Chapter 66

The next day, after celebrating the Spring Festival in Chinatown, Jiang Xiaolin returned to Alkmaar to continue training with the youth team.

On Saturday, February 9, the Alkmaar youth team played against the Groningen youth team at home.

This game was played one day earlier than the first-team game.

The Alkmaar first-team's game this weekend is tomorrow night away to challenge Nijmegen.

Alkmaar is more than 100 kilometers away from Nijmegen, and it is still in time to set off tomorrow morning, without having to go a day in advance.

Therefore, without anyone in the youth team knowing, the first-team coach Van Gaal appeared in the corner of the U19 training ground stands wearing a big down jacket, a thick scarf, a hat, and sunglasses.

Whether it was coaches such as Crofts, players such as Jiang Xiaolin, or fans in the stands, no one recognized that this was Van Gaal.

Van Gaal came to secretly inspect Jiang Xiaolin.

The five consecutive defeats of the first team after the winter break did put Van Gaal under considerable pressure.

Although he proposed to resign after the poor performance in the first half of the season, his resignation was not approved and he was retained by the club and the players.

Since he decided to stay, Van Gaal must play well in the second half of the season, or even the next season, and he does not want to resign in disgrace because of poor performance.

His coaching contract at Alkmaar was signed until the summer of 2009.

But in the last five games, the team only scored 2 goals in total. In the Dutch football world that advocates offense, this offensive power is really hard to compliment, and it is no wonder that there are five consecutive defeats.

Van Gaal can't wait until the next season, he hopes to add new players to the front line immediately.

But now is not the transfer period, and new players cannot be introduced from outside, so they can only transfer people from the youth team.

Coincidentally, the youth team also has a goal-scoring Jiang Xiaolin waiting for his call.

Jiang Xiaolin's performance in the youth team really made Van Gaal's heart beat.

However, Jiang Xiaolin had never played in a professional league before, nor had he undergone formal youth training, and many of his skills were relatively crude.

Although Crofts said that Jiang Xiaolin had improved a lot compared to the trial, Van Gaal still needed to come to the scene to confirm.

Jiang Xiaolin was 16 years old, and it was indeed difficult for people to be completely reassured. Van Gaal had to see it with his own eyes.

Anyway, the first-team away game would not start until tomorrow morning, and Van Gaal didn't mind spending a few hours today to see Jiang Xiaolin's performance.

However, in order not to affect the players' performance and to understand Jiang Xiaolin's true strength, Van Gaal disguised himself and wanted to hide his identity and secretly observe Jiang Xiaolin's performance.

It was winter, and it was natural for Van Gaal to wear a coat, a scarf and a hat. The fans around him and the coaches of the youth team players on the field did not expect that this person would be the head coach of the first team.

But what Van Gaal didn't know was that Jiang Xiaolin had a system plug-in.

His appearance was no secret in front of the system.

Before the game started, Jiang Xiaolin suddenly received a new task issued by the system:

Task 5: Transfer to Alkmaar's first team

Task requirements: Help Alkmaar's youth team win this game and conquer the first team coach Van Gaal, and be allowed to transfer to Alkmaar's first team

Reward: 2000 experience points + fried meatballs (special skill)

After receiving this task, Jiang Xiaolin knew that Van Gaal must be at the scene.

Although he didn't see where he was, Jiang Xiaolin firmly believed that the system would never lie to him, and Van Gaal must be in the stands.

So, before the game started, Jiang Xiaolin, who was supposed to add only one attribute value to each skill, took the risk of increasing the attribute value of dribbling from 12 points to 14 points, basically reaching the level of ordinary professional players.

The other bounce, stop, and short pass only added 1 point, the bounce reached 19, the stop reached 16, and the short pass reached 15, and the attribute point balance was 40.

The 16-point stop attribute is already pretty good.

Except for long-distance aerial passes that may not be stopped well, general ground passes will never stop two or three meters away.

In this way, Jiang Xiaolin does not have to pursue shooting without stopping the ball. Instead, he can stop the ball to create an angle when the opponent blocks the shooting route, and then kick the ball.

The chance of scoring a goal is higher than simply shooting without stopping the ball.

If you only know how to shoot without stopping the ball, just like in the last game, the opponent will guess Jiang Xiaolin's next move, and it will be much easier to defend.

Everything is ready. At 14:00 on February 9, with the referee's whistle, the Alkmaar Youth Team's mainThe Dutch Youth League against Groningen Youth Team officially started.

The game was kicked off by Alkmaar. Jiang Xiaolin and Kagel rushed but failed, so they could only pass the ball back to Lanlot, slowly organize the attack and move forward.

Now Alkmaar's opponents are mentally prepared. It is basically impossible to sneak in and score a lightning goal like the game against Ajax.

Alkmaar can only slowly organize the attack.

In the process of the team slowly organizing the attack, Jiang Xiaolin is not a complete outsider.

Jiang Xiaolin's recent progress has been seen by his teammates. They know that Jiang Xiaolin's skills such as stopping the ball, dribbling, and short passes have improved a lot. Jiang Xiaolin is fully capable of ordinary passing and receiving tasks.

Moreover, Jiang Xiaolin's full-value off-ball running allows him to instinctively find the opponent's gap even in his usual running position, putting himself in a position with relatively less defensive pressure, and also giving his teammates a good point to pass the ball.

Therefore, even though Jiang Xiaolin's ball-stopping, dribbling and passing skills have not yet reached the level of mastery, because he often runs to an unguarded empty position to receive the ball, the defensive pressure is relatively small, and he can receive the ball, adjust, and pass the ball more calmly.

So, Van Gaal found that in the first few minutes of the game, Jiang Xiaolin rarely made a lot of mistakes when coordinating with his teammates in passing, cutting and running, as he did when he first came for the trial.

This shocked him.

As a professional football coach, Van Gaal knows how difficult and slow it is for professional players to improve their skills.

If everyone really improves as fast as Jiang Xiaolin, there won't be so many people who can't play in the professional league for their entire lives, or if they do play in the professional league, they can only hang around in the low-level league for their entire lives.

Is it true that Jiang Xiaolin's football talent obtained by genetic atavism is much higher than that of ordinary people, as Alfred said, and it has not been fully discovered even now?

So, after joining the Alkmaar youth team and starting professional training, he seemed to improve rapidly?

Van Gaal could only think of this one explanation for Jiang Xiaolin's incredible technical progress within a month.