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Chapter 74: The Lament of the Underdog
It was a Wednesday night at Stamford Bridge, stripped of the suffocating grandeur of Champions League evenings, replaced instead by a damp, cold menace.
This was a League Cup fourth-round tie, the opponent Blackburn Rovers from the Championship.
By rights it should have been a playground for the giants to rotate, yet for the youngsters on Chelsea's bench it felt more like a gladiatorial trial they had to survive.
Mourinho sat deep in the dugout, coat pulled tight; he had rung nine changes. Enzo, Caicedo and Reece James were all rested.
On the pitch were eager but bewildered "works-in-progress": the expensively misfiring Mudryk, the stiff Ugochukwu, the frantic finisher Broja… and among them the No. 44 looked out of place.
Lin Yuan was the only first-team regular in the line-up.
His task from Mourinho was simple and brutal: "Drag these headless chickens to victory. Don't let them become a laughing-stock."
…The first twenty minutes were a disaster.
These seasoned Championship campaigners excelled at turning matches into swamps. No need for possession—just shoulder-barges, niggling fouls, then counter when the Chelsea kids slipped.
In the 15th minute Ugochukwu mis-controlled a ball straight to an opponent. Blackburn broke, and only a brilliant Sánchez save kept Chelsea level.
The Blues crowd grumbled; that sigh of disappointment cuts deeper than boos.
Mudryk stood on the left wing, panicked. He had just dribbled the ball out of play and couldn't meet Lin Yuan's eyes.
"What are you afraid of?"
A cold voice sounded behind him.
Mudryk jumped, turned, and saw Lin Yuan's blank face. Rain dripped from his rigid brow, mud splattered across his shirt—remnants of the sliding tackle he'd thrown in to cover for Ugochukwu.
"Mykhailo," Lin Yuan said, voice eerily calm, "if you keep running like a headless chicken I'll personally ship you back to Ukraine."
Mudryk paled. "Captain, I—"
"Shut up. Listen." Lin Yuan pointed to his own eyes, then to Mudryk's head. "Dump your brain—it only makes you hesitate. From now on your legs belong to me."
"Watch my hand. When I say run, you run, even if it's off a cliff. Got it?"
Looking at the savage certainty in Lin Yuan's eyes, Mudryk nodded instinctively.
"Good."
Lin Yuan spun and jogged back to the centre circle.
At that moment a system screen flickered across his retina:
[Skill active: Midfield Commander (S-class). Aura engaged.]
[Current effect: teammates within 30 m +5% positioning IQ, +10% confidence modifier (based on fear of host).]
Since you can't play football, be my marionettes.
In the 28th minute the game turned.
Lin Yuan received the ball deep. Two Blackburn midfielders snapped into the press, trying to bully him into a mistake.
Normally Chelsea's fringe midfielders would recycle to the centre-backs.
Lin Yuan didn't.
He held off a 1.9 m black defensive mid, core locked like an iron stake in rock, then disguised a heel-flick that threaded the ball through the trap into empty space on the left.
No one was there.
Gasps swept the ground—surely a miskick.
But as the ball rolled, a lightning figure burst into life.
It was Mudryk!
A split-second before the pass Lin Yuan had merely glanced that way and snapped his hand forward. In that instant the wire of doubt in Mudryk's brain snapped; only obedience remained.
He sprinted wildly, the previously pointless run transformed by a pass three seconds ahead into a clean break.
"My God—what vision!" the commentator shrieked.
Mudryk caught the ball, keeper rushing, but his wretched hesitation returned—he stumbled and slowed.
From seventy metres came a thunderous roar, Lin Yuan's voice cracking like a tyrant's:
"Shoot! No hesitation!"
The command carried absolute authority. Without thinking Mudryk smashed it left-footed.
Bang!
Goal.
Chelsea 1-0.
Mudryk looked stunned until team-mates mobbed him. He turned toward the halfway line.
Lin Yuan just stood there, no celebration—only a cold thumbs-up, then pointed to the centre circle for the restart.
It felt like a lion-tamer watching his beast finally jump through the hoop of fire.
With the first goal, Chelsea's rusted engine began to turn, driven by Lin Yuan's brute force.
Blackburn tried to fight back, cranking up the physicality. Championship sides play with thuggish glee, looking to scare these kids off with career-threatening tackles.
On 40 minutes, Blackburn centre-back Higham deliberately raised his elbow in an aerial duel and smashed it into the back of Chelsea kid Gilchrist's head.
The youngster went down in agony; the ref merely lectured.
Blackburn's players roared with laughter, telling these pampered Blues in their own way: this is a man's game.
Lin Yuan walked over.
He bent down, hauled Gilchrist up, patted his shoulder, then turned toward Higham.
Higham, a shaven-headed slab of meat, puffed out his chest provocatively as Lin Yuan approached.
Lin Yuan said nothing—only stared with dead-calm eyes for three seconds, then walked away.
One minute later.
Chelsea corner.
The ball whipped in with vicious spin. Higham prepared to leap when darkness eclipsed his vision.
A mountain fell on him.
Lin Yuan took no run-up, launched from a standstill; his monstrous spring put him half a body above Higham. In mid-air, within the laws, he crashed chest-and-shoulder into the defender.
[Skill: Violent Header (Intimidation proc)]
BOOM!
They collided airborne. Higham felt like a runaway train had rib-caged him; balance gone, he slammed to the turf.
Lin Yuan stayed poised—header just over, but his landing shook the earth like a deity descending.
Higham lay clutching his ribs, gasping.
Lin Yuan stood over him, a cruel curl at his lip: 'You call that physical?'
The taunt, soft as it was, sent a chill through the Blackburn hard-men nearby.
The second half turned into Lin Yuan's private tactics lecture.
He wasn't just the holding mid—he was everywhere.
When Ugochukwu froze on the pass, Lin Yuan appeared in the perfect lane; when Broja was surrounded, a pinpoint long ball split the ribs of the defence.
Like a player with Gods Perspective, he forcibly corrected every teammate's run and decision.
Under his direction—or terror—Mudryk found confidence, Ugochukhwu learned to intercept, even offside-happy Broja started dropping to receive.
These bench 'rejects' who pundits said 'couldn't beat a Championship side' strung together liquid football.
75 minutes: from the centre circle Lin Yuan threaded a grass-skimming scalpel pass—[Scalpel Through Ball, B+]. It pierced three lines and found the run of Madueke.
This time Madueke kept his head, squared across the face.
Broja tapped into the empty net.
3-0.
Game, set, match.
On 85 Mourinho swapped Palmer for Lin Yuan.
As he neared the touchline, Stamford Bridge roared louder than on Champions League nights; the fans knew the reserves only looked competent because that man anchored them.
He could kill, and he could save.
He could turn a flock of sheep into ravenous wolves.
On the bench he took an ice pack from Anna—now the club's consultant physio—and pressed it to his swollen brow.
'Does it hurt?' she whispered, eyes full of heart-ache.
'Nah.' Watching the youngsters still running, he allowed a rare glint of pride: 'Better they sweat now than cry later.'
Mourinho stepped over, blocking the camera.
'Know what their manager just told me?' he murmured, amused.
Lin Yuan looked up: 'What?'
'He said entering a tank in a bicycle race isn't fair.'
Lin Yuan chuckled, pressing the ice tighter.
'Tell him this is just the beginning.' He glanced at the scoreboard. 'In Paris I'll show the world Chelsea's tank can roll over the Ballon d'Or too.'
Seventy-two hours to the Ballon d'Or ceremony.
All Europe's eyes were turning to Paris. Lin Yuan had already sharpened his bayonet.