Chapter 63 - 39: Prestige! The Sixth Passive Skill! A Miracle for Ordinary People

Wang Shuo paid it no mind, but Subotic nodded earnestly.

"What are you nodding for?" Wang Shuo asked Subotic, amused.

"I’ve got a girlfriend."

"What?"

Wang Shuo was shocked. "You have a girlfriend? Since when?"

"A long time. Before I came to Germany."

Subotic had arrived in Mainz in the summer of ’06.

That was two or three years ago.

’Hold on, bro. You got a girlfriend when you were sixteen or seventeen? That’s dating too young, you know?’

’That’s illegal for a minor!’

"How come I’ve never met her?" Nowitzki asked, also surprised.

Subotic finally smiled a little shyly. "She’s the World Youth pole vault champion. She’s been in the United States recently, preparing for the Olympic trials."

’Holy crap!’

This time, it wasn’t just Wang Shuo; even Nowitzki nearly yanked the steering wheel.

’That’s ridiculous, right?’

’Dating young is one thing, but a world champion?’

Wang Shuo suddenly felt that being teammates with someone so incredible put a lot of pressure on him.

...

「Afternoon, May 18th. Mainz Bruch Road Stadium.」

2nd Bundesliga, Round 34. Mainz hosts St. Pauli.

"Everyone, settle down. I have a few things to say."

In the locker room, Klopp clapped his hands loudly, drawing everyone’s attention.

Upon hearing him, the players all quickly settled down.

Soon, the locker room fell silent.

One by one, they all sat upright and looked at the bearded middle-aged man in the center.

Klopp felt the players’ gazes. After adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose, he suddenly broke into a wide grin and chuckled.

"Let’s not be so serious. Relax a little."

Everyone immediately started laughing along with him.

"You probably don’t know this, but a lot of the information about me out there is wrong."

Klopp’s first sentence took everyone in the locker room by surprise.

"I was actually born in the Black Forest, in a tiny little town called Glattingen. I’m sure none of you have ever heard of it, right?"

Before the players could react, Klopp continued.

"It’s not surprising. Our town was tiny, and deep in the forest. The year I was born, our town didn’t even have a hospital where a woman could give birth, so my father drove my mother, who was in labor, to Stuttgart, dozens of kilometers away."

"So, you’ll see that a lot of the official info out there says I’m from Stuttgart."

"But I’m not, really. I was just born there and only stayed for a few days."

When Klopp said these words, his tone was deliberately light.

But Wang Shuo could sense a certain heaviness in them.

Because he too was a kid who had come from a small mountain village!

"I got out of the Black Forest by playing football. As anyone who’s seen my resume knows, the best team I ever played for was Frankfurt’s second team, but I was also working part-time as a youth coach there."

"A year later, I left."

"In ’90, when I came to Mainz, this team had just been promoted from the third division to the 2nd Bundesliga. Our foundation was terrible. We had no players, no money, and a very low level of professionalism."

"Our head coach at the time was a man named Robert Junge, from Kaiserslautern. He told us more than once that the proudest achievement of his life was getting Mainz into the 2nd Bundesliga."

"Once we managed to find our footing in the 2nd Bundesliga, we gradually attracted more and more people, like Heidel and Wolfgang Frank."

"They all had one thing in common: before coming to Mainz, they were all nobodies."

"Just like this team. Completely unremarkable."

Klopp spoke lightly, but Wang Shuo heard the weight behind his words.

"I’ve always believed that in 2004, two miracles occurred in the European football scene."

"One was Otto Rehhagel and his Greek team winning the championship at the European Cup."

"He’s an amazing head coach. He once led Kaiserslautern to a miracle championship win as a newly promoted team."

"The second was us, Mainz. After ninety-nine years of hard work, we finally broke out of the 2nd Bundesliga and charged into the Bundesliga!"

Klopp spoke eloquently, and Wang Shuo and the players around him listened with rapt attention.

He felt a profound strength in the head coach’s words.

"We’ve never been a big club. We don’t have big-name stars, we don’t have money, even our stadium isn’t big. There’s nothing about us that can compare to the big clubs from the big cities."

"The way I see it, Mainz was able to break into the Bundesliga by relying on a group of unremarkable, ordinary people."

"They didn’t have extraordinary talent, they didn’t have astonishing skill. They were very, very ordinary, but..."

Klopp swung his arms forcefully.

"They firmly believed they could change their own destiny! They firmly believed that as long as they were willing to work hard, to give their all, there would be a reward!"

"They saw the difficulties, and they knew the odds were slim, but they still kept quietly putting in the work, relentlessly striving."

"And in the end, Mainz stood on the stage of the Bundesliga!"

"And I, a man who walked out of a small Black Forest town, became the person you see before you today: Jurgen Klopp!"

As Klopp introduced himself, he pounded his chest forcefully.

The dull thud seemed to echo right beside every player’s eardrums, deafeningly powerful!

"A lot of people ask me, why were we relegated from the Bundesliga last season?"