“Alright, alright!”

Davis said angrily, "A bunch of idiots! Your IQ is equivalent to idiocy in front of Gu Ran! How could Gu Ran, who doesn't even go to the bar, have an illegitimate child? Don't listen to the tabloid media's nonsense! Since joining our club, Gu Ran's progress is obvious to all. Gu Ran must have spent all his time on training! I believe Gu Ran is very pure! I'm afraid he has never even had a woman!"

Lallana also nodded and said: "Yes, I agree with the captain."

Lambert also stood up to support, "I also believe in the captain. Gu Ran is very hardworking. We should not use our own ideas to guess Gu Ran."

Damn, now that you guys mention that, I feel a little embarrassed.

Gu Ran quickly cleared his throat and said, "Actually, I... ahem, yes, that's what happened."

Captain Davis put his arm around his shoulders and said with concern: "Gu, I'm sure you must have been suffering a lot during this period of time, right?"

Gu Ran immediately recalled the scene of discussing well-drilling techniques with Oscar the Water Queen...

“…It’s not bad.”

I was not in a good mood during this period, but the process of pure technical exchange was quite enjoyable.

Schneiderlin said with emotion: "Gu, you are really strong inside. If I had been rejected by the national team, I would have been devastated a long time ago."

"Why do you mention that?" Walton put his arm around Gu Ran's shoulders. "Anyway, Gu, it's good that you're back! To be honest, we have thoroughly felt the difference between having you and not having you. Southampton has had a hard time without you - especially the back line, which is really horrible!"

Chamberlain came over and said, "Gu, I have been thinking a lot recently, and I have been studying your game highlights every day. I think I have learned a lot from your highlights, and I have a new understanding of the left-wing breakthrough. Now that I am released from the ban, in the next game, the two of us will join forces to dominate the left wing together!"

Gu Ran smiled and said, "No need, I can rule alone."

Chamberlain: ...

If someone else said this, it would definitely be considered arrogant.

But when it came out of Gu Ran's mouth, it immediately received cheers and applause from almost all his teammates!

The depressed mood caused by the last defeat was swept away in an instant!

Walton put his arm around Gu Ran's shoulders. "By the way, Gu, there is something I want to tell you. September 1st, the day I am on holiday, happens to be my birthday. I plan to hold a birthday party at home. You are Southampton's top star. I don't care if other people come or not. You must give me face and come to my birthday party! When the time comes, I will ask Gregory to help me find some high-end party girls, and we will have a great time together!"

Holy shit…

Last I heard you found three and only paid for two...

Gu Ran quickly cleared his throat and said, "Deputy Captain, you know me. I don't really like the atmosphere of a party."

Walton said, "Just think of it as giving me face! Moreover, for this party, I will not only invite our teammates, but also an internationally renowned star to party with us! This star is a household name in England! It is difficult to see him normally! Just think of it as meeting a star!"

What the hell?

A household name in England? Isn't this a good opportunity to use "brute force"?

Gu Ran immediately became interested, "Who is this star player you are talking about?"

Walton deliberately kept the secret, "Did you say you were coming first?"

Gu Ran hesitated for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll go. Mainly to celebrate your birthday."

When the other teammates heard that Gu Ran was going to attend Walton's birthday party, they cheered excitedly.

Walton smiled happily and said, "Great, let's keep it a suspense, you will know when the time comes."

Damn it! Walton, why don't you learn something else? Learn from those dishonest guys to leave hooks! Just when Gu Ran wanted to complain about Walton, Coach Adkins came to the training ground with the coaching staff.

Coach Adkins' eyes lit up, "Gu, you're back?"

"Yes, coach! I've rested and I want to get back to training as soon as possible."

"Great, I'm glad to see you're so energetic." Coach Adkins gave Gu Ran a big hug. "Welcome back! Let's start training!"

"Yes, Coach!"

Gu Ran immediately changed into training clothes and started training with his teammates.

The upcoming knockout rounds are very important and difficult to play, so Gu Ran and his teammates are training very seriously.

Tuesday, August 24th.

The second round of the English League Cup, the match day for Southampton to face Cardiff City at home has arrived.

Early in the morning, Southampton players drove directly to St. Mary's Stadium to gather for pre-match training.

——During the past two days, Gu Ran obtained 1 new talent point through training, and also increased "Enhanced Reasonable Collision" to +3, "Enhanced Positioning Defense" to +5, and "Two-on-One Coordination" to +6.

