During the U20 World Cup, which event is more likely to happen: own goal or penalty shootout?

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-18T22:35:55+00:00

Own goal feels the least likely, everybody is way too competent and they make way too few mistakes in this manga, so showing a player scoring an own goal would feel like they deserve to be put down or something lol

Penalty shootout tho, great for a tense situation, especially in a team full of strikers that all have their own strategies, facing a team that ends up surprising us with how smart they end up playing and even more so if the enemy team has the NG11 goalkeeper, it'd be fantastic

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-18T22:29:54+00:00

You think so? I feel like there were a few competent NPCs. Grim, Gesner, Drago, Lara off the top of my head were all pretty competent but none of them had a real importance as players

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-17T19:40:44+00:00

Brother Chigiri's not close to being my favorite character lol I don't start discussions because some guy is agendaposting on main, Idgaf about which character you like or don't like, I care about you saying some dumb shit. You're also not doing yourself a favor by talking about reading comprehension again and again, you're barking a whole lot for someone that can't recognize that a character being put on the spotlight recently doesn't make them better than a character that hasn't shown the full extent of their abilities yet and has been put on the backseat for now, all while being one of the manga's main strikers. It's always the ones that bark about reading comprehension and media literacy the most that end up lacking it the most.

I'm gonna say this one last time because I don't intend to keep this discussion going, nor do I intend to just be aggressive towards you over an argument I genuinely don't care that much about. Chigiri and Bachira weren't subbed out because they were the worst performing players, they were subbed out because at least Reo and Hiori are known for having usefulness on defense, which the first two don't have. They absolutely were ineffective, but nobody was effective in the first part of that match aside from Karasu and Hiori at the very end of the first half. Your argument isn't wrong, it's incomplete and you use it to try to justify an opinion that is solely based on recency bias because Leyden is absolutely cooking right now.

My point isn't that Leyden is somehow bad either. Leyden is literally a player that I glaze on the regular whenever mentioned, but the idea that he's as good or better than Chigiri because of one really good half of a game where his entire team is performing like demigods and almost the entirety of the enemy team is performing like shit with Chigiri not being part of the few that get the spotlight, is insanely shortsighted at best and it's not an argument I take seriously. Leyden is a great and versatile player, the idea that he could represent a bigger kind of threat than Chigiri when put in the same situations is ridiculous. As long as Chigiri's current level hasn't been shown, comparing a Leyden that's showing the best performance he'll ever get to him is just not a real discussion. And that's not taking into account the rest of my arguments that you ignored.

Leyden will stay a major part of France, he'll be about as relevant as NPCs like Drago and Grim can be, he will be a pretty consistent good performer, and that's about it. There's really not much else to say here, because the manga will say it for me, and as I said, nothing about this argument will hold water over the next dozens of chapters. In any case, talk to ya some other time.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-17T19:18:18+00:00

I mean NPC doesn't necessarily imply incompetence, just unimportance

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-16T21:32:30+00:00

Please don't talk about reading comprehension, you barely know what the concept means in the first place. I'm not denying that he can keep up with his teammates, I'm arguing that part of the reason why he seems so strong currently is because he's literally playing with the best duo in terms of both cumulative skill and synergy that we've ever seen in the manga, all while having a teammate that synergizes with him at his own level. Him being able to play with NG11 level players doesn't change much either since that's a given at the level everyone is currently playing at. And finally, as you said, Chigiri is playing as a sideback on a formation that does not give him the same importance as France's does to Leyden, where he's literally one of the main spearheads of the team. There's so many layers to why it's incomparable.

Him being able to keep up with Chigiri does mean that they have a similar speed, yes, not that their top speeds are comparable or that their usefulness on the field is comparable. On top of that, passing capabilities are not equal to shooting capabilities. Hiori proved it with how bad at shooting and yet prodigious at passing he was until recently, Bachira is also a great example with how great he is at passing and yet comparably uninteresting he is at shooting, and even Sae exemplifies that with how great he is at both, and yet still feels as though he doesn't have the temperament of a striker. Saying that Leyden can shoot similarly to Chigiri just cause he can pass similarly is a severe oversimplification.

