Chapter 141 Lin Feng vs Messi, the 2005 Golden Boy Award Competition
"The final score was 3:2, Inter Milan won the Milan derby!"
"The Nerazzurri finally broke Inter Milan's embarrassing six-year home winless streak in the Milan derby."
"The biggest contributors to Inter Milan's victory today are Adriano and Lin Feng, the twin stars in the frontcourt. They scored all the goals for the team!"
This victory is of great significance to Inter Milan. After the victory, Inter Milan surpassed AC Milan and jumped to second place, but there is still a gap of 10 points with the leader Juventus.
Although the gap is huge, Inter Milan still retains hope of winning the championship.
What's more, after winning this crucial victory, Inter Milan's winning streak on all fronts has accumulated to 6 games!
Compared with the sluggish state of last month, Inter Milan seemed to have become a different team since entering December, and the condition of the entire team has greatly improved.
Especially Adriano, after being silent for several rounds, he finally broke out in this game.
The data of two goals in a single game is the best result achieved by Ade in the past ten games.
Even compared with Lin Feng, who completed one pass and one shot, Adriano's performance was not inferior at all.
This led to speculation from the outside world, is it because the Golden Ball Award is about to be awarded and Ade, who has been shortlisted for the Golden Ball Award, is working so hard?
However, Adriano's competitors are quite strong and his chances of winning are not high.
It's not even as high as Kaka's winning rate in the opposing lineup!
The top favorite for this year's Ballon d'Or is Barcelona star Ronaldinho, followed by Gerrard and Lampard from the Premier League.
One of these two led the team to create the Istanbul Miracle, and led the team to launch a Jedi counterattack when they were trailing 0:3, and finally successfully won the Champions League.
The other one led the team to win the Premier League championship and got a record 95 points in Premier League history!
Even compared with them, Ade has no honors to show off.
As for the number of goals, he is not as good as Henry, Shevchenko and others.
So even if Ade scored twice in this Milan derby, it could only move his ranking in the Ballon d'Or slightly forward, but it would be very difficult for him to get into the top five or even top ten.
But Lin Feng's situation is different from Ade's. Lin Feng is competing for the Golden Boy Award.
There are far fewer contenders for this age-restricted award, as only players under the age of 21 are eligible for the award.
In this age group, Lin Feng's performance is among the best, and the only one who can pose a threat to him is Messi of Barcelona.
Therefore, winning this Milan derby will be of great help to Lin Feng in his competition for the Golden Boy Award.
After the game, many media came to interview Lin Feng, wanting to ask him about his opinion on the Golden Boy Award:
"Lin, first of all, congratulations to you and your team for winning this game. How do you evaluate this game and your opponent?"
The first person to be interviewed was a reporter from Gazzetta dello Sport, a newspaper Lin Feng had seen many times.
If it comes to foreign wars, their position is more inclined towards Inter Milan.
But when it comes to the Milan derby, they basically do not take a position and remain neutral.
When facing a newspaper with this kind of audience, Lin Feng cannot belittle AC Milan too much, because it will easily offend the other half of the audience and put Gazzetta dello Sport in an awkward position.
So after hearing the reporter's question, Lin Feng smiled and said:
"This game was very difficult. The opponent was very strong and had many excellent players, such as Kaka, Pirlo and others. The opponent's attack caused us a lot of trouble. Fortunately, my teammates withstood the pressure and won the derby."
Lin Feng's answer was quite standard, but the reporter from Gazzetta dello Sport was very satisfied.
Compared with Gazzetta dello Sport, domestic media are obviously more concerned about the Golden Boy Award.
The CCTV reporter asked directly: "Lin Feng, do you know that you are now the most popular candidate for this year's Golden Boy Award?"
Lin Feng nodded. He had always been paying attention to the Golden Boy Award. After all, it involved the system's honor points.
Seeing Lin Feng nodded, the CCTV reporter asked:
"Before this, no Asian player has ever won the European Golden Boy Award. Do you have the confidence to break this record and win the first Golden Boy trophy for an Asian player?"
Lin Feng smiled and nodded, then shook his head.
This action puzzled the reporters. Nodding means confidence, but what does shaking the head mean?
It's impossible to have both confidence and no confidence, right?
Lin Feng didn't say it explicitly, but that didn't stop reporters from imagining things!
