Chapter 11 – Growing Pains
The early morning light cut through the cracked blinds of the medical room, casting narrow bars of sunlight across the tiled floor. Su Dong stood barefoot on the scale, spine straight, trying not to shift under the team doctor's measuring rod.
"Three centimeters taller than when you arrived," the doctor muttered, jotting notes on a clipboard. "You're up to 1.86 meters now."
Su Dong blinked. Six-foot-one? That couldn't be right.
"At sixteen, you might even hit 1.90," the doctor continued, tapping the chart with a pen. "You can train muscles, improve speed, even build endurance—but height? That's the genetic lottery."
Su Dong stepped off the scale in a daze. Three centimeters in six weeks. No wonder his legs had ached more than usual.
But the gain was a double-edged sword. Taller strikers had their perks—especially in aerial duels—but in Iberian academies, where coaches worshipped technique and quick feet, adding height too fast could throw off your balance, your coordination, even your pace.
Will this slow me down?
Still… he couldn't deny the quiet thrill in his chest. A striker's dominance often began in the air. And now? He had more of it.
Trial by Fire
Coach António Pereira didn't believe in easing players in. His sessions were gauntlets—ninety-minute pressure cookers designed to sharpen instincts and punish hesitation.
Su Dong was tossed into the mix, and the cracks showed instantly.
Every time he received the ball, a senior defender was already on him—shoving, jostling, leaning into his back like he weighed nothing. He struggled to hold his ground, his legs like stilts against grown men who'd spent years mastering the art of rough-and-legal contact.
His timing was off. Teammates around him passed and moved with the kind of synchronicity you only built through seasons together. Su Dong was always half a second late, one step out of rhythm.
Even the substitutes made him look average.
By the end, he sat alone at the edge of the pitch, tugging grass and muttering curses in Mandarin.
"Rough," he admitted to himself.
Strength: 37. It might as well have been zero.
Captain's Offer
He wasn't alone for long.
A shadow approached. Marco Mateus, the grizzled goalkeeper with a lined face and hands like steel traps, stopped in front of him.
"Extra hour. Every day," Mateus said simply. "I don't do charity. I turn boys into predators."
Su Dong looked up, unsure if it was a joke. It wasn't.
The veteran had already mapped out a personal crash course:
First-time finishes – No more trapping and overthinking.
Hold-up play – Learn to use your back like a wall, not a target.
Crossing drills – Exploit that new height.
Su Dong nodded before the man could walk away.
System Alert:
[+30 King Points per drill]
Small gains. Nothing like Rony's 300-point explosions. But it added up.
Stacks make skyscrapers, he reminded himself.
Lessons from the Net
Training with Mateus was brutal—but enlightening.
"You wind up like a drunk confessing sins," the keeper growled, after a weak right-footed shot rolled into his gloves. "Every move you make telegraphs your intention. You're easy pickings."
Each mistake was dissected in real time.
"In the Segunda Divisão, those center-backs? They eat guys like you alive. Hesitation gets you benched."
But it wasn't all tough love. Mateus also shared rare keeper insights:
Shoot near-post if the keeper's hips shift early.
Watch the CB's plant foot—left-footed defenders always overcommit to their dominant side.
Use disguise—fake the look one way, swing the shot the other.
This wasn't just training. It was a crash course in the dirty chess of lower-league football. Rough. Unforgiving. Smart.
Su Dong soaked it in like rain after drought.
Seafood and Secrets
That night, they met at Restaurante Romário—a humble place with prices ambitious enough to make a youth player weep. Three plates of seafood, grilled vegetables, endless sides, and drinks.
€71.
Semedo stared at the bill like it had personally insulted his mother. "That's my family's rent, bro. You're insane."
Su Dong shrugged. "Worth it."
For him, the real meal was the company.
These two weren't just teammates—they were cheat codes for surviving this world.
And then Rony reached into his jacket and slid three match tickets across the table.
"Sporting vs. Porto. Saturday."
Su Dong froze. His pulse spiked. The Clássico. The very match the locker room had buzzed about all week.
The Quaresma Trigger
"Quaresma's starting, right?" Semedo said, sipping his drink with a smirk. "Pena's heir?"
Clatter.
Rony's fork hit the plate. Hard.
That name? A trigger.
Ricardo Quaresma—eighteen years old, already hailed as Figo's heir, already a first-team regular.
To the rest of the country, he was the future.
To Rony?
"He's only fifteen months older," Rony muttered. "And I'll eclipse him."
The tension hung for a beat too long.
Su Dong connected the dots in silence.
Rony → Sporting CP's Academy.
Quaresma & Edgar Marcelino → His rivals.
This dinner → A front-row seat to the real war.
And he was watching from the outside.
No Shortcuts
Later, as the meal wound down, Rony leaned back, the streetlight through the window catching the flicker in his eyes.
"You want to know what talent without work looks like?" he said. "Ask Hugo Pina. He got a €300k transfer when he was fifteen. Now? He's rotting in our U23s."
His voice was calm, but the heat simmered beneath.
"Football doesn't reward flair. It rewards blood. Sweat. Obsession."
Then he smiled, mask back in place.
"Now eat your tiger prawns. Saturday, I'll show you what a real striker looks like."
He wasn't talking about himself.
He meant Jardel.
The man was coming home.