"Rivaldo now admits that you still have a chance to win the Premier League this season. It looks like Gullit finally convinced him. Or maybe your performances did."
After Liverpool's victory over Leicester City, Gullit once again asked Rivaldo the same question.
"Rivaldo, Liverpool are now fourth and not far behind Manchester City. Do you think they can overtake City and reach the top of the Premier League over the remaining eighteen matches?"
Rivaldo had made up his mind. If he didn't want Liverpool fans mocking him at the end of the season, it was probably best to leave himself a way out now.
"I think Liverpool have a better chance of winning the title than Arsenal at this point. Not because Liverpool have climbed to fourth, but because Arsenal's performance against them in the EFL Cup semifinal showed me just how strong Liverpool are right now."
"After everything they went through last season, Liverpool are back near their best. Arsenal's defeat in the semifinal was partly due to Xhaka being sent off so early, but the same point still stands. Lin is simply too good."
"Lin can help Liverpool win any match. And the players around him now, Gakpo, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister, and the others, are all playing better and better."
"I don't know exactly how they've improved so much. Maybe after all these matches, they've finally adapted to the rhythm of the Premier League."
Rivaldo believed Liverpool's poor start to the season had largely been caused by their new signings struggling to perform at their best. Now that more and more of those players were finding form, Liverpool were improving with them.
"But I still think Liverpool need to sign another striker. Someone like Firmino."
"Núñez is playing through the middle right now, and sometimes he looks very good, but I always feel as though he's missing a little something that you expect from a Premier League striker."
"I'm not sure whether you understand what I mean. Núñez might even score more goals than Firmino in some seasons, but in terms of his overall contribution and influence on matches, I thought Firmino was one of the models for what a Premier League striker should be."
"Agüero and Kane are other players you could point to as examples. Agüero wasn't particularly tall, but just look at what he did as a striker."
"Vardy is excellent too. He doesn't just score goals, even though he scores plenty of them. He can create chances for his teammates, his movement is excellent, and most importantly, those strikers never lose their nerve when the pressure is at its highest."
"Looking only at the Premier League, I can hardly remember Agüero or Vardy having truly poor performances. In the UEFA Champions League, Agüero may not always have been at his best, but even there he had some outstanding moments."
"But in the Premier League, Vardy has scored so many goals against the strongest teams. Agüero, Kane, and even Soares during his time in England were all incredibly dangerous against the Premier League's top clubs."
Rivaldo's comments left Núñez somewhat unhappy.
After the match against Leicester City, Leo returned to the training ground that evening. Mac Allister and the others were still in the habit of staying behind for extra training, though lately they spent more of that time talking and getting to know each other.
"What do you think Rivaldo meant by that? I think I can become a great Premier League striker."
Núñez wanted to ask Leo, but Leo never gave players advice on questions like this.
"Don't worry too much about it, Núñez. Sometimes certain players simply perform better in certain leagues."
"Take that young winger everyone's talking about right now, Antony at Ajax. Manchester United want to sign him, but there's no guarantee he'll adapt to the Premier League. Maybe he'll be great there. Maybe he'd be even better in La Liga."
"It isn't necessarily about how strong a league is, and it isn't necessarily about a player's ability either. Some players are simply better suited to the rhythm of certain leagues."
"So maybe what Rivaldo meant is that if there ever comes a day when you can't adapt to the Premier League, you could always try another league."
Núñez understood what he meant, but he had no interest in playing anywhere else.
He only wanted to play for Liverpool.
"Since joining Liverpool, my follower count has grown incredibly fast. I've reached ten million now!"
Mac Allister pulled out his phone.
His account had been approaching ten million followers recently, so he had gotten into the habit of checking the number every now and then.
And just moments ago, his personal account had finally crossed the ten-million mark.
For a footballer, that was an impressive number of followers.
Leo, meanwhile, hadn't checked his own account in a long time. Barnett had been handling it for him.
Mac Allister opened his following list.
"I only follow one person. The captain!"
He showed everyone the screen.
Odegaard pulled out his phone as well.
He also followed only Leo.
"Alexander-Arnold, don't start unfollowing people now. I already saw your list. The captain isn't the only person you follow. It's fine. He's not going to hold it against you."
Everyone burst out laughing.
Mac Allister opened Leo's profile.
Leo had only posted a little over a dozen times, yet every post had received millions of likes.
Then his follower count suddenly changed.
Mac Allister happened to be looking at the exact moment the number refreshed.
599 million became 600 million.
"How many followers?"
"Six hundred million?"
Mac Allister stared at Leo's account.
He had actually reached 600 million followers, making him one of the most-followed people in the world.
Odegaard looked at his own account, which only had a few million followers. Núñez and the others pulled up theirs as well.
Even if they combined everyone's followers, they still wouldn't come close to Leo's total.
They didn't even have one-sixth as many.
"Six hundred million followers? That's insane. How does anyone even reach 600 million? And you've only made a dozen or so posts!"
But 600 million followers wasn't even the most ridiculous part.
Leo looked at their stunned expressions and opened the account dashboard.
What appeared next surprised them even more.
Countless messages were flooding into Leo's inbox.
His phone immediately froze.
Then the entire screen became unresponsive.
Leo closed the app and reopened it.
It froze again.
He force-closed it, reopened it once more, and the same thing happened.
After repeating the process several times, messages were still pouring in one after another.
"This is why I never open the dashboard for my account. There's no way you could ever get through all of this."
Mac Allister quietly closed his own account.
At that moment, he completely lost the desire to keep checking his follower count.
There didn't seem to be much point anymore.
"Thanks, Lin. You've cured me of constantly checking my follower count. From now on, whenever I feel like checking it, I'll just remember how many followers you have, and suddenly it won't seem interesting anymore."