Chapter 141: On the Eve of the North London Derby
After the first round of the Premier League, all of the Big Six took their opening wins.
Manchester City 4:0 Newcastle
Swansea 1:4 Manchester United
Aston Villa 2:4 Arsenal
Chelsea 2:0 Hull City
Crystal Palace 0:1 Tottenham Hotspur
Liverpool 1:0 Stoke City.
That order also matched the Big Six in the standings.
In terms of new managers' debuts, Manchester City's Chilean engineer Manuel Pellegrini was the most eye-catching, and José Mourinho's second spell was also respectable.
Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham and Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool could only be said to have handed in satisfactory reports — far from dazzling.
One match can't show superiority, so the excitement from the first round quickly faded, and some media turned their attention to Xia Qi's new contract.
Xia Qi had exploded last season, and some clauses in his old contract were clearly no longer suitable — things like pay, image rights, contract length, buyout clause…
The media hoped for explosive news before the transfer window closed, but Arsenal's owner, though stingy, is not stupid, and Xia Qi's contract was sorted quickly.
Xia Qi conditionally extended his contract until August 30, 2016,
but it came with a clause: if Arsène Wenger left, Xia Qi could choose to trigger a buyout clause of £80 million to terminate the contract.
He also received a 20% wage increase and half of his image rights… of course his buyout clause was raised to £120 million (but if Wenger left, only £80 million would be required).
…
At the Colney training ground, the atmosphere during training was tense.
Wenger, furious, shouted at Xia Qi and the others, "You played like a pile of shit!"
The cause:
Jack Wilshere wanted to seize Kevin De Bruyne's injury as a chance to cement a starting spot, so he single-mindedly tried to link up with Santi Cazorla. But Wenger's tactical system isn't as simple as a two-core setup — it conceals complexities and at times becomes multi-core.
At certain moments Mikel Arteta and Xia Qi also serve as the team's metronomes.
But Wilshere was too fixated on Cazorla, so when the core organizer role shifted to Arteta and Xia Qi, he drifted outside the system…
That created a negative energy that subtracted one from the whole.
Problems could have been resolved as they appeared, but Xia Qi and Arteta were self-important; they thought: Wilshere can't accommodate us, so we'll accommodate him.
Once they accommodated, everything fell apart. The whole team didn't just have Wilshere as negative energy — everyone became negative.
Wenger is generally mild-mannered and rarely roars; when a person like him loses his temper it's like thunder and earth-shattering — everyone trembled, including Xia Qi.
After training, Wenger walked back to his office with a dark face.
On the pitch, Xia Qi and the others stayed behind.
Xia Qi, Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Santi Cazorla, Mario Balotelli… continued training attacking runs…
"Ding dong, the host has triggered the Telepathic Synchrony scenario mode."
"In this mode, multiple people can share tactics without words, gestures, body language, or eye contact… as soon as the organizer has a tactical structure in mind, multiple people can reach a state of telepathic mutual understanding."
"This mode has levels: two-person, three-person, four-person, five-person…"
"Activation condition: the host and the synchronizers' intimacy reaches over 80% and they are on a football pitch or training ground."
Xia Qi's mood brightened — this plugin had arrived just in time.
He looked at Wilshere dribbling and breaking through; in his vision a virtual screen showed: intimacy 50%.
Xia Qi didn't know whether that was high or low.
He turned to the teammate he was closest to day-to-day, Mario Balotelli; in his view the virtual screen showed intimacy 82%.
So Wilshere and he had a so-so relationship — no wonder they never sparked.
He looked at Theo Walcott; the virtual screen showed intimacy 85% — even higher than Balotelli the big goon.
No wonder in the last match he was able to meet that aerial cross pass.
In the Champions League final when Walcott was sent off with a red card, Xia Qi had sung at the corner flag to comfort him,
and at that moment Walcott opened up, and the two's relationship warmed rapidly.
Xia Qi looked at others:
Arteta 62%, Cazorla 70%, Martínez 65% — huh, the youth academy youngster Serge Gnabry, whom he'd never paired with, also had 65%.
Xia Qi was stunned. Could this intimacy score really be like a liking meter?
