Chapter 18
Mourinho and his team arrived on time in the afternoon.
It's not that he hasn't visited the youth team in the past few years since he came to Chelsea as coach. To be honest, before Abramovich handed over the youth training rights to Arnesen, he visited the youth team quite frequently.
However, he had been to the youth team before and after this, and several times he had come to take a look because he had heard that there were good seedlings - there was nothing wrong with this, but it was really never as strange as it was now.
Yes, strange.
As a qualified coach, even if he didn't intend to take Zhou Liran away, he didn't want to reveal his purpose directly: for example, when he came to the youth team, he was going to say that he wanted to see the striker Coker, who had performed well recently and was ranked in the top five in the English Youth Cup scorer list.
Rumor has it that Mourinho came to see Zhou Liran, but he did the opposite. He could see how Zhou Liran performed in this situation where hope was dashed. If he performed very well, then next time when the first and second goalkeepers were unable to play, he would directly promote Zhou Liran.
This was his original plan, but when he arrived at the youth team, he discovered that the youth team players who were supposed to be training were not training, but were staying on the court waiting for him to come - were they really sure that he came here for Zhou Liran? Aren’t the other players jealous and dissatisfied with the competition?
"Mr. Mourinho," Ben Valen immediately came forward to explain when Mourinho and his assistant coach came over, "Because the goalkeeper's true ability cannot be fully demonstrated in the training match, we are going to let Ritter show his ability in training."
Mourinho said with a wooden face, "Ritter? How can you be sure that I came here to see him?"
"You're not here to see Ritter?" Ben Valen asked in a surprised tone, "So you're just here to take a look around?"
Ben Warren's surprised tone and expression were so exaggerated that Mourinho was embarrassed to say that he wanted to find out whether Zhou Liran was a good seedling by watching Coker.
Mourinho said nothing more, and Ben Valencia pretended not to hear what he had just said. He turned around and stood on the sidelines with a whistle in his hand, indicating that training would begin now.
1V10, Zhou Liran is the one standing in front of the goal, and other players including defenders are holding the ball and standing in different directions, positions and angles to shoot. The force and arc are different, so the time it takes for the ball to arrive in front of the goal is naturally different.
At the beginning, head coach Ben Valen stood by and used a whistle to control the shooting frequency. Every time the whistle blew, it was a shot. Zhou Liran easily held the ball in his arms - this was the warm-up stage.
After ten minutes, Ben Valencia stopped blowing the whistle and let the player who was shooting control the timing of the shot himself. So it would happen that Zhou Liran had just held the football in his arms and the next football would have flown to his left hand side. At this time, Zhou Liran would enjoy the football's pampering and be hit in the face by the football.
Although he was hit in the face, Zhou Liran was still able to catch every football steadily at this stage.
Ben Valen couldn't help but turn his head to look at Mourinho who was already standing next to him, his eyebrows raised, and his tone was full of lightness, "How is it, great, right?"
"You didn't have the players train this afternoon, and you were waiting for me to come?"
"Yes," Ben Valen nodded gently, "But I didn't force them to do that. They are all very willing to help Ritter. If you had come earlier, you would have seen them giving Ritter a massage."
"He's the captain?"
"Ritter didn't want to be the captain. When he became the starting goalkeeper, I asked him if he was willing to be the captain, but he said he couldn't take on the responsibility of captain yet and refused." Ben Watt explained, "Now our youth team doesn't have an official captain, but everyone privately regards Ritter as the captain, but they just don't call him captain."
Mourinho didn't quite understand the strangeness of this, but he could hear the strong pride in Ben Valencia's words: What is he proud of? Because he's not the captain?
The exclusive training on the field continued. The huge consumption of physical strength and the increasingly irregular shooting timing made Zhou Liran gradually unable to be a goalkeeper who could hold the football in his arms with ease. He began to be hit by the football in the face, chin, or somewhere else - very embarrassing, but all the footballs were finally held in his arms.
Mourinho also went from being careless at first to being fully focused in the end, and finally every time the football hit his face, Mourinho's face would twitch. It's not that he felt the pain, but it hurt just looking at it - no wonder this guy's nickname is the Iron-faced Superman, even with the frequency and strength of being hit in the face, he can still hold the football steadily in his arms, which is really... incredible.
This exclusive training ended when Zhou Liran failed to get up and save the third ball after saving two balls in a row. The football whizzed into the goal from Zhou Liran's left hand. Zhou Liran stretched out his left hand in vain, closed his eyes, and lay on the grass.
Finally, it’s over… I really want to just lie there like this forever…
"Endrit Carter?"
Zhou Liran was stunned for a moment. When he opened his eyes and saw that extremely familiar yet relatively unfamiliar face, he immediately jumped up from the lawn, his tone slightly rippling, "Mr. Mourinho!"
Mourinho smiled and stretched out his hand to Zhou Liran, ready to pull him up. When Zhou Liran stretched out his hand to hold his hand, Mourinho said, "You should call me coach now."
Zhou Liran felt a little dizzy after being pulled up, "Huh?"
"Come with me and be the goalkeeper for the home team," Mourinho patted Zhou Liran on the shoulder. "How is it? Do you have the confidence to keep a clean sheet in the Premier League?"
Zhou Liran nodded vigorously.
"We will go sign the new contract first, and then report to the team tomorrow morning. Is there any problem?"
Zhou Liran shook his head.
"Okay then," Mourinho patted Zhou Liran's shoulder again, "come early tomorrow."
…
"Sir, didn't you say you were just here to see the forward Coker and Endrit?"
"Ritter," Mourinho corrected his assistant seriously, "Didn't you hear what the coach called him? He will be a member of our Chelsea from now on, and you should call him Ritter. Prepare a few more jerseys to see which number he will wear tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
…
"Bonus for saving a ball?" Mourinho flipped through the contract at hand. "What is this? Your youth team signed this kind of contract with him? Cech didn't even get... 200 pounds?"
Mourinho tapped the table with his index finger a few times. "How about this, let Ritter try in the next game. If he can really keep the opponent scoreless, then the contract can be signed."
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