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Lance didn't know if the fans were nervous.
But when he completed the pre-match ceremony, shook hands with the entire Barcelona team, walked to the center of Camp Nou, and stood on the ball under the gaze of nearly 90,000 fans, waiting for the kick-off... Lance was a little rattled.
The day before the match, Atlético Madrid scouts had allegedly filmed a video of Barcelona's closed training. The footage was shaky and blurry, but the opponent's defensive runs and positioning could vaguely be made out. Nobody knew where the video came from, but it made Simeone frown deeply.
"Logically, this little bit of footage shouldn't reveal much, right? Barcelona's defense was just so-so last time."
"But Málaga froze us for 80 minutes. How are we supposed to deal with Barcelona?"
"True."
The Atlético Madrid assistant coach scratched his head.
Málaga's attack hadn't been strong enough to seriously threaten Atlético Madrid's goal. But what about a front line of Messi, Neymar, and Suárez? If Atlético Madrid couldn't score against Barcelona but conceded at the other end, Barcelona would simply sit on the ball, play it safe, and give Atlético Madrid no room to counterattack at all.
Cutting off passes to Lance had become the central challenge.
Just like when Barcelona's tiki-taka had been near-invincible, almost no team in the world could break their passing and possession system. But even the mightiest tactics eventually get figured out. After years of targeted research by clubs worldwide, tiki-taka was already a relic. Now the game belonged to total football, high pressing, and defensive counterattacks.
If an invincible team system could be cracked, then so could an individual player.
Lance's weaknesses had long been placed under a magnifying glass. Every time something was identified, Lance had come up with new abilities to counter it. During his time in La Liga he had grown continuously. The reputation for being poor at long-range shots was already gone. Lance had become the most dangerous long-range shooter in La Liga, with the highest success rate from distance.
But he was human after all. Rapid growth was astonishing, but evolving entirely new abilities in a short time was impossible.
So the stranglehold tactic, combining zonal marking with aggressively cutting off Lance's receiving lanes, first perfected at Manchester City, gradually copied by teams like Málaga, and now fully mastered by Barcelona, was ready to be deployed.
It was genuinely hard to say who would win this match. Simeone and the entire coaching staff were deeply unsettled. But what could they do? The match was here. They had to work with what they had.
The night before, Lance had walked past the hotel conference room and clearly overheard the coaching staff's discussion.
Now, standing on the ball at the center circle, watching the referee raise the whistle to his lips, with 90,000 people in the stadium counting down in unison, Lance quickly scanned the system panel in the final moment before kickoff.
[System Upgrading... Please wait]
Great.
Wait for your sister!
Was the system openly slacking off now?
He had originally been playing the role of a diligent, hardworking professional. Not anymore. Cards on the table:
He was a cheater.
To fight for the league title, to win the Treble, he had every reason to win today. Whether it was a cheat or not, whether the win was glorious or not, he didn't care. He just wanted to beat Barcelona, or be beaten by them. Simple.
Basic Muscle Memory simulating different skills could bully weaker sides at best. To truly face a complete Barcelona, a complete Real Madrid, the only way to guarantee a result was to cheat.
Come on! System! Whatever you make him do, could you at least finish upgrading first? That powerful feeling from a few days ago, stop holding it back. Just get it done already!
"Tres!! (3!)"
"Dos!! (2!)"
"Uno!! (1!)"
The countdown neared its end. The referee's whistle was almost at his lips. The system panel showed no changes, and Lance was already losing faith.
Once the whistle blew, the system panel would freeze. Equipping a template would be impossible. He would have to face Barcelona in a completely vanilla state.
"Fine. I'll just grit my teeth and get on with it."
Just as the second hand hit 12, within 0.1 seconds of kickoff, just as Lance was about to close the panel and give up on the system entirely, something chaotic seemed to flash before his eyes.
Lance almost instinctively confirmed something with his consciousness, then immediately kicked off.
The match began.
"Atlético Madrid can't get their attack going. Barcelona's high press is very effective!"
