The ball wasn’t kicked out by him; instead, his own right foot struck his left ankle, causing him to lose balance and fall flat on his face!

“Ahahaha!” Some of the youth team players burst out laughing.

“That was so stupid! Painfully stupid!”

“An idiot like that dares to boast about beating Kaka?”

“Beat Kaka? Maybe in his next life!”

“What are you all doing? Train seriously!” Warren’s scolding voice rang out.

Lucas also heard the laughter coming from the youth team’s side. Although he couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, the laughter alone was enough to tell him what was going on.

“These bastards…” Even though he was on the same team as them, he felt they were going too far.

What’s so funny about a beginner expressing his dreams?

He turned his gaze to Logan Grant, who had already gotten up from the ground.

“Was my supporting foot too close to the ball just now?” Logan Grant ignored the mocking laughter and instead asked Lucas very seriously.

He was so earnest that Lucas was taken aback.

He really hadn’t expected the first thing Logan Grant would say after getting up to be a technical question. He thought Logan Grant would start cursing back at the others first…

“Ah… oh, right. When you passed the ball just now, your supporting foot was too close. That way, not only is it hard to generate power, but you’ll also end up kicking your own supporting foot—just like that blunder you made.”

“Alright, let’s go again!” Logan Grant seemed completely unfazed by the malicious laughter, shouting with high spirits.

……

After dinner, Logan Grant went out with a soccer ball in his arms.

Gordon knew he was definitely going out to find a place to train again, so he just reminded him, “Don’t come back too late,” and then went back to watching TV.

Logan Grant went up to the rooftop terrace.

He and Lucas lived in an elevator apartment building with fifteen floors.

The very top was the rooftop.

Hardly anyone came here, so Logan Grant could train alone without being disturbed.

After finishing his basic warm-up, he started juggling the ball.

He no longer bothered to count how many times he could juggle the ball in one go.

He could even think about other things while juggling, multitasking like this. It showed that his body had already memorized the feeling, and the purpose of getting familiar with the ball was achieved.

The soccer ball bounced up and down in front of Logan Grant’s eyes, up and down.

Like a vertically swinging pendulum.

Watching the ball, Logan Grant thought of faraway China, his hometown. What time was it there now?

Were his grandparents still in good health?

Was his younger brother studying hard at school?

And his parents and sister working in Shanghai—how were they doing?

When he first arrived in São Paulo, he wrote them a letter, but he didn’t know if they’d received it.

He’d been here for almost a month, but still hadn’t made any money.

Every day was spent on the most monotonous, repetitive basic training.

He didn’t know how much longer these days would last.

When would he be able to play matches and make a name for himself like those first-team professionals?

He’d heard all the mocking laughter from the others at training today.

But when would he be able to shut them up with his performance?

Logan Grant finished his juggling practice and looked at the ball at his feet. He’d come up here to practice passing and receiving. Even with no one to practice with, he had a way.

The stairwell was a structure protruding from the rooftop, with walls on all sides. He could kick the ball against the wall to practice passing.

When the ball bounced back off the wall, he’d stop it with his foot—practicing receiving.

As long as there was a wall and a ball, he could practice passing and receiving. It was simple.

But as Logan Grant stood with the ball at his feet, looking at the snow-white wall ahead, he suddenly felt a bit unwilling.

Although the coach had stopped him from practicing shooting, when there was no coach around and only himself, his heart started to itch again…

Logan Grant rolled the ball to a spot about a dozen meters from the wall, almost at the edge of the rooftop, with the chest-high concrete railing pressing against his back. He couldn’t go any further.

The summer night wind in São Paulo was strong on the fifteenth-floor rooftop, howling and blowing through Logan Grant’s growing hair and his thin T-shirt.

The nearby buildings in front of Logan Grant were brightly lit, and as he looked at those lights, they gradually blurred into glowing dots. His gaze focused on the white wall ahead.

Moonlight spilled over the rooftop. Even though there was no lighting here, the snow-white wall reflected the moonlight and looked bright.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but this wall happened to be 7.3 meters wide and 2.5 meters high—about the same size as a regulation soccer goal.

In Logan Grant’s eyes, this was his goal.

Gordon had said that the most thrilling moment in a soccer match was when someone took a shot, and the climax was when the ball went in. Just like how slam dunks were always the most eye-catching and popular part of a basketball game.

That sentence was deeply engraved in the rookie Logan Grant’s mind.