The next day, the Hat Seller placed a large photo on the front page, taking up nearly half the entire sheet. The picture had been taken from the opposite side of the coaching bench: under the orange-red mass of supporters, Gao Bo was raising his arms and shouting. It captured the moment he celebrated the team's first goal.
Gao Bo rubbed his slightly swollen head. Last night, the coaching staff had gone to the bar again to celebrate. They had won two consecutive matches, and beating the championship team Nottingham Forest at home made the staff even more confident. For a coaching team built around Gao Bo, this run of results showed that their preseason work was producing real results.
Gao Bo closed the small mailbox lid and continued reading the Hat Seller.
"...Two straight victories have earned admiration for Luton, the team considered the least promising before the season began. And all of this has to be credited to the work of Luton's Chinese coach, Gao Bo. There is no denying that Gao Bo has done an excellent job. Defeating Nottingham Forest at home greatly boosted Luton's confidence. It may be too early to say the team has been reborn, but it is undeniable that their fighting strength is far beyond expectations. Maybe it's still early to predict anything, but judging from these two matches, if Luton had not been deducted 30 points, they might really have had a chance to at least reach the playoff spots..."
Even with 30 points deducted, we can still get promoted!
Gao Bo curled his lips and looked at the signature at the end of the article.
Rae Shaw...
Gao Bo felt amused. Imagining Miss Rae — the reporter he disliked the most — writing this article while cursing under her breath made him unreasonably happy.
As usual, he saw Rae returning from her morning exercise near the door.
"Miss Rae, the article is well written! I've read it!"
Gao Bo waved the newspaper and greeted her enthusiastically.
Rae almost tripped. Seeing this man every morning after her jog had already been ruining her mood day after day.
"Hmph..."
With her head raised high, she walked past him dismissively.
"Be careful..." Gao Bo reminded kindly.
"Mind your own business!!!"
With the proud posture of a peacock, Rae continued forward, her eight-centimetre heels tapping loudly on the ground, completely unaware of the small pothole ahead...
She struggled quite a bit before finally pulling the heel free from the pit.
Gao Bo hummed a tune as he walked into the apartment building under Rae's furious glare.
"There's a saying in China: if you don't listen to the old man's advice, you'll suffer for it. Miss Rae, look at you. This is what happens when you ignore the old man's words..."
His voice drifted down the corridor.
Gao Bo no longer paid attention to the lady reporter. When the team was winning, the media pressure disappeared. A small club like Luton didn't attract major outlets anyway. Most of the people reading news about this team were Luton fans. If the team had lost two games in a row, or if someone dared to call him a liar and the players amateurs, the newspaper office would have been torn apart by angry supporters.
The League Cup match had been played in the middle of the week, and the next match would be on Sunday, leaving four days of preparation.
With the victory secured, Gao Bo gave the team a day off as usual.
After returning to the apartment, Gao Bo ate a simple breakfast and turned on the Football Edge System.
Before the match against Nottingham Forest, he had received a system mission. When it came to these missions, he was still completely clueless. He had no idea how they were triggered.
Gao Bo had played games before, so he understood that online games always made leveling slow. Developers created countless missions so that players would complete more content and stay invested. Naturally, the rewards were generous, pushing players to take on more quests.
But when it came to the Football Edge System's mission feature, Gao Bo still didn't understand how it operated.
So far, the system had only released two missions.
One was the mission to save Luton. This mission would award different rewards depending on the degree of completion. It also required an entire season, making it the main mission.
To Gao Bo, it felt like the system's version of a big seasonal objective — something along the lines of leading the team to win the championship.
Before the game against Nottingham Forest, the system had refreshed another mission. In the first league match, nothing had appeared at all.
Is it related to the opponent's level? Nottingham Forest is a Championship team, so beating them triggers a reward?
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. The mission system clearly aimed to be difficult.
Gao Bo opened the mission section. As expected, the main mission — saving Luton — was still greyed out with no progress, while the mission to defeat Nottingham Forest was glowing yellow.
He clicked on it.
[Mission Completed!]
Gao Bo felt as if he heard a voice, though he wasn't sure whether it was real or just his imagination. But the window that popped up immediately left no room for doubt.
[Mission Complete: Defeat Nottingham Forest]
Reward:
600 EXP
1 Random Yellow Card
1 Lottery Draw
Six hundred experience points — that was equivalent to winning two League Two matches. Receiving extra XP for beating a Championship-level team made perfect sense.
