After returning to the Bay Area from Fort Volturno, Guardio headed to his room to take a shower.

  The past two days had been full of surprises for him at the Napoli training base.

  The first surprise was Gao Shen's apology to his pyers after their ret match. It pletely overturhe image Guardio had built of him. Guardio had thought Gao Shen, being young and successful, would be headstrong and overly fident. Yet here he was, humbly admitting his mistakes in front of his pyers, something few coaches ever did.

  The sed surprise was the did and insightful versations Gao Shen had with his team, treating them almost like colleagues, guiding them to think and grow indepely, rather than just pyers exeg orders.

  In parison, Guardio wasn't particurly ied iactical training session that afternoon, though it was clear to him that the team's approad method were effective.

  On the way back to the Bay Area, Guardio had asked Gao Shen if he had time for a chat ter that night, and Gao Shen readily agreed.

  When Guardio finished his shower and stepped out onto the sed-floor baly, he saw that Gao Shen was already sitting there, staring out at the dark sea in the distahe distant lights twinkled like stars on the horizon, probably from ships passing through the bay.

  Fernando Lucas was also there, sitting in the er of the baly with his ptop open, busy on the phone. He was a man with an endless stream of information to process and analyze, and right now, most of his attention was focused on gathering intelligence about Parma, Napoli's oppo.

  Oable o Gao Shen was a bottle of water and a of beer, the tter clearly intended fuardio. Smiling at the thoughtfulness, Guardio walked over, sat down beside Gao Shen, and cracked open the of beer. He took two big gulps a out a satisfied sigh.

  "The hardest part of my time in Mexico was adjusting to the drinks there," Guardio joked, initiating the versation.

  Gao Shen chuckled in response. He already knew a lot about Guardio's time in Mexico, his coag under Lillo, and his philosophical discussions with Bielsa. These were s, especially in football circles.

  "To be ho, if you don't smoke or drink, you're missing out on some of life's pleasures," Guardio quipped with a smirk.

  Gao Shen ughed again, "That's probably the geion gap between us."

  Guardio, caught off guard, paused before nodding. "You're right."

  Ihere . Gao Shen was just 26 years old, while Guardio was 35. Despite only nine years betweehe differen their life experiences, especially in football, sometimes felt like a geion apart.

  "When I'm not pying games or training, I like to spend time pying 'World of Warcraft'," Gao Shen said with a smile, referring to one of his personal hobbies.

  Guardio had retly learned about this, although Lucas had privately revealed to him that Gao Shen's gaming habits had more to do with the girl he liked than the game itself.

  "He and this girl she pys a dark priest, while he's a padin have been grinding levels together from Northshire Abbey all the . The girl is supposed to be a healer, but she's gone full dark, while he's turned his padin into a healer. They've somehow mao make it work."

  Lucas, who clearly didn't share Gao Shehusiasm for video games, had pined about this in private, which had made Guardio ugh. While Guardio didn't uand much about the game itself, he appreciated how Gao Shen seemed to bance football with other parts of his life.

  At that moment, sitting on the baly, drinking his beer, Guardio thought back to an earlier question he had asked Gao Shen: What's the differeween coag a newly promoted Serie B team like Napoli and coag a giant like Real Madrid?

  Gao Shen's answer had been surprisingly simple: They're pletely different, but in essehey're the same.

  Tonight, Guardio had another question fao Shen. After taking a sip of his beer, he turo him and asked, "Why did you apologize to your pyers?"

  Gao Shen raised an eyebrow, gesturing for him to tinue.

  "I mean, shouldn't a head coach always be trying to establish and maintain his authority? Isn't it the coach's job to give the pyers fidenot the other way around?"

  Gao Shen nodded, aowledging the validity of the question. "You're right. Maintaining authority is important."

  He paused for a moment, then tinued, "But I believe that if a leader o hide their mistakes to maintain authority, then that authority is worthless."

  Guardio remained quiet, refleg on those words.

  "The truth is," Gao She on, "my pyers haven't lost fiden me, nor have they questioned my authority, even after I admitted my mistakes. They respect me more because they know I'm ho with them."

  Guardio recalled the iions he'd witnessed between Gao Shen and his pyers. Even after the mistakes made in the Juventus game, the pyers hadn't lost faith in their coach. In fact, they seemed to respect him more for it.

