I AM the Football Star

Popularity goes without saying.

Lu Yang’s popularity has always stayed sky-high, and this year he even represented Serie A and broke into the Champions League final.

Even though this is a Serie A award, you can’t possibly ignore performances in other competitions.

But the problem is, Carrel isn’t bad either.

In terms of sentiment, Carrel has spent ten years sharpening one sword and finally became Serie A champion—how many people shed tears for him?

Is this just a Serie A title?

This is ten years of countless people’s lives, countless people’s youth!

In team honours, isn’t the Serie A title the top honour in Serie A?

On personal stats, Carrel is just as outstanding, only slightly behind Lu Yang.

If you give it to Lu Yang, people will feel sorry for Carrel.

If you give it to Carrel, people will feel Lu Yang’s been treated unfairly.

Either way, years from now this will become ammo for the rival fanbases of Lu Yang and Carrel, using this year’s awards to try to smear the glory and brilliance of Lu Yang and Carrel this season.

Those later fans won’t hold reverence for the performances of these two superstars this year; they won’t know how great Lu Yang was this season, how hard it was for Kariel.

They just need one sentence—”That year Carrel/Lu Yang was more deserving of the best player award”—to turn all the emotion of this year into dust.

The Italian Football Association doesn’t want to see that happen.

So they can’t let either Lu Yang or Carrel be wronged.

Of course, that’s the more official line.

The one who really made this decision, Martivini, was actually thinking about the fact that Serie A’s previous best players, Gutierrez and Izalelt, had both left one after another.

Next season Lu Yang is leaving too, and if they only give this honour to Lu Yang, it’ll easily make Serie A look like Arsenal.

Selling the Captain every year, selling the best player every year—how awful does that sound?

It’s not that Martivini is stubbornly trying to defend some empty reputation of Serie A as the world’s number one league.

He’s already figured it out.

But before you sell something, don’t you have to package it?

This year’s Serie A is the best possible packaging opportunity.

Because this year’s Serie A is truly dragons dancing in chaos, superstars everywhere; in terms of excitement and star power it overwhelms the Premier League and La Liga, harvesting attention from fans all over the globe!

Martivini pulled out a sheet of paper—it was the best XI list, but much longer than before.

Because...

”I hereby announce, the players selected for this season’s Serie A Best XI Second Team are...”

Before the list was even read out, the fans were already dumbfounded.

What did they just hear?

Second Team?

Is this the change in Serie A? They actually added an extra Best XI!

”Holy shit! Serie A is badass!”

”So that’s it! This is great, we’ve basically doubled the number of honours!”

”Yeah, a league with five or six hundred professionals, and only eleven get selected each year—no matter how you think about it, that’s off.”

”Football is more about the team, which also means it’s very easy for standout individuals to be overlooked as hidden gems. What Serie A is doing here really benefits star players at non-giant clubs!”

”I absolutely love this decision!”

”Serie A Second XI! Not sure how much prestige it’s gonna carry though.”

”For the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, a Second XI really isn’t necessary. If the Premier League and La Liga did a Second XI, the prestige might not be there.”

”But Serie A’s can’t lack prestige—there are too many stars! If other leagues have fifty star players, Serie A has a hundred, because they’ve got so many veteran stars hanging around.”

”Key thing is, these old stars can still really play!”

”Honestly, the Premier League and La Liga should seriously consider bringing in this system next season. Best XI plus Second XI, I think that’s absolutely spot on!”

”But it only suits leagues. For cup competitions like the Champions League and Europa League, there are too few matches, and a full Second XI would feel a bit awkward.”

”How come all the innovations in football these past two years that everyone actually approves of are coming out of Serie A? Don’t even mention VAR, that was earth-shattering. Player of the Month, Best XI Second Team, dual winners for Best Player, defenders winning Player of the Month, etc.”

”The tweaks themselves aren’t the big deal—the big deal is every change hits right in the fans’ hearts. That’s real quality.”

”Martivini really is a talent. These past few years Italy has had results, has had traffic, has had money—this kind of grand vision, it’s a shame he’s not the UEFA president!”

”Exactly. Look at that idiot Jeffery and what crap he’s come up with. The rigged Champions League knockout draw was so obvious, it was just brain-dead!”

”And the Bayern vs Chelsea semi, there was way too much controversy—it’s turning the Champions League into a fixed-match league!”

”Jeffery needs to get lost ASAP, stop squatting on the toilet and not taking a dump.”