Sure enough, his experience panel now read:
[1500 / 3000]
Half the experience needed for Level 2 completed in just two matches!
Gao Bo was pleasantly surprised.
He did a quick calculation: subtracting the 600 experience from the mission and the 300 he earned in the league opener, the victory over Nottingham Forest alone had granted double the XP of a League Two win.
Beating higher-tier opponents definitely gave bonus experience!
Gao Bo rubbed his chin, thinking. In terms of pure strength, even though Nottingham Forest played in the Championship, he felt Luton's current level was actually stronger than theirs. Of course, not by a huge amount. Luton's core squad was still very young. Vardy, Kanté, and several others were nowhere near the level they would reach years later when they eventually won the Premier League. Still, it would be great if he could face Championship teams more often…
But for Luton, the league remained the top priority.
Next was the random yellow card.
Yellow cards were one tier higher than white cards. He had no idea what effect he might draw this time.
The system's card screen flashed rapidly. When it stopped, a card glowing with yellow light appeared before him.
[7% increase in speed — can be assigned to any player]
Gao Bo was overjoyed. A yellow card was far more valuable than any white card.
A 7% speed increase — this was a powerful effect, especially on someone already fast.
Vardy had excellent pace. This card suited him perfectly.
Gao Bo immediately made the decision on where to assign it.
There were still 1,500 experience points needed before reaching Level 2. After upgrading, he could expand a card slot. That thought alone made him impatient to level up.
But the more pressing task now was expanding his card pack.
The second reward — the lottery draw — produced a white card.
[1% increase in strength — can be assigned to any player]
What a useless card!
Gao Bo shut down the Football Edge System in disappointment.
...
...
If after two consecutive victories some local Luton media claimed the team's form was only temporary, then this next win would force everyone to start singing their praises.
On August 16, in the second round of the league, Luton travelled away to face Gillingham.
This was the first away match that Gao Bo had led as head coach. Before departure, he appeared extremely cautious. His requirements for information were detailed to an almost excessive level: road traffic, weather conditions, everything.
John Aston had never seen a head coach so strict about details. When he was still playing, a manager's match preparation usually consisted of: "Go out there, lads, kick their asses, and tonight we'll go back to the pub — drinks are on me!!!"
Then a group of young men would charge forward, yelling.
It was unprofessional, but it fit the English football culture perfectly.
Alcohol had been tied to English football for decades. In fact, it wasn't until the 1990s that top-flight clubs seriously began trying to keep players from drinking too much… and Gao Bo had imposed strict rules: during training and matches, all players were forbidden from drinking. To set an example, he also cut down his own alcohol intake, only drinking on holidays or when celebrating a victory.
In addition, for nearly every match, Gao Bo required the coaching staff to gather as much information as possible about the opponent, study their characteristics, and adjust the details of the game plan accordingly.
For example, marking key opposition players or attacking weak defensive areas.
Big or small, through this level of explanation and analysis — combined with training — the changes to the team were dramatic. At the very least, before every match, the players stepped onto the pitch full of confidence.
Knowing yourself and the opponent was the only way to survive in battle.
This was the philosophy Gao Bo trusted.
Unfortunately, these detailed analyses were not work he could delegate. In the current coaching staff, John Aston was excellent at overseeing training and handling team management. Having been at the club for many years, he was good at coordinating relationships between players, coaches, and management.
Physical coach Melvin and the others all had specialised roles, but none were suited for data analysis.
Therefore, Gao Bo had to shoulder the entire analytical workload alone. Even though he believed Luton were quite strong for a League Two side, even Premier League teams could sometimes be overturned by lower-division clubs — let alone Luton.
And Luton could not afford to slip. Starting the season with a 30-point deduction and holding promotion as the objective meant he had to make sure his team avoided defeat as much as possible.
So Gao Bo refused to relax in any league match. He would not let himself make the mistake of underestimating the opponent. This season, Luton's margin for error was extremely low.
Gillingham, like Luton, had been relegated from League One to League Two the previous season.
However, Gillingham's squad had remained relatively stable. They retained most of their League One lineup, so many commentators considered them one of the promotion favourites.
Yet when a promotion favourite faced a relegation favourite, the match did not unfold as expected.
