Chapter Ninety-One: Complete Suppression

Hearing such a measured and well-reasoned assessment from Long Bisheng, the other students began to look at him in a new light. It was obvious that today was the first time he had ever faced that center back, yet in just one half he had observed so much, thought it through, and figured out how to make use of it. Within the entire team, apart from Hu Gandang and Dai Guangming, the two players universally recognized as having a brain for the game, Long Bisheng alone had worked all this out on his own on the pitch, and he had done it without any instruction from the coach.

Long Bisheng, however, remained completely unaware of this. He did not think he had done anything remarkable. Since the coach had limited him in the first half to attacking only through aerial duels, then naturally he had to find a way to make that work. Now that he was being asked how to break through the opponent’s defense, it was only natural that he would think of using a simpler route: attacking on the ground.

“You’re right. Their center back really is a bit top-heavy, just like you were last year,” Ding Yu said with a smile. Then his expression turned serious. “If I told you that in the second half you could still attack only by contesting high balls, what would you do?”

At this point even the other players felt Ding Yu was being a little too harsh, but Long Bisheng showed no trace of irritation. He simply tilted his head back, thought for a moment, then shook his head and said honestly, “I can’t think of anything right now. But if I keep trying different things during the match, I’m sure I’ll find a way.”

“All right, then let’s do it that way,” Ding Yu said with a nod. “In the second half, try to avoid turning and dribbling from just outside the box. But you can experiment with other things, like receiving the ball with your back to goal and laying it off for teammates. You can’t have made no progress at all over the past year, or people will start to suspect something.”

Beside him, Dai Guangming and Hu Gandang both nodded thoughtfully. Ding Yu saw it all, but said nothing.

Then the fourth official came over to say the second half was about to begin. Ding Yu nodded and sent the players back onto the field.

As he went out, Long Bisheng noticed Cai Guoqing looking unusually excited. It seemed that, just as Ding Yu had said, someone had pointed out a few tricks to him and taught him how to deal with Long Bisheng’s tireless running and his quicker short-distance footwork.

In the latter part of the first half, Long Bisheng’s wide-ranging movement had indeed been effective. At first, he had not expected it would drain the opponent’s energy so quickly; he had simply found it irritating to have someone constantly shadowing him. He had not imagined that all that running would produce such a result. But from the situation now, that tactic would not be much use anymore. After all, if he wanted to threaten the opponent’s goal, the best place to do it was inside the penalty area. And if Cai Guoqing wanted to defend him, all he had to do was guard that small patch of ground inside the box.

Who had advised Cai Guoqing? Was it the opposing coach, or that tall man wearing sunglasses on the touchline?

Long Bisheng did not know Cai Sheng. After all, Cai Sheng’s glory days dated back to the early nineteen nineties. Once the professional league began, his performances were far less eye-catching than those of the other strikers of his generation, such as Hao Dong, Gao Feng, and Li Bing. For a young player like Long Bisheng, the names he knew best were the newer faces who had emerged at the beginning of the professional era, like Nie Fei.

The second half began, and sure enough Cai Guoqing did not continue foolishly running after Long Bisheng the way he had in the first half. When Long Bisheng drifted away from the penalty area, Cai Guoqing did not follow. Only once Long Bisheng entered the box would he aggressively close in again, using the same tight marking, collisions, and aerial challenges as before.

For an ordinary striker, being battered like that by Cai Guoqing for so long would probably have become unbearable. But for Long Bisheng it meant nothing. He was naturally tough and rough-edged, and he was used to colliding with Li Jie in training. In any case, he did not feel uncomfortable from all the bumps and jostling. On the contrary, he rather enjoyed the feeling of a hard-fought contest, of wrestling with an opponent at full intensity. In normal training against Li Jie, he always had to hold back a little so as not to injure a teammate, so he never used his full strength. But now Cai Guoqing was an opponent, and Long Bisheng had no fear of hurting him. In fact, he was delighted to have found someone who could finally push him to fight at full power in physical duels.

Unfortunately, Cai Guoqing did not see it that way. From the battles in the first half, he had already learned that his opponent was a brute of a man, even more physically imposing than he was. In the second half he kept trying to avoid direct collisions, but Long Bisheng seemed to know he was dodging and deliberately sought him out. What was more, Yunjia Tianyu were playing many more high balls than they had in the first half, making it impossible to avoid contact altogether.

Barely ten minutes into the second half, Cai Guoqing already felt like he was falling apart, yet he could only grit his teeth and keep going toe to toe with Long Bisheng. Otherwise, Hubei’s goalkeeper Qin Xiaolei was not very tall to begin with, and if Long Bisheng kept launching aerial bombardments into the box, they would never be able to hold him off.

