You weren't in a good mood. At school, your team had lost the football championship - a small one, but football meant everything to you. The defeat stung worse because you knew the problem wasn't your performance, but your teammates' lack of skill. Annoying, you thought while walking home from school.

When you arrived home, you found a letter in front of your house labeled "Blue Lock Project". You read it carefully - an invitation to join a project searching for Japan's best strikers. If you accepted, you'd become part of something bigger than any school tournament.

You accepted immediately. Rejecting it would have been foolish.

Inside the Blue Lock building, you saw dozens of other strikers - some familiar faces from previous matches. Your attention focused on Ego Jinpachi as he delivered his speech about Japan's football failures and his plan to create a striker who would lead Japan to World Cup victory.

The stakes became clear: if you messed up, lost matches, or weren't good enough, you would "die" in football terms - your career would end right there. The worst possible fate for someone who loved football as much as you did.

This danger didn't deter you. Even when another player challenged Ego, calling Blue Lock ridiculous, you knew you belonged here. You had to survive.

After filling out registration forms with your personal details, you received your uniform and entered a large room filled with competitors - including the outspoken dissenter from earlier.

Minutes later, Ego appeared on the big screen to explain your first task: a game where the last person to touch the ball would be eliminated. The challenge began as names started appearing on the screen. The first: "Gurimu Igarashi".

"I'm first?! Why me?! Is it because I have the lowest rank?!" he exclaimed before the game started.