Chapter 1: Kane the Chosen, and the Accursed Side Effects!
"Central TV!"
"Central TV!"
"Broadcasting live to you now is the final of the 2010 AFC U-19 Championship, China U-19 versus North Korea U-19!"
"With some time left before the official kickoff, we have prepared a special highlight reel of the Chinese U-19 team's brilliant run in this tournament!"
***
August 13, 2010. The Workers' Stadium in Beijing.
The AFC U-19 Championship final, which had initially drawn little attention, unexpectedly attracted a crowd of nearly seventy thousand spectators. The atmosphere was electric, not just inside the stadium, but also outside in the plaza, which was painted in vibrant waves of red.
The reason? It was, of course, this National Youth Team—originally written off as the worst in history—which had miraculously surged all the way to the finals. Their resurgence was fueled by the last-minute addition of China's rising superstar, Lin Hao.
In their previous five matches, the Chinese team had utterly crushed their opponents by massive margins.
In their opening group stage match against a formidable Saudi Arabia, fans had feared a disastrous start. Yet, to everyone's shock, just ten seconds into the game, the 188-centimeter-tall Lin Hao leaped high to meet a teammate's cross, opening the scoring for the Chinese youth squad.
The 1-0 lead not only gave China the early advantage but also made Lin Hao the record holder for the fastest goal in the history of the tournament.
What followed was a joyous journey that gave football fans across the country their first taste of absolute, royal-treatment bliss.
A 3-1 victory over Saudi Arabia U-19, featuring a hat-trick from Lin Hao with both head and feet!
A 7-0 demolition of Thailand U-19, where Lin Hao bagged four goals and two assists!
With two consecutive group stage wins securing an early spot in the quarter-finals, the National Youth Team cruised past Australia 2-0, once again relying on Lin Hao's dominant target-man hold-up play and playmaking ability.
By the semi-finals, the eighteen-year-old Chinese superstar completely outshone South Korea's so-called "Super Platinum Generation," leading the team to a resounding 4-1 victory.
With that, the nation erupted!
Before the tournament officially kicked off, this prodigy, hailed as a once-in-a-century genius of Chinese football, had actually been at the center of a massive storm of controversy. It couldn't be helped; in just two short years, this youngster under the age of eighteen had already earned himself the nickname "Destiny's Runner-up."
In 2008, Lin Hao shot to fame overnight after scoring four goals in a single public trial match for Schalke 04's U-16 team. The domestic media went wild, and many hailed him as the poster boy for a new era of Chinese football.
However, from that moment on, the story took a bizarre turn.
In October 2008, as the star striker for Schalke U-16, Lin Hao performed exceptionally well in the final of the U-16 Ruhr Cup. However, the rest of the team was completely frozen. In a bizarre turn of events, the goalkeeper inexplicably threw the ball directly to the opposing striker. Ultimately, Schalke U-16 suffered a baffling defeat to Bochum U-16—a far weaker side—settling for runner-up. After the match, every player except Lin Hao was torn to shreds by the fans.
To be fair, this final didn't affect Lin Hao much; it was merely his first time missing out on a trophy.
But in a subsequent friendly tournament in the Northern Ruhr region involving just two teams, Schalke U-16 played with the same lackluster form, handing even the most worthless friendly trophy to a semi-professional side.
Losing two trophies in two months—people began to find it a bit strange.
Yet, the truly bizarre events were still to come. From Schalke U-16 to his promotion to the U-18s, and even the recently concluded U-20 matches in the German 3. Liga—over a short span of two years, any team Lin Hao played for failed to win a single championship. Every. Single. One.
Especially in the final round of the 3. Liga!
At the time, Schalke U-20 led their rivals, Dortmund U-20, by three full points, with a goal difference superior by eight. In this final match, Schalke U-20 only needed a draw, or to avoid a massive defeat, to secure the title. And the result?
The entire Schalke U-20 team went into sleepwalking mode once again. The season's best center-back scored an own goal, and the goalkeeper, as if possessed, let a simple backpass slip right through his legs. Although Lin Hao scored a consolation goal, Schalke U-20 still collapsed to a 1-5 defeat against Hertha Berlin U-20—a team they had easily beaten 4-0 in the first half of the season.
Even more bizarrely, on the other side, Dortmund U-20 thrashed Bayern Munich U-20 5-0!
Germany was in disbelief. In post-match interviews, the Schalke U-20 players complained that from the moment they stepped onto the pitch, they felt as if they were cursed by God.
From then on, the name Lin Hao began to spread like a virus.
*German Sports Daily*: "The Eastern Curse—A Runner-Up Collector?"
*Football News*: "God's Curse on China's Lin?"
*Titan Sports*: "Football Association Deliberating on Whether to Call Up Lin Hao for AFC Youth Championship!"
***
Of course, whatever the foreign media said, the domestic fans didn't care anymore after Lin Hao spent five consecutive matches tearing through Asia.
On the day of the final, massive posters of the incredibly handsome Lin Hao plastered the stands of the Workers' Stadium. Female fans screamed at the top of their lungs, declaring they would marry no one but him. Some fans, desperate to break the "no-trophy curse" publicized by the Germans, even laid out a massive Bagua diagram of the Five Elements in the stands.
