"Oh, hello there, monster chosen by Snuffy." Even before reaching the meeting room at the Italian training facility, a tall and strangely postured guy blocked his path. When he spoke, his mouthful of gold teeth gleamed with a gaudy light. "Let me see what makes you worth his attention, Mr. Five Hundred Million, OK?"
"What exactly do you want to see?" Shinichi asked, unfazed by the guy's zombie-like stance. He stared right back without flinching. "How about you kneeling before me?"
"My, my, Mr. Five Hundred Million, your attitude is downright terrifying." Unexpectedly, Don Lorenzo showed no trace of the arrogance typical of the Eleven Kings. Instead, he threw his hands up in mock surrender and smiled mischievously. "Haha, do you really need me to kneel? Well, it's only fair that someone worth less than three hundred should kneel to five hundred, right?"
"All right, Lorenzo, stop fooling around." Before Lorenzo could actually kneel, Snuffy's voice rang out, interrupting him.
Lorenzo chuckled and stepped aside, allowing Shinichi and the rest of the group to enter the room.
Snuffy stood on a raised platform in the center of the field, dressed in his football gear, watching them closely. "Welcome, welcome, everyone. I'm Marc Snuffy, your Italian Ubers mentor. Please take care of me."
"He seems surprisingly casual," someone murmured under their breath. Several others nodded in agreement.
"Before we begin training, I'd like to ask you all: what does football mean to you?" Snuffy's next words made everyone stop taking him lightly. Instead, their faces grew serious as they began to ponder his question. Sendou was the first to speak. "Well… it's my dream, of course."
"It's the only path," Jyubei replied quietly, idly toying with his hair. Even Aiku, who typically came off as flippant, spoke with a serious conviction. "It's something worth betting my entire life on."
When it was Shinichi's turn to answer, Snuffy's demeanor became noticeably more serious. Shinichi slowly opened his mouth and declared, "A track destined to be conquered by me."
"Haha, I didn't see that one coming. Hmm, quite spirited—sounds exactly like something a teenager would say. But, let me ask you this: what if none of what you said ever comes true?"
"What if you get injured? What if you face setback after setback? What if every professional team rejects you? What if, as you grow older, you find yourself empty-handed, unable to see any light at the end of the tunnel? Even unable to make ends meet? Could you still say with such confidence that soccer is your dream, that you would give up everything for it?"
"..."
The room fell silent. Everyone quietly reflected on Snuffy's words, imagining what they would do if faced with such a grim scenario.
"You're all still playing as amateurs relying solely on talent. For many people—yes, even for many who are already professionals—concepts like 'dreams' or 'becoming the best in the world' aren't part of their calculations. To them, playing football is simply a well-paying job, a means to completely change their lives."
At this point, Snuffy's lips curled into an odd smile. "And surprisingly, those players often end up having far longer careers than those who chase so-called dreams."
"Because they understand exactly what they're doing. Winning is a professional player's duty—we earn our salaries through victories. This is an unavoidable truth. If football were only about dreams without any return, then no professional league could keep running."
"In essence, the term 'professional football' means that this is a job." As Snuffy spoke, he raised his hand, and instantly, an overwhelming array of tactics, data, and analysis diagrams surged from his palm, filling the room. "Think of the Ubers as a company. Matches are the process of running the business, and you are the employees working there."
"This is a game plan I developed based on the data of all the players present: formations, offensive and defensive strategies, all types of tactics. As long as you execute these instructions, victory is assured. If a situation arises that isn't covered here and results in a loss, then I, as the president of this company, will bear all responsibility."
"Enough." Just as Snuffy was getting into his explanation, Shinichi interrupted, his calm gaze locking onto Snuffy's eyes. "Tactics are nothing more than pre-game preparations, like putting on uniforms and cleats. Important, yes, but they'll never compare to what we do on the field."
"It's us players who execute those tactics, who handle the unexpected, and who decide the outcome of the match. When something comes up that tactics can't address, it's not something you can just hand off to the people on the sidelines and call it their responsibility. That kind of thinking is ridiculous."
A faint crackle of electricity seemed to flash in Shinichi's eyes, and an overwhelming aura filled the room. "You handle the routine preparations. But as for the extraordinary challenges—those are for the team's ace, the star player, to resolve. And if we fail, that failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the star's shortcomings."
"This guy… can you really handle five hundred million just like that?" Lorenzo stared in amazement, stunned by the sheer intensity radiating from Shinichi. Snuffy, however, just smiled. "Very well. Show me what you can do as the ace."
"Prepare for training!"
...
"Ugh, I'm exhausted!" Aiku collapsed onto the ground after the grueling training session, gulping in air. "This level of training isn't even close to what we're used to, and the difficulty just keeps increasing. These ten days are going to be the death of me."
"But you've already made it into the eleven-man roster, so stop complaining." Igarashi gulped down an energy drink. "I'm still waiting to see when I'll even get the chance to play."
"The most terrifying one has to be that guy," Niko said as he pulled out his phone to review the stats. "We already knew he was strong, but not to this extent. Shinichi's almost all S-ranked across the board. The only exception is his jump height, which is barely A-ranked, but even that's close to S."
"His raw strength makes up for it," Jyubei added as he joined them. "Even if I can out-jump him, if he dominates me in ground challenges, it's still hard to win those high balls. And if you look at his six core attributes on the player chart—attack, speed, defense, passing, dribbling, and shooting—Shinichi's all S across the board, right?"
"An absolute monster," Sendou said with a shake of his head. "No wonder he got such a high offer after just that exhibition-style match."
"Not quite," Igarashi interrupted. "I heard it started when Shinichi played against some of these coach-level players back in Blue Lock. They spotted his potential and, after returning, Snuffy pushed the management to put up an exceptionally high offer. It was around three hundred at first, then jumped to five hundred million after playing with us."
Igarashi scrolled through his phone and showed the others the information. "See, that five-hundred offer came from Ubers. The other clubs only offered around two to three hundred."
"Haha, Snuffy really is thorough, isn't he? He's prepared well on this front too. By the way, isn't there a match tomorrow?"
"Yeah, looks like it…"
"The French league setup—P-X-G!"
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