Chapter 2: The Butterfly Effect

  Compared to that, if he were to travel back to China in 2010 or later when the population of Chinese football fans had dwindled to less than 10,000, it would be even more difficult for him to bring the national team to the top. After all, no matter how strong a player's abilities are, without at least some decent teammates to help, it is very hard to achieve anything.

  Luckily for Gao Jun, the gang wasn't one of the most vicious kind, at least they didn't cripple him to gain more sympathy from passersby, or else he would never be able to play soccer again in his life. Of course, this was also because the kid looked very cute, if they had crippled him, it might have had the opposite effect.

  The fact that he had a decent face and relatively proportionate body shape was quite satisfactory to Gao Jun. In his younger years, although his appearance wasn't ugly, it was definitely below average - small eyes, long face, short arms and legs, the latter two of which had some negative impact on his soccer skills back then. Now, his physique is undoubtedly more suitable for playing soccer, and not being bad-looking is at least not a disadvantage...

  But all these are future things, what Gao Jun is more concerned about now is where he will be sent. According to convention, children like him who have been rescued are supposed to be sent back to their hometowns, and if their parents or relatives are still there, they will be handed over to them for care, otherwise they will be arranged by the local government. However, Gao Jun obviously does not want to accept such an arrangement, because if he wants to play football, staying in Shanghai is definitely better than a mountain village in Guizhou.

  Gao Jun did not try to gain the police's sympathy by telling them about the child's unfortunate experiences, because the public security department had rules. Even if they personally sympathized with him, the police would still have to send Gao Jun back to his guardian, and at most could only warn his uncle to treat him well in the future. So Gao Jun could only insist that he no longer had any relatives in the world, and several criminals who knew about Gao Jun's life were shot dead, and Gao Jun was able to speak standard Mandarin, so the police couldn't investigate the truth.

  Gao Jun was temporarily left at the police station, waiting for news from the welfare institution. As many police officers were football fans and Chinese football was still a strong team in Asia, with the recent arrival of a coach nicknamed "Magical Coach" Bora Milutinovic, the enthusiasm for football among the Chinese people had reached new heights. Therefore, there were also sports newspapers such as "Football News" on the newspaper rack at the police station, and more comprehensive newspapers. Gao Jun saw them and immediately took a few copies down to browse slowly, only to find that the history of China in this time and space seemed to be no different from what he remembered, which made him feel slightly relieved. For a time-traveler, the biggest worry was naturally the change in history, making one's prior knowledge useless...

  However, after noticing the news of a new coach taking over the national youth team, Gao Jun's pupils suddenly contracted, because in history, this session of the national youth team was exactly the one he coached, but now it had been replaced by another person. Did this space-time not have Gao Hong?

  "Xiao Gao, you're a soccer fan too?" A middle-aged policeman who was off-duty said with a smile.

  "Yes, but it's been a long time since I've seen the news, and many things are unclear. Uncle Lin, do you have any older football newspapers?" Gao Jun asked with blinking eyes.

  Officer Lin said, "Uncle, I have several boxes at home. I've been reluctant to throw them away. I'll bring them over tomorrow."

  The next day, after reading through many old newspapers, Gao Jun confirmed that in this time and space, either there was no such person as Gao Hong, or he did not choose the profession of football player as in history, but this had no obvious impact on the development of Chinese football. This made Gao Jun feel bitter again, who had been resentful for a long time because he had no chance to play for the country during his playing career.

  However, the butterfly effect still exists. Firstly, at the 1985 World Youth Championship, because of the loss of this super shooter who scored all the goals, the Chinese youth team failed to win the championship in the Asian Youth Championship and also failed to achieve their best historical result of seventh place after advancing to the World Youth Championship. However, ironically, perhaps this change lowered the expectations for these players at home, thus avoiding the tragedy that occurred later...

  But Gao Jun is more concerned about another change, that is, during the time when his mentor Xu Genbao coached Guangzhou Songri team, because he lacked his own team's number one shooter, on the one hand, the game results were directly affected, and on the other hand, the team lost an absolute ironclad supporter, leading to intensified internal conflicts within the team, and failed to successfully lead the team to the top of the league like in history. Xu Genbao, who was known for his big mouth, also made a tough statement before the season, saying "If Songri can't get promoted, I'll never coach again!" (This is true, jumping into the Huangpu River was fabricated by reporters......), and ultimately failed to get promoted due to a few points difference. In the end, Xu Genbao not only resigned voluntarily but also fulfilled his promise at the beginning of the season, announcing that he would no longer be a coach from then on...

  This undoubtedly made Gao Jun feel somewhat guilty, but Xu Genbao not becoming a coach did not mean he was quitting the football world. Instead, this led him to start his "ten years of sharpening a sword" on Chongming Island even earlier. Historically, Xu Genbao's football base on Chongming Island began construction in 2000, but in this timeline it started in 1998 and is now somewhat famous domestically.

  "I really owe it to the coach." Gao Jun's heart was filled with remorse, knowing that Xu Genbao later won a top domestic league championship and successfully promoted his team to the Super League, making him the country's number one native coach at the time. Now, all these honors were naturally lost.

  Moreover, setting up a football base two years in advance is indeed a good thing. After all, the more you go forward, the more Chinese football fans there are, and the higher the probability of selecting good seedlings. However, after losing the coaching experience in Dalian, Xu Genbao suffered huge economic losses (at that time, it was said that his annual income was 3 million, which was even higher than his total income for half a lifetime). His personal assets were probably less than one-third of what they were when he set up the base historically. Adding to that, his reputation and connections were also much worse, so it's impossible for him to raise funds and loans like he did in the past. Gao Hong can imagine that in order to keep the football base going, Master Xu would have to go around asking people for help even more than before, which is simply more painful than death for someone who has always been proud and arrogant...

  Thinking of this, Gao Jun quickly made up his mind and decided to go to Chongming Base first to bring those little brothers, help Master complete the goal of "ten years sharpening a sword" ahead of time. Anyway, he also needs to find a place to go now...