Super Wingstorm

Any system based on scoring is inevitably subjective.

For the same person, some will see their strengths while others see their weaknesses, so the scores will naturally never be identical.

The coaching staff’s opinions were relatively uniform for consistently outstanding players like Henk Demyer, generally giving them good scores. But when it came to Yang Yang, their opinions were sharply divided.

Yang Yang was the type of player who was extremely specialized. He was excellent in some areas and terrible in others. This led some coaches to rate him poorly, even lowly, while other coaches rated him very highly, creating a dispute.

The Almere Youth Team had just adopted Ajax’s semester assessment system and hadn’t yet established a mature mechanism for evaluation and scoring. Head coach John Reep was prepared for this, having specially invited Van Gaal to serve as a technical consultant.

To put it simply, Van Gaal’s scores were the standard answer provided for all the coaches to reference.

As everyone was arguing about Yang Yang’s scores, John Reep presented Van Gaal’s evaluation of him.

"One-on-one offense and defense, mental fortitude, off-the-ball movement, ten-meter shuttle run, thirty-meter shuttle run, explosiveness, and stamina..." Dick Van Puer read from the scoring sheet in his hand.

"In these eight sub-categories, Mr. Van Gaal gave him high scores of nine or above. For mental fortitude, off-the-ball movement, and one-on-one offense, he even gave a perfect ten."

As everyone listened to Van Puer, their attention fell on the scoring sheets spread across the desk.

Besides the eight categories mentioned, several other sub-categories like vision and purpose in organized plays, as well as explosiveness, dribbling, and agility, also scored eight or above, which were considered very high scores.

At the same time, however, in areas like passing, ball trapping, shooting, heading, and crossing, as well as his integration with other players, Yang Yang’s sub-category scores were not ideal. Most were around the passing mark, with only his ball trapping receiving a failing grade of five.

As expected of a world-class coach who had been immersed in youth training for many years, Van Gaal’s scoring sheet was exceptionally pertinent and impeccable.

John Reep, standing to the side, was filled with both admiration and a bit of helplessness.

He knew Van Gaal appreciated Yang Yang, and he had also wanted to give Yang Yang a boost. At the very least, a high score would make a more convincing case for promoting him to the first team next season. But he hadn’t expected Van Gaal to be such an iron-faced judge, showing no favoritism whatsoever. He gave the scores that were deserved, resulting in a significant gap between strengths and weaknesses.

In European youth training, coaching staffs often use the "bucket theory" to evaluate a player’s overall quality, focusing on the shortest plank of the bucket—that is, their weakest link.

To reach the standard of the European Professional Leagues, no skill can be too poor. Even for a defensive player, while their defensive techniques must be good, their offensive skills can’t be lacking either. All skills must be at least a seventy or above. To play for a top-tier powerhouse, the requirements are even higher.

Even many defensive players who are heavily criticized by fans for having "terrible" technique can, if given the space to perform, display a dazzling array of minor skills with masterful proficiency.

Therefore, players like Yang Yang, with such a stark contrast between their strengths and weaknesses, are often not favored.

However, in the remarks section at the end of the player’s scoring sheet, Van Gaal suggested that in addition to referencing the player’s scores, they should also consider the player’s progress over the past period and their potential for future growth.

This suggestion was aimed at everyone, but it was undoubtedly most beneficial for Yang Yang.

Everyone turned to look at John Reep, wanting to hear the head coach’s opinion.

"Since Louis has already made a suggestion, we should naturally respect his professional advice. My idea is this: we’ll add sub-categories based on performance and improvement over the past two months, and everyone will re-evaluate the scores."

After hearing this, everyone nodded in agreement, feeling it was a good decision. They each took back their scoring sheets to re-evaluate and re-score.

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...

Although it was already June, the temperature in the Netherlands was still relatively cool. Even at noon, the high was less than twenty degrees Celsius.

Yang Yang trained for a while at the skate park, then went to his uncle Shen Ming’s Chinese restaurant for lunch before returning home for an afternoon nap.

Upon entering the Super Training, Old Ice’s first task was to summarize and analyze the morning’s assessment, pointing out the mistakes Yang Yang had made via video playback.

Some mistakes were caused by his poor fundamentals, some by suboptimal passes from teammates, and others were errors in his on-the-spot performance. These were all things he needed to pay close attention to.

"Starting today, you can reduce your juggling training, but you must continue to strengthen your left foot."

This statement from Old Ice was also a form of affirmation for Yang Yang’s hard work over the past period.

Finally being able to cut back on the tedious juggling training made Yang Yang overjoyed. He had almost trained until he wanted to puke.