"Rakitić's tackle!"
Atlético Madrid hadn't expected Barcelona to come out with such fierce intensity. Compared to the setups they had faced at Manchester City and Málaga, these eleven players were more like a precision instrument, a well-drilled machine. Every run, every line of spacing looked as though it had been measured with a ruler.
The moment Atlético Madrid kicked off, Barcelona's three lines pressed forward and encircled them. Layer after layer of traps. Saúl was half a beat slow, and by the time he was about to clear the ball, it was too late. There were Barcelona players both in front and behind him.
Hesitating for a split second, Rakitić's fierce tackle poked the ball away, sweeping it to Busquets as he went down. Busquets played a one-touch pass, quickly shifting it to Iniesta in the left channel. Iniesta, Suárez, and Messi strung together a series of passes, penetrating Atlético Madrid's penalty area within 3 seconds.
"Messi!! Dribbles past one, then another!!"
Surrounded by three defenders, Messi continuously shifted rhythm and used his elite footwork to evade both Gabi and Godín. That was Messi's abnormal quality. For others, a feint was just a feint. But Messi could read his opponent's reaction in real time, make a later move yet arrive first, and decide on the fly whether to commit or pull back.
Defenders could never judge whether to step in when he shifted direction. The moment they extended a leg, Messi would pull the ball back and burst through the other side.
"Messi!! Is he shooting himself?"
Dribbling horizontally just outside the box, Messi suddenly curled a shot toward the far post. Just as it was about to fly in, a figure flashed through, extended a foot, and tapped it home.
"Ah!! The ball is in!!! Neymar scores at the far post!!"
"Only 12 seconds in and Barcelona score! They lead 1-0 at home!"
Commentator Jian Jun was stunned. The fans were even more bewildered. Many had just turned on their TVs and hadn't processed what was happening before it was already 1-0.
What just happened?
An ecstatic Neymar sprinted to celebrate with Messi. Suárez joined them, and the three embraced in the world-famous MSN pose.
The Atlético Madrid players felt the ground drop beneath them, their eyes blank.
That easy?
Lance temporarily pushed the flashing system screen to the back of his mind and studied Neymar and Messi carefully.
"These two are in great form."
If MSN was operating at this level, today would be the toughest battle of the season.
"Doesn't matter. It's not like we haven't come from behind before."
Lance patted his own face to snap out of it and was just about to go console his dejected teammates when he noticed the assistant referee on the far side suddenly raise his flag.
The main referee adjusted his earpiece, exchanged a few words, then jogged briskly toward the penalty area.
Could it be...?
Lance raised an eyebrow.
The referee blew his whistle and pointed flat-handed in Barcelona's direction.
Jian Jun reacted.
"Ah? Offside!! Goal disallowed!"
The celebrating MSN trio's smiles froze instantly. Neymar clutched his head, looking completely helpless.
"Let's look at the slow-motion replay... Yes, that's right! At the moment Messi played the pass, Neymar was indeed half a shoulder ahead!"
The vertical projection made it clear. Neymar was offside. No controversy whatsoever. Credit to the assistant referee for catching it.
The scoreboard reset to zero. Both teams returned to 0-0.
The 90,000 Barcelona fans at Camp Nou were furious, raining boos down on the referee and leaving him looking rather uncomfortable.
Why are you booing me?
Last season, Barcelona had endured the "Camp Nou tragedy," and the La Liga referee association had been questioned over its ties to the club's management. At a moment like this, who would dare make a controversial call in Barcelona's favor?
Lance exhaled.
As the tension left his body, his mind snapped back to the moment the system panel had flickered. The system must have completed its upgrade in that final second before the whistle. So had a template actually been confirmed?
Taking advantage of the dead ball, he quickly pulled up the panel.
He saw a name.
[System upgrade successful!]
[Upgrade gift package obtained! Randomly drawing S-rank template!]
[Drawing... Reading 'Isagi Yoichi' data!]
[Isagi Yoichi (S) — Loading successful!]
[Template equipped!]