"Ah!" Neil slowly sat up from the bed in the hotel.
After Neil opened his eyes, he thought of yesterday's game and couldn't help but smile. Although this game was not Neil's first win as coach of the Indian National Youth Team, it was Neil's first victory in a formal game as coach of the Indian National Youth Team.
Neil once again recalled the scenes of yesterday. After getting up early and washing up simply, he started his morning run.
After his morning run, Neil returned to the hotel, took a shower, lay on the bed in his room, took out his mobile phone and read the sports news.
Neil also knew that the Evolution Cup did not attract much attention, but Neil was still curious about the outside media's evaluation of this game.
But what was beyond Neil's expectation was that there was much more news about this game than Neil had imagined. Of course, Neil, the head coach, was not the protagonist, but the players who performed brilliantly yesterday.
"The biggest discovery of this Evolution Cup—Anirudh Thapa!"
"India's Yaya Touré—Anirudh Thapa!"
"Anirudh Thapa is the omnipotent one!"
. . . . . .
Thapa is undoubtedly the most watched one. His performance yesterday was absolutely perfect. The domestic media praised him highly, as if he was the future star of Indian football.
Although there are no Indian Super League games in June, after the games, a reporter interviewed Chennaiyin FC's current head coach Marco Materazzi, and talked about Anirudh Thapa.
"Coach Marco Materazzi, do you know the player Anirudh Thapa?" he asked. After all, Thapa is currently playing for Chennaiyin FC's U17 team, and Materazzi may not know Thapa.
Materazzi looked at the translator, and then the translator translated the question to him. After hearing it, he smiled and answered.
"Ah! Of course I know him. He is one of the players that Chennaiyin FC focuses on training." Materazzi replied.
"In the first match of the Evolution Cup, Thapa performed very well..." The reporter had not finished asking the question.
"I watched this game, and he was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding players. His abundant physical strength made him present on both the offensive and defensive ends." Materazzi began to narrate before the reporter finished asking.
"I and the coaching staff have reviewed him and we all agree that he already has the quality to play for the first team, so we plan to promote him to the first team in the season ahead of us for the Indian Super League."
When the reporters at the scene heard Materazzi's answer, they were shocked. They did not expect that Chennaiyin FC would attach so much importance to Thapa. You know, Thapa is only 17 years old.
Moreover, Chennaiyin FC is not a weak team. It is not common to be promoted to there first team. You should know that the youngest player in there first team is Akash Madhwal, who was born in 1993, which means that Thapa has jumped 4 years.
Materazzi is Chennaiyin FC's first Italian head coach. He is also a head coach who advocates offense + defense . Players like Thapa are what Materazzi wants most.
Although Chennaiyin FC currently has Augusto and Blasi in the midfield, Thapa can definitely be included in the rotation. Thapa is definitely a player worth training.
Neil looked at the news about Thapa and was happy for him from the bottom of his heart. Moreover, Thapa is now also a player of Neil and his brother Harshad's agency.
Thapa was not the only player reported. Gomez, who scored twice, was also reported by many media.
"The beast-like striker—Kevin Gomez!"
"India's top forward Gomez scored twice to shock everyone in the Evolution Cup!"
However, compared with Gomez, who received a lot of praise, Gomez received a lot of negative comments.
One netizen posted online: "A striker like Gomez is actually the best striker of the younger generation in India. This is really a regression for Indian football."
The reason why some people don't like Gomez is that he has too few tricks and can only rely on his body and headers.
Some netizens also said that Gomez is a bully who will definitely lose heart if he meets a strong team.
It's not just the online insults, there are even other malicious voices.
"A retired former international player blasted that Gomez should have changed his age."
It turns out that after watching Gomez's game, this former international player said that he was so strong at the age of 17. He wondered if he changed his age just for the Evolution Cup.
This statement set the Internet on fire, and more and more netizens began to believe that Gomez had indeed changed his age.
FC GOA officials quickly spoke out to assure that Gomez had definitely not changed his age, and firmly stood on the same front with Gomez to fight against those vicious accusations.
Faced with such doubts, the ones who felt the most aggrieved were undoubtedly Gomez's parents. Reporters quickly found Gomez's parents, hoping to interview them.
When facing reporters, they seemed very angry, scolded the rumor-mongers, and then produced evidence.
These are photos of Gomez from childhood to adulthood, and these photos are undoubtedly ironclad evidence.
Gomez's father was relatively calm. He asked the reporter why Gomez wanted to change his age. Was it just to play in the Evolution Cup? Even if it was for the Evolution Cup, why did he change it to 1997? He could have played in the Evolution Cup with being borned in 1995 also.
The reporter was speechless when he heard the question from Gomez's father. What he said made sense, so after the reporter interviewed Gomez, he quickly reported it.
"The evidence is irrefutable! Changing the age is sheer nonsense!"
Although the former international player quickly came out to apologize.
"I was just joking at the time and didn't expect it to be exaggerated to this extent. If it has caused any trouble to Gomez, I would like to express my sincere apologies here."
At this point, the controversy over Gomez's age change stopped. Seeing these inexplicable accusations, Neil was very worried about Gomez, so Neil quickly contacted Gomez. Fortunately, Gomez had been concentrating on training and didn't care about these things at all.
What Neil didn't expect next was that there was also a report about Sumit Adhikari, but of course it received much less attention.
"The hero behind the victory of the India National Youth Team—Sumit Adhikari!"
"Adhikari is not afraid of physical confrontation, defends with his brain, and has excellent air defense ability. His future is promising!"
Although not many, there were still media reports on Adhikari. Of course, he was out of position and conceded a header by the opponent which was later ruled offside, this was directly ignored by them. They shaped Adhikari into a talented player who surpassed most central defenders in the Indian Super League.
Neil looked at the news, and he didn't expect that it would receive so much attention.
|--------------------|
(Please add it to your collection!!! Please vote for it!!!)
Like the story so far then please give it a review as well.