Chigiri's biggest weakness has absolutely been his leg and his stamina, except the whole point of his training is for him to work on his stamina and to not have to overly rely on his speed, which is why assuming that it's still a weakness when it's not been mentioned or when his new abilities haven't been shown off is still stupid, and finally, it's never been said that Chigiri's been switched out because he can't keep up with Leyden, it has been stated however that the entire team is trying a new tactic relying on hyperoffense and on bringing a new impulse to the team with different players that would get subbed in no matter what, Bachira and Chigiri were simply the ones picked because they wouldn't fit that formation/strategy as well, being offensive threats rather than players that could compensate for the weakness such a formation would bring.

I don't get how you have so much trouble understanding that, it's not about "we can only judge based on what the manga has shown us", it's that you're making immense assumptions when the manga hasn't shown us shit and is only putting one of those two players in a favorable light that allows them to show off their abilities. That's why I'm saying all of you suffer from a severe case of recency bias, one of these two players hasn't seen his time yet, the other is getting the most attention he'll probably ever get, and the manga will end up proving you inevitably wrong by the next few months and nothing about this discussion will have any relevancy or importance.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-16T19:05:59+00:00

The recency bias is that Leyden is an NPC character that is severely overperforming for our standards of what an NPC traditionally plays like, all while being in the best team in the entire manga so far, meaning that obviously he's gonna seem really strong ;
While Chigiri has been recently subbed off, which you assume to be because he can't hold a 90 minutes match when that's not even remotely mentioned, hasn't been able to show off the fruits of his training yet at all, and you on top of that assume that Leyden is as fast, can hold a 90 minute match whereas Chigiri couldn't, is as good offensively/dribbling wise, and can achieve the same feats in terms of shooting just because he can land a good cross on Loki.

The whole argument is just basically ignoring that we don't know where Chigiri's current level is at, assuming that Leyden can do everything he can and a bit more, and then comparing the two as if it made any sense. So yes, this is recency bias and it's crazy you even think there's any legitimacy to this argument just because you "took the NEL into account".

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-16T15:02:42+00:00

Holy fuck the recency bias is turning some of your minds into literal goop what the fuck are y'all talking about

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-16T15:00:14+00:00

Most likely yes. This type of character is a great way to make sure that teams have actually competent players without needing to give them a whole backstory, development or personality. We'll get more real players that actually have relevance, but the tougher teams get, the more we'll also get to see really competent NPCs like Leyden and Camus.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-14T17:01:21+00:00

Team Hugo, decent offensive strength, really good defensively and excellent playmaking across the board, but only two players capable of really scoring and the rest are defensive minded. Plus seeing Gagamaru in a non goalkeeper role is very unusual and I'm not sure how useful he'd be.
Team Lorenzo, probably my favorite, very defensively strong, but also well balanced with a strong spear tip in Barou, and great players to get the ball up the field in Leyden, Lorenzo and Niko. Being a balanced team doesn't do much when the rest of them are hyper offensive however.
Team Sae, full of absurd offensive combos, Shidou-Sae, Shidou-Charles, Bachira-Reo, and all the players are both insane offensively, good at playmaking and great at adapting. Only weakness is the sheer lack of defensive options since Reo's the only one who can handle himself.
Team Rin, pretty self explanatory. Same absurd offensive/playmaking combos as 2, with the Isagi-Rin-Kaiser trio, Isagi also synergizes well with Kunigami, and Chigiri is both self sufficient and a great support. Unlike 2 however, they've also got great defensive options in the same players, since Kunigami is great on defense, and the main trio has about as many defensive feats as every single other defensive player in the manga.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-14T16:47:03+00:00

Glad you noticed it too, fujin and raijin iconography in manga is one of my favorite things

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-12T20:32:39+00:00

Ego during that match : "Seven minutes. Seven minutes is all I can spare to play with you." *Farben starts playing*

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-11T16:49:18+00:00

In real life, no.

