Chapter 45 [Bonus ] 45 Fun Game

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[Yellow Team]

(GK)

(CB) Toby, (CB) Ted

(LM) Giovanni, (CDM) Ben, (RM) Rakim

(ST) Ron

[Red Team]

(GK)

(CB) Adams, (CB) John

(LM) Pulisic, (CM)Yunus, (RM) Mckinnie

(ST) Jake

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Giovanni did not mind his apologetic teammate as he went to the left corner flag getting ready to take it. Quickly setting the ball down he took a couple of steps back to scan the box for the best crossing option.

In the box, all of his teammates were scrambling to get an advantageous position from their marker. The most prominent was Ben who stood at the penalty spot marked by two players on both sides trying to prevent him from challenging the cross.

Just as Giovanni raised his left hand to indicate that he was going to cross the ball he saw a yellow jersey rushing towards him. Seeing that it was Rakim who had managed to lose his marker he didn't hesitate to pass him the ball.

Rakim received the ball with his right foot turning with the momentum of the pass to face Tyler who had caught up to him. Staring at the boy for a second Rakim dropped his left shoulder as he swings his left foot trying to go towards the touchline.

However just as his foot was about to hit the ball, he stepped over it before flicking it to the right. The ball went across the front of Tyler's body as Rakim used the la croqueta skill to pass it to Giovanni who had circumvented the two of them.

Giovanni took a touch to control the ball before firing a powerful shot at the goal. The ball had spin and elevation as it homed in on the top left corner. The goalkeeper who was at the centre of his goal line was unable to react to it in time.

Seeing his shot go in Giovanni pumped his fists in the air to celebrate his goal before getting swarmed by his teammates.

They were just making their way back to their own half to restart the game when Rakim spoke up to Giovanni. "Hey, Luigi next time let me score," the boy who heard his words just smiled at him raising his hands for a high five.

~~~

In the sixteenth minute, the red team restarted the game. Both teams started to battle for possession for the next five minutes. Stuck in a deadlock John from the red team tried his luck by sending a long ball forward.

Mckinnie who chased after the ball was late to reach it as Toby cleared it out for a throw-in. The winger quickly picked up the ball and threw it at Yunus. The latter deftly controlled the ball before sending a pass to Jake.

Just as Jake was about to stop the ball it was intercepted by ben with a slide tackle. Quickly getting up he passed the ball to Ted who was open. The defender was forced to clear the ball up the field to avoid the fast charge of Pulisic.

The ball flew all the way up the field heading directly towards Tyler. The boy calmly headed the ball towards his goalkeeper in an attempt to calm the game down. The keeper calmly picked up the football as he scanned the field looking for an open teammate.

After about three seconds he seemed to have located his target as he launched the ball up the left flank towards Mckinnie. Before the ball had even crossed the halfway line Coach James blew his whistle stopping the game.

~~~

[Mc Pov]

"That wasn't too bad some of you might have some hope of becoming footballers, whilst others better start working hard," Coach James spoke to us as we took a knee in a half circle around him. I thought we were going to be playing a full forty-minute game like yesterday, but it turns out we only got one half.

He spent the next few minutes analysing the game with us. He pointed out all the simple flaws we did. He made sure to emphasise how we were wasting our limited touches by having to control and adjust the ball with two touches instead of doing it in one motion. The look on Ted's face was priceless as he was getting an earful for panicking and blasting the ball away in the last moments.

I would have laughed if I wasn't the next one to get an earful. Apparently, my lacklustre defensive presence wasn't appreciated by the grumpy coach. When I told him that I was saving my energy to score goals he seemed to get more upset. He went on to preach for what felt like hours about the importance of doing the work on both ends.

I wanted to tell him that I'd never learned how to properly defend but I didn't want another lecture, so I stayed quiet. He did however praise the creativity that I seem to exude in my play which was a boost in confidence for me. The other thing that made me happy is that Giovanni got an earful for being too cautious in his play style.

However, listening to him analyse our game made me realise that I had forgotten to check out some gameplay during yoga in the morning. I blame the rest of the guys for this since I didn't plan on taking them along to my morning Yoga session. I will defiantly watch some gameplay of Ronaldo and Messi tonight. I would rather watch a live match but with it being almost august there is no worthwhile match on Tv.

(Sigh) Nothing ever works the way you want it. In case I can't find anything on YouTube I'm sure one of the coaches would have matches recorded on a VCR tape or something.

~~~

"Alright since it looks like some of you lack confidence in your ball control we will be working on that next," he said as he brought us to a row of plastic walls that were set up throughout the field. Each wall had a single yellow cone in front of it and all the walls had about two meters of distance between one another.

"Alright, the next drill I like to call copycat, Coach Brady over there will demonstrate a drill and you will simply have to copy it and increase your pace," he said as he pointed at a young white man who seemed to be just around his early twenties. The young coach seemed to be caught off guard not expecting that he would actually have to do something.

"Coach Brady over here plays for the USA under twenty-one team so make sure to learn to form him" Coach James finished what he was saying before walking off to the side-line, he was seemingly unbothered that he dumped a bunch of kids to a teenager who wasn't legally an adult yet.

Coach Brady seemed flushed at the attention he was receiving from everyone here. All the kids were looking at him as if he was their Idol. In a sense, he is the Idol of all of us here as he is already living the dream we aspire to do. After all, it is every footballer's dream to represent their country on the greatest stage in the world. He may only play for the under-twenty-one team but that basically made him a future team member of the national team. After all, countries only recruit talents they want to safeguard for the future into their under twenty-one team.

"(Sigh) let's just get this over with, alright kids you heard the grumpy man just copy what I do, and you might not get punished by him," he said in a lazy voice seemingly not wanting to be here. He approached one of the stations with a wall and started to demonstrate the next drill under our watchful eyes.

Standing behind the ball he hit and played it against the wall with his right foot before receiving it with his left foot which was closest to the cone. He then went on to roll the ball to the other side of the cone with his right before hitting it against the wall with his left foot. Then the reverse happened to create an infinite loop that only stopped after he did it ten consecutive times.

"This should be easy enough, to begin with, we call this a foot roll exercise try and increase your speed and control while doing it." He said as he motioned for us to line up at the walls that were set up for us. We naturally complied with his instructions, setting up at a station and immediately started the drill.

Looking at the ball in front of me reminded me of that training session with Kaka. This was sort of similar except this drill seemed to focus more on passing. I've never really focused on passing really always just instinctively getting the ball from A to B. All the passes I've played so far were when my teammates were wide open and there was practically zero chance of messing up. Well, the only way I could mess up would be by blasting the ball at max power as if I was shooting a cannon. Oh well, let's get on with this I've wasted enough time musing about this.

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[Mass Release Goals]

[ A Magic Castle = One extra Chapter]

[ Two Magic Castle = Two extra Chapter]

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To Be Continued...