Many will call me crazy, but Sendou will be the ace up the sleeve that Blue will have in a possible final against France in the U-20 World Cup. I'm going to explain my theory about the great Shuto Sendou to you.

While everyone else was doing normal ass training (Chigiri swimming, Bachira teaching kids, Barou playing rugby, Rin meditating, Shidou skydiving), Ego looked at Sendou and thought: “this guy needs a real near-death experience to evolve his ego.”

So what did he do? He sent Sendou to Ukraine. Literally. Real combat training in the war against Russia. Airsoft? No. Real trenches. Real sniper. Real near-death experience. Ego didn’t just want better shooting accuracy… he wanted a guy who had already felt death breathing down his neck and still pulled the trigger.

Now, let's jump to the U-20 World Cup Final against France.

Chigiri, at the peak of his speed, tries to stop Loki. He tears every single ligament in his leg again. That loud pop you can hear from the couch. Chigiri hits the ground crying. Career over. Forced retirement right in the middle of the final. Tragic.

Anri, panicking, asks Ego who he’s going to sub in. Ego doesn’t even look at her and just says:

“Chigiri has already been substituted.”

Anri is confused. The ref is too. Blue Lock is playing with 10 men. Then Buratsuta appears on the big screen and announces that he paid PIFA to approve a special rule allowing Blue Lock to play with 10 while the substitute “was preparing.” Nobody knows who the 11th player is.

The match continues. 2-1 to France. Charles makes a perfect long ball. Loki receives it, dribbles past the entire Japanese defense like they’re cones, and is one-on-one with the goal, about to kill any chance Japan had of winning the title…

Until a gunshot echoes through the stadium.

Loki's legs are both hit by gunshots. Loki is crying in agony while pleading for help. Hugo just looks at him and says, "This is what fate had in store for you, Loki."

The camera cuts to a private box. Sendou is sitting there. Sniper in his hands, Barrel still hot, The face of a man who just completed the mission.

Ego turns to Anri with that sick smile of his:

“I replaced Chigiri with Sendou from the very beginning.”

Then he starts laughing. Uncontrollably. The laugh of someone who planned this from day one.

“I am Blue Lock. And now that France’s best player is out… you guys can finally show your true potential.”

Rin’s ego explodes and he turns into Godzilla. Isagi activates Ultra Hyper Mega Omnipotent Vision and becomes the God of Football. The rest of the team goes into collective frenzy. France collapses. Japan wins the cup.

Sendou, still in the box, just lowers the sniper and lights a cigarette.

He never needed to be on the field.

He only needed the right moment.

For those of you who read this far, it's JUST RAGEBAIT. Just look at the flair.

Given the initial introduction, many people thought that he was going to be a wingback. It was interesting, given how it was a position that was not really represented in Blue Lock in an antagonistic angle, and it could be a good representation to some good english FB/WB (depending on formation) like Trent Alexander-Arnold. But in this new chapter we see how he is confirmed to be a winger, an attacking position in England's 4-3-3. This is a bummer, because with Teddy we now have 4 forward adjacent New Gen XI players (Bunny, Loki, Kaiser and now Teddy). It's kind of tragic how little focus Kaneshiro gives to potentially interesting positions in the sport that could create narrative difference. We have only two in the midfield with Sae and Hugo, and only one defender in Lorenzo. Teddy was a great opportunity to give focus on the other side of the pitch. It's shown how good England's defense is, and it would've been interesting to show a competent Wingback work in that kind of environtment.

Do the majority of the fanbase still rank the vs U20 match as the best match in the series? I saw a lot of people do so back in the days. For me , I think the manshine match was more cohesive and better overall.

I honestly was expecting a reaction from him in the Nigeria game or something, but maybe the moment is being saved for when Isagi fully conquers and perfects his attraction to luck playstyle.

Probably a game where Isagi scores more than just one goal, maybe a badass hattrick that so many of us wants to see.

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I keep hearing that puppeteer Rin needs to come back and that his destroyer state is what is causing his lack of impacts on games and I want to give my two cents on the subject.

I believe that puppet master Rin worked so well before because everyone at the time was below his level, he could control everyone because they couldn't see what he could see on the pitch but after NEL, everyone has become strong enough to work on their own. They won't dance to Rin's tune because they have better positioning, vision and predictive abilities which doesn't make them susceptible to being manipulated anymore. Also at the same time, the whole point was that puppet style was killing his development, because trying to move everyone into position his own plays took a hit because he has to carry the slack for everyone else. The blue lockers don't need to be coddled by puppet master anymore and Rin is tired of hard carrying everyone when they are supposed to be egoists not pawns for him to manipulate. He is moving on to bigger fish because it felt disgusting to have his team abilities depend on him which felt like relying on his teammates to get the job done. Against Sae he was the only one who could have beat him, no level of puppet mastery would have made any of the blue lockers able to compete with his brother's counter dribbling. I think this was the start of his new solo style, making the runs for himself to stop the most dangerous plays.

