25 System's Award Criteria
Seeing Messi's surprised expression, Xavi and others were also a bit astonished.
Even Messi himself finds it similar?
"How does it feel? Does it resemble your way of playing?" asked the naive Iniesta.
Messi nodded seriously, "It's quite similar, even the dribbling skills are as good as mine!"
This evaluation astonished Xavi, Iniesta, and others. Messi gave such high praise to the other player?
"Which team is he from? He looks familiar..."
"He's Pep Guardiola's protege, a product of our Barcelona's youth training. He was playing in the youth team previously and was loaned to the Bundesliga two months ago. He's currently playing for Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga."
Harvey, the eldest among the group, explained.
Others might not be very familiar with Lin Quan, but as a potential successor prepared by the club, Harvey has been paying more attention to this junior player of the youth team.
"Ours? Why don't I remember such a talented winger in the youth team?"
Messi asked in bewilderment.
His emergence had garnered great attention for many players in the Barcelona youth training camp.
Among them, there were some like Bojan, who had performed extremely well in the youth team but couldn't make it to the senior team.
If the Barcelona youth team indeed had such a talented winger, he should have been famous by now, and Messi shouldn't have been completely clueless.
"He used to play as a defensive midfielder before coming to Werder Bremen, where he switched to playing as a winger."
Harvey explained.
Everyone was speechless. Can someone switch positions like that? Defensive midfielders and wingers are completely different types; how can one switch between them?
Similarly speechless were Barcelona's sporting director Zubizarreta and the coach of the youth team, Enrique.
"Thomas Schaaf actually moved him from a defensive midfielder to a forward winger position?"
On the TV in front of them, they were replaying the friendly match between Werder Bremen and Cottbus.
As Lin Quan came on as a substitute in the second half, they skipped the first half and began watching from the second half.
Upon seeing Lin Quan, the substitute, not taking his place as a defensive midfielder but standing as a winger instead, Enrique was completely stunned.
"This shows Schaaf's vision and management. Just look at it; this kid is playing phenomenally as a forward winger. I have a feeling his market value will skyrocket!"
Zubizarreta had clearly already seen this match, so he fast-forwarded directly to Lin Quan's solo, overcoming the entire opposing defense and then scoring.
"Watch this!"
After watching, Enrique was dumbfounded.
If he had any doubts about Lin Quan playing as a winger before, now he had none. The winger position was tailor-made for him.
Lin Quan was perfectly comfortable in this role, even excelling in it.
This made him start to question himself: Did he really lack the ability to judge people and use them in the wrong positions?
"Coach Enrique, I have to remind you that Lin Quan has less than a year left on his contract with the club, and his buyout clause is only 5 million euros.
If he continues to perform this well in the Bundesliga, the offers to buy him will come flooding in. If he's sought after, then unless the player wants to stay, we won't be able to keep this potential star!"
The market operation and marketing director, Carles, spoke seriously to Enrique and Zubizarreta.
He didn't understand what these two were doing – why hadn't they renewed the contract before sending the club's youth players on loan! Now, the other side has gained recognition and seized the initiative in the contract.
"Don't worry, Manager Carles.
This was just a friendly match. The real competitive level of the Bundesliga is completely different from this level of the friendly match. Lin Quan won't put up such a crazy performance there!"
Enrique was actually quite panicked, but he pretended to be calm.
"Once he experiences setbacks on the Bundesliga stage, unable to perform as well, the media and the public won't be as focused on him. At that time, we can extend an offer to bring him back to Barcelona and renew his contract with the senior team. He will surely choose to return to Barcelona and sign with us!
After all, no one can refuse Barcelona's call!"
This statement was spoken with confidence and conviction, and no one present objected.
In the past few years, Barcelona's achievements were enough to show that they had the ability to win the UEFA Champions League twice since the 2007-08 season and never dropped out of the top four. In La Liga, they even achieved a treble win.
Although they lost the championship last year, it was just a temporary stumble.
With Barcelona's current strength, no one doubted their ability to win the UEFA Champions League again.
With such an impressive track record and the allure of Barcelona, there's no doubt that others are attracted.
Carles was convinced; it was Enrique and Zubizarreta who arranged Lin Quan's loan.
Since these two were not in a hurry, there was no need to rush.
------------
On the day of the match, Lin Quan lay in bed, opening the system with his mind.
As he opened the system's store interface, the points column, which was previously 0, had turned into the number 1.
Due to the change in points, some items in the system store were now open for exchange.
Lin Quan glanced over the items; apart from the energy drink that can last half an hour, which was somewhat attractive to him, the rest were of no use to him.
The energy drink could be exchanged for a point, which was a bit too costly for Lin Quan, who had only acquired a single point.
With the coach not currently indicating a starting position for him, his current physical condition was sufficient for being a substitute, so he didn't need to exchange such items.
Compared to consumables like energy drinks, Lin Quan was more interested in top-tier talents and some luxurious equipment.
For instance, he had his eye on the talent for injury immunity; speed-type players are especially afraid of getting injured. Once injured, their explosiveness and threat levels would significantly decrease. Although Messi isn't a speed-type player, his breakthroughs also require strong explosiveness. If he loses his explosiveness, Messi's breakthrough ability would notably decline, as clearly manifested during his performances before and after his injury in 2013. If he were to acquire this talent, then Lin Quan wouldn't have to worry about injury concerns It would make him less hesitant during breakthroughs and he would dare to challenge for 50-50 balls. However, the price for such top-tier talent is very high; it requires 100 points to exchange it, and Lin Quan currently has only reached one percent of this requirement.
This made Lin Quan feel somewhat disheartened; the gap was too much!
"System, is it the case that only one point can be gained after winning every match?"
If that's the situation, then he would have to win 100 matches. Even if everything, including warm-up matches, cup matches, league matches, etc., were counted, that would still take at least two to three years to possibly exchange for this talent. If the team's performance isn't good, that timeline would have to be further postponed.
[Different level matches reward different points: winning a match in a top-five league rewards 2 points]
[Winning a match at the Champions League level rewards 3 points!]
[Winning a World Cup knockout match rewards 5 points!]
[Also, the leagues, Champions League and World Cup's Golden Boot and top assists have their rewards. Specifically: League Golden Boot rewards 20 points, and top assists rewards 10 points; Champions League Golden Boot rewards 30 points, and top assists rewards 20 points; World Cup Golden Boot rewards 50 points, and top assists rewards 30 points.]