"I understand. Lin Feng must be confident in his own ability, but the awarding organization has no confidence. Don't forget that the organizer of the Golden Boy Award is Turin Sports Daily. As far as I know, they are the mouthpiece of Juventus and are full of prejudice and slander against Inter Milan."
"That's right. In the previous national derby, Inter Milan and Juventus had such an unpleasant quarrel. Juventus must hate Lin Feng to death. And as the mouthpiece of Juventus, how could Turin Sports let Lin Feng win the award?"
"That makes sense. Both Messi and Lin Feng performed very well. Even if Turin Sports gave the Golden Boy Award to Messi, the outside world would not be able to say anything!"
"So it seems like there's no suspense about this year's Golden Boy Award?"
When the reporters nearby heard Lin Feng's answer, they were shocked and couldn't help but start talking.
But some people think that Turin Sports Daily should not be so unscrupulous:
"Not really? Although Turin Sports Daily favors Juventus and dislikes Inter Milan, they won't cheat on issues involving their own reputation, right?"
“Who can say for sure? If the two candidates are too different in strength and their performances on the field are very different, it would be difficult for them to manipulate behind the scenes.
But if both of them perform very well in their respective teams and their own strengths are equal.
Then they have more room to maneuver, after all, in this case, it doesn’t matter who wins the award.”
"That's right, it is precisely because Messi deserves the Golden Boy Award that the organizers have a lot of room for maneuver!"
A reporter from Turin Sports Daily was standing nearby. He had prepared a tricky question in his mind to embarrass Lin Feng, but he didn't expect that his colleagues' imaginations would end up bringing trouble to Turin Sports Daily.
This made him unable to bother to make things difficult for the other party. He quickly raised his hand to request an interview, wanting to clarify things with the player in person to avoid the escalation of this matter that would affect the reputation of Turin Sports Daily.
However, after accepting interviews from several media outlets, Lin Feng announced the end of the interviews, ignored the hand extended by the Turin Sports reporter, and went straight back to the locker room.
This left the Turin Sports reporter dumbfounded. He didn't even have time to attend the post-match press conference and quickly took out his cell phone to report the matter to his superiors!
They must calm this matter down as soon as possible before it spreads and causes adverse effects.
But his action was too late. In this Internet age, information is transmitted very quickly.
Before Turin Sports Daily responded, Lin Feng's interview video had already spread on the Internet.
For a while, fans in Italy, China and other European countries started heated discussions on their own Internet:
"I bet 50 cents that this year's Golden Boy Award goes to Messi!"
"Haha, Torino Sports is petty, how could they possibly give the award to our Inter Milan players?"
"If Turin Sports Daily really discredits Lin Feng's Golden Boy Award, then the Golden Boy Award will become a joke!" Faced with the remarks of fans from other countries, fans of Argentina and Messi were immediately unhappy.
How come it seems like Messi won the award because of shady dealings rather than his own ability?
"Haha, I don't deny that Lin Feng is excellent, but is Messi worse? Even if there is no shady deal, Messi can still beat Lin Feng and win the Golden Boy Award openly!"
"That's right. That Chinese guy clearly can't beat Messi, but he insisted on bringing up some shady stuff. I think he's just making excuses for his failure in advance!"
Originally, the other fans' targets were focused on Turin Sports Daily, but Messi's fans' comments immediately angered Chinese fans and Inter Milan fans, who responded with unceremonious retorts:
"Haha, Lin Feng can't beat Messi? What a joke, what championships has Messi won?
Lin Feng led his team to win the World Youth Championship, and he won it by stepping on Messi's head.
Moreover, Lin Feng has been a main player since joining Inter Milan, and his goals and assists are far ahead. Messi is a substitute, and his goals are not as many as Lin Feng's assists. How can he compare with him?"
"Don't say that. I think there is one thing that Messi can't compare to Lin Feng!"
"Oh? What is it? Tell me about it."
“How shameless! He was defeated by Lin Feng once, and now his statistics are far inferior to Lin Feng’s. Yet he still has the nerve to brag that he is on the same level as Lin Feng. How shameless! Lin Feng must admit defeat!”
"Haha, well said. I would like to advise Messi's fans to let your master go back and practice more. First, he should secure a starting position in Barcelona before competing for the Golden Boy Award!"
……
The Milan derby has always had a great influence in the football world. In addition, the process of this Milan derby was full of ups and downs and twists and turns, which attracted a large number of fans to watch the game.
As a result, Lin Feng's post-match interview and his battle with Messi for the Golden Boy Award unsurprisingly became a hit.
