Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 1-2 | Page 53

New Journey to the West
St Stephen's College Preparatory School, Fong, Ethan - 7
A
fter getting the Buddhist’s sacred texts, Tang Xuanzang and his three disciples – Sun Wukong the
Monkey King, Zhu Bajie the Monk Pig and Sha Wujing the Friar Sand felt extremely bored, so
they decided to form a Buddhist football team to promote Buddhism. They chose football for the
origins of this game lie in China.
At the first few matches, they encountered a few problems: Monkey King insisted on using his
seventy-two transformations trick to hit the other players in the games so he always ended up with a red
card, Monk Pig and Friar Sand kept on arguing about the strategies, Tang Xuanzang had no control on his
team and could only mumble the contents of the Buddhist’s sacred texts on the sidelines. The team was a
joke.
They decided to get help from the professionals. Instead of using the White Horse, they took a
plane to England to meet with a few famous footballers and coach. David Beckham taught Monkey King
how to cross the ball. He also shared his bad experience of receiving a red card for kicking Diego Simone at
the 1998 World Cup. Beckham kept reminding Monkey King to stay calm in the game and learn from his
mistake. Gareth Bale put Monk Pig on a strict diet so he could run faster in the game. Bale was also kind
enough to explain the strategies to Monk Pig. Ryan Giggs taught Friar Sand how to become an assist king.
Sir Alex Ferguson shared his tricks on how to control and encourage the football players during the game to
Tang Xuanzang. At the end of the training, the teachers gave the team one piece of advice : “There is no I
in team.”
After the training, the team played much better and finally got to the Chinese Super League final
where they played against Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao F.C.. At the match, Monkey King passed the
ball to Friar Sand. Friar Sand blasted it right into the goal. The Evergrande team equalized at half time. At
the end of the match, Monkey King was tackled by the goalkeeper, so his team was rewarded with a free
kick. Monkey King was nervous but he did the free kick which David Beckham taught him. The fans
went crazy when the ball hit the back of the net.
The team won the championship of Chinese Super League! The team’s next goal is the World Cup
2018 in Russia.