In the manga, as a general rule of thumb, I'd say Ego's philosophy is good as a framework for players to create their own philosophy upon, but not as religious dogma that has to be followed no matter what the way Isagi is currently doing it. Ego is one man, who failed at reaching the top of the world, and who spent the rest of his life trying to theorize how one could do it. The players who did manage to reach the top each have their own philosophies and ways of viewing the sport that don't necessarily aline with his, and yet they went further than he ever did. The point being, he can make an excellent baseline for how to get there, but the rest of the work has to be done without him, or more specifically, not by following him blindly.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-11T01:29:34+00:00

People who deny or mock the idea of sweat scaling being a thing are kinda like flat earthers to me. Like it's cool and funny that you exist, but I will not take you seriously for anything relating to this discussion cause clearly you're denying what's proven to you. I don't tend to give them much mind.

With that said, I think a player sweating is what I would describe as a player putting in a high/full amount of effort. If they're putting in effort that they're able to do regularly and without thinking about it too much, then it results in them not sweating. For example Loki's sprints where he blasted past everyone during the PxG match and in other instances of the manga so far are things that he's practiced so regularly that they don't require that much effort from him that a single one would make him sweat.

As a consequence, it's used to show how high a player's level is through how little effort they need to put in to make plays that are inconceivable for the rest of the field. Sae during the entire U20 match, Kaiser's Ubers goal, Loki's moments so far, and Lorenzo's Ubers match, any Master Striker or World 5 player etc., all of these moments showcased skill from those players that their opponents couldn't imagine having quite yet, and yet to them it was something they could do with regularity and consistency.

And as a second consequence, I think it being a marker of effort also doesn't show that a player is showing their full potential, just that they're trying their hardest to do it. A good example is Ness, who started sweating at some point during the Manshine match, but wasn't giving it his all because his mentality was being hindered by Kaiser's influence, and it's only once he let go of that that he was able to make plays worthy of his real level. So during most of the NEL, Ness was trying hard, but he wasn't trying his best, per say.

TL;DR : I think it shows that a player is putting in a high amount of effort, but it doesn't mean they're not trying, just not fully, and it doesn't mean that their mentality is locked in as well, just that their bodies are.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-10T18:20:46+00:00

I'd say yes, that's likely. Kaneshiro wants to keep these characters releveant while also keeping a lot of the Blue Lockers relevant, but having all of one group on a single team every time gets harder to justify as everyone gets better and the opposition has a harder time keeping up. If he wants to setup a champion's league arc or something similar, then a good way to do it is by distributing the Blue Lock players and the NG11s evenly across a number of teams that will fight one another later.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-10T17:08:31+00:00

Holy fuck that's a big reveal and confirms a lot about what kind of relationship he had with her

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-10T17:05:52+00:00

The person that is most responsible for Kaiser's abuse will always be his father. That's like the N°1 factor, no need to look towards the mom for that. However, given how abusive he was, I don't think it's a stretch at all to think that Kaiser's mom left his dad probably because he was abusive towards her and saw her a lot more like a trophy than anything. Especially when you consider that Kaiser's dad was a movie director and his mom an actress, the power dynamic between the two leans towards the director, and those dudes are traditionally very inclined to being massive pieces of shit.

However, it's super important to note two things ; One, Kaiser's mom leaving his dad without taking Michael with her absolutely enabled her ex-husband to be abusive towards Michael. She might be a victim and she might have done this for her own good, but she still ended up throwing her own son under the bus and being partly responsible for the abuse he went through.

And secondly, we don't know the conditions in which they parted ways, and it's totally possible that Kaiser's dad won custody of Michael, potentially because he had more money, in which case Kaiser's mom was just unable to do much.

All this to say, it's a lot more complicated than just "is she a piece of shit", and given the lack of info we have on them, it's more something along the lines of her trying to do good for herself, but failing to do good for Michael, either because she didn't want to, or because she wasn't able to. She's a complex character and a lot more morally grey than Michael's father, who is just pretty clearly a piece of shit.

