Chapter Ten: The Signal

"Brothers, today I’m taking you to see what the food is like at the Soflian youth team’s cafeteria..."

In the video, Wang Lie first points the camera at himself, then gestures to the small building behind him: "See that? Over there, those windows on the second floor—that’s the youth team’s cafeteria. Honestly, this is my first time here. If I hadn't asked the boys on the youth team during training, I wouldn't even have known it was a cafeteria. It looks like something straight out of the first decade of this century. By the way, many of the facilities here at the Heaton Sports City haven't been updated in years..."

The camera then switches to the rear-facing lens. Wang Lie disappears from the frame, his voice coming from behind the camera:

"Let's go. Today I’ll open your eyes and take you on a store exploration. This is a place you guys could never reach here at Heaton Sports City... Hey, look who’s in front? Gu Biao!"

A Chinese player wearing a Soflian training kit appears on screen; upon hearing Wang Lie’s call, he runs toward the camera.

He is grabbed by a hand, and the camera switches back to the front-facing mode, capturing both Wang Lie and Gu Biao.

Gu Biao, looking a bit green, points at the screen and asks, "Brother Wang, are you live-streaming?"

"No live stream, just recording some video for fun. Come on, let me introduce you guys. This is Gu Biao, playing for the Soflian U18 youth team. He’s a key winger for our national youth team—fast, great footwork, he’s the real deal."

Wang Lie gives a thumbs-up to the camera. Gu Biao, praised, just grins foolishly.

Wang Lie turns to him and says, "In a bit, you’re going to give me a tour of the youth team cafeteria. I’m just showing the fans around, we're shooting an 'exploration' video..."

Watching her husband in the video, Tang Xingmei is left speechless, caught between laughter and frustration.

He actually went and filmed a "store exploration video"!

This is likely going to stir up another storm online...

Given his fame, and the fact that he is currently at the center of a controversy, every move he makes is subject to extraordinary scrutiny and various interpretations—yet he still chose to do this.

Is it any wonder people say he’s like a child who never grows up?

Despite grumbling internally about her husband, Tang Xingmei watches the entire video.

After finishing it carefully, she changes her mind. She feels this probably wasn't just a childish whim, but rather the work of his team behind the scenes.

In that case, this might not be as simple as just letting her husband vent his frustrations...

Wang Lie didn't mention the first team or Helden once. Instead, he earnestly introduced the youth team's meals and showcased several young talents, pulling them in front of the camera to greet his fans.

It looked like an ordinary video, and he even seemed to be enjoying himself, but at this particular moment, it was destined to be anything but ordinary.

Tang Xingmei was right. After the video was posted, it immediately drew intense attention and analysis on both Chinese and international social media.

Hardly anyone believed this was just a casual vlog. Everyone interpreted it as Wang Lie’s counterattack against Helden and the Soflian club—showing the world how Soflian treats the legend who helped them create their historic seven-title run!

You think sending him to train with the youth team and eat in their cafeteria is a humiliation for Wang Lie?

Wrong!

This is a slap in the face to the Soflian club!

No club has ever dared to treat their star player like this; Soflian has done it, setting a new precedent for the world.

Conflict between a manager and a star player isn't rare in world football. But usually, that just means the manager benches the star, as Helden did previously.

Let alone exiling a star to the youth team—even sending one to the reserve team is unheard of!

Who is Wang Lie?

He is the symbol of Soflian over the past nine years, their undisputed representative.

He is the all-time leading scorer in Soflian’s history.

In the decade where Arthur and Ronier dominated the Ballon d'Or and World Footballer of the Year awards, he was the only top superstar capable of stealing the Ballon d'Or from the "two kings," and he did it twice!

If not for him, Ronier might have been sprinting down the path of "Mr. Ballon d'Or" far ahead of everyone, and there wouldn't even be any talk of Arthur catching up.

One could even say that although fans of Ronier and Arthur feel Wang Lie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as their idols, without Wang Lie, the current "duopoly" wouldn't exist—especially Arthur’s fans should be particularly grateful to him.

The top individual honors in world football over the last decade have basically been a game of musical chairs between Ronier and Arthur. They are the undisputed top two, and calling Wang Lie the best player after them is no blind hyperbole.

Such a person—what club wouldn't treat him like a treasure?

Yet here at Soflian, he is being treated with such humiliation.

Earlier, when Wang Lie confronted the manager on the sidelines, he became a target for everyone. Because on a fundamental level, he was in the wrong: as a player, refusing to come off the pitch during a match and ignoring the manager's instructions—aside from his die-hard fans, no one would support that.

But now, by exiling Wang Lie to the youth team, Helden has committed a mistake that is also objectively problematic.

Especially as Wang Lie began to "serialize" his daily vlogs from the youth team—he had already teased at the end of this video that he would film the youth team cafeteria again tomorrow—the tide of public opinion began to show signs of shifting:

No matter what Wang Lie did wrong, you shouldn't humiliate him by exiling him to the youth team!