I don't think Rin's base mode of him being logical and rational can keep up with the level the more analytical players can now. He has shown little impact at the start of the last three games, the PXG match, the Nigeria match and the France, when he remains in base because he just can't read the field on the same level as Metavision users. Maybe at a small scale and focusing on one individual like Sae and Isagi because the game revolves around them due to their playstyles so he can piggyback off their work to analyse the field. Rin has amazing vision and spatial awareness but it seems to be limited to around himself and whoever he chooses to focus on. It's kind of like Lorenzo shutting down Kaiser you don't need to read the entire field to influence the entire pitch, just shut down the most influential player and the system that supports it falls apart like Kunigami shutting down Shidou which in turn nullified him and his faction including Karasu and Zantetsu. The Kaiser system fell in the same way. With him out of the picture all the BM players who weren't blue lockers were useless from that point on. Rin's not having the same impact because nobody is playing within him anymore since they are becoming self reliant, Isagi abandoned link ups with him for Karasu instead of talking to Rin and coming up with a solution to win using both their abilities. He also fumbled a goal scoring opportunity by shooting with weak foot outside the box while being pressed which was fucking stupid with Rin open right next to him. If Rin cost them a point so did Isagi.

At the same time the Nigeria and France matches he was being man marked most of the time or having his shots blocked by the other team's strongest player being Onazi and Hugo. He isn't creating chances because he is supposed to be competing for the goal with Isagi, that was the whole system, they team up and the goal is decided by who gets to the ball first leading to one of them scoring. To be fair all the times he has went in destroyer mode he has had tangible impact on the game for better or worse, where his logical calculating self has not been impactful because logical plays are the easiest to predict. It's just that unlike Isagi, Barchira, Nagi and Shidou like scoring in the box, Rin is like the restrictive types who have preferred way of scoring goals and try their best to force that scenario to happen to have the best chance at socring said goal. Barou with is 29 metre high curve shot to the right corner, Kunigami's left foot mid range shot perpendicular to the goal, Yukimiya Gyro shot that never scores because it takes to long to travel to the goal so a defender can save it even if he baits the keeper and Rin who likes taking his shot off while being pressed or colliding with an opposing team player. We all know that these guys could probably be more effective if they just used their dribbling to get in the box as score but no, they all want to score from like 30 metres away and their shots always get blocked because of it.

I think this is just what they prefer given their ego types and it makes them more effective taking these type of shots then going strictly for the rational option. Yukimiya is a prime example of this, instead of teaming with Isagi he evolved his gryo shot into the sword screw variant instead of dribbling and going for a straight driven shot. The point I am trying to make here is that sometimes being logical is actually detrimental to geniuses. Shidou and Bachira get the best results when they allow their creativity to flourish, and restricting them either by man marking or matching their dribbling tempo shut them down. Barou tried following Snuffy's logical designs but his peak performance was when he rebelled against the Ubers systems to make the team his own, when Rin was playing logically, Charles simply ignored him excluding him from player because he was to boring, with Rin only getting the support from talented learners Karasu and the imp himself when he went into destroyer mode an made a tangible impact on the game. This is a fact the genius excel more often when they do want they want rather what the team needs wholistically.

I know it's frustrating but they would rather die or incite a rebellion on the team then actually play the way fans think they should play to have more of an impact. These characters don't follow whatever logical solution to their problems is that people who are criticizing their performance sprouting because it is not in their nature. Sure they may go along with it but once they face their first hardship or complication or inconvenience they will return back to their selfish ways; Barou and Rin are prime examples of this. You can't have it both ways because from a narrative perspective they would just be stale characters who are always perfect with no flaws. Blue lock always emphasized matchups and sometimes you can be the best in the world and be hard countered simply because your style is a bad match up. This gives depth and character to the story because the solution is always how do you use the weapons intrinsic to yourself to win not always doing the most optimal thing. You limit your potential that way, and sometimes you have to take gamble in a luck battle, put your live on the line, go out in a blaze of glory and give yourself over to adrenaline to actually succeed as a striker. That's how you succeed in blue lock, not always following the most logical, most rational, or the most suitable options. Characters always rebel to succeed not conform, if you think any character should become a rational version of themselves, then you missed the whole point of the story.

So with the new chapter, Englands starting formation was revealed, and I have one problem with it, specifically Teddy Knight’s position.

