Golden Generation: from Gaoxin Middle School to Santiago Bernabeu

Four to zero. Eighteen-year-old Huang Boteng stood on the white artificial grass and watched the people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s opposite celebrating. The score is ugly? Ugly. But if you only looked at the score, you wouldn't know what happened that afternoon - You wouldn't know why the opposing coach gave an eighteen-year-old goalie a thumbs-up. Who would have known that the 34-year-old professional goalkeeper patted Min Hongqiang's glove after the game, as if patting a fellow player. Who would have known that those few minutes when the five crushed teenagers stood in silence in the middle circle contained a crazy enough foreshadowing. What happened next? Later, Huang Boteng and Fang Kesong flew together on both wings, Wu Junhao guarded the backcourt, Li Yuzhen completed the wing, and Min Hongqiang took the ball out of the fire with his bare hands - five people, the same white clothes, the same team song, and the same national flag unfurled in the stands. Bernabeu. You read that right. Five 18-year-old boys from Dazhou High-Tech Middle School all stood on the Real Madrid turf. Under the night sky of the Champions League final, they stood side by side in white jerseys, just like they were standing in the center circle when they were eighteen years old. The world remembers the way they held the cup. What I don't remember is: it all started with a piece of white artificial grass, with a 4-0 defeat, with more than 20 students sitting on the cement stand and refusing to leave even though their throats were bleeding. They later lit up Europe. But that afternoon, they were just five people who had been told goodbye. And farewell is where the story begins.