Blue Dream Trail (Soccer) - Episode 10

After his success in the J Youth Cup and gaining experience at the U-23 World Cup, Ren began accompanying the Ravens’ top team in practice in the winter of his second year of high school.

By that time, he was 186cm tall and his body fat percentage was in the 9% range.

The boy who had been a “slim and smart kid” just a few years ago had transformed into a “young man with both reading ability and strength.”

The pressure, intensity, and temperature of life for top athletes.

Everything was different from youth.

Ren sensed that “smell.”

(This is where you’ll live)

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The first promotion to the top division was announced one week before the start of the J1 League.

His jersey number is 28.

Although still on the bench, Ren was quietly burning with passion.

Then in the seventh round, with the team’s main midfielder injured, Ren’s “day” came.

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25 minutes into the second half, the substitution board goes up with the score at 1-1.

A murmur runs through the stadium.

“Oh, that youth Ren?” “Seriously, here?”

Ren was sitting on a bench at the back of the locker room.

On his feet were brand-new cleats with his jersey number embroidered on them.

The number 28 still doesn’t feel familiar to me.

This is my first time wearing the top team uniform.

I remember the moment I picked it up, my palms got hot for some reason.

“Ren. Are you nervous?”

The person who called out to me was a senior reserve goalkeeper.

“…I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”

When Ren answered like that, the senior laughed softly.

“It’s okay to be scared, but have fun. When you step onto the pitch, feel it all.”

The roar of the stadium reverberates through the ground like a low rumble.

Ren retied the laces on his spikes and took a deep breath.

(This is…the starting point.)

And yet, strangely, my mind was calm.

The scenery before me appeared as “space” rather than as “information.”

With the signal to substitute, he steps onto the pitch, his whole body bathed in the attention of the crowd.

Two minutes later, the opponent started pressing in the midfield.

Ren passed the ball to the opposite side with one touch.

That decision completely threw the defender off his timing.

The team’s winger breaks free and crosses the ball to the center.

The forward pushes forward and scores a goal!

The commentator shouts.

“Such poise and vision! It’s as if he’s been performing this show for years!”

The match ended in a 2-1 victory.

As the spectators headed home, whispers could be heard here and there in the stands.

“Who was number 28?” “Wasn’t that amazing?”

The entire stadium was enveloped in an eerie silence.

At the center of it all was a “young ruler” who had just made his debut.

A few months later, the headline appeared in large letters in the latest issue of Sports Graphic Number.

“A Revolutionary Appears”

──”REN, the 18-year-old who controls the pitch, shakes up J.”

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Over the next year, Ren steadily gained match experience on the J1 stage.

Regularly established, won the Best Young Player Award,

And above all, in the notebooks of scouts from European countries,

The name “REN” was beginning to be engraved.

His height finally reaches 189cm.

Physique, technique, vision, mentality.

We were reaching a point where words like “un-Japanese” could no longer be used to describe it.

His weapon is his playing style, which involves “controlling the breathing of everyone on the pitch.”

Ren’s story has now come to an end as a professional athlete.

It will spread to the world.

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