It shouldn't be — Pat Rice treats me quite well, but his intimacy score was only 35%.
...
On the training pitch, Balotelli and Walcott had already reached the activation condition.
"Activate three-person mode."
Pat Rice, standing on the sideline to give guidance, noticed the striker combination's interplay becoming more tacit, but the link between the front line and the midfield/defense remained the old problem…
After a set of drills, Xia Qi found that his intimacy with everyone had increased slightly, by between 0.2 and 0.5.
"How do you cultivate this intimacy?"
The system didn't answer.
"Xia, what are you saying?"
"I think we need to increase our intimacy, so on the pitch we'll know what the other wants to do and be able to link up better."
"Xia, that's right. Back in the academy my coach put me and John in the same dorm."
In the first team everyone was an adult with their own lives; sharing a dorm was impossible, but getting together more often was possible.
So after training the squad went to Santi Cazorla's place as guests…
A week of training passed and Arsenal's tactical cooperation improved a little, but it was still far from flowing like water.
On the weekend they faced their second match, an away trip to Fulham — another London derby, though not as hot as the North London Derby with Tottenham or the big London derby with Chelsea.
Because Arsenal's training hadn't been ideal, the players were anxious on Friday afternoon.
Mario Balotelli, that big goon, sat next to Xia Qi and pouted at Jack Wilshere who was packing his gear: "I think his organization isn't as good as yours. The moment you get the ball, a full tactic appears in my head, and we even think the same."
Xia Qi gave the goon a tap on the back of the head: damn — he couldn't even lower his voice for a whisper; all that week's training was wasted, and Wilshere's intimacy had returned to 50%.
On the weekend match Arsenal won away 1:3 without too much trouble.
In this round both Manchester clubs in the Big Six dropped points.
Last round's best-performing Manchester City were killed off in stoppage time by newly promoted Cardiff City, losing 3:2 away.
Ferguson-era Manchester United drew 0:0 at home with old rivals José Mourinho's Chelsea.
Their post-match war of words was more entertaining than the match.
The other two Big Six results: Aston Villa 0:1 Liverpool, Tottenham 1:0 Swansea.
After two rounds, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Tottenham had two wins each; Arsenal led the table on goal difference.
But a big test was coming.
They would host Tottenham.
Besides the North London Derby, the marquee fixtures for Premier League Round 3 included the Liverpool vs. Manchester United clash.
The Liverpool–Manchester United match is the most authentic of all the "red derbies."
As for red-and-white Arsenal, that's "for show."
The importance of the United–Liverpool clash cannot be compared to any other match.
The media viewed that game as Jürgen Klopp's midterm exam.
If he could beat Manchester United twice, even if the season ended empty-handed, Red fans wouldn't complain and his job would be secure.
The same went for Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham.
So the media hyped these two games and the attention kept rising.
…
In England, there are many London derbies; the Arsenal–Tottenham derby is regarded as the most explosive in London.
Not the most important or the most watchable.
But the most explosive!
Every meeting can erupt from the stands down onto the pitch — red cards, injuries, fan riots…
Look at the London police, armed to the teeth as if expecting war, and you'll know how these derbies go.
However,
despite all that,
Asian Korean media still didn't think it was noisy enough. From a thousand miles away they jumped on the bandwagon and began hyping an "Asian derby," "the Asia No. 1."
The Japanese media didn't like that; they claimed Shinji Kagawa was the true No. 1 in Asia… so before the British had even started squaring off, the Koreans and Japanese had already fought each other.
Some nosy journalists asked Xia Qi about it; Xia Qi just smiled, shrugged and asked, "Does that matter?"
Then he put it out of his mind and carried on with daily training, doing whatever he could to raise intimacy with his teammates.
But when the tree wants to be still, the wind won't stop!
When asked by reporters, Mauricio Pochettino said: "Xia Qi is indeed excellent, but I think Harry and Son are better."
"At least in speed, Son should be faster than Xia, and Harry is the real box-to-box forward…"
The reporters were delighted.
Gossip sells better than matches.
They rushed out pieces like "Who is the fastest active player?" and "Who is the top box-to-box forward?"
