Chapter 19 Ronnie's Request for Help
The brace against Loretano greatly improved Sudong's position in the Portuguese Sporting Confederation.
Although the club had attached great importance to him before, after this game, everyone was clearly aware of his potential and future.
At the age of sixteen, with such performance and the speed of improvement he has shown in the past period of time, Su Dong's future is definitely worth looking forward to, but such a player may not stay in Sporting CP for long.
Not only were Matelos and others friendly to Su Dong, even the main striker who was stepped on by him was not resistant to him.
Firstly, Su Dong is now highly favored by the team, and secondly, they all feel that Su Dong will not stay for too long.
In that case, why make enemies?
The Portuguese Second Division does not have much influence. It can even be said that after leaving the home field, not many people pay attention to it.
After scoring twice, Su Dong was excited for the whole night, but he soon returned to normal.
He still gets up at four in the morning every day, does physical training first, then goes to the King Edward VII Park to train with Ronnie until the afternoon, then returns to the club for training, and then has an extra hour of training with Mateello.
What’s different from the past is that there are two more people practicing with me.
One is the midfielder who sent a through pass to Sudong against Loletano, Canelas who came from Benfica's youth training.
The 21-year-old player is a very good passer, has ideas and good footwork, but he is short and weak, which puts him at a disadvantage in adult team games.
Although they didn't know each other before, he became friends with Su Dong after playing a game with him.
Another one is the right winger Baru who made a wonderful pass to Su Dong.
The player is 24 years old, of African descent, and a product of Bellerence's youth training. His basic skills are solid, but not outstanding. His biggest advantage is his speed, and he is also very good in physical confrontation, which makes him very lethal in lower-level teams.
Canelas and Baru are both full-time players for Sporting CP, which shows the club's recognition of their abilities.
With two more people to practice with, the training programs became much richer. It was said that they were arranged personally by head coach Gorba.
All of these are making their attitude clear to everyone, which is that the club has been training Su Dong as the team's top hope, and the ultimate goal is to get a transfer fee from Su Dong.
Su Dong did not resist this.
It seems that players are treated as commodities, but isn't this a win-win situation?
Besides, when the time comes to transfer, Su Dong’s opinion will ultimately be used as a reference.
After all, he only signed a youth training contract.
…
In the fulfilling pace of life, another week has passed quickly.
The Portuguese Second Division League has entered its third round of matches.
This time, Sporting CP is playing away from home, and their opponent is quite strong, being the second team of Portuguese Super League team Maritimo.
As one of the strong teams in the Portuguese Super League, Maritimo's second team is not bad. In the Portuguese Second Division South League, it has always ranked in the upper middle position, a little higher than Sporting CP.
Unlike the away game in the first round, this time the away game is in the Madeira Islands, far outside the European continent.
The Madeira Islands are located to the west of the African continent, adjacent to the Canary Islands belonging to Spain. Both are famous tourist destinations. There are flights from Lisbon to the Madeira Islands every day, and the flight takes about two hours.
Although it is entirely possible to travel back and forth on the day of the competition, that is really too rushed, so people usually arrive at the Madeira Islands a day in advance, stay one night to recuperate, and return the same night after the competition.
The same is true for Sporting CP this time.
When head coach Pereira announced the match roster, Su Dong was selected without surprise.
Although Pereira later told him that he would still be a substitute in this game, Su Dong was still very happy.
Being selected for the big list consecutively has proved everything.
On the evening before the game, when Su Dong finished his training and returned to the dormitory to pack his luggage, he received a call from Ronnie.
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…
"Why are you here?"
Su Dong ran downstairs quickly and saw Ronnie standing at the intersection downstairs with big and small bags in his hands, so he hurried over to him.
"When I thought about not being able to see you tomorrow, I couldn't help but come and see you." Ronnie looked very worried.
"Would you like me to come upstairs and sit for a while?"
Su Dong hesitated for a moment, but still invited the guest to go upstairs.
The apartment he lived in was called an apartment, but it was actually a single room, and an old and dilapidated one at that. Not only were the facilities outdated and very incomplete, the stairways and corridors were also pitch black.
As soon as Ronnie came in, his brows were tightly furrowed and never relaxed.
Originally, he often complained to Su Dong about the situation when he lived at Gate No. 10 of the Alvalade Stadium, saying how bad the conditions were, and how it was a four-person room. But compared with where Su Dong lives now, the home dormitory back then could not be said to be a five-star hotel, but it was definitely a three-star hotel.
Su Dong never mentioned his accommodation conditions, and Ronnie never asked either. It was only today that he came here specially according to the address Su Dong had revealed, but he didn't expect to see Su Dong's accommodation conditions so bad.
I'm afraid there's nothing good about this place except that it's cheap.