  During the drive back to the Bay Area, several pyers had even offered to give Gao Shen a ride, small gestures that showed just how deep their bond with him was. It was clear to Guardio that Gao Shen anded both authority and trust from his pyers, and it wasn't through fear or intimidation it was through respect.

  Uanding Gao Shen's point, Guardio didn't press the issue further. Instead, he asked the question that had been b him the most: Why do you ence your pyers to think for themselves?

  "I've pyed for a lot of coaches," Guardio began, "and most of them don't ence pyers to think indepely. In fact, they often disce it. They prefer pyers to simply follow orders, to do exactly what they're told nothing more, nothing less. Eve coaches like Benitez or Van Gaal often prefer to trol every aspect of the game."

  At this, Gao Shen smiled. He had expected this question.

  "Someone oold me that when you're young, you should choose a career with a high ceiling frowth, ohat's difficult to repce, and then focus on learning and accumuting experience."

  Gao Shen paused, allowing the words to sink in.

  "Think about it," he tinued. "Many leaders believe their subordinates are inpetent. But are they really? The truth is, most people are smarter than we give them credit for. They have their own thoughts and ideas. When you treat your subordinates like fools, who's the real fool?"

  Guardio nodded. He had seey of coaches treat their pyers like maes, expeg them to follow orders blindly without any room for creativity or personal growth. Gao Shen was taking a pletely different approach.

  "Whether in football or in any other field, people want to grow. If you suppress that growth, it'll lead to frustration and flict. That's why I focus on encing my pyers to think for themselves, to uand why we do what we do. If they uand the 'why,' they'll perform better."

  Gao Shen's approach was not the quid easy method that most coaches used. It was the long-term, "foolish" approach, which focused on developing his pyers as thinkers and deakers och. The short-term results might not always be perfect, but the long-term grootential were immense.

  "Sure, it's harder at first," Gao Shen admitted. "Some pyers will resist. They might not want to think for themselves. They might just want to be told what to do. But ohey start thinking, ohey uand the bigger picture, they'll beuch better pyers."

  "The more they uand, the more fident they bee. And ohey reach that point, they don't need me to tell them what to do anymore. They make decisions on their own, iime, based on the game's circumstances."

  Guardio was beginning to see the brilliance of Gao Shen's method. It was like building a foundation for the future. In the short term, it required more work, more patience, and more effort. But in the long term, the results would be far greater than simply pyers to follow tactics meically.

  Pyers who uood the game deeply, who could think for themselves, wouldn't just follow Gao Shen's tactics they'd embody them.

  "I also think about the future," Gao Shen added. "Pyers won't always obey blindly. When they're young, sure. But as they grow, as they get more fident, they'll start questioning everything. If you suppress their growth, you'll eventually face resistahe whole team will fall apart."

  Guardio could see it now. There were two paths a coach could take. One was to assert trol from the beginning, to make pyers follow orders without question. This worked well at first, but as pyers matured and gained fidehey would eventually resist.

  The other path the one Gao Shen was taking was much harder at the start. It required patience, effort, and trust. But ohe pyers uood the philosophy and embraced it, they'd grow together with the coach, making the eeam stronger and more united over time.

  It was a difficult, "foolish" way to coach, but it was also brilliant.

  And in the end, it was the same path taken by legendary coaches like Johan Cruyff.

  As Guardio sat there, listening to Gao Shen's words, he couldn't help but refle Cruyff's influe Bara. Cruyff had always enced his pyers to think, to uand the game, and to py with intelligence. Many of Cruyff's pyers had gone on to bee successful coaches themselves.

  Gao Shen never ed himself with what Guardio was thinking; he simply said what was on his mind.

  He had even reflected on why the coag careers of managers like Benítez and Van Gaal fluctuated so much. Could it be reted to their ma style?

  And then there's Mourinho, who famously talked about his "three-year cycle." Isn't that also due to his approaa?

  Otherwise, why does Mourinho always create aernal enemy for his team?

  As Gao Shen expio Guardio, coag Napoli and coag Real Madrid may seem different, but at their core, they're the same. Both are about managing the locker room and handling people.

  In Naples, Gao Shen had an advantage he was w with a group of pyers iwenties, still like bnk stes, ready to be molded.

  Sao Shen believed that the ma and coag of Napoli were progressily as pnned, and the results were promising. He was fident that, given time, this Napoli squad would bring him immense rewards both on and off the pitch. There would be no disappoi.

  As fuardio, he was still pting those deep insights.

  ces are, he won't be getting much sleep tonight.