I AM the Football Star

But this really did muddy the waters.

Twenty goals suddenly turned into twenty league goals.

Some less rational netizens walked right into the trap set by French Football, getting dragged onto the track defined by French Football’s rules.

Calculated like that, Lu Yang now has seventeen league goals, still three short.

And although the Golden Ball Award result will be announced on December 1st, the voting will definitely be over before that, followed by a series of arrangements.

So Lu Yang might only have one more match left as an opportunity.

That’s what the fans think.

But this kind of thinking... the demands it places on a player are really too high.

He just scored four in the last game.

And now he’s supposed to follow that up with a hat trick?

Seven goals across two games back-to-back, is that even possible?

This time, forget French Football.

Even some neutral papers are stating quite fairly that this is impossible.

Seven goals over two games is not unheard of.

But it’s something you run into by chance, not something you can simply decide to do.

It’s not something Lu Yang can pull off just because he wants to.

That said, these papers are still emotionally very supportive of Lu Yang.

They believe this kind of rule change is downright low.

Why do you get to say how many it has to be and that’s that?

Even if Lu Yang doesn’t score again, with these seventeen league goals, is he really worse than those forwards who made the thirty-man shortlist?

Over the entire year, if you’re looking for players who can beat Lu Yang across the board in stats, honours, and big-game performances, there’s basically no such player.

The number of players actually stronger than him is extremely limited.

Lu Yang’s inclusion in this so-called thirty-man shortlist should never have been up for debate from the start.

European Cup!

UEFA Europa League!

On November 14th, the thirteenth round of the Serie A season kicked off.

San Remo faced mid-table Serie A side Sassuolo.

This team’s style is relatively flamboyant; they’re known as the Little Barcelona of Serie A, the Green Barcelona.

They’re currently twelfth In Serie A, but the point gap to the two teams above isn’t large.

A win here and they’d climb the table.

The broadcast ratings for this match kept soaring, riding the momentum of San Remo’s previous high, and once again topped Serie A.

This was also Sassuolo’s highest rating of the year.

The major bookmakers had already opened lines on whether Lu Yang would get a hat trick in this game.

The odds were downright absurd.

Because... more than sixty percent of the fans actually chose... "Yes!"

Nothing this ridiculous had ever happened before.

Betting on a player to score is understandable; for many players, not scoring is what counts as news.

But betting on a player to definitely get a hat trick, meaning his goals will be three or more?

Are you sure this isn’t a joke?

This kind of thing, in any world, is rare.

The only somewhat comparable case might be... C Luo.

Recently, according to statistics, over thirty percent of fans believed C Luo could produce at least one hat trick over the two legs against Atletico Madrid!

But if you press them on it, even the people who placed those bets would admit that deep down they think it’s highly unlikely, almost impossible.

Yet they still choose to bet on it.

You could see it as C Luo fans’ beautiful wish for C Luo.

But everyone knows such wishes don’t come true.

Right from kickoff, the Green Barcelona immediately showed one thing that wasn’t very Barça-like.

Their defending was extremely physical.

They clearly intended to use that kind of attitude to intimidate San Remo.

We’re not some newly promoted relegation fodder like Brescia.

We’re a seasoned Serie A side.

We refuse to accept a 5–0 scoreline.

We want to win!

In this atmosphere, with less than ten minutes gone, the Main Referee had already blown for five fouls and shown a yellow card to Sassuolo’s midfielder.

For a team not used to iron-blood defending, trying to play iron-blood defense comes with gaps; they can’t be dirty yet "clean" at the same time like Talista.

Dirty refers to dirty challenges.

Clean refers to not easily getting booked.

Even fouling has a technical side to it.

For some fouls, the Main Referee will find them malicious, and even if they don’t cause serious damage, you’ll still be booked.

But for some fouls, if you mind the details, then even if the incident itself is highly controversial, you might escape punishment.

The simplest example: when you slide into someone, whether your knee is bent to absorb force before and during contact will largely determine whether you get a red, a yellow, or nothing.

Some players don’t intend to injure; they’ll ease off after making contact. But if the bend in the knee isn’t obvious enough, it leads the Main Referee to doubt your intentions and imagine a darker motive.

You can’t blame others for that; you can only blame yourself.

Kindness that others can’t perceive doesn’t count as kindness in essence; that’s one of the laws of social interaction.

In the ninth minute, Bai Zhami created danger down the left and, under Talista’s tugging, found a chance to cut inside.

Bang!

Sassuolo’s holding midfielder deliberately fouled him, bringing Bai Zhami down and earning a yellow card.

In no time, Sassuolo already had two yellows.

This free-kick position was pretty good, slightly to the left, giving a right-footer a direct shot opportunity.

And Lu Yang’s biggest innate talent is his balanced use of both feet.

Fifty-fifty feet.

The two "fives" mean different things.

The first five means he uses his weaker foot as often as his stronger foot; both are at the highest usage level, a five.

The second five means the weaker foot’s ability is the same as the stronger foot’s, also a five.