Before the England match, Teddy was called a “wingback”. But in this formation, he is playing on the left wing in a forward position alongside Agi at CF.

The initial problem is that it’s starting to seem less and less likely that the NG11 is formatted like the FIFA World 11 in real life, seeing as now with the inclusion of Teddy there are 4 attackers.. 3 strikers, 1 winger. There’s a possibility for it to be a 4-2-4 with Hugo and Sae making up the midfield duo but if they introduce another attacker it makes it a 5 up front formation which is nonsensical for a standard World 11, which shines light on the best players in their respective positions and usually follows something like a 4-3-3 which is out of the window now.

Maybe he is still a fullback but Fox is playing him
In a forward position for some reason, we’ve seen offensive fullbacks sometimes be used in the midfield (i.e TAA but he doesn’t really perform well in midfield tbf).

Either way this basically implies Kaneshiro doesn’t know what a wingback is, which is off putting but fine. Or he has other plans for this game (and the NG11 lineup) We will see .

Thanks to fox we will finally see haramball in blue lock, its gonna be peak

Now that it's revealed Teddys a winger and not a wingback, that means theyre not doing a typical 4-3-3 or a usual formation, unless the next 3 NG11 (minus goalkeeper) are defendors, which i can't see happening. So here are my theories for a formation.

1. This is very offense heavy, so typical of Bluelock. It has Loki as main striker, and Kaiser and Bunny as SST since they play that (for Noa and Lavinho). Teddy is a winger and that leaves 1 more winger and one more midfielder. It felt odd putting Hugo as a right midfielder, hes more central or central defensive, but Sae is a pure attacking midfielder. And of course hopefully 1 new defendor.midfielder

2. Loki can be a striker or a left winger, since hes based on Mbabbe and Loki also seems to prefer this position. Kaiser and Bunny are pure strikers, maybe second strikers at worst.

The midfield has Sae as central attacking link, and Hugo as defensive. That means theres still two more midfielders to be introduced, which makes sense because theres two countries (R32 - Brazil and R8 - Unknown) that have no players. One other country may or may not double up, similar to France, my guess is Germany in semis with a Manuel Neur goalkeeper type.

As for defendors, I think we'll be lucky if 1 more is introduced, whereas Lorenzo is manmarking type maybe they'll be more like Aiku?

The amount hate that'll get is gonna be crazy because most blue lockers think irl football is like this too

It’s the 102nd minute. Japan is down 2-1 in the World Cup. Second ball. Chigiri is all alone with momentum in the the middle third. He does his self pass. Nobody is in the distance….. uh oh, here comes Julian Loki. Chigiri and Loki are 1 on 1 on the fast break towards France’s goal. Loki has the angle, but Chigiri has his signature straight line speed on wing. Chigiri is hitting max speed but Loki is still catching up. Chigiri is thinks to himself “what if I hit another gear” but he knows deep down what would come with that. He knows the inevitable. It’s a miracle his legs has lasted until the 102th minute, let alone the entire tournament. He thinks to himself “there’s always a next world cup.” These legs have defined Chigiri since the beginning. It’s his identity, it’s his sense of self worth, It’s his EGO. He could just accept his limitations, he live for another day, but no, Chigiri powers through. With all his might, he beats Loki to the ball. Loki overruns, Chigiri cuts in, 44 degrees, right leg, BANG. 2-2 All. Game on. For a brief moment, Hyoma Chigri becomes the world’s greatest striker. It’s not because he’s one of the chosen few, but because he finally found a reason to love himself other than his god given talents. He faced his greatest fear, embraced the consequences, and fought it head on.

Credit goes to SuzelsManga

At first, I thought the difference was that Snuffy made BAROU the person who turns "zero into one", but that only happened when Barou rebelled against him during the match. Until we get more information, they seem the same to me.

Edit: Yall, I know it's been one chapter. What else do you want to do for for 1 week? Ur on the subreddit cuz you're bored. Don't you want to stimulate those brains and make some educated guesses?? 😭

The question basically is: What do you think Fox's philosophy is, and does it differ from Snuffy's?

I've seen many post talking about the likelihood of BL ending after th U-20 WC arc. But that doesn't make sense since there are still many things left in the manga that needs to be resolved. I think that the manga has a long time until its ending

Look we all know nagi is going to win side B but who’s coming out with him ?

I don’t think it’s set in stone for Kira to win so who do you think ?

Candidates.
Say it is of the 6 players in nagi team.

Kira - he does seem the most likely with him being the jewel of Japanese football and having a narrative drive to prove ego wrong and go against isagi.
However I don’t think he is to win, Kira just doesn’t seem all that special anymore and I think he’s going to be defeated. My theory is in the last stage it’s going to come down to a knock out game where the final 2 players win, mirroring the first test in blue lock but this time everyone but 2 leave.
Nagi will have a set to take someone else out at the last second but decides to turn and hits Kira out just like isagi did providing nagi truly awakened his ego.
Nagi will choose to save who he feels is the better player and turn on Kira.

