Chapter 19: Do You Want to Exempt Yourself from After-School Homework?

"Is this Tang Ye really as godlike as you say? Damn, awesome, Ball King, Ball King!"

"Watching Tang Ye's matches earns money; Mom no longer has to worry about me not finding a job after graduation."

"A college student playing with Happy Beans starting in university—you're set for life, upstairs poster."

"What kind of talk is that? He was already a fan of Tang Ye in college; we started earlier than him."

"This is someone destined to make a fortune!"

"Are there any more? Are there any more goals?"

"Since this is the result of training, should I play according to the training scenario later?"

Tang Ye asked Ten Hag, who denied it without even thinking.

"No, training is training, and matches are matches; training makes you stronger, but when playing a match, you must still follow your own ideas!"

Ten Hag instructed earnestly.

Although Tang Ye was always walking, Ten Hag could see it clearly.

Tang Ye could only unleash his full creativity when he was walking!

The match continued!

"The score was suddenly equalized; Vitesse is now in great distress!"

"Substituting two strikers at once; Vitesse is launching a counterattack."

"Nathan, press forward with your teammates!"

After struggling for 60 minutes of offense, employing every tactic to the extreme, the opponent's midfielder simply executed a long pass in coordination with another midfielder to equalize the score directly.

The Vitesse players and coach were now in great distress.

They had to make up the goal difference!

"Change positions!"

Ten Hag shouted an order, and Ramseelaar, receiving the instruction, ran to the right flank, yielding the central attacking midfielder position to Tang Ye.

Now the three midfielders on the field, from left to right, were Amrabat, Tang Ye, and Ramseelaar, with Tang Ye as the sole attacking midfielder positioned furthest forward.

In the 76th minute, Nakamba's mistake was seized upon by Strieder; this Utrecht defender sent the ball directly to Amrabat with one kick.

Amrabat began to observe!

Olijnik came up to challenge, so Amrabat, playing it safe, passed the ball to Leechet on the right who was ready to support.

Leechet then passed the ball to Di Di Bala.

This was a counterattack by Utrecht!

"Di Di Bala, incredibly fast!"

"Tang Ye should be running forward now to occupy the position at the top of the arc."

"Tang Ye is walking!"

"Ball King Tang is still walking!"

"Ball King, what are you trying to do!"

Wang Chao shouted with great passion; he had originally prepared to criticize Tang Ye for playing passively, but Di Di Bala burst past two defenders in a row on the flank, directly capturing the attention of all the spectators.

Di Di Bala arrived near the baseline!

With one long pass, he sent the ball directly to the left flank, where Nganioni, making an overlapping run, controlled the ball and immediately began seeking coordination with Haller.

Haller received the ball inside the penalty area but was immediately pinned down by Kashia in terms of positioning; he couldn't even turn around now.

In this situation, Haller could only pass back, but as soon as he looked up, he suddenly discovered that Tang Ye had somehow positioned himself right in front of him.

"Hey, how about passing it to me?"

Tang Ye reached out to Haller, who without thinking twice kicked the ball directly to Tang Ye's feet.

"He really passed it!"

Tang Ye was somewhat delighted; using his body to shield against the Vitesse defender, he struck the ball toward the goal in one motion.

He didn't even need time to stop the ball!

"Tang Ye? WTF! Goal!"

"What was that!"

"GOOOOOO——AAAAAAA——LLLLLLL!!!"

In the 78th minute of the match, a goal from Tang Ye!

"At 37 years old, you scored your first Eredivisie goal in just 3 matches; your haters were so scared they deleted their accounts."

"Counterattack Points Shop section unlocked!"

"Goal bonus reward: Counterattack Points *10."

Tang Ye stood motionless inside the penalty area; his attention was now entirely on the sound of the system in his mind.

At this moment, Haller and Di Di Bala rushed over together; the two hugged Tang Ye tightly, and Haller even kept rubbing Tang Ye's hair with his hand.

"Tang, why did you appear here, haha!"

The camera cut to the Vitesse substitute bench; the Dutchman chewing gum now had a very poor expression on his face.

