Chapter 68: Then Let's Have a Hat Trick! [Third Update]

"Our goal is the 2014 World Cup championship!!"

Cesare Prandelli was painting a grand picture for Li Mo.

"Li, we truly need you. Your addition will give the entire Italian national team its sharpest spear!"

Prandelli was not a manager known for being particularly passionate.

Yet, at this very moment, he was practically dancing and gesturing as he described the wonderful prospects of joining the Italian national team.

"You will win the World Cup, and you will claim the Ballon d'Or, Li!"

The Ballon d'Or...

Li Mo knew that such an award was far away from him.

However, if he could genuinely lead the Italian national team to victory at the World Cup in Brazil, it was not entirely impossible—much like Fabio Cannavaro back in the day.

Li Mo listened very intently.

Once he had ascertained that it was highly unlikely he would ever stoop to licking the boots of those idiots at the Chinese Football Association,

his only remaining option was the Italian national team.

Furthermore, Li Mo had no psychological barriers whatsoever.

He was proud of his cultural background.

Yet, at the same time, he had grown up in Italy and developed within the youth training system of AC Milan.

He possessed the DNA of Italian football.

Therefore, joining the Italian national team required no psychological adjustment for Li Mo at all.

"Sir, I also hope to capture the World Cup—our fifth World Cup star!"

Li Mo said earnestly.

Prandelli smiled.

With Li Mo in the squad, Italy's long-standing lack of a lethal goalscorer was essentially resolved.

"For the next international break, we will send you an invitation, Li. Welcome to our team!"

Prandelli said.

"Very well, Sir. I can hardly wait."

Li Mo grinned.

Come to think of it, he did have a few acquaintances in the Italian national team.

For some reason, the first image that popped into his mind was Mario Balotelli's slightly abstract face.

Being teammates with Super Mario...

That would be quite interesting.

Dimly lit nightclub.

Pumping music.

A chaotic dance floor where bodies writhed.

Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Kieran Gibbs were already twisting their bodies on the dance floor, their lower bodies occasionally pressing intimately against voluptuous women, whispering into each other's ears.

Carl Jenkinson, on the other hand, looked rather shy; it seemed he rarely frequented such places.

In contrast, Li Mo, sitting opposite him, looked entirely at home.

When he took his seat, quite a few women around him began casting flirtatious glances his way.

Pity.

One was willing, but the other was not.

Even though their eyes fluttered until they seemed to be in spasms, Li Mo didn't even spare them a single glance.

"Lucas! Hey! Hey! Press up against her! Yes! Yes! Just like that! Oh oh oh oh oh! Grind on her!!"

Li Mo raised a glass of grape juice high and roared.

Jenkinson looked astonished. "Li, you look awfully comfortable in this environment?"

Slurp.

Li Mo took a sip of grape juice. "What, do you take me for some sort of training robot?"

"Uh, haha, well..."

Jenkinson scratched his head, struggling to formulate a defense.

Seeing this, Li Mo laughed. "Relax, I'm not a robot."

I'm simply someone with a strong sense of urgency...

Li Mo sat on the sofa of the booth.

The dizzying lights and dazzling sights sought to captivate the eye.

Yet his gaze remained exceptionally clear.

Desire.

Everyone had it.

But for Li Mo, what he found even more unbearable was a decline in his performance on the pitch.

If he failed to score in a match, he would remain depressed for days.

Compared to that...

Visiting a nightclub, hanging out with models...

Well, it wasn't strictly out of the question.

Only, it must never interfere with his progress.

"It's just that what I pursue is a bit different from all this."

Li Mo pointed a finger at the women entangled with Walcott and the others and smiled.

Tsk tsk tsk.

The foundation on their faces was half a centimeter thick.

Their chests and rears looked artificially oversized.

How could anyone stand that?

Li Mo still preferred a much simpler taste.

"Hello, Li."

At that exact moment,

Li Mo suddenly caught a whiff of a pleasing, refreshing fragrance.

A woman sat down opposite him—blonde, blue-eyed, with a well-proportioned figure. Her curves were ample without being exaggerated; in short, a beauty whose style was much less overpowering.

"My name is Catherine. Anna-Catherine Vida!"

Li Mo thought for a moment and felt the woman before him looked somewhat familiar.

Right then, Jenkinson leaned into Li Mo's ear. "She's a German woman. I heard she's Mario Götze's girlfriend."

Oh?

Li Mo's eyes lit up.

"Little Jen, why don't you go over and dance with Aaron and the others?"

Li Mo gave Jenkinson a shove, pushing him off the seat.

Jenkinson helplessly flipped him the middle finger,

before being pulled onto the dance floor by Aaron Ramsey.