Before kickoff, many believed Gillingham would hold the advantage. Though Luton had beaten Port Vale heavily in the previous round, Port Vale were not a strong team to begin with. On top of that, Luton had been playing at home, and when players are in good form, a big win is not surprising.
But now Luton were away from home, and Gillingham were a team determined to return to League One.
Yet Luton's performance once again surpassed everyone's expectations.
Gillingham, playing at home, were almost helpless. Luton's high pressing left them unable to adapt. They wanted to build attacks, but every forward passing line was blocked. When they tried to go long, Luton's young centre-back Jeffrey dominated the aerial battles so completely that Gillingham could barely make use of any high balls.
Offensively, Gillingham's defense was repeatedly torn apart by Luton.
In the twelfth minute, Luton opened the scoring — and it was Charlie Austin who finished it. Kanté won the ball with a sharp tackle, drove forward a few steps, and slipped it out to the left for Lewis Chapman.
Chapman squared up his defender, feinted lightly, then exploded past him with a classic knock-and-run — pushing the ball one way and sprinting around the other. The defender tried to cut him off, but Chapman's acceleration left him behind. He caught the ball in stride near the byline and whipped a vicious, low driven cross into the box.
Austin arrived right on cue, hammering in a heavy tap-in that wrong-footed the keeper.
Not long after the opener, Luton struck again — and once more, Charlie Austin was the one finishing it. In the eighteenth minute, Kanté recovered the ball for the umpteenth time in the early stages, snapping into another duel before instantly triggering a transition. He released Drinkwater in the right half-space, who carried it forward and threaded a perfectly weighted through ball toward the right edge of the box.
Kevin Nicholls met it in stride and, without breaking his run, whipped an early cross into the area. Austin read it quicker than the centre-backs, attacked the delivery, and powered a header down into the turf. The bounce wrong-footed the keeper and dropped into the far corner.
The first half belonged to Charlie Austin, and in the second half, Vardy began to shine.
In the 68th minute, Luton sliced Gillingham open again. Drinkwater spotted Vardy's diagonal run and slipped a threaded pass straight through the heart of the defence. Vardy burst forward, outran the centre-backs, and found himself one-on-one with the keeper. He stayed calm, opened his body, and rolled a precise finish into the bottom-left corner to make it 3–0.
The lead did not stay still for long. Five minutes later, in the 73rd minute, the same pattern unfolded — but with a different supplier. Kanté intercepted a loose pass in midfield, drove forward, and released another piercing through ball behind the defence. Vardy met it in full stride, saw the keeper rushing out, and coolly lifted a delicate lob over him, pushing the score to 4–0.
This remained the score at full time.
4–0!!
Luton had won away against Gillingham, a team many considered one of the promotion favourites this season.
When the referee blew the final whistle, Gao Bo exhaled and rose slowly from the coach's bench. He had been calm throughout the match, because all the preparations before the game had been thorough, and nothing unexpected happened during the ninety minutes.
This was a perfect game. Its perfection was not only in the scoreline, but in the entire process.
Almost every phase of the match unfolded according to the team's pre-match plan.
Ten minutes in, they attacked and scored twice.
Around the 70th minute of the second half, they attacked again and scored two more.
The opponent's tactics, their substitution patterns, and even their attacking structure after the substitutions — Gao Bo had gone through all of it repeatedly on the tactical board before the match.
It was a game so smooth it felt as if the script had been written entirely by Gao Bo himself.
Although Notts County had never won major honours, they remained one of the most storied clubs in English football — the oldest surviving professional football club in the world, founded in 1862.
For Gao Bo, the year stood out. Back then, football was still decades away from modern rules, and even the FA had not been established yet — that would only come in 1863.
Notts County existed before organised league football, before professionalisation, and before most European clubs had even been imagined.
They were older than many of England's industrial cities in their modern form, older than the Football League itself (founded 1888), and older than iconic clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea by a full generation.
Their history was rich; their trophy cabinet was not.
Notts County had spent most of their long life in the lower divisions. Their fame came from age and identity, not strength.
Luton's momentum had been unstoppable since the start of the season. Notts County, playing away, appeared far more cautious. They did not press aggressively, choosing instead to keep their shape in the early stages.
But their resistance finally cracked before halftime. In the 42nd minute, after wave upon wave of Luton pressure, the breakthrough arrived. Liam Preston swung in a teasing cross from the left, dropping it right into the heart of the crowded penalty area. Bodies collided, defenders hesitated, and the ball spilled loose.