These pre-match tidbits pushed the North London Derby to the very forefront…
That day Xia Qi returned home and Mike shouted at him: "Those birds that can't get it up — the cowards — actually dare to argue with you for No. 1. What kind of birds can come out of that barren White Hart Lane?"
"Don't say that, Mike," Xia Qi laughed. "Gareth Bale is strong, and Luka Modrić is too…"
Mike glared viciously at Xia Qi, pretended not to hear, and continued, "We've got to give them a real welcome in this match — this is our first home game since the double."
"Xia, don't treat it like an ordinary derby."
"Don't worry, I want to win every match — I think my teammates feel the same."
"No, no, no! It's not a question of win or lose — it's the North London Derby! The North London Derby!"
Xia Qi laughed: "Alright, alright, I played two of them last season, I'm no rookie. By the way, are you bringing the wrench tomorrow?"
"Of course!"
The North London Derby might be the derby with the smallest administrative area in the world.
Like the Manchester derby or the Milan derby, the two clubs are neighbors but still a citywide derby.
Germany's Ruhr derby is actually between two cities.
But the North London Derby is a derby inside one district of one city. Whether it's the absolute smallest is hard to say — some European countries are tiny — but it's probably the derby with the smallest administrative area.
This shows how fierce the hostility between Arsenal and Tottenham is.
Tottenham fans' feelings about this year's Arsenal were complex.
In the past Arsenal were fallen aristocrats: apart from history, they were just like everyone else — a side fighting for a top-four spot.
But this year Arsenal were driving a Land Rover.
That feeling.
Although most Spurs supporters thought their team would probably lose, more than twenty thousand of them still came to the Emirates Stadium.
This is the foundation of the Premier League's booming fan market.
…
August 30 — North London Derby matchday.
Although Arsène Wenger felt the 3-6-1 formation still needed work, he announced the starting XI based on that setup.
The match was at 7:00 p.m.; on matchday Xia Qi and the others had no morning training. After resting at noon they did strength and endurance work in the gym at 3:00 p.m., but not at high intensity.
Just to loosen up and wake the body.
With four hours until kick-off, London television had already begun live coverage.
They invited a legend from each club to review records and make predictions.
At 5:00 p.m. Arsenal set off.
The same old routine — under the protection of the London police and Arsenal fans, the bus made its grand procession toward the Emirates Stadium.
On the stadium plaza, a large number of Tottenham fans had gathered to greet the Spurs' team bus.
When they saw Arsenal's bus they let out huge boos and flipped off Xia Qi and the others.
Of course Arsenal fans weren't any more civilized.
When the Tottenham players were warming up on the pitch, they shouted at those Spurs fans: "You White Hart Lane cowards, clean your arses first…"
"We're champions again, jealous? Hurry up and request a transfer! Tottenham will never win the title."
With Arsenal fans' unfriendly shouts, Spurs fans fought back and began abusing Xia Qi and other Arsenal players.
"Xia, you yellow monkey, tonight you'll see what a fast horse can do…"
Xia Qi had tried to ignore the outside world, but was still affected; he raised his head to look across.
Easy to spot,
the Asian guy who was supposedly faster than him — Son Heung-min, born in 1992, two years older than him.
He came from Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga. (In the original timeline he had leveled up at Bayer Leverkusen before moving to Tottenham.)
Son Heung-min noticed Xia Qi looking and the two made eye contact.
In person the spirited young man had a square face, suitable for playing heroic roles on screen.
But his eyes were rather small and single-lidded, which took away some of that heroic look.
Son Heung-min nodded to Xia Qi and gave a slight bow.
Xia Qi knew this was a Korean/Japanese courtesy.
He was younger in years but was a senior in football; Son giving him a junior's bow was not improper.
Players finished warming up and left the pitch.
Deprived of targets to abuse, the fans began cursing each other; the London police, experienced as ever, lined up two rows with shields and batons, helmets and riot gear, separating the two sets of fans.
Emotionally charged fans who stepped over the line were pushed back by police shields…
Human rights talk in movies is all bullshit here.
Here there's one rule: if you don't submit, you fight!
Fight until they submit!
(END CHAPTER)
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