Richard Hurst, a reporter for the *North London Evening Standard* and a staunch Tottenham Hotspur supporter, was also lingering in this very nightclub.

As a balding middle-aged man,

even though his stamina for the sprint probably amounted to less than a minute remaining,

the primal urge beneath the belt remained the fundamental driving force of human behavior.

Visiting a nightclub might just lead to stumbling upon a wild match or two, and throwing around a bit of cash could buy some fleeting intimacy.

Yet today, Richard felt thoroughly depressed.

Even though he had put on a hairpiece, dressed himself up to look somewhat presentable, and nearly worn a thick gold chain around his neck to announce, "I am a man of means"—though, to be fair, parading around a major Western metropolis like London wearing a heavy gold chain was genuinely dangerous—

no one paid him the slightest attention.

Even when he took the initiative to chat up women, very few showed any interest.

After all, this was a relatively high-end establishment, and players from many London clubs loved frequenting the "Bloody Rose."

Naturally, those women were far more interested in the physiques of professional athletes.

Nobody fancied a middle-aged, balding mound of flesh.

Just then,

he heard a burst of silvery laughter.

He turned his head to look.

What met his eyes was a blonde beauty who was in an entirely different league from the other women in the club.

As a journalist,

he recognized her instantly.

It was Catherine, the German young model who had recently shot to fame due to her romance with German international Mario Götze!

So...

Who was sitting across from her?

Richard quietly slipped over to the adjacent area.

"It's Li Mo?!"

Richard Hurst was both shocked and delighted.

His brain was practically overheating.

Arsenal player Li Mo, on a nightclub date with the girlfriend of Borussia Dortmund player Mario Götze?!

Those two things had less than nothing to do with each other.

However,

his professional instincts as a reporter

instantly made Richard Hurst sniff out the news value.

"What hardest-working youngster? It's all just a carefully crafted persona! Heh, let's see how I tear you down!"

Manufacturing narrative storms against Arsenal players was Richard Hurst's specialty.

Not to mention...

Tottenham fans were suffering terribly right now.

Watching their arch-rivals grow stronger and stronger,

while Tottenham... drifted further and further away from the top four.

"Nightclub revelry on the eve of the match against Newcastle..."

A gleam of excitement flickered in Richard Hurst's eyes.

Hiding in the shadows,

he stealthily pulled out his camera,

capturing photos from multiple angles.

Li Mo was naturally the primary focus.

However, Richard Hurst also managed to snap pictures of several other Arsenal players.

That very night,

Richard Hurst sold the photographs to various minor London tabloids

while simultaneously exposing the story on Twitter.

*Arsenal Youngsters Partying All Night in Nightclub!!*

*Li Mo Trysts with Golden Boy Götze's Girlfriend Catherine in Secret Rendezvous!*

*Will His Legs Turn to Jelly? Nightclub Revelry the Night Before an Away Match!*

*What Luck! Catherine Throws Herself at Him—Can Li Mo Resist?*

London was perhaps the most media-saturated city in the world.

In other words,

the tabloids here...

were numerous, completely devoid of integrity, and willing to print absolutely anything.

In fact, the incident blew up on social media that very night.

The following day, tabloids of all stripes piled on with follow-up coverage.

In no time at all, everyone knew

that right before Arsenal traveled away to play Newcastle,

several of Arsenal's young players had spent the entire night carousing in a nightclub.

"F**k! Damn paparazzi! Damn toilet-paper rags!"

"What all night! We were already back by ten o'clock!"

"Fabrication! This is pure fabrication!!"

Inside the dressing room,

everyone stared at the newspapers with expressions of bitter indignation.

"What do we do now? The Boss explicitly said to rest well before the match, and now every tabloid in London is running stories about this..." Jenkinson said with a mournful face.

"Ah? How is he going to deal with this?" Li Mo asked.

"We might be sent down to the reserves for a few days..." Walcott said despondently.

"Sent to the reserves?!" Li Mo's voice instantly spiked in pitch.

"No, no, no, how can that be? We only went out to celebrate Aaron's birthday, and we all went back to rest by ten o'clock! Uncle and Auntie Russell can vouch for that."

Li Mo shook his head and said.

"Going out isn't the problem; the problem is that we got exposed," Wilshere reminded him.

"I'm going to talk to the Boss!"

Li Mo said, gritting his teeth.

"Are you insane?" Gibbs clutched his head in his hands.

At Arsenal, Arsène Wenger's word was absolute law.

Who dared to challenge his authority?

"I'm not insane. Think about it—we didn't actually do anything wrong; the media is just making things up. If we get sent to the reserves purely because of media fabrications, that would be completely unfair!" Li Mo argued. "If we had actually stayed out partying all night before the match, I'd accept any punishment without a word. But the truth is we didn't, right?"