After upgrading to A rating, Gu Ran also felt a sense of satisfaction as if he had finally broken through the bottleneck.

Moreover, after a long vacation, he can finally start the game again today! Stepping on the grass of St. Mary's Stadium, Gu Ran felt very comfortable all over.

After the morning training, Southampton players rested in the home team locker room.

Coach Adkins took advantage of this time to play the game video of Cardiff City for the players and analyzed Cardiff's tactics and key players one by one.

At 5 pm, fans who had just got off work poured into St. Mary's Stadium like a tide.

Southampton fans were somewhat unhappy with the big loss in the previous match against Peterborough United, but when they learned that Gu Ran's rest had ended and he would start in this game, their dissatisfaction was largely reduced.

Every Southampton fan is looking forward to Gu Ran leading Southampton to eliminate the powerful Cardiff City team.

Cardiff and Southampton are neighbors, and the residents of the two cities are relatively friendly to each other and there is no grudge between them.

After all, most of the time, Southampton and Cardiff are not in the same league.

Southampton has been in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League for most of the time, while Cardiff City has been in the middle and upper reaches of the Championship for most of the time.

The current Cardiff City is still in the Championship, while Southampton has dropped to League One.

Speaking of which, Cardiff City Club is also quite special. They are one of the three Welsh teams participating in the English league.

The other two are Swansea City and Wrexham City.

Cardiff City's arch-rival is Swansea City, which is also a Welsh team.

Cardiff City has been in very good form recently and is currently ranked first in the Championship. If they maintain this competitive form, they have a good chance of being promoted to the Premier League.

In today's League Cup match, the fan attendance reached a historic 100%.

In addition to the packed Southampton stands, the away team's stands were also packed with Cardiff fans.

This is not because of the influence of the League Cup, nor because Cardiff City and Southampton are close enough to make it convenient to watch the game.

The main reason is that Gu Ran is also quite famous in Cardiff.

Black-haired Bell, that’s not called that for nothing.

Many Cardiff fans have witnessed Gu Ran’s abilities in high school competitions, and in today’s game, they also want to see with their own eyes how Gu Ran performs in a professional competition.

Major news media also occupied advantageous positions early on, and Southampton's senior executives also arrived to watch the game.

The scouting area was even more lively, with Chelsea's Emenalo, Liverpool's Edwards and Manchester City's Pratt, the three big guys sitting together again.

——Seeing that the summer transfer window is about to close, all the major clubs are holding back, trying to poach Gu Ran within the last week.

For today's match, the pre-match odds given by the famous bookmaker William Hill are: home win 3.88, draw 3.36, loss 1.92.

Judging from the handicap odds, William Hill is not optimistic that Southampton can eliminate the Championship leader Cardiff City at home.

After all, Southampton had just lost the top spot in English Football League One by a large margin, while Cardiff City was in good form, having won three consecutive Championship games and a League Cup victory, which meant they were already on a four-game winning streak.

At 7 pm, the referee team entered the venue to inspect the competition venue.

Immediately afterwards, the away team Cardiff City took the lead in entering the field for an adaptive warm-up.

In today's game, Cardiff City players wore black away jerseys, while Cardiff fans in the away stands wore blue cheering jerseys.

There seems to be a bit of a misalignment between the players and the fans.

In fact, Cardiff City's main jersey is blue, which does not conflict with Southampton's red and white jersey.

But this season, Cardiff City's main jersey has changed to red, which conflicts with Southampton, so Cardiff City can only wear a black away jersey in this game.

Cardiff City fans did not like the change.

However, in May this year, Cardiff City Club changed hands. Malaysian businessman Zeng Changyi took over as the club's chairman, and billionaire Tan Chi-yuan provided funding behind the scenes. The first thing the Chinese businessman did after taking over was to change the blue color that symbolizes Cardiff's background to red, and the team's nickname was also changed from Blue Birds to Red Dragons - the reason was that the boss spent several million to ask a master to calculate, and this would help the club advance to the Premier League.

Although this is unscientific, Cardiff City has indeed won four consecutive games since changing its team logo, and seems unstoppable.

Of course, Cardiff fans didn't buy it. They still wore blue cheering uniforms to cheer for Cardiff City.

When all the Cardiff players came on the field, the Southampton players also began to enter the field.

Gu Ran followed his teammates and jogged into the court.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

"Gu Ran! I love you!"