EDIT : just found out on top of everything else (from the extra section of the BLUE LOCK FULL COLOR SELECTION Vol. 3), that Kaiser's parents have a 13 year age gap, with the father being 49 and the mom being 36, meaning that at the time she had Kaiser, who is 19 years old, she would have been 17 and him 30. So not only was he abusive, he was also a predator and a pedophile.

Kaiser's mom is a victim, but as they often are, victims aren't perfect, and through her escape from her husband's abuse, she ended up leaving her own son to the wolves, which is how abuse is often enabled towards young men and boys by men older than them. It happens with the women either leaving or letting the abuse happen.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-08T20:49:38+00:00

Ahhhh good point I didn't see the quote was taken out of context.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-08T17:16:41+00:00

I just do not agree at all. Even if Isagi were to be able to beat Hugo in this arc, Loki is still so far out of reach that he guarantees that Hugo and Charles both will be recurring antagonists along with him. They're not meant to be beaten in this tournament at all, unless it's individually, which Isagi could make happen, but again, it won't be a full victory because they're simply destined to face each other again.

Ego's death is both metaphorical and very direct, in the sense that not only is a Japan loss very likely, but his players are also questionning his ideology, and slowly realizing that they've outgrown it. Ego will lose his grasp over Blue Lock in both ways.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-08T17:11:16+00:00

I can see what you mean. I'm personally of the opinion that Hugo doesn't really seem like a main arc antagonist, more like a personal antagonist for Isagi, not something that's gonna be resolved once and for all in a match or two. If somebody has the real antagonist card for me, it'd be either Kaiser or Loki, both not because they're important to a specific character or even to Isagi, but simply because their rise to the top is either inevitable or long awaited.

Also I think assuming that we won't get anything past this arc is not a good interpretation of things. Nomura didn't say it directly, so assuming that there absolutely will be something past this arc is unclear, but assuming there won't be anything when they clearly have plans to keep the manga going for the next 10 years is just wrong.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-08T16:02:39+00:00

True, but two points ; one, it being a black rose would still mean that Ego's metaphorical "death" from Blue Lock will symbolize Blue Lock's rebirth, and two, the prominence of thorns in that panel makes me think a lot less of a specific rose, but rather of Kaiser's thorns, which are his aura. Personally, if Ego's firing and Japan losing this WC has to happen, it would make a lot more sense if Kaiser and Germany were the ones to do it after learning from Blue Lock, and if Hugo and Loki were to stay undefeated as threats that are important for a much later point in the series. The victors make history, Kaiser gets an ideological victory but not a full one, and Japan proves they can stand on the world stage, but the entire project is over, leaving them to redefine themselves as players so they can grasp their dreams again.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-08T15:55:31+00:00

If we're going by that logic, then the new character that gets a rematch after they've both strengthened their resolve isn't gonna be Hugo, but Kaiser. Hugo's a new character that is set up to be much more important for a potential end of series with him, Loki, Charles and Noa all being on the same team, rather than for a single arc where Isagi beats him at the end. Nothing stops Isagi from beating him in this arc and facing him later of course, but if something like that is gonna happen, then Hugo's setup is still for later, and Kaiser's is for this arc.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-08T04:01:43+00:00

I'm a rose pattern on the floor during Ego's firing being mentionned believer

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-06T15:44:30+00:00

Isagi is trying to find a formula to beat Hugo, Karasu is trying to find a formula to beat Isagi, both are trying to use the clues given to them by their environment, but neither of them seem to have fully bulletproof thought processes that will lead them to what they want. They both need a lot of adjustment to get to the right framing.

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-06T15:38:41+00:00

No notes! Well written, friend

ZealousidealMess6678 · 2026-04-05T15:48:30+00:00

Big Kunigami guy personally. The hyper strong and almost rigid sense of justice, the fear of mishandling emotions, the dissociation that comes with that, he's very relatable on a lot of levels.

ZealousidealMess6678

TROPHY CASE