For a time, almost the entire football world was paying attention to this year's Golden Boy Award, and the attention it received was even higher than that of the Ballon d'Or next door.
The extremely high attention from the outside world has put the organizer Turin Sports Daily under tremendous pressure.
Originally, this year's Golden Boy Award was a very good target for hype. Compared with the previous two years, the competitors for this year's Golden Boy Award are much stronger.
One is a La Masia youth training talent, hailed by many football stars and well-known coaches as a candidate for the next generation of football king.
One is Inter Milan's supernova, who seems like a super genius who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. At the age of 17, he has secured a starting position in Inter Milan and has a terrifying average of one goal per game.
In the past few years, these two people would have been the undisputed first choices for the Golden Boy Award.
But the two of them collided with each other, making this year's Golden Boy Award full of suspense. Until the last moment, no one knew who would win the 2005 Golden Boy Award.
As the organizer, Turin Sports Daily could have used its status as the organizer to hype this topic before the award ceremony and make a lot of money with the extremely high attention.
But they never expected that the extremely high attention and popularity brought by the Golden Boy Award would backfire on them.
It can be said that no matter who is awarded the Golden Boy Award this time, Turin Sports Daily will be scolded!
If the award is given to Lin Feng, he will be criticized by countless fans for being a shady deal. If the award is given to Lin Feng, he will also be criticized by Messi's fans, who will think that they have succumbed to external public pressure.
In short, no matter what they do, it will be wrong in the end!
"Damn this guy! He seems to have said nothing, but his words are even worse than if he had said them directly!"
The editor-in-chief of Turin Sports Daily watched Lin Feng’s interview video and felt so angry!
If the other party directly attacks Turin Sports Daily, they still have means to counterattack.
But the opponent did not attack them directly, everything was just the outside world's imagination, which made all the countermeasures in Turin Sports Daily ineffective.
……
Spain, Barcelona.
The turmoil in Italy has now spread to Spain.
Although Messi ignored the outside world's comments, this incident inevitably had an impact on him.
He knew that he was lagging behind his opponents in terms of team status, playing time, goals and assists.
In order to make up for this gap, in the 15th round of La Liga held that night, Messi played very actively after starting.
He desperately wanted to score a goal to prove his strength.
However, sometimes the more anxious you are, the harder it is to score a goal.
In the 13th minute of the first half, facing Ronaldinho's pass, Messi chose to use his arm to stop the ball in a hurry, although his subsequent shot broke the opponent's goal.
But the goal was ruthlessly blown off by the referee. Not only that, Messi also received a yellow sapphire card.
Messi, frustrated and anxious, became more and more anxious as the game went on, wasting Ronaldinho's assists many times.
Looking at Messi's poor performance, Rijkaard sighed.
The reason why Messi was arranged to start this game was to help him get more statistics and give him an advantage in the battle for the Golden Boy Award.
But Messi's condition was so bad that he and his teammates let him down.
In the 63rd minute, Sevilla striker Kanoute scored with a follow-up shot and Barcelona unexpectedly fell behind.
When the opponent scored first and Barcelona unexpectedly fell behind, Rijkaard could no longer allow Messi to do whatever he wanted.
He replaced Messi with Larsson, and used Eto'o and Ronaldinho as the main attackers. With a wave of his hand, he signaled the whole team to launch a fierce attack on the opponent.
Ronaldinho was invincible in 05. After Rijkaard adjusted the focus of the attack, he took only 3 minutes to help the team equalize the score with a magical shot.
Ten minutes later, Ronaldinho scored again and assisted Eto'o to score another goal.
In the end, Barcelona defeated Sevilla 2:1 at home and won 11 consecutive victories in the La Liga!
Messi's poor performance further highlighted Lin Feng's strength.
Even with the assistance of a world-class midfielder like Ronaldinho in the team, Messi couldn't score a goal.
Moreover, facing a team like Sevilla, how can they compare with Lin Feng, who only made one assist and one shot, and led the team to win such a tough battle as the Milan derby?
After this game, the support for Messi has become much smaller.
Although everyone admits that Messi is a genius, his breakthroughs and dribbling on the field are impressive.
But there are gaps between geniuses!
Compared with Lin Feng, Messi is still a little bit behind!
Now, all the pressure is on Turin Sports Daily.
There are only 2 days left until the Golden Boy Awards!
(End of this chapter)
