Chapter 28
It was just a college team league, so the school certainly didn't have much operating funds allocated to the event organizing team, and there was no temporary podium. The award ceremony was held directly on the concrete rostrum.
"The final at Wembley Stadium was held on the rostrum." A player who followed English football said. Wei Le heard this and laughed, "Then rounding off, we are the FA Cup champions!"
"How can the FA Cup champion be enough! We are the Champions League champions!"
Hearing this, Wei Le laughed. He suddenly began to imagine what it would be like if he had the opportunity to stand in front of the rostrum at Wembley Stadium in the future?
Although it was difficult to overcome the joy, the players of the Law School still followed the sports etiquette and lined up in two teams, letting the runner-up team, the players of the Foreign College team, walk through the middle, and receive the runner-up first in the welcome.
But the runner-up was not an acceptable result for the Foreign College team. On the football field, only the champion can leave his name. The players from the School of Foreign Affairs certainly had no intention of celebrating. Even when Gao Hongbo stood in front of them, those who had said they wanted to take photos and get autographs before the game fell silent.
Wintersal, Tiago and Campbell had even more complicated expressions.
This should have been a very relaxing and enjoyable game. If they played a little better, the School of Law would surrender. But the reality was hard for them to accept - the winner was their opponent.
Those pre-match celebration scenes flashed through their minds, and I wondered how much they regretted it.
But in any case, Luo Hai felt a little relieved. The team he led did not take this game seriously, and eventually tasted the bitter fruit of failure. The unique composition of the School of Foreign Affairs destined this football team to be a complex mixture. As the captain, he might not be able to control this polarized team.
"Congratulations." As the captain, Luo Hai stopped when he passed Wei Le, shook Wei Le's outstretched hand, and said with a wry smile.
Wei Le said modestly, "We were lucky."
But Luo Hai shook his head seriously, "You did better than us, so you won."
He clearly remembered that the players from the Law School made him feel uncomfortable from the beginning, and he believed that this must be the arrangement of Wei Le. Wei Le wanted to say something else, but Luo Hai had already let go of his hand. He turned around and stepped onto the podium.
The Foreign Affairs College team hurriedly received the silver medal and quickly left the field. They left behind the field that prevented them from continuing to defend the title, leaving the joy of victory to the young Law School team.
"Congratulations."
"You played well."
With brief encouragements, each player took the gold medal. The anxious Han Yang began to bite the gold medal with his teeth, as if he wanted to determine whether it was pure gold. The result was of course not what he wanted. Han Yang almost broke his teeth, and there was no dent on the gold medal.
Han Yang's disappointed expression also caused everyone to laugh, but the school leaders' faces were not very good.
After Yang Qi shook hands with Gao Hongbo, he hugged the old man next to him tightly. Wei Le understood that this was the coach Yang Qi had mentioned.
The last player also received the medal. Wei Le, who was the last, took a deep breath and stepped onto the podium.
Facing this former head coach of the Chinese national team, who was controversial on the Internet but worthy of respect in Wei Le's opinion, Wei Le suddenly felt a little dazed. The person who was once blurred on the TV was now standing in front of him.
Gao Hongbo was not in a hurry to present the last medal in his hand to the young man in front of him who had never met. He looked up and down at Wei Le with a smile.
He was tall and straight, and his face was not handsome in the traditional sense, but it was also clean and tidy. His heavy dark circles could still tell Gao Hongbo that Wei Le must have stayed up late recently.
Gao Hongbo believed that this must be the effort to win this game. He liked this young man more and more.
Wei Le was a little puzzled. Normally, shouldn't Gao Hongbo put the medal around his neck? Why did he keep smiling and not say anything?
Before Wei Le was about to ask politely, Gao Hongbo smiled and spoke.
"Are you interested in being a professional head coach?"
This sentence made Wei Le stunned on the spot.
——
In the year when the Chinese national team finally made it to the coveted World Cup, Han Yang and Wei Le, who grew up together, fell in love with football one after another. But when Han Yang was fighting with his friends on the community stadium and called himself "Community Ronaldo", Wei Le often just stood beside the small area of cement ground in a daze.
Han Yang asked, "Why do you just watch us play football?"
Wei Le thought for a while and said, "I like watching you play football. "
Although it was a small game between buildings in the community with no technical content, Wei Le, who was standing on the flower bed and looking down at the court, was enjoying it. In his young mind, these screaming children running around had formed a plane map in his mind. He was looking down and overlooking the movement of each "chess piece".
He likes to watch the game and also likes to deduce the game. Sometimes, Wei Le would try to watch for a while, then close his eyes, cover his ears, and then deduce how the game would develop based on the scene he saw before closing his eyes.
Sometimes he would find that when he opened his eyes, the development of the game was just as he thought.
Gradually, he would stand on the sidelines and call Han Yang to him when the ball was dead and give Han Yang some advice. From the initial unclear instructions of "come back a little" and "go to the side", to later Purposefully guiding Han Yang to find space on the court, Han Yang suddenly found that he seemed to be starting to kill all around.
Han Yang was not stupid. He soon discovered that games with Wei Le standing on the sidelines were often played smoothly.
In any case, in the next few years, Chinese football unexpectedly fell after the peak of the Asian Cup final. Wei Le and Han Yang, whose family conditions were not good, certainly did not choose professional football as a path. But what remains unchanged is that they still watch football and still play football.
In junior high school and high school, Wei Le performed very well as a goalkeeper. He could command the defense in an orderly manner by shouting. Many people praised him for being a good goalkeeper, but Han Yang, who had been with him all the way, knew that Wei Le's dream must be to stand in the coaching seat.
When Wei Le responded to Gao Hongbo's question, he did not even hesitate and responded: "I want to."
But then, he regretted it after reacting.
The young man in front of him was a little at a loss, and Gao Hongbo smiled even more brightly.