From Arsenal to the Ball God

”Golden Ball Award candidate list!” Safina ran to her brother and shared the joy with him, ”Ma’el has been selected!”

”What?!”

On the other side, Jose just came out of the shower, and his hand stopped mid-towel rubbing, like he was frozen, ”Golden Ball Award? Are you sure?”

”Sure!”

”Let’s take a look!”

The trio immediately picked up their phones to search, and quickly found news about Ma’el.

”Neymar made it too.”

Ma’el put down his phone, humbly saying, ”Perhaps French Football counts age and potential as criteria for selection, so the two of us were able to make it together.”

”I don’t think so.” Davis smiled, shaking his head, and looked at his phone screen, ”It just means they didn’t put influence as the top priority; they chose a reasonable list based on strength and performance.

”Since Rooney, Aguero, and Suarez all made it, you, ranking above them on the scorer list, naturally deserve it too.”

”Haha...”

Ma’el laughed twice, took a deep breath, and said to the others, ”Let’s go to Zurich together when the time comes, to experience the atmosphere of this award up close. I want to shove ’Football Record’ in there too.

”This year, aim to get into the top 25, next year, break into the top 3! Ronaldo won this at 21, I want to win it at 20.”

He paced back and forth at home, feeling a bit restless.

The other three listened to his bold claims, just smiling... looking at this spirited figure, who would think he couldn’t do it?

....

December 9th, Korni Training Base.

Ma’el finally managed to level up the header and fancy dribbling panels, meanwhile, his aerial strike and outside foot strike are just a step away from upgrading.

[Skill: Header Timing Level 2]

[Skill Level: (161/300)]

[Utility: As you become more familiar with the landing point of headers and the point of contact during headers, you discover your timing for jumping at headers is usually average, unable to make the optimal choice, you begin to train day and night.]

[Skill: Fancy Dribbling Level 2]

[Skill Level: (391/800)]

[Utility: You attempt to master some fancy dribbling skills to increase success rate in small areas. Thanks to your excellent ball sense, you’re improving fast, but still far from perfect.]

These two skills, sure enough, begin from Level 2, fancy dribbling because of its complexity, is classified as a cognitive skill.

Ma’el can understand, having played many football games where reverse foot and fancy skills are listed independently and rated by stars.

In daily training, he clearly feels the relationship between this ability and mental effort, cognitive skills, and imagination.

It can be guessed that when these are trained to a high level, he will possess extraordinary creativity and small-space dribbling ability... These two points are often criticized.

Of course, this is only a surface, more important is the flair and elegance, that’s the key!

No one dislikes playing stylishly, no one dislikes completing dribbles and scoring in the most graceful way!

[Additional Skill: Fancy Techniques Level 1]

[Skill Level: (129/1500)]

[Utility: After practicing fancy dribbling, you find you need to master more ’skill-type’ fancy skills, like the Cow Tail and Rainbow Move, etc., which you are putting into your training plan.]

Additional skills?

Ma’el just leveled up fancy skills, and seeing the additional skill left him stunned, didn’t expect this... It seems he underestimated this ability a bit.

Moreover, Cow Tail, Rainbow Move, aren’t these supposed to be skill type special skills for individual practice?

How are they classified as an additional skill?

This is different from the additional dribbling skills, the additional dribbling skills are like patching the various qualities affecting his dribbling ability.

But this... does it barely count as plugging gaps?

Could it be the additional skills are fragments complementing the powerful skills being trained?

Thinking about it... Cow Tail, Rainbow Move these skills, although hard to train, are only minor items.

If treating them as a special skill for individual practice, Ma’el probably wouldn’t practice them, unless all other skills are Level 5, then he’d fill these in.

Putting them as additional skills, he’d definitely practice them, because additional skills are an overall enhancement.

Just a supplement!

He slowly understood the additional skills in the skill level panel, feeling there are still many functions in this panel he hasn’t figured out.

Well, having additional skills is a good thing... representing that this capability will explode with unexpected intensity.

Perhaps when reaching ’Fancy’ dual Level 4, he’ll become the player with the most flamboyant playing style in the world.

Surpassing Neymar, even approaching the football elf Ronaldinho, more elegant than Brother Xiaosha Berbatov!

As for the panel functionalities, will explore them when there’s an opportunity... Anyway, they’ll be gradually unveiled in training.

[Skill: Violent Bombing Level 4]

[Skill Level: (283/2000)]

[Skill: Aerial Strike Level 3]

[Skill Level: (754/800)]

[Skill: Outside Foot Arc Level 3]

[Skill Level: (741/800)]

[Skill: Endurance Level 3]

[Skill Level: (1889/2000)]

[Skill: Rhythm Level 3]

[Skill Level: (1378/1500)]

Looking at the skill levels of other skills, aerial strike and outside foot arc are indeed one step away from upgrading.

After the match against Everton, in that 9-day break, they can definitely be upgraded!

...

Time pushes forward rapidly, the ’Torino Sports Paper’ soon confirmed the specific date for the Golden Boy Award ceremony, December 22nd.

With this news, combined with Ma’el being selected as a Golden Ball Award candidate, Ma’el is again trending on numerous platforms.