"Based on your performance in the last few matches, you’ve basically mastered one-on-one breakthroughs, especially the Pendulum Move, which you’re using more skillfully. For the next period, I suggest you focus on strengthening your training in two areas."

"Go on."

"While you continue to strengthen your Pendulum Move, add training for the other moves in ’Ronaldo’s Rush’. Also, you need to enhance your training for breaking through multiple defenders."

Hearing Old Ice’s words, Yang Yang nodded repeatedly.

In the past few games, he had encountered many-on-one situations quite often, but he usually just passed the ball away instead of trying to take them on himself. After all, he wasn’t confident in taking on multiple opponents, so passing was the safest strategy.

He was also well aware that as his position moved forward to right winger, he would face more and more many-on-one situations and definitely needed to strengthen this aspect of his training.

"First, let me show you a few video clips."

As soon as Old Ice finished speaking, the stands by the side of the field immediately switched to screen mode, playing a familiar scene for Yang Yang.

It showed several scenes of him representing Baken Academy in inter-school matches, all of which were failed attempts at a one-on-two breakthrough.

"If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that during these failed breakthroughs, you made the same mistake every time: you focused too much on the first defender and ignored the second player providing cover from behind or the side."

As Old Ice spoke, the video replayed the process in slow motion.

"After using the Pendulum Move to break through, you tend to take a big touch forward to accelerate, aiming to quickly shake off the defender. But this makes you easily lose control of the ball, pushing it out of your control range. Any defender with a bit of experience will immediately press you. Even if they don’t manage to take the ball, they can quickly cut in between you and it."

Yang Yang understood. "The key is to maintain control of the ball after getting past the first opponent."

"Exactly. That’s the focus of your training."

Yang Yang was very clear about his current problem. The Pendulum Move was indeed sharp, but it was a bit of a double-edged sword. Especially after a high-speed breakthrough, he would easily lose control of the ball. Therefore, he had to learn how to keep the ball under control after breaking through at high speed. This would also help him in continuing to learn the Star Skill, ’Ronaldo’s Rush’.

The logic was simple. One of the advantages of Ronaldo’s Rush was ball control at high speed.

Soon, Old Ice had the training ground set up.

It was a circular area marked out with white lines, about twenty meters in diameter. Inside, many red cones were placed randomly and chaotically, with no fixed distance between them.

Old Ice’s training requirement was for Yang Yang to dribble into this area and accelerate to break past or evade the red cones. Neither he nor the ball could touch any of the cones, or it would be a failure.

This was just for familiarization and warm-up. As Yang Yang’s training progressed, the distance between the red cones would shrink, and there would be requirements for his speed, the number of touches he could take to get past each cone, and so on. There would be very strict requirements. In the future, it would even simulate real people to practice with him, but that was all for later.

"This is way harder than juggling," Yang Yang said with a wry smile, looking at the training ground before him.

But he was also more excited.

Compared to the tediousness of juggling, this type of training was not only more interesting but also had immense practical value. These were situations that frequently occurred in matches, and it would bring a very obvious improvement to Yang Yang’s game performance.

This was also what Van Gaal had said before: juggling is fundamental, a basic skill, but there’s no need to juggle for the sake of juggling. The focus should be more on how to play better in a match.

CLAP! Yang Yang clapped his hands together, rubbing them in anticipation as he grinned. "Alright, let’s get started."

...

...

The two-hour afternoon break passed quickly.

Yang Yang emerged from the Super Training full of energy. He washed his face and headed out, jogging and juggling a ball all the way to the skate park. There, he practiced some of the most basic drills against the wall, especially ball trapping, which was his weakest link.

Time passed amidst the tedious training. Around four o’clock, Yang Yang juggled his way north to the Almere training ground.

By this time, all the members of the youth team were already gathered at the entrance to the locker room, waiting quietly for the coaching staff to post the results of the morning’s assessment.

This time, it wouldn’t just be the scores from the morning’s tests. A final comprehensive score would be given, combining records of daily training and matches, as well as academic grades.

In comparison, the club’s requirements for academic grades weren’t high. A top student like Yang Yang received no special treatment; as long as one met the Football Association’s requirements and passed the academic assessment, they would generally get points.

Therefore, Yang Yang wasn’t very confident about his own comprehensive score.

He was well aware of his weak points. Fundamentals are built up over a long time; it’s impossible to completely transform in just over a month. So he could only rely on his match performance and a few strong areas to score points. But even so, he feared he wouldn’t have much of an advantage on average.

After all, players like Henk Demyer had gone through more than a decade of hard training to build an incredibly solid foundation.

And the captain of the Almere Youth Team wore a relaxed expression, confident of victory, as if he already considered first place his for the taking.