Wang Lie’s fans regained their voice.

People online started digging up "dirt" on Sven Helden—of course, mostly by Wang Lie’s die-hard, most aggressive fans. But once they started, in the current climate, it began to influence some of the general public as well.

The player who replaced Wang Lie as Soflian’s starting center-forward was Swedish international Ricky Wider, who transferred to Soflian in July 2036. He was the first signing Helden made after taking charge of Soflian.

Although Wider is a fellow Swede, he wasn't exactly Helden’s "loyalist" before coming to Soflian, as he hadn't played for any team Helden previously managed.

Wider had been playing for the Bundesliga side Unicorns, a traditional powerhouse in Stuttgart. Where was Helden then? Coaching in the Portuguese league.

However, Wang Lie’s radical fans still found an angle to attack Helden: "You said Wang Lie was an important part of the team, yet you were the first to finalize Wider’s transfer. This proves you were lying from the start, just trying to keep Wang Lie steady."

Why keep him steady? Working backward, it was clearly because Helden was preparing to use the team’s biggest star to establish his authority... You hypocrite!

Honestly, this conclusion isn't entirely baseless, though the logic is shaky.

After all, saying Wang Lie is important doesn't mean you can't sign a new striker—couldn't one argue he was just looking for a rotation option?

But expecting logic from radical fans is a joke in itself.

Moreover, the significance of this matter isn't whether the logic holds up; it’s that it serves as a signal. A signal that it is okay to criticize and question Helden.

Before Wang Lie was exiled to the youth team, no one in the media was criticizing Helden; everyone was praising him. They were certain Soflian had finally found the right manager, and that Sven Helden would lead this "global giant" back to the road of victory and championships.

Now, people have started aiming their guns at Helden.

Regardless of whether it's reasonable, it’s at least highly significant, and it’s likely to be imitated.

Even if this specific criticism is unfounded, is your record, Sven Helden, really that clean?

Ricky Wider had no connection to you before he arrived, but how do you explain the transfer of right-back José Gomez? He was a starter for the Portuguese team you managed just before this. When you came to the Premier League to coach Soflian, he followed you and "ascended to heaven" along with you. A transfer fee of 66 million pounds is no small sum!

Did you take a kickback on that?!

***

"Alright, brothers, that’s our second installment of the youth team cafeteria exploration. I’ll film again tomorrow to see how many days I can go without repeating a meal..."

Sven Helden watched the video expressionlessly, saying nothing.

Beside him, General Manager Jonathan Hall said, "It looks like he really intends to make this a 'series'..."

Helden replied, "He’s trying to put pressure on us this way. There are indeed some voices criticizing us online now."

"What should we do? Just let him keep doing this?"

Helden looked at Hall: "What else? Should we bring him back to the first team two days after punishing him? Then we’d all look like clowns, and the club’s authority would become a joke. We don't need to do anything right now. We just need to focus on the team and the matches. As the season progresses, everyone will forget. In this era of information explosion, no hot topic lasts more than three days."

Hall agreed that bringing Wang Lie back now would look like the club bowing down, causing massive damage to their reputation.

More importantly, even if the club did that, Wang Lie likely wouldn't appreciate it. It would be a complete waste of effort and make them look like fools.

So, he agreed with Helden’s approach.

Ignore him, leave him on the sidelines, and focus on the upcoming League Cup and the 20th round of the league against Clayton Athletic.

The latter was the real priority. Faced with the Manchester derby, no one cared about the League Cup.

The word "derby" has a special status in football. There are always a few matches a year that you absolutely cannot lose.

Soflian was once the undisputed king of Manchester, and small fries like Clayton Athletic shouldn't have been on their radar. But every Manchester derby was "passionate," and Soflian never dared to say they could easily handle their local rival.

As Clayton Athletic grew stronger, the derby became even more intense.

Clayton Athletic’s transformation began in the late 1990s when they got a wealthy owner who loved the club and invested regardless of the cost, upgrading both their hardware and software. After a decade of development, they started taking off in the second decade of the 21st century.

Clayton Athletic has won eight Premier League titles and three Champions League trophies, all in the last twenty years.

Thus, they went from being "small fries" to a rival on par with Soflian in Manchester.

The two teams are known as the "Manchester Giants," and the past twenty years of the "Manchester Derby" have become a classic in football.

But in recent years, as Soflian declined, Clayton Athletic has gained the upper hand. One statistic proves it: to date, Soflian has failed to beat their local rival Clayton Athletic in seven consecutive matches.

These seven matches include not just league play, but domestic cups as well. One could say Soflian has been comprehensively suppressed by Clayton Athletic.

It’s no wonder Soflian has changed four managers in the last two years. It’s no wonder they finally chose a manager with no experience at a top club and gave him extraordinary support, even if it meant offending the team’s biggest legend.

Seeing their local rival living the good life, Soflian is desperate...

