Headwinds Start a Prairie Fire

Three years on the school team, three years on the bench, and wearing a faded No. 14 Jersey, Chen Zheng is recognized as a transparent substitute in Jiangcheng No. 3 Middle School. His speed is mediocre, his confrontation is weak, and his shooting is lackluster. The coach asserts that his talent is locked, and his teammates laugh that he is only qualified to clean up the mess in garbage time. In the city league, the team was on the verge of defeat with a score of 0-2. The captain was seriously injured and left the field, and when no one was available, he was able to step onto the hot plastic pitch. There is no youth training, no extraordinary talent, only thousands of evenings of training alone, the court reading and toughness engraved in the bones. The geniuses of the wealthy families mocked wantonly, the youth training echelon crushed the whole field, and everyone believed that the grassroots would never succeed. But Chen Zheng decided to build a defense line with his flesh and blood, break through the siege with his vision, and led the school team to an upset all the way: a draw with the defending seeds, reaching the semi-finals of the city competition, and standing on the provincial league stage to fight against powerful enemies. The world only sees geniuses with their sharp edges, but he is the only weed that survives the cold winter when no one cares about him, and breaks down the barriers of talent that stand in the way. In the provincial competition, although he left the field in defeat, he was immediately targeted by professional scouts. The road to substitutes will eventually come to an end, and headwinds can start a prairie fire. From an unknown boy on the plastic court to a core midfielder heading to the professional arena, Chen Zheng's journey has just begun.