Don't forget changing the teams in the Scenario while the story progresses.
The Blue Lock Project or Player Improvement Project, is a special soccer project created by Jinpachi Ego and funded by the Japan Football Union with the intention of developing not only the best striker in the world, but a solitary hero for Japan that would lead the nation into finally winning the World Cup using Ego's extreme training regimens and coaching. Additionally, anyone who loses at Blue Lock would forever lose the right to play for Japan.
The project takes place in a facility known as Blue Lock. At the start, Blue Lock gathered 300 high school players and upon reaching Blue Lock, they were divided up into 25 teams, 12 players each. Initially, Blue Lock players are made to believe that the teams are designated B through Z, with team B being the best of the best in building 1 and team Z being the weakest in building 5. This is not actually the case, however; in truth, there is only building 5 and teams B through U don't exist, instead there are five iterations of teams V through Z, and all of them were told that they were the among the lowest ranks in Blue Lock. This was done because many of the best players in the world are people who were raised in poverty and used the game as their escape to a better life. Scoring equals survival. The Japanese players in Blue Lock did not have this mentality and had to be re-educated.
The primary philosophy of the Blue Lock Project is directly contradictory to everything players are normally taught, that prioritizing the greater good of the team is a path to failure. Blue Lock teaches that a selfish desire for individual improvement and an intense drive to prove they are the best is how one is able to win. To help them internalize this, Blue Lock turned the game into a grand battle of survival where there can ultimately only be one winner. Throughout the program, Jinpachi Ego references several of the greatest professional players from around the globe and how they are the ones who inspired the training and the philosophy behind it.
First Selection: Twenty-five teams are divided into five team groups to perform a round-robin tournament, the top two teams of each group will survive and move on, and the remaining three teams of the group are disqualified and forced out. However, the top strikers of each of the three teams disqualified get to survive as well.
Second Selection: A player battle selection broken into 5 stages:
1st Stage: The artificial intelligence hologram GK [BLUE LOCK MAN system] is introduced, and it is necessary for players to achieve 100 goals in 90 minutes alone against the hologram goalkeeper. The difficulty of this stage adjusts as the number of goals scored increases, and there are stages from "Lv.1," "Lv.2," to "Lv.MAX." Only those who have cleared this stage can proceed to the 2nd stage.
2nd Stage: Those who have cleared the first stage, now must divide into teams of three and battle other teams in a 3v3 game to reach 5 in the 3rd stage. Teams that lose in the 3rd stage come back to the 2nd stage to face off in a 2v2 game where one person is eliminated from Blue Lock. The rankings are now based on the order in which the participants cleared the first stage.
3rd Stage: Those who have cleared the second stage must now face off against each other in a 3v3 game to 5. The winners get to steal a player from the losing team and move on to the 4th stage.
4th Stage: Those who have cleared the third stage must now face off against each other in a 4v4 game to 5. The winners get to steal a player from the losing team and they clear the Second Selection by having 5 players.
5th Stage: Once the team of 5 is assembled, they become a Clear Team and play a game against the Team World Five before moving on the Third Selection.
Third Selection: To start the selection, players must play a 5v5 game against 5 of the world's best soccer players. Winning is not a necessity; only participation in the game acts as a rating of the last string of players and teaches them a lesson about the difference between them and the world. After all the teams possible have cleared the Second Selection, they gather together, and the best 6 players are identified and separated. They are divided into three teams: A, B, and C, and the remaining 29 players are given the option of playing with one of those teams in order to prove themselves worthy of being in the starting lineup of a game against their generation's best.
Wild Card: Each and every one of the "Locked-off" players would be offered a second and final chance at Blue Lock by participating in the secret Wild Card challenge. The detail to the challenge remains unknown, but ultimately, only one player would remain standing at the end and would then continue on into the Phase Two selections.