And when the team started to go downhill, wasn't Wang Lie the marquee player? Can one say Wang Lie had nothing to do with Soflian’s decline?

Since you can't say he had nothing to do with it, when the team needs it, why is it wrong to make him take responsibility?

The greater the fame, the greater the responsibility.

So if you, Wang Lie, won't be the "chicken" sacrificed to warn the monkeys, who will?

***

On January 13th, Soflian played away against Premier League side Sherwood United in the quarter-finals of the English League Cup.

Manager Sven Helden still rotated the squad and didn't field a full-strength lineup.

As for Wang Lie, having been demoted to the youth team, he was naturally suspended internally—he didn't even make the matchday squad.

Before the match, the media asked Helden about Wang Lie.

Helden stated that until Wang Lie apologized to the entire coaching staff, there was no chance of him playing. Otherwise, it would be an insult to the players in the squad who followed the rules.

Without Wang Lie and with a heavily rotated squad, Soflian ended up with a 1-1 draw away against Sherwood United, who were 15th in the Premier League.

Unlike the FA Cup, the English League Cup is a single-elimination tournament until the semi-finals. If it’s a draw in regulation time, there are no replays; it goes straight to 30 minutes of extra time.

If it’s still a draw after extra time, it goes to a penalty shootout.

That was the case here.

Neither side could break the deadlock in extra time, and the score remained 1-1.

In the penalty shootout, both sides missed one each, and the final taker for Soflian, captain Tyler Murphy, missed his penalty.

In the end, Soflian lost 3-4 on penalties, 4-5 on aggregate, and were eliminated from the League Cup at the quarter-final stage.

Coming at such a sensitive moment, this elimination was quite "delicate."

After the match, when asked by reporters if his heavy rotation for the upcoming weekend derby was the reason for the loss, Sven Helden flatly denied it:

"Of course not. We always give our best in the current match. I regret that we couldn't win; we should have finished the game within ninety minutes..."

He was referring to the 77th minute, when substitute Stanley Harris wasted what was essentially a guaranteed goal.

That seemed to be the turning point. From then on, Sherwood United played as if inspired, gaining confidence, dragging the game into extra time, holding on, and finally capitalizing in the penalty shootout to eliminate Soflian.

Harris, who scored the winning goal in the previous FA Cup match, became the "war criminal" of this League Cup game. After coming off the bench, he made several runs but failed to create any quality chances, either putting in wild crosses or shooting weakly—the shot in the 77th minute was so soft it was like a back-pass, kicked straight into the Sherwood United goalkeeper’s arms...

During the match, people online joked that Harris, as Wang Lie’s loyal fan, was clearly affected by the demotion and was suffering from poor form.

The conclusion was drawn: "It’s all Wang Lie’s fault!"

This was, of course, just internet trolling, but while the League Cup exit couldn't be blamed on Wang Lie, it would certainly be blamed on Harris.

"...Football is like this. If you waste opportunities, you get punished," Helden shrugged.

Another reporter asked, "Does sacrificing the League Cup mean your team is ready for the Manchester derby this weekend?"

The reporters’ persistent focus on the derby clearly angered Helden. His expression didn't change much, but his tone sharpened and he spoke faster: "Who told you this was a sacrifice for the weekend league game? I never sacrifice any match; I always play to win. I feel regret and pain for this defeat..."

"But you rotated the squad heavily," the reporter retorted, not backing down.

Helden frowned: "We’ve been playing two games a week since the Christmas break; rotation is completely normal. Moreover, we have the weekend league game and the FA Cup replay next week—a match that shouldn't even exist—all of which affect our preparation rhythm..."

Is it any wonder British reporters are called the "paparazzi"? Their noses are sharp.

The reporter quickly caught the keyword in Helden’s answer and pressed, "So you think Wang has disrupted the team’s rhythm?"

Helden realized he had misspoken before the reporter could finish. He controlled his anger and, with a stony face, replied, "I think constantly bringing up someone who isn't even in the matchday squad is disrespectful to the other players."

He then ended the press conference.

He could refuse to take more questions, but the media’s pursuit wouldn't end. If they didn't get answers in the press conference, they would continue to demand them in their papers and on social media.

Since taking over at Soflian, Helden hadn't lost? He had lost four games in the Premier League.

But which post-match press conference had been like this?

The air was clearly thick with gunpowder.

Helden thought exiling Wang Lie would establish his authority as manager, but he hadn't considered the side effects.

Wang Lie, too, didn't seem as "reasonable" as he had been for the first half of the season...

Before, when he was asked to come on at the very end of a match, he didn't say a word.

Now, when he was substituted early, he actually refused to leave the pitch in front of everyone!

After being punished, he even made videos to mock him...

Helden had wanted to show off his iron-fisted methods, but as he walked out of the noisy press room at Robin Hood Stadium, a new thought occurred to him:

Maybe I should just get rid of that damn trouble-maker as soon as possible!