Chapter 13: The Crucible of Greatness
"A real man should aspire to this."
Alvalade Stadium stood like a monument to football's past and future.
The weight of history wasn't just metaphorical—it pulsed through the stands, embedded in every concrete slab, every rusting bolt, every echo of victory. Tonight, the pitch would host not only a match, but a reckoning.
On one side: Sporting CP, led by their meticulous Romanian manager, Laszlo Bölöni. His selections unfolded like chess pieces moved with frigid discipline.
Formation: 4-2-3-1—the tactical trend of the time.
Center forward: Niculae, not Jardel—a calculated risk that reeked of internal politics more than logic.
Across the technical area, Porto's Machado scoffed at caution. He fielded a 4-3-3 trident with no pretenses of subtlety. Pena, Postiga, Capucho—a strike force that announced their intentions in boldface.
Su Dong watched it all from the stands, and reality hit him harder than any tackle ever could.
Television had lied.
On a screen, football was edited, narrated, slowed down for comprehension. From the stands, it was chaos in HD. Pure, unfiltered velocity.
Quaresma's stepovers blurred, leaving afterimages like comet trails.
Jardel's warm-up volleys struck the boards with the force of cannon fire.
And the roar of 50,000 fans wasn't sound—it was a living beast, breathing down his neck, rattling the fillings in his teeth.
This wasn't a sport. This was something bigger.
22nd Minute: The Prodigy Arrives
A shriek of pain. Ricardo Sá Pinto crumpled to the ground, clutching his leg.
The stadium gasped. Another casualty in the brutal theater of Portuguese football.
The fourth official raised his board.
🔴 20 IN | 10 OUT 🔴
Su Dong's breath caught in his throat.
That number 20… it had once belonged to Rony in the academy.
Now, it adorned Ricardo Quaresma—Sporting's prized prodigy—as he stepped onto the pitch for his first senior appearance.
The stadium didn't murmur. It roared.
Quaresma's first touch? A Cruyff turn so sudden, Porto's left-back tripped over his own pride.
By the fifth minute, the boy wonder unleashed a trivela cross with the outside of his boot, the ball bending and dipping in defiance of physics before kissing the post.
By halftime:
5 fouls drawn
Costinha sent off—second yellow, thanks to Quaresma's devilish footwork
Postiga's spotlight stolen before it could warm his face
From the upper stands, Su Dong's notebook filled with frantic scribbles.
"Quaresma checks shoulder twice before every ball. First time for pressure. Second time for options. Genius isn't magic—it's scanning data faster than anyone else."
60th Minute: The Return of the King
The gamble had failed.
Niculae, the €5 million Romanian forward, trudged off the field like a toppled statue—stiff, cold, and forgotten.
In his place, the stadium welcomed its exiled monarch:
Mario Jardel.
The earth seemed to shake as 52,000 voices erupted in unison.
"JA-RDEL! JA-RDEL!"
His legend was not mere folklore. In his previous stint with Sporting, he'd scored 168 goals in 173 games—numbers that broke calculators and logic alike.
Nine minutes later, he reminded everyone why:
João Pinto delivered a diagonal through-ball with surgical precision.
Jardel, a mountain in motion, bulldozed Andrade, Portugal's most hyped young center-back.
One touch. Boom.
The net exploded, billowing like the sail of a warship catching wind.
The stadium didn't cheer. It worshipped.
Up in the stands, Su Dong stood motionless.
This was no longer a football match. This was alchemy.
Men turned into gods for ninety minutes. And Jardel? He didn't borrow divinity. He wore it like a second skin.
"A real man should aspire to this..." Su Dong whispered, echoing the ancient words of Liu Bang as he watched Emperor Qin's golden procession.
His heart pounded. Not from awe. From resolve.
Three Men, Three Paths
Quaresma, radiant in post-match interviews, smiled for the flashbulbs as journalists anointed him the next Luís Figo.
Rony, silent, stalked toward the metro with the weight of bitter irony on his shoulders. That number 20 had once been his. Now it danced in the spotlight without him.
Su Dong, ankle weights strapped tight, was already running Lisbon's cobblestone alleys by 4 AM. No cameras. No applause. Only the ghost of Jardel ahead of him, taunting him with every step.
The Grind Resumes
Back in his dorm, Su Dong didn't sleep.
His "simple routine" no longer felt like training—it was penance and promise rolled into one.
Push-up #37: Jardel's shrug that discarded Andrade like a toddler.
Squat #42: Quaresma's outside-foot whip.
Inverted hold: Sixty seconds staring at the ceiling, imagining the lights of Alvalade burning down on him.
Then came the familiar ping.
[System Alert]
[Strength: 41 → 43]
[Finishing: 47 → 49]
Not much. But it meant something.
It meant progress. Measured in sweat and quiet suffering.
Measured in pixels today, dreams tomorrow.