Charlie Austin reacted faster than anyone. He lunged forward, poked the ball past the goalkeeper, and gave Luton the lead just before the interval.
In the 87th minute, Luton finally put the game to bed — the result of a beautifully worked move through the centre. Drinkwater received the ball just outside the box, surrounded by two Notts County midfielders. Instead of forcing a shot, he slipped a quick pass into Charlie Austin, who had dropped off the centre-backs to offer support.
Austin held it up with his back to goal, drew a defender in, and flicked a clever return ball into Drinkwater's path, right on the edge of the box. The timing was perfect — Drinkwater didn't need a settling touch. He stepped into the strike and unleashed a driven, rising shot that ripped past the keeper's hand and crashed into the net.
Luton saw out the final minutes with complete control, closing the match with authority. A 2–0 win over Notts County: their third straight league victory and their fourth consecutive win in all competitions. Momentum was entirely on their side.
"Since the start of this season, Luton have scored 17 goals in all competitions! Fourteen of those goals were scored in the league — and they haven't conceded once! Compared with the other League Two teams, this total is higher than Shrewsbury Town and Rotherham combined! Without the thirty-point deduction, Luton would be top of League Two right now!" the commentator exclaimed.
It was true. Five teams had won their opening three league matches — Luton, Shrewsbury Town, Rotherham United, Bradford, and Bury. But those sides had scored only six goals each, and the best goal difference belonged to Shrewsbury with +6, helped by their clean sheets. Luton, meanwhile, had a goal difference of +14.
Without the deduction, Luton would be sitting comfortably at the top of the table.
Even so, Luton's supporters were ecstatic. The security guard at the training ground entrance had been smiling every day. At this rate, the relegation battle everyone feared might not be a problem at all.
After the match, club owner David Morton sent Gao Bo a text message:
"Gao Bo, you are the most powerful coach I have ever seen!! I think you're the next Mourinho!!!"
Gao Bo curled his lips. Compliments were fine, but a raise would be better.
Still, Gao Bo wasn't just the coach — he functioned as the club's "general manager." Morton, despite calling himself a Luton fan, was an American, and in typical American fashion, believed professional matters should be handled by professionals. So he had hired Gao Bo essentially as a full-control executive manager.
The authority was huge — but the salary was still just that of a League Two head coach.
Lose little, work a lot. Capitalists really knew how to calculate.
Gao Bo put the phone away with a sigh.
This time, he did not give the team a rest day. Three days later, Luton would face Reading away in the second round of the League Cup.
Another Championship opponent.
Reading had been relegated from the Premier League last season and were one of the stronger sides in the Championship. The League Cup schedule was tight: the match came just three days after the league fixture against Notts County, and with only two days of rest afterwards before their next league match — an away trip to Exeter City for League Two Round 4.
After weighing everything carefully, Gao Bo decided to send a substitute lineup to play the League Cup match. There were 24 teams in League Two, meaning 46 league matches. If key players were injured, fighting for promotion with a weakened squad would be nearly impossible.
He had to prioritize.
Even if Luton were eliminated from the League Cup, they still had the FA Cup later in the season, which was far more meaningful for fans. The League Cup, compared to the FA Cup, was far less cherished at this level.
And truthfully, without Vardy and the others, the remaining youngsters were the true "main frame" of Luton's squad. This match would show the reality of the gap.
That reality became clear. Luton's substitutes battled hard but lacked enough quality. Still, they performed well under Gao Bo's tactical structure and managed to hold Reading scoreless until the 90th minute. The match remained 0–0 deep into added time.
But at Reading's home ground, fortune favored the hosts. In the 91st minute, they earned a corner — and scored from it.
Gao Bo shook his head regretfully on the touchline. Had they drawn away, they might have had a chance to drag Reading through extra time to the penalties shoot-out to beat them and reach the third round.
This match revealed the true level of Luton's substitute lineup. Individually, they were limited, but collectively, under Gao Bo's tactical system, they still competed well against a Championship side. In the end, it was only a narrow defeat.
Maybe for some cup matches, letting the substitutes play was the right approach.
After all, he could not go through an entire season with the same eleven players. Footballers were human — they would tire, they would get injured.
Rotation was also a measure of a manager's true level.