"This was rented for me by my previous agent." Su Dong noticed Ronnie's expression and explained.
"I don't have high requirements for where I live, as long as I can concentrate on playing football, so I have never thought about changing."
Ronnie nodded quickly. This was indeed Su Dong's character.
After entering the room, I saw that the room was covered with floor mats, an iron rod was hung in the aisle, and there were some sandbags in the corner. These were bought by Ronnie and Su Dong before, and were used for physical training.
While Ronnie wasn't paying attention, Su Dong turned around and took out two bottles of Manniu from the system and handed one to Ronnie.
"Tell me, what do you want from me?" Su Dong asked with a smile.
Ronnie knew that Su Dong should be reporting to the team soon, so he didn't delay any longer.
"Didn't you tell me this morning that you were on the squad and were going to play in Madeira? "
"Yeah." This is what Su Dong said to him in the morning.
"You probably don't know that the home stadium of Maritimo II is right in front of my house."
"What?" Su Dong was a little surprised.
How did he end up at Ronnie's doorstep?
"I joined Andorinha when I was nine years old. Our training ground was a few hundred meters north of the Maritimo training center, and my home was on the small hill west of the Maritimo training center, far away from the tourist area where tourists gather."
Su Dong nodded, but soon thought of another question, "But I remember that you seemed to be in the National Sports Youth Training Camp."
"Yes." Ronnie nodded with a smile. "Originally, I had almost joined Maritimo. I even bought their jersey, but they didn't take me seriously and were absent during the negotiations. This made us angry, so we went to National Sports, which was dozens of kilometers away. This resulted in me only being able to train three times a week."
Su Dong suddenly realized that this was the case.
"The people of Maritimo must be regretting their actions now."
Ronnie shrugged, nonchalantly.
Although he has not yet made his mark, it is impossible for Maritimo not to regret missing out on such a player.
But who can be blamed for this?
"Do you want me to bring something?" Su Dong looked at the bags of different sizes in Ronnie's hands.
Ronnie nodded and handed over the bag. "These are some gifts I bought for my family, including a Sony game console. I originally wanted to take a leave and send them back myself after a while, but now that you are going there, you can bring them back for me, okay?"
"Of course." Su Dong nodded without hesitation.
This was the first time Ronnie asked him for help, and he couldn't refuse it no matter what.
Besides, as far as he knew, Funchal where Maritimo was located was very small, and the team's residence was probably not far from Ronnie's house, and could be reached by taking a taxi.
"Thank you." Ronnie thanked him.
Su Dong hurriedly told him to be polite.
Ronnie sat for a while, seeming to want to say something but hesitant. In the end, he didn't say anything more. He just said that he would call home tonight. Then he wrote down an address for Su Dong and asked him to tell the taxi driver so he would know the place.
After Su Dong received the address, he sent Ronnie downstairs and went back to pack his things.
At 19:30 that evening, Sporting CP arrived at TAP Air Portugal from Lisbon Airport to catch the last and cheapest discounted flight to Madeira Islands.
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Madeira Islands, known as the island of eternal spring.
As the name suggests, it is like spring here all year round, the temperature never exceeds 33 degrees, it is warm in winter and cool in summer, which is very suitable for vacation.
Every year , countless tourists travel south from the European continent to visit the Madeira Islands.
The Portuguese team arrived late at night and went directly from the airport to the hotel. The hotel they stayed in was not likely to be a high-end hotel, but it was very close to the competition venue.
The next day was another nice day with clear blue sky and no clouds.
As usual, Su Dong got up early in the morning, exercised for a while with the simple fitness equipment in the hotel, had breakfast with the whole team, and then found head coach Pereira and captain Mateello to ask for a short leave.
Although the coaching staff prohibited players from going out without reason, they did not make things difficult for Su Dong when they heard that he wanted to send something to a friend. They just reminded him to be careful, and especially to remember the phone numbers of the coach and captain and contact them immediately if there was anything.
Following the instructions of the coach and captain, Su Dong got into the taxi arranged for him by the hotel.
As soon as he got in the car, Su Dong handed the address Ronnie had written to the driver.
"Falcao Village, I know this place, it's next to San Antonio Cemetery." The driver knew the address as soon as he saw it.
We drove Su Dong out of the hotel and headed north.
The taxi was called by the hotel. Su Dong was not worried about the safety. He just asked the driver to wait for him for a while and left after delivering the things.
"It should be that Ronaldo who asked you to deliver it?" the driver asked curiously while driving.
"How do you know?" Su Dong was a little surprised.
"He is a minor celebrity here. His name is the same as Ronaldo's and he is a good football player. A reporter even came from Lisbon to report on him. Many people here know him."
Su Dong smiled slightly, he was not surprised by this.
"However, something happened in their family recently."
