teacher was not surprised to find that everyone's focus was finally on the classroom—they started whispering to each other and asking which subject the teacher was talking about, and then all focused their gazes on Cyril.

To everyone's surprise, but it seemed reasonable, Cyril stepped onto the blackboard and wrote down the whole process of solving the problem leisurely.The math teacher who wanted to criticize stared at the blackboard for a long time, and found that he couldn't find anything that was not well done and had loopholes, so he had no choice but to let Cyril go down.

The boy who solved the problem didn't seem to have any changes in his expression. In other words, from the moment he walked into this classroom, the expression on his face showed a kind of calm, even a little too calm. nod.

In this Porto local middle school, many students are also Porto fans. Naturally, they also learned from the newspaper that Cyril did not participate in the team's training camp, but it was the reason for coming to this school to attend classes.

Therefore, when the bell rang for the end of get out of class, no one in the classroom chose to go out, and everyone stayed in their seats, secretly staring at Cyril.

Of course, Grigera is no exception-you must know that he is a die-hard fan of Porto, and he also plays a midfielder in the school team. He has always regarded Cyril, who is the same age, as an idol in football.He hesitated for a while, but finally his inner curiosity overcame his timidity. He took a deep breath, walked towards Cyril, and stopped in front of the other's desk.

"That..." Grigera just wanted to speak out, but the words choked up before he could leave his mouth. Before he came over, he noticed that Cyril didn't pay attention to the strangeness in the classroom at all, but supported himself Chin, staring in a daze at the playground outside the window.At the time, Grigera thought that the idol was just staring at him in a daze, but now that he got closer, he realized that on the playground facing Cyril, there happened to be a group of teenagers playing football.

This made Grigera quickly think of the sentence in the "Porto Newspaper": "Parents choose to keep their children away from football out of long-term considerations, but all this is really true for Cyril Slade himself. Is it okay?"

"...What's the matter?" At this moment, no matter how dull Cyril was, it was impossible not to notice the strange classmate who was already standing in front of him. An emotional teenager of the same age, Cyril, who could fully guess what the other party was thinking, couldn't help laughing, "Why are you staring at me in a daze? Is there something on my face?"

He just felt that it was too embarrassing to face the strange eyes of the whole class, so he just pretended to appreciate the scenery outside. Why did these people act like he had been greatly wronged?

What Cyril didn't know was that his usual gentle smile at this time, in the eyes of these students, was instead a forced smile forced to give up his ideals.

Grigera felt extremely uncomfortable. As a person who also loves football, he could hardly imagine what he would be like without football in his life. That's why he was particularly sad for Cyril, who obviously has enough excellent talent , can fight side by side with the same outstanding teammates, and win infinite glory for the club and the motherland, but being controlled by the parents, he has to give up football and stay quietly in an ordinary classroom.

Just thinking about it like this made Grigera feel sad.

He had completely forgotten what he planned to say to Cyril at this time, and he blurted out subconsciously: "Slade, do you want to join our school's football team and play with us?"

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Grigera wanted to slap himself in the face, wasn't he just sprinkling salt on other people's wounds? !

Sure enough, Cyril stopped smiling, and shook his head slowly: "No...thank you for the invitation."

He didn't mention the reasons for his refusal, but in the eyes of others, the teenager thought of his outstanding teammates in the club and felt lonely thinking about it.Immediately, a group of young fans looked at Grigera with angry and accusing eyes, as if they were saying, "Look at what kind of question you are asking!"

Grigera, who was accused by thousands of people, scratched his head and returned to his position in despair. However, the empathy in his heart made him start thinking about what he could do for his idol.

……

Shen Xianze is actually in a pretty good mood today.

First of all, he successfully completed the task assigned by Mr. Shen "My grandson must not be a worthless career like an athlete", and successfully brought Cyril to a local middle school with a good reputation.Secondly, he made the reporters and Porto fans who originally planned to target him look away, and turned to discuss in-depth issues such as the career prospects of players after retirement.

Think about it and feel a little proud.

However, this happy mood came to an abrupt end when I read the Porto Morning Post the next morning and saw the news in the newspaper.

"It's not the intention to stay away from football, the little prince of Porto looks melancholy and misses the stadium"

In line with this headline is a photo of Cyril sitting quietly watching his peers play football during physical education class.This photo was taken extremely well, not like an ordinary news photo, but like an artistic photo taken by a photographer.

In the photo, there is a sharp contrast between the bustling stadium and the solitary teenager. While taking a panoramic view, the photographer cleverly placed the game under the sun by taking advantage of the sunlight at that time, while Cyril sat In the shadows outside the field.One noisy and one quiet, one hot and one cold, the whole photo was taken with a very visual impact.

Even if you can't clearly see the boy's expression in the photo, it can make everyone who sees the photo feel the loneliness of being away from the crowd.

And under this picture, which can be called an artistic photo, is a passionate report by a newspaper reporter:

"Yes, for players, the issue of employment after retirement is indeed a realistic issue that has to be considered, but for many players, football is not just a job, but a dream! Is it because they are afraid of what has not yet happened? In the future, are we going to give up the dream in front of us?"

"Perhaps the choice of Slade's parents is not wrong, but he can't ignore the opinions of the children because of this. Everyone has the right to stick to their dreams, and no one can and has no right to take this power away from him. qualifications."

"The most important thing is, with Cyril Slade's current talent, maybe his future in football will reach a height that many players can't reach? I hope Slade's parents can carefully consider this point .”

Shen Xianze continued to look down with a blank face. What follows is not a reporter's judgment, but a simple self-report by the photographer:

"I am a photographer, because I have some photographic cooperation with Porto High School. I went to the school yesterday to discuss specific cooperation matters. I accidentally witnessed this scene when I passed by the playground on the way."

"Actually, I am not a fan myself, and I didn't know the identity of the boy off the field at the time. I was simply moved by this scene, so I carefully framed this scene. I don't understand the charm of football. , I don’t know how much this teenager will have on the future of Portuguese football, I just know that no one can forcibly deprive another person of the opportunity to pursue their dreams – not even the closest family members.”

Shen Xianze only felt the veins popping out on his forehead, and he turned to Cyril opposite him with a dark face: "Can't you give me a little peace of mind?"

"..." After talking thoroughly, Cyril also lost all his usual pretense to Shen Xianze. He concentrated on biting the sandwich on the plate, and didn't bother to look up at the other party: "I just find a place to sit, What do people like to think about me?"

Shen Xian chose not to speak, but he obviously didn't believe it.

Cyril didn't bother to explain to him-even though what he said was actually the truth.Cyril himself was actually quite surprised that he was just in a daze and was made up by a large group of people as literary and sad.

With this in mind, Shen Xianze quickly put the matter behind him. After breakfast, he went to work at the University of Porto as usual.

However, when he arrived at the University of Porto, he realized that his thinking was too simple and too easy.