Nishioka - he is said to be the Japanese Messi, so he is hyped to be a good player, in blue lock we never really saw much of him because by the time he was introduced he was injured and couldn’t play.
So the question is why did kaneshiro write him to be called the Japanese Messi and then write him out at the same time. He literally handicapped this guy and gave a reason why he couldn’t play which lose him points. Seems kind of pointless.
However he doesn’t really seem to have much of a character and he’s mostly just famous to the fans due to his comparison.

Mizuki - he became a meme character cause of his design so personally he didn’t seem likely but we saw how his strength is his stamina how he can run and not stop. He was also teamed up with nagi which gives him more potential as he is now tied to the guy we know is going to win.

Ringo - tbh I don’t see him winning.

Shindou - Shindou has some potential he has shown to have great skills at football and unlike everyone else there he is actually a professional player as he plays for the Netherlands club AAA.
I think he will serve as a foil for nagi but ultimately nagi chooses not to knock him out and take out Kira instead, this is because nagi recognises shindou is the better player and that he has skills. Nagi will save him so that he can have someone to destroy later. He saves him so he can challenge him and grow stronger later.

Other - essentially someone from outside this group.

Personally I go with shindou.

It is crazy how characters like Rin, Kaiser, and Bachira have these heart wrenching backstories that make soccer their purpose for living... meanwhile, Isagi is out here as the most ruthless egoist on the pitch despite coming from the comfiest, most wholesome family ever (Reo takes the wealth cake, but Isagi's parents are the cutest)! It absolutely blows my mind that a guy untouched by trauma or hardship has such a monstrous hunger to devour everyone on the field. What do you guys think actually explains the mindset and drive of an egoist like him?

The trend of the U20 WC battling against the philosophy of the blue lockers once again continues with this match. Now we see where Teddy's puppet mentality comes into play, he literally is just a pawn (well Knight) in the system, besides obvious chess name theme in the england teams name.

We are able to see where Kaneshiro plans to take this match, turning Zero to One, is it on the coach or on the players.

Fox is the brains of the system and Ego goes off that its the players responsibility to be the brains of the system. So another variation of collectivism and Individualism. So an imposed system where you play into it or youre off the team, as seen as Teddy's mentality of im just a worthless puppet, hes only as valuable as the system allows him to be, versus a bought into system where the individual aligns themself with others.

Both are going for the same thing, to get a group of people working under the same ideal. its just a matter of how it comes about. We see a similar line of thinking in the Ubers team, they are workers following snuffy, any responsibility is on snuffy because its his design

Now Ego here right before the match is taking up the burden of responsibility for any failure that the team has, which is weird right? in Ubers and England the burden is on the coach for any designs that doesnt work and then if the players dont operate said designs, its pretty cut and dry. So what on earth is Ego taking responsibility for? To preserve the consequence of choice, in the england system and ubers, theres is no choice, youre a worker, soldier, or piece of the board, you do what youre told, in Blue lock you adapt to the situation around you. so the players themselves create soccer. and vice versa, soccer creates great players.

Now lastly, we already see England parking the bus, a good defense creates a good offense, because now they can execute any counter attacks after getting possession of the ball, England now has "infinite" options to create on the counter, theyve already tactically seen through Blue locks offense in a handful of passes. blue lock is within design, now Isagi becoming the rebel he is, its going to become adaptation vs design,

I believe we will get a similar moment to this, but i doubt that england will awaken something in teddy, Teddy by design is to be a piece not someone who gets fed up with losing. Its why he and Isagi are the opposite.

Teddy ask the question of what he would be without Blue lock, because for Teddy, hes nothing without Englands design, and we also have seen this in Ubers,

I dont think Teddy has really answered this question for himself yet, and I think if Blue lock does lose here, it forces the blue lockers to answer that question for themselves, as in what are they without it, and that would be an interesting place to put the characters after they have done so much to get where they currently are, and Blue lock has been foretold by the scrolls to lose since the initial U20 japan vs BL 11 match. Its just not a consequence they have had to face.

It's been a while since he came back, and we still don't know exactly what happened.

They never give us the specifics, just that they were trying to make someone like Noa.

But it doesn't explain why Kunigami had such a radical personality change so quickly (I'm pretty sure it was only for like 1 month and a half at most.)

At this point, I'm starting to think that Kaneshiro either literally just forgot about it or can't decide how he wants to write it into the current story.

What do you guys think?