"Gu Ran! Gu Ran! Gu Ran!"

More than 26,000 Southampton fans at the scene cheered wildly.

Gu Ran applauded and thanked the fans again and again, then concentrated on the warm-up training.

After half an hour of warm-up training, players from both sides left the field in a friendly atmosphere and returned to their respective locker rooms for final preparations.

At 7:40, players from both teams lined up in the tunnel, ready to officially take the field.

Ran Live received the live signal, and the live broadcast room was immediately filled with comments, and the number of people in the live broadcast room instantly exceeded 200,000! Under the guidance of the referee, the players from both sides officially entered the field and lined up to shake hands.

Southampton captain Davis and Cardiff City captain and right-back Paul Quinn came to the referee to choose sides.

Paul Quinn guessed wrong and was awarded the priority to kick off, while Davies won the right to pick the side for Southampton.

Davis chose the south side as his own half without hesitation. Behind the goal was the crazy Saints' Stand and St. Mary's Church Stand, which was more advantageous for Southampton to establish an advantage in the first half.

The captains of both teams shook hands in a friendly manner, exchanged team flags, and the players of both teams took photos in their respective half of the field, and then formed their formations.

Southampton's formation is still the usual 442 formation, and the tactic is defensive counterattack.

The two forwards are Gully and Lallana.

The left midfielder is Chamberlain, whose suspension has ended, and the right midfielder is Schneiderlin.

The two midfielders are Lambert and Hammond.

The left back is Gu Ran and the right back is Richardson.

The two central defenders are vice-captain Walton and Jaidi.

The goalkeeper is still captain Davis.

It can be said that Southampton has completed the tactical rotation, and all the main players are in place for today's knockout match.

Cardiff City also deployed a 442 formation.

According to military intelligence before the game, Cardiff City's tactics were short pass penetration and joint defense in the backcourt, and their mentality during the game was very cautious.

It must be mentioned that Cardiff's head coach is Dave Jones.

This head coach is not well-known internationally, but in Southampton, he is definitely a household name.

Simply put, Dave Jones was once the head coach of Southampton and he has coached Southampton twice.

Dave Jones was born in Everton. During his playing career, he played for Hong Kong Seiko and helped the team win five consecutive championships.

After returning to his country, Dave Jones played for a small team in his hometown for two years as an assistant coach and player, and then officially retired and began coaching Stoke City.

In 1997, Dave Jones became the head coach of the Premier League team Southampton. He not only helped Southampton avoid relegation, but also helped them reach the middle of the standings.

Until 2000, Dave Jones was the head coach of Southampton and his position was extremely stable.

However, Dave Jones was fired from his head coaching contract because he was accused of child abuse outside the stadium.

After fighting a lawsuit for several years to clear his suspicion, Dave Jones returned to coach Southampton in 2004, but the main team he personally built had long since changed. Dave Jones led the team to 4 wins in 15 games, one of which was a 6-0 defeat by the opponent. He was eventually fired by Southampton club again.

After that, Dave Jones became the head coach of Cardiff City until now.

It’s been five years… Dave Jones was the head coach of the Premier League back then, but now he has fallen to the level of a Championship head coach.

But Southampton is even worse off. Five years ago, it was a Premier League team, but now it is a League One team.

It is difficult to say what kind of mentality Dave Jones will have when facing the Southampton team and Southampton fans, but in order to prove himself, Dave Jones will definitely go all out this time.

Dave Jones is absolutely familiar with Southampton's traditional style.

This is also a side that the Southampton team is very wary of.

Cardiff City's two forwards are No. 39 star Craig Bellamy and No. 8 Indian mixed-race shooter Michael Chopra.

Craig Bellamy is definitely the most famous star player in this game.

In terms of playing ability, Bellamy can definitely meet the standards of a Champions League-level striker/left winger. He is extremely fast, runs very actively, and has abundant physical strength. Although he is only 173 cm tall, he has very strong confrontation ability on the field.

Bellamy came from Norwich's youth training, became famous in Newcastle United, and flourished in Liverpool during the Benítez era. At his peak, he transferred to Manchester City for a total of 20 million pounds for 14 million pounds plus a 6 million performance incentive clause.

In 2010, he was loaned to Cardiff City from Manchester City and became Cardiff City's number one star.

——Manchester City was also generous, spending 20 million pounds to loan a super shooter to Cardiff City.