Cai Guoqing had truly never imagined that one day he would be bullied by an opponent with sheer height and physical power.

Being completely outmatched in the very areas he prided himself on most, physical duels and aerial challenges, was more demoralizing than anything else for Cai Guoqing.

The irony was that before the match he had been so confident, saying that he would not allow Long Bisheng to win a single header over him. At first, to a certain extent, he had indeed done that. But what about now? Yunjia Tianyu’s only goal had come from a header by Long Bisheng, and now he was beginning to win more and more dangerous aerial balls.

Cai Guoqing’s performance was, in truth, a reflection of the entire Hubei E-Jinlong side.

Hubei’s strongest unit was their midfield. It was very similar to Yunjia Tianyu’s midfield, with the same diamond shape and comparable technical characteristics. Unfortunately, the quality gap between Hubei’s four midfielders and Yunjia Tianyu’s four was still there. In the opening stages of the match, that gap had not been especially obvious, but by now the balance had begun to tilt steadily toward Yunjia Tianyu.

The attacking midfielder Li Mu was technically gifted and had a strong sense of the bigger picture, but he lacked Dai Guangming’s flair. Hu Gandang, who was used to going up against Dai Guangming in matches, found defending him easy enough and could even join the attack with regularity. The defensive midfielder Huang Zhenghong had decent defensive awareness and good positioning, but he was a notch below Hu Gandang in physicality and pace. Dai Guangming, accustomed to attacking under Hu Gandang’s shadow, now found it much easier to break through. On the flanks, Tian Xiaofei, helped by left back Yin Long, could still keep things deadlocked with Zhang Yi, but on the right Hua Ming was being dragged into frantic defending by the lively movement around him and could not bring his attacking strengths into play at all.

The reason was simple: Yunjia Tianyu’s midfield was also their strongest line, and stronger than Hubei’s.

Defensively, Cai Guoqing was gradually losing Long Bisheng. Offensively, their erratic striker Hu Shuangpeng could not do much without enough support from midfield. What was more, after the first half, Ding Yu had given Li Jie an unyielding instruction at halftime: the moment Hu Shuangpeng entered the penalty area, mark him tightly and do not let him go. This measure reduced Hu Shuangpeng’s threat on the field to a minimum.

It was like a duel between two men in which you were being suppressed in every aspect by your opponent. Perhaps he was only slightly better than you in each area, but under such comprehensive pressure, how could you possibly hope to win?

On the sideline, Pan Kai watched with repeated sighs. He had labored for years, finally nurturing a few young players who could truly be called outstanding, yet compared with Yunjia Tianyu’s players of the same age, every one of them came up short. It seemed it was not that the manager was incapable; rather, the other side was simply too cunning.

“This match will be hard for us to win,” Cai Sheng said at some point, having come to stand beside him. “Yunjia Tianyu deserve their reputation as the country’s top youth academy. We may not have started much later, but in terms of appeal to young players, we simply can’t compare with them. Losing to them is nothing to regret.”

“Yunjia Tianyu scout talent nationwide, while we can only pick from locally,” Pan Kai said with a bitter smile. “What a shame. Dai Guangming, Zhou Wei, and Wu Bufan — they should have been ours…”

“Forget it. They’ll develop better at Yunjia Tianyu. We can’t force them to stay,” Cai Sheng said with a sigh. “But that tall striker called Long Bisheng is no ordinary player. To be able to pin Cai Guoqing down like this in physical duels and aerial battles… I’m rather interested in him.”

“These days there are fewer and fewer proper target men in our league. Modern forwards are all about technique and combination play, beating people one on one. There aren’t many who are willing to do the dirty work anymore,” Pan Kai said, glancing at Cai Sheng with a smile. “What, did you spot a gem?”

Cai Sheng looked back at him. A faint smile appeared on his gaunt face. “Yes, that is exactly it…”

In the end, Yunjia Tianyu won the match two to nil. The second goal also had Long Bisheng written all over it: after receiving Zhang Yi’s cross in the middle, Dai Guangming fed the ball to Long Bisheng, who had drifted to the edge of the penalty area. Then Dai Guangming made a rapid run past Huang Zhenghong, who had been marking him. Long Bisheng used his body to shield Cai Guoqing, gently laid the ball back, and Dai Guangming raced onto it. Without taking a touch, he unleashed a long-range drive. The ball flew through a forest of bodies inside the box and shot into the lower right corner of the net.

A classic center-forward layoff after stepping out of the penalty area.