Everyone was anticipating the National Youth Team lifting the trophy on home soil!
Yet... no one could have guessed that inside the locker room, with kickoff just minutes away, Lin Hao, the team's biggest star, was looking incredibly awkward. He wanted to say something to the head coach, Qi Wusheng, who was vigorously patting his shoulder.
He held it in for a long time, but ultimately remained silent.
He couldn't help it. As a transmigrator who had hit the jackpot by receiving the template of the elite striker Harry Kane, how could he explain that his template came with a side effect? The template's real-life counterpart was famously trophyless, and now he...
"Boys! We've made it to the end. Do you hear the singing echoing from the stands?"
"It's not just the seventy thousand fans here today!"
"Outside this stadium!"
"Countless fans across the country have pinned their hopes on us!"
"..."
Old Qi was giving the young squad a fiery pep talk.
Lin Hao, standing right in the center, couldn't focus on a single word. His heart sank even further when he glanced at the frustrating green buff icon in his system interface.
It had been two years!
He had transmigrated here after suffering a heart attack from pure rage while watching the national team suffer a humiliating 0-7 defeat against Japan, a match he had paid a mere 9.9 yuan to stream. Since then, Lin Hao's journey had been smooth sailing, from his trial at Schalke U-16 to dominating every youth tier, eventually making it to the U-20 side in the German 3. Liga.
The template was a blessing, but this trophyless debuff was a curse designed specifically to ruin him.
Back in the Schalke youth ranks, he only cared about his goals and system points. But this was different. This was the AFC Youth Championship, and he was wearing the national team jersey.
At this point, he couldn't exactly tell Coach Qi, "Please drop me from the squad!"
Besides, Lin Hao had tested it before—even if he didn't play, his debuff still affected his teammates. The only thing he hadn't tried was getting himself kicked off the team entirely.
***
At 8:00 PM that evening, as Lin Hao stood in the center circle waiting for North Korea to kick off, he heard the system's frustrating side-effect notification for the second time:
[Template Debuff—Uncrowned King: Activated!]
[Host's team luck: -50%]
[Opponent's team luck: +50%]
[Note: Golden Boots and MVPs are all yours. Just don't even think about a championship trophy!]
***
Right after the announcement, before Lin Hao could even touch the ball, the North Korean striker Jong Il-gwan—who hadn't scored a single goal in the tournament so far—unleashed an absolute screamer of a worldie from thirty-five meters out.
Just twelve seconds into the match, China U-19 fell behind 0-1.
The moment the ball went in, Jong Il-gwan looked utterly bewildered himself. He had never scored a goal like that even in training. But once he saw the referee point to the center circle, he ran like a madman toward the North Korean fans in the stands, weeping tears of joy as he saluted a portrait of a leader born in the 1980s who stood in the center with his hands raised.
The fans in the stands were stunned, but the worst was yet to come.
In the eleventh minute, Lin Hao battled through a bone-crunching tackle from the North Korean defense to lay the ball off to an unmarked Wu Lei. Facing a virtually empty net, the young Wu Lei somehow managed to blast the ball high into the stands.
It was at this moment that the die-hard fans in the crowd finally remembered the infamous German curse of "Destiny's Runner-up."
Fortunately, their anxiety did not last long.
In the twenty-seventh minute, Lin Hao stepped up once again. With a ferocious, powerful header, he tenaciously leveled the score.
"Lin Hao!"
"Lin Hao!"
"Lin Hao!"
At that moment, it felt as though the entire nation was chanting his name.
However... the better Lin Hao played, the more devastating his cursed debuff became.
In the thirty-fifth minute, for reasons unknown, the youth team's goalkeeper, Wei Jie, decided to take a sip of water from his bottle just as the opponents took a quick free kick.
And then...
***
The final was lost.
Despite Lin Hao's wild hat-trick to make it 3-3, the National Youth Team conceded three goals in the most bizarre ways imaginable, ultimately losing the championship in a penalty shootout.
On their own home turf, the youth squad watched their North Korean neighbors walk away with the trophy.
In the aftermath, fans nationwide erupted in fury, condemning Chinese football and every player on the squad.
Of course, Lin Hao, who claimed the Golden Boot with twelve goals in a single tournament, remained the sole beacon of hope for the nation's fans.
Yet, as he watched his teammates wailing and sobbing in the locker room, no one knew the immense guilt weighing on his heart.
He really hadn't done this on purpose.
But his guilt lasted only a moment. Just as he was wondering if he should comfort his teammates, the system, which had been silent for ages, suddenly chimed in.
[AFC Youth Championship tournament rewards unlocked!]
[Anomaly detected! Anomaly detected!!!]
[Tournament rewards...]
[Timeline desynchronization!]
[Desynchronization between host's timeline and main template Harry Kane's continental runner-up timeline!]
[System version update initiating...]
[System... beep, beep, beep!]
A series of rapid beeps cut off Lin Hao's train of thought.
A timeline desynchronization? And something about a continental runner-up finish and Harry Kane...
He gasped. Thinking back, he remembered that when he transmigrated, the 2024 Euros had not ended too long ago. In his memory, Harry Kane had indeed led England to the Euro final. Then, Kane's trophyless curse struck again, except... except at that time, Kane actually had a chance to win the league title that year?
Could this system update mean...