A few people in the locker room were silent.
River Plate and Boca Juniors had been playing against each other for so many years that neither side would easily praise the other’s players.
But Paredes was different.
Among players of his age, he truly possessed overwhelming talent.
After listening, Tobías just nodded.
Giovanni looked at him: “Aren’t you nervous?”
“Is being nervous useful?”
Tobías tightened his shoelaces, stood up, and said, “We’ll see when we get on the pitch.”
At the same time, at the Boca Juniors training ground.
Paredes, wearing a blue and yellow training kit, stood near the center circle.
A teammate passed the ball to him, and two people immediately rushed to press him from behind.
Paredes was not in a hurry.
He trapped the ball in front of him with his right foot, turned his body slightly to the side, and the moment the first person reached out a foot, he pulled the ball back with the sole of his foot.
The defensive player lunged and missed.
The second person immediately charged in, trying to use his body to push him off the ball.
Paredes braced his shoulder against the contact, flicked his ankle gently, and the football slipped through the opponent’s legs.
Nutmeg.
Several Boca Juniors youngsters on the sidelines immediately shouted.
“Great play!”
“Too easy!”
“This is the guy that European giants are fighting over!”
Paredes didn’t celebrate; he bypassed the defensive player, looked up, scanned the field, and played a direct chipped pass.
The football sailed over the entire defensive line and landed at the striker’s feet.
The striker trapped the ball and pushed it into the net; goal.
On the sidelines of the training ground, the Boca Juniors youth team coach looked very satisfied.
Several European scouts who had come to observe were whispering to each other, writing constantly in their notebooks.
The people from Roma valued his footwork, while the people from Juve admired his passing rhythm.
The side from Paris was more direct; they felt that if Paredes continued to grow, he could play multiple midfield positions in the future.
Paredes wiped away his sweat, but his gaze did not fall on those scouts.
He was also feeling conflicted inside.
With European giants making contact simultaneously, it was impossible for any young player to remain completely calm.
Roma could offer him a better chance to get closer to the first team.
Juve had a bigger platform, but the competition was also more brutal.
Paris’s plan was very attractive, but no one could guarantee whether the French league was truly the best choice for a South American midfielder.
After training, Paredes walked to the sidelines.
A man who was not tall but had a very unique aura stood there.
Riquelme.
He looked at Paredes and said slowly: “Your passing was good today.”
A hint of a young boy’s smile finally appeared on Paredes’s face: “Teacher.”
Riquelme handed him a bottle of water: “The people from Europe came again?” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Yes.”
Paredes unscrewed the cap, took a sip, and said, “Roma, Paris, Juve—they’ve all made contact.”
Several Boca Juniors youngsters nearby heard this, their eyes full of envy.
These were three major European giants.
While they were still fighting for a starting spot on the youth team, Paredes was already agonizing over which European club to join.
The gap was just too huge.
Paredes, however, had no intention of showing off.
He looked at Riquelme: “Teacher, which one should I choose?”
Riquelme was silent for a few seconds.
He didn’t name any team directly, just looked at the turf in the distance.
“Don’t look at the club crest first.”
Paredes was stunned.
Riquelme continued: “And don’t look at the salary first.”
“For a young player, the most important thing is the match.”
“You must go to a team where you can be a guaranteed starter.
A midfielder like you needs ball possession, needs trust, and needs to handle pressure in matches time and time again.”
He turned to look at Paredes, his tone very serious: “If you sit on the bench of a giant club, in two years, they will say you don’t fit modern football.”
Paredes gripped the water bottle tightly: “But if I go to a smaller platform, there will be less exposure.”
“If you perform well, the exposure will come naturally.”
Riquelme patted his shoulder, “The classic number ten isn’t dead; it’s just harder to survive.”
“You need to prove that a slower rhythm and finer footwork can still control the game.”
“You need to make them remember that football isn’t just about sprinting and physical confrontation; it’s also about pausing, turning, passing, and playing with your brain.”
Paredes looked up, his eyes becoming firm bit by bit.
Riquelme watched him, as if looking at another kind of legacy.
The Boca Juniors number ten style cannot be broken.
The fire of the classic midfielder cannot be extinguished either.
Two days later.
The youth derby between River Plate U18 and Boca Juniors U18 officially arrived.
This was no ordinary youth tournament.
In Buenos Aires, when the names River Plate and Boca Juniors come together, there is no such thing as a small match.
The first team is war, and the youth team is also war.
Before this U18 derby had even started, local Argentine platforms had already begun warming up.
The hype around Boca Juniors’ genius midfielder Paredes was too high; many European scouts had come, and many South American media outlets had arrived as well.
Several small platforms from Brazil, Italy, France, and Spain had bought the signal and were preparing to broadcast it simultaneously.
What they wanted to see was simple.
Whether Paredes was truly qualified to be targeted by three major giants at the same time.
As for the River Plate side, there were also things to watch.
Giovanni Simeone.
In a niche football streaming room, as the footage just cut to the stadium, the number of online viewers was only a few hundred.
The streamer’s voice was a bit helpless.
“Brothers, today I’m streaming an Argentine U18 youth derby for you all: River Plate vs.
Boca Juniors.”
The comments were sparse.
“You’re streaming youth teams too?”
“This is too niche.”
“Does the streamer have no other matches to broadcast?”
But soon, someone noticed the starting lineup.
“Wait, there’s a Tobías in River Plate’s starting midfield?”
“Holy crap, is that the Tobías who was banned by the Chinese national football team?”
“Isn’t he the one who hit someone on the national youth team?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, wasn’t there a leak before?
Gu Fei was the one who showed his studs first and tackled him.”
“The player that River Plate prioritized for a contract renewal?
Is he really starting against Boca Juniors?”
“Good lord, rejected by the national youth team, starting in a River Plate derby—this is great content.”
The number of viewers in the stream began to slowly rise.
A few hundred turned into a thousand.
A thousand turned into two thousand.
The comments section became lively.
“Today I’m going to see if he actually has any skill.”
“If he can perform well against Boca Juniors, the Football Association will have egg on their faces.”
“Don’t hype him up too early; Paredes on the other side is a genius that Roma, Paris, and Juve are all eyeing.”
“A banned player versus a Boca Juniors genius chased by European giants—this is getting interesting.”
Inside the player tunnel, the youngsters from both teams were already lined up.
River Plate in red and white, Boca Juniors in blue and yellow.
Players from both sides looked at each other; neither was willing to yield to the other.
Giovanni cracked his neck, staring at the Boca Juniors defender in front of him: “Don’t be afraid of pain later.”
The opponent sneered: “You’d better touch the ball first before talking.”
The River Plate center back also exchanged a few words with the Boca Juniors striker.
“You won’t be turning comfortably today.”
“Do you think this is your backyard?”
The voices in the tunnel were not loud, but the atmosphere was filled with the smell of gunpowder.
This kind of derby starts the moment they enter the tunnel.
Eyes, shoulders, positioning, a single sentence, a single action—everything was testing the other side.
/c/DRUNK_TL(remove space between)