Of course, Manchester City's forward line is not short of people. Coach Mancini already has Tesso, Balotelli, Adebayor, Jo, and Belvado Silva. Even Santa Cruz has been loaned to Blackburn, so it is not surprising that Bellamy has been loaned to Cardiff City.

Bellamy, now 31 years old, has been selected for the Welsh national team 62 times and scored 17 goals.

His playing style is very obvious. Not only is he fast and has strong impact, he also likes to yell at the referee.

Bellamy is not tall, but his nickname is "Rice", which comes from his flamboyant personality and the fact that he often shows off his height while taking a shower in the locker room - it's a pity that he has never been teammates with Giroud.

Bellamy's nickname is "The Golfer".

Of course, the nickname did not come from the fact that Welsh players all like to play golf, but because before Liverpool's Champions League away game against Barcelona, ​​captain Gerrard organized his teammates to celebrate the victory in advance in a bar in Barcelona. Bellamy was drunk and insisted that his teammate Riise sing a song like "Where Does the Road Lead to" for him. Riise sternly refused and left the bar early to return to the hotel to rest. As a result, Riise was sleeping, so Bellamy and two teammates kicked open the door of the hotel room and hit Riise's butt with the golf club in their hands.

This incident caused such a sensation at the time that the whole of Barcelona was laughing at Liverpool.

Liverpool club also fined Bellamy 80,000 pounds, but did not ban Bellamy from the team. After all, Liverpool was about to play in the Champions League against Barcelona, ​​led by Rijkaard and featuring Ronaldinho and Messi.

In that game, Bellamy scored the equalizer, and when celebrating in the corner flag area, Bellamy also arrogantly made a swing celebration gesture.

Hence the nickname of the golfer.

Bellamy's bad boy character can also be seen from this.

In an interview with a media program many years later, the victim John Riise described with emotion the scene of being abused by Bellamy with a golf ball that night: [… Finnan was standing at the door watching, maybe he came to stop Bellamy, but the situation was too bad, and he was short and thin, so it was redundant to help anyone. I could have knocked Bellamy down with one punch, but I knew that if I really took action, my career at Liverpool would be over. So I chose to dodge and call the police…] [Two days later, at the Camp Nou, Deco's header made more than 90,000 fans cheer. The powerful Barcelona put us under high pressure. We felt that everything would collapse. Rijkaard had formed a team that made people tremble. He not only had the best player in the world, Ronaldinho, but also a talented young genius Messi.] [Two minutes before the end of the first half, Bellamy equalized the score. He ran to the corner flag to celebrate. He stopped there and made a waving gesture with his arms, as if he was holding a golf club in his hands. I thought Bellamy was so fucking rude at first, but then I realized that his swing celebration was actually to show me his sincerity in apologizing...] [In the second half, Kuyt's shot was blocked by Valdés. Bellamy didn't shoot after grabbing the first point in the penalty area. Instead, he saw me in an empty goal position. He decisively passed the ball to me. Even though my butt was still hurting, I still scored the ball into the net. Bellamy ran towards me and jumped on me to celebrate. We were ecstatic and completely reconciled - yes, this is Bellamy, this is me, and this is the charm of football.] My great Liverpool, they are all fucking talented! ——When Gu Ran thought of these things, he couldn't help but smile and glanced at Bellamy.

Bellamy, on the other hand, looked arrogant and stepped on the football, completely ignoring Gu Ran's gaze.

Gu Ran's mind moved: Isn't this a good opportunity to "take it by force"?

Although it takes 3 pickup progress to force it, it is definitely worth it to force a practical star-level skill! Among Bellamy's star skills, there must be one related to speed, and it is related to violent aesthetic sprint.

Charge and bump: violent charge? That's it! Gu Ran immediately focused his mind and took Bellamy by force.

Bellamy, who was waiting for the kick-off, trembled slightly, as if something happened, but also as if nothing happened.

A purple arc of light that only Gu Ran could see flew out from Bellamy's body and landed directly on Gu Ran's forehead.

Gu Ran felt a warm sensation in his forehead, and then he felt refreshed! Gu Ran also had a new understanding of strength and sprint speed.

Rush and bump: Violent sprint +4! So cool! Taking by force is much more fun than picking up! Picking up depends on luck, but taking by force doesn't need luck at all! Unfortunately, taking by force can only be used once a day.

But it's worth it.

It’s all free anyway!

There are 7 pickups left for today.

…

(End of this chapter)