So far, Tang Ye had only played 45 minutes in the Eredivisie.

One goal scored in 45 minutes of playing time.

Rounding it off.

This was an expert averaging 2 goals per match!

The referee blew the whistle ending the full match; ultimately, the home team Utrecht proved superior, defeating Vitesse with a score of 2:1.

Although the start of the season was not so wonderful, Utrecht had nevertheless welcomed their third consecutive victory.

The players returned to the locker room one after another, while Ten Hag and Fan Fan Dejiahe stepped outside to whisper together.

"I plan to give the players a two-day holiday; this will let them know the benefits of victory."

"That works; you are the coach, and I fully support you."

Fan Fan Dejiahe nodded, but in truth, this was not what Ten Hag wanted to ask.

"What I mean is, give the players time off, but not Tang; he must stay at the base for extra training."

"Huh?"

Fan Fan Dejiahe failed to react immediately: "Isn't that unfair? All the players get a holiday, but Tang doesn't, even though he was today's key contributor to the win!"

"Wait!"

Fan Fan Dejiahe suddenly realized something, staring at Ten Hag before him: "You want to accelerate Tang's development? But you already said it would take two or three years to mold Tang into our starting midfielder; just a few days ago, you said that—do you remember? Are you going back on your word now?"

Assistant coach Fan Fan Dejiahe had risen all the way from the U15 youth academy, so he knew all too well the harm of forcing growth upon a player.

"I know what you mean, but the plan has changed!"

Ten Hag's expression was serious: "Did you see his off-the-ball movement? His positioning, and his vision?"

"You said this was the result of training."

"Training my ass; isn't this damn well just talent?"

Ten Hag nearly shouted: "We must bring out his full potential, intensify his physical training and tactical awareness training, and in another half year we can start him!"

Hiss—

Fan Fan Dejiahe took a deep breath.

That fellow Erik...

"But what if he refuses to train?" Fan Fan Dejiahe pointed out a crucial problem.

"That's a minor issue."

Ten Hag broke into a smile.

Tang Ye was indeed a lazy pig.

But a lazy pig isn't completely incapable of running.

Given enough external pressure, even a lazy pig can run very fast!

That evening, Tang Ye received a call from his mother, Zhang Qing, and he shared the good news of his two-day holiday with his family.

It was something worth celebrating, but a sudden knock at the door made Tang Ye feel pressured.

At this hour, only two people would come knocking on his door.

Zaka had already gone home.

The only remaining possibility was Ten Hag!

"Good evening!"

Smiling, Ten Hag walked familiarly into Tang Ye's room.

The familiar computer desk, the familiar Alienware laptop.

This time, Tang Ye had learned his lesson; before opening the door, he had already turned off the computer.

Ten Hag slowly walked toward the computer desk, which made Tang Ye feel somewhat pressured.

Was he not going to make him turn the computer back on?

"Hmm."

Ten Hag raised an eyebrow, picked up a white grid notebook from Tang Ye's computer desk, along with the pencil lying beside it.

"A 300-word critical essay in Dutch."

"Huh? What?" Tang Ye froze.

"This is your Dutch homework, right? Is this assignment difficult for you?"

Ten Hag turned to look at Tang Ye, who was sitting on the bed, the latter wearing an expression of sheer surprise.

"How do you know about my homework?"

"That's not the point; just tell me whether this assignment poses any difficulty for you."

"..."

Tang Ye shrugged and answered honestly: "A 300-word composition isn't hard, but our teacher said we need to choose a topic and write critically about it, and that's very difficult..."

Sometimes Tang Ye felt quite speechless; since he was attending school at the youth academy partnered with Utrecht, logically his homework should have been a bit lighter than that of other Dutch high school students.

As it turned out, that teacher had recently gone mad for some reason, constantly assigning Tang Ye after-school tasks beyond his capabilities!

"So it is difficult..."

Ten Hag murmured, set down the grid notebook, and slowly walked over to stand before Tang Ye.

He bent down.

"Tang, would you like to be exempted from after-school assignments?"

(End of chapter)