章 16: First Encounter with De Bruyne
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, a month had gone by.
By the end of June, the date for the team's training camp was drawing near. SV Werder Bremen's new season training camp was scheduled to start on July 3rd. Before this, players would gradually make their way to the team for the gathering.
Naturally, the first to arrive would be Lin himself. After all, he had been training alone at the base for over a month.
During this training period, he had fully adapted to various skills of peak Messi. In the future, using various techniques of Messi would no longer be so unfamiliar to him.
Furthermore, his height had increased by a centimeter, reaching 173cm. His weight had also increased from 65 kilos to 67 kilos.
This increase in height and weight had made his originally slightly slender figure appear somewhat stronger. His body's resistance had also improved, making his ball-handling ability stronger.
Snap! The sound of the football striking the net after tracing a wonderful arc high over the wall and swiftly dropping into the top left corner of the goal.
That day, he arrived at the training ground early, only to find someone had arrived even earlier than him.
This was a young player with a height of around 1.8 meters and golden hair. Unaware of Lin's arrival, the player remained focused on his shooting practice.
Observing from the sidelines, Lin realized the player was practicing free kicks. However, it seemed more like an outlet for frustration than regular practice. The way he kicked the ball gave the impression that he had a personal grudge against it.
Nevertheless, despite using such force to kick the ball, it precisely flew into the goal from a difficult angle.
It had to be admitted, that this lad's ball-handling was extremely outstanding.
Realizing this, Lin had already guessed the person's identity. This person should be the player loaned from Chelsea – Kevin De Bruyne.
Clap! Clap! Lin applauded the lad for his fantastic ball control.
Hearing the applause, De Bruyne paused, turned to look at Lin, and gave him a nod upon noticing they wore the same team jersey as if acknowledging Lin.
After exchanging greetings, De Bruyne resumed his training without any intention of conversing with Lin.
Knowing De Bruyne was reserved and introverted, Lin didn't mind his actions. If De Bruyne had seen Lin and enthusiastically come over to greet him, Lin would have begun to suspect if everything was okay with De Bruyne!
With no intention to disturb De Bruyne's training, Lin retrieved training equipment from the gear room. After selecting a training area and setting up the equipment, he began practicing alone.
After about half an hour of training, Lin felt like someone was watching him. Glancing towards the sidelines, he noticed De Bruyne had stopped training and was observing him practice.
Upon seeing Lin look in his direction, De Bruyne blushed and quickly looked away, feeling somewhat embarrassed as if caught doing something wrong. "Is there something?" Seeing the lad blush, Lin found it somewhat amusing.
Always hearing that De Bruyne was shy, he didn't expect him to blush to such an extent. "Uh, no, nothing at all!" De Bruyne managed to utter the words with great difficulty, appearing visibly embarrassed. Getting him to say five whole words was no easy feat!
Seeing that De Bruyne had nothing further to say, Lin ignored him and continued his training. However, even after starting his training, De Bruyne remained on the sidelines, not leaving.
This made Lin halt his training again and repeat the question: "Sure you're okay?"
De Bruyne couldn't simply say everything was fine, as clearly, he wouldn't be standing there if that were the case. "Hello, I'm Kevin De Bruyne. Nice to meet you. Are you practicing dribbling?"
Lin walked over, shook hands with De Bruyne in a friendly manner, and said, "Hello, I'm Lin. As you can see, I'm indeed practicing techniques for dribbling. How about it, are you interested in joining me for practice?"
De Bruyne played a forward position, which required some dribbling and feinting skills, making it very helpful in dodging defenders and looking for better passing routes.
At 21, De Bruyne's technical abilities weren't as refined and skillful as they would become later. His style of play was free and unbridled, and his technique was a bit rough, which didn't quite fit in with Chelsea's requirements.
As a result, finding no place at Chelsea, he was forced to be loaned out and moved to the Bundesliga for training.
In the Bundesliga, especially for ordinary clubs, marketing strategies weren't as strong, resulting in relatively low club revenues. Although they had top-notch football markets in Europe, they lagged behind the English Premier League and La Liga in terms of commercial development.
In order to control costs, the salaries of lower-tier Bundesliga teams aren't very high, and they are rather conservative in their player transfers.
This provides opportunities for young players to find their own stage here. For De Bruyne, playing in the Bundesliga was definitely better than sitting on the bench at Chelsea.
Having experienced the pain of joining a top club and then being cast aside, De Bruyne was increasingly dissatisfied with his own abilities. He urgently wished to quickly improve himself and prove his ability on the field.
This was so that those morons at Chelsea could see that it wasn't his ability that was lacking, but Chelsea not giving him a chance.
Therefore, faced with Lin's invitation, he gladly accepted it.
Lin didn't know De Bruyne's thoughts. He invited him to train together just to have a training partner, so he could further familiarize himself with Messi's various breakthrough skills in actual competition.
So, the two of them quickly agreed and began to train vigorously.
"Shall I go first or you?" Lin had the ball and smiled at De Bruyne, asking him.
Seeing the ball at Lin's feet, De Bruyne slightly lowered his center of gravity, positioned himself in front of the core area of the penalty arc, and assumed a defensive stance.
De Bruyne's defensive ability wasn't particularly outstanding, but he still knew the basics of defense. However, when defending one-on-one against an attacking player, they were in a passive position, and the attackers had at least two breakthrough options.
As a result, they could only choose to block the most threatening route and force the opponent to go the other way.
De Bruyne chose to block the inside, allowing Lin to have the outside, which was a common choice for most defenders facing a breakthrough on the side.
De Bruyne's idea was to create space for Lin on the outside, but when Lin tried to make a vertical breakthrough, a simple feint, body contact, and disruption of his rhythm and stride made De Bruyne lose the ball.
This strategy was okay, but the problem was, Lin wasn't going to obediently follow his lead.
He moved the ball vertically while observing De Bruyne's foot movements.
De Bruyne's center of gravity had been on his back foot all along, and he had prepared to chase Lin sideways.
Suddenly, Lin tilted forward, as if to move the ball forward, and as De Bruyne perceived the change in his center of gravity, he retreated immediately.
As a result, Lin suddenly pulled the ball to the right side with a simple body movement and successfully bypassed De Bruyne.
De Bruyne stood still, dumbfounded. This skillful maneuver for bypassing him was just too simple, as simple as eating and drinking water.
But the problem was, why did he seem like a wooden stake being bypassed by such a simple move?
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