I AM the Football Star

"French Football, haven’t you embarrassed yourselves enough with this year’s Golden Ball Award? You’re so used to manipulation, you think everyone else does it too?"

"I, Winter, hereby guarantee with my twenty years of football credibility. In the upcoming match, we at Arsenal will give our utmost effort, but only on the field. We will not engage in any actions off the field."

Following closely, San Remo’s Sotu also spoke: "The reason French Football is jumping out now is clear to everyone."

"The mistaken evaluation of Lu Yang for the Golden Ball Award has made this year’s award highly controversial. Compared to them, we and Arsenal really have no room for manipulation."

"In the final round, I might use a full substitute lineup, or I might play with all the main players. This depends on my mood and the team’s subsequent tactical arrangements and does not involve the interests of any other team."

"If French Football continues to make such irresponsible speculations, they will receive a letter from San Remo’s lawyer!"

Another lawyer’s letter!

As soon as these three words were said, the whole European media laughed.

Before these words were overused, they were actually quite effective.

French Football was berated into silence, but their purpose was actually achieved.

Because the lineup announced by San Remo afterward was almost a full main squad lineup.

Sotu spoke confidently, but... ultimately, San Remo, after having already qualified, still didn’t dare let Arsenal win easily.

After all, so many eyes were watching.

As for why this decision was made, it was largely because Arsenal’s lineup is very representative.

...

San Remo Club Building, Tactical Office.

Sotu, Maniero, Lu Yang, Morici, Old Tom and others gathered together.

"Arsenal’s lineup is very strong and complete, almost the club with the most national players apart from Real Madrid and Bayern," Maniero began. "But with such a strong lineup, their performance hasn’t been very good, which is very similar to Real Madrid in recent years."

"Many strong national teams actually face the same problem. If we can find a way to defeat them in Arsenal, then whether San Remo faces strong teams in the future, or the Italy National Team faces strong opponents in the future, there will be something to learn from."

Since San Remo qualifies for the next round regardless of the outcome in the last round, why not take this opportunity to find the key points of confronting strong teams on this standard template of a football giant, Arsenal?

You should know, it’s very difficult for an ordinary team to get a chance to play against such a strong team.

The more you play against strong teams, the stronger you unknowingly become.

This is very valuable experience for both players and the team.

What makes Arsenal typical? Typical where?

In that they have so many superstars in their squad!

And the variety of these stars is somewhat... imbalanced.

Double forwards Nelka and Walter, left and right midfielders Rubeus and Olic, these are all superstars ranked among the top twenty, even top ten or five, in their positions worldwide.

However, does Arsenal score many goals?

Not really!

They have too many attackers, and all of them are super killers excellent at dribbling, controlling, shooting, and speed.

Any team with such a player wouldn’t have a weak attack.

But Arsenal has four... one plus one plus one plus one, in the end, didn’t even produce a chemical reaction. The sum, instead, is less than four, even less than three!

"These are some data about Arsenal sent by my assistant Lola," Lu Yang projected some data. "Of course, these data are the result of our studio’s work, rather than acquired through internal means."

Lu Yang spoke righteously.

Although Lola often peeks at Mr. Winter’s office computer, she claims that her data has nothing to do with her dad’s work.

She just wanted to make sure her father was indeed working overtime at the club on weekends, and not out on dates with England’s swarm of suitors.

England, in terms of having no bottom line, you know.

"Arsenal has always been a team known for team collaboration and fluid attacks. Even, looking at the data, their front line distributes opportunities very evenly," Lu Yang explained, "This seems very team-oriented, but... this kind of overly balanced ball distribution is somewhat distorted, like..."

"Like intentionally dividing attack attempts!" Maniero chimed in.

Lu Yang snapped his fingers: "Bingo! Let’s focus on few attacks... Here, after a series of team collaborations, Rubeus scored the goal."

"Here is Olic... here is Nelka... here is Walter!"

"Apart from the slightly more frequent collaboration between Nelka and Walter, as well as routine passing, the cooperation between these four stars is actually minimal. Especially when they start their own attacks, they mostly focus on themselves, rarely involving others in their attacking rounds."

"If you simplify their actions, removing meaningless data, you’d find that each of them is a separate entity, each the endpoint of the team’s ball possession. But among them... there’s not much connection!"

So, Arsenal, seemingly team-oriented, is actually internally divided into several isolated segments.

This isn’t about their relationships, but a habit or arrogance unique to offensive stars.

The critical point is that they always manage to score those footballs belonging to their offensive rounds through superior personal ability.