If he got demoted to the reserves over this and missed two or three matches,

Li Mo would suffer a devastating loss—he and Catherine had been getting along splendidly, and she had even dropped hints about which hotel she was staying at.

Yet Li Mo had flatly refused with the excuse, "I have a match tomorrow night."

He had even dragged the other players away and hustled them back to their respective homes before ten o'clock.

If he still got punished after all that,

he truly would have lost the army only to forfeit the princess as well.

Arsène Wenger had, of course, noticed the media reports.

His coaching staff had split into two factions over the matter.

Some felt this was most likely just a media fabrication.

Others believed that visiting a nightclub right before a crucial fixture was inappropriate in any case, and it presented a convenient opportunity to rest them for a match while re-establishing team discipline.

Yet Wenger had a headache.

Rest them?

The next fixture was an away match against Newcastle.

St James' Park was always a notoriously difficult place to visit.

Without Li Mo and the others,

he wasn't entirely certain of victory.

Still...

If sacrificing a match was the price required to establish the inviolable authority of team discipline,

it might not be entirely unacceptable.

Just as Wenger was mulling this over,

a staff member came in to report:

Li Mo and the others had taken the initiative to come see him.

Wenger and his coaching staff were somewhat surprised.

"Well now, we hadn't even gone looking for them, and they've shown up on their own doorstep."

Wenger smiled.

"Let them in."

"Boss, we didn't party all night in a nightclub. We were all back before ten o'clock; the media is completely fabricating this. We've rested properly, and our condition is absolute top-notch—it won't affect the next match at all."

Li Mo said loudly.

They stood in a row.

The others kept their heads lowered, looking just like delinquent students standing before their head teacher's desk.

Only Li Mo held his head high, arguing loudly and confidently in his own defense.

Hearing this, Wenger smiled.

He had seen all sorts of players in his career.

He knew precisely how to handle Li Mo.

"Indeed, I believe you, Li. You are my player; how could I possibly believe the reports of tabloid paparazzi instead of you?"

Wenger smiled gently.

Li Mo felt a wave of relief, and just as he was about to speak, Wenger raised a hand to signal him to hold on.

"However, didn't I tell you beforehand to rest properly? Did I ever say you could visit nightclubs as long as you returned by ten o'clock?"

"About that..." Li Mo panicked.

"So, even though the media claims you partied all night and that is a fabrication, the fact remains that you did visit a nightclub, isn't that so?"

"Boss, we did go, but I promise you, we definitely got enough rest, and our form will not be affected in the slightest!"

Li Mo insisted.

"Oh? And how do you plan to prove that?"

"Prove it..." Li Mo's eyes darted around. "I'll score in the next match!"

A wave of smug satisfaction washed over him.

Scoring goals was hardly difficult, was it?

Besides, to score, he would need to be in the starting lineup, and being in the starting lineup meant the whole incident was effectively over and done with.

I really am too smart.

However, Wenger clearly had no intention of letting Li Mo off the hook so easily.

"Scoring is far too simple for you, Li. Our current tactics are built entirely around you; you are our primary goalscorer, and every tactical setup is tailor-made for you. I don't consider you scoring in a match to be particularly difficult. Even if you score, it doesn't prove your physical condition is unaffected, does it?"

Wenger said, crossing his legs.

He calmly watched Li Mo, curious to see what other absurd rationalizations the lad might come up with.

Though, in truth, Wenger's own logic was the absurd one here...

In a single match, if a forward scored, could that seriously fail to prove he was in good form?

Wenger himself understood just how terrifying a striker averaging a goal per game truly was.

For any forward,

scoring was never an easy task.

"This..."

Li Mo was momentarily tongue-tied.

The corners of Wenger's mouth curved upward slightly.

He had merely wanted to rap Li Mo, Wilshere, and the other youngsters over the knuckles; he had never genuinely intended to punish them.

Naturally, he knew those tabloid rags were talking rubbish.

How could he possibly trust paparazzi over his own players?

Furthermore, he was well aware that yesterday had been Ramsey's birthday, and young men going out for a bit of fun—as long as it didn't cross the line or impact the match—wasn't actually a big deal.

Just as he finished brandishing the stick and prepared to offer a sweet carrot to comfort them,

Li Mo grew desperate.

"Then I'll score two—no, three! I'll score a hat-trick! That should be enough to prove my form is fine!"

As the words fell,

Wenger,

the members of the coaching staff,

along with Wilshere, Walcott, and the rest,

everyone's expressions froze instantly.

About two seconds later,

Wenger, having recovered his wits, couldn't help but ask, "And if you fail to do it?"

"If I fail... you can punish me however you see fit, and I won't say a single word of complaint!" Li Mo said through clenched teeth.