7 Cut short

Waking up by 7 was a task, especially when you couldn't sleep due to the sheer excitement of training with the entire team. He carried a ball to his room and kept juggling it for the entirety of the night before he passed out.

"How many hours did you get?" Byron yawned as he rubbed his eye.

"Four.. you?" Nagisa yawned as well but instead of rubbing his eye, he scratched his back.

"Three."

The calm morning breeze blew through the entire pitch, shaking the training strips of the players as well as the grass. Although he was here in these exact conditions yesterday for some reason he didn't remember the atmosphere being this calm and sweet, probably because of the nerves he felt.

Paul, Cory and some other individual none of them had met before were in the middle of the pitch and the players surrounded them. Paul announced the numbers, roles, formation and then left it to Cory.

Playing in a 4-4-2 formation was.

Goalkeeper (1) Jeremiah Clinton.

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Left back (3) Mark Birch.

Center back(6) Everest Wallflower.

Center Back(4) Kyle Fitzgerald.

Right back(2) Silvestre Perkins.

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Left MF(54) Nagisa Aoto.

Center MF(43) Xavier Leon Frederick.

Attacking MF(23) Liam Briar

Right MF(17) Arthur Posey

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Center forward(19) Xiao Haoyu.

Center forward(31) Benjamin Parker.

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Subs. GK(1) Roland Ian, CB(8) Trevor Garrison, CB(65) Gregory West, CMF(10) Lucas Carter, CF(84) Max Basil, CF(27) Byron Whitaker.

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"We'll be announcing the captain and corner kick roles later." Cory gave everyone pieces of paper and told each of them never to show it to their teammates, Cory turned to receive confirmation from Paul to start the training session but the unknown guest kicked him in the shin and then Cory introduced her.

"Ow... this is one of the team's new managers, Annabel Maximus." Cory said while rubbing his shin.

"Just like he said my name is Annabel and I'm here to help the team in whatever area they might need it." Annabel used her hand to stroke through her long brown hair which seemed to glitter in the eyes of the boys.

"Whatever area?!!" Xavier asked and Jeremiah smacked his head.

"Anyways... Nice to meet you all, I hope we can all reach the top together."

Talking to a pretty girl was nice, but training was not. This was basic training for each player, a mixture of runs and conditioning. From sprinting a short dash to planking for minutes, they did it all. "A series of passes, everyone but the goalkeepers will get involved." Cory said.

They shared themselves into groups of 8 and 7 passing the ball from left to right before Cory blew his whistle. "Practice the courses I wrote down for you guys until I say to stop, you're dismissed."

"Oh, they're done already." Annabel said picking up all the water bottles the players drank from.

The entire team walked up to their separate rooms since there weren't any classes for the week. However, Byron stayed back on the pitch. He stared deeply at the training course Cory gave him and he had to give it to the dark wavy-haired coach, he did his research.

The training course highlighted everything Byron was good at and everything failed woefully at as well, his speed, his positioning, his passing, his awareness. These were attributes he had only shown once in Marion and yet.

"Blindfolded shooting, constant volleying and headers, short bursts at top speed, 1-2 passing. Might have to get Nagisa for that one." Byron grabbed one of the many balls from the ball rack. "Let's try blind shooting."

Byron tied his face towel around his eyes, it worked well enough. it was thick enough to stop light from protruding into it and Byron couldn't see through it. Placing the ball directly on the ground and kicking it would surely beat the essence of the training so he spun around and threw the ball into the air.

Sound, wind blow, the smell of the leather. Once the eyes were taken out of the situation your other senses would become slightly better because you're relying on them. The ball dropped on the floor and immediately it bounced up again, Byron kicked the ball to what he thought was the top corner of the post.

If he tries to see whether the ball went in or not he would have a mental image of where the post was in his head and that as well would contradict the essence of the training. He made his way over to the ball rack and after feeling his way a bit, he grabbed a ball and instead of taking it back to the middle and shooting. He would just shoot from here.

"If I'm ever in a situation where I need to get off a shot and I can't see the post or keeper I'd need to find a way to score if it's my only option. I more or less know where the post is, I went toward the right to grab a ball meaning I'm probably outside the box and near the corner flag." He threw the ball into the air and once it bounced he kicked it.

This training really showed him how much players in general relied on their eyesight, even to visualize the goal or calculate his shot was a problem. He threw another ball in the air and as he went to kick it again he realized he never heard the ball bounce off the ground.

Byron pulled the towel away from his eyes and saw an average figure dressed in a different school's uniform, his hair was just as weird as the fact that he was here. Maybe in hindsight, it wasn't that weird but it's not every day you get to see a man with slick back hair that reaches the back of his neck with eyes that shone like emeralds. "You weren't going to hit it so I stopped you from falling."

"Oh... thanks I guess." Byron caught the ball that was thrown back to him by the stranger from another school.

"What kind of training are you doing?" The stranger clenched his fist. "Sorry, my name is Tony."

"Byron and I'm doing exactly what it looks like." Byron looked at the net and there wasn't one ball in it. "Kicking a ball while blindfolded."

"I see," Tony closed his eyes and spun around. "Throw me the ball."

"Um okay," Byron threw the ball near Tony but far enough that he wouldn't be able to hit it from where he was.

The ball tapped the ground and immediately it bounced back it seemed like the distance between Tony and the ball had shrunk, Tony volleyed the ball and it slammed right into the goalpost.

"Woah..." It took a few seconds to register in Byron's brain but Tony ran toward the ball and kicked it all within the time frame of the ball bouncing off the ground.

"Oh, I really thought it didn't enter. That's actually very hard to do."

"Yeah, so anyways why are you here?" Byron asked as he walked around trying to gather the balls.

"I was checking something, that and I wanted to check up on someone but I'll do the latter later." Tony turned away and started walking toward the entrance of Marion.

"T-e-n-z-i-n." Byron read off the name on the back of Tony's jacket. "What a weird fellow."

Byron dropped the balls into the rack and then grabbed his towel, he wouldn't leave here until he makes a goal better than the one Tony made.

"Hey, umm 27 right? there's a briefing by coach Paul in 5 minutes get your butt over to the Coaches' center." Annabel said and ran toward the dorms.

"What's so important that they couldn't wait till tomorrow." Byron shoved his towel and ball into his bag and walked over to the main building.

Marion was weirdly constructed, However a few days in the premise and you'd figure out the layout. In the middle was the main building, and to the left was the football pitch as well as the tennis and basketball courts. To the right was a separate building for the 2nd and 3rd years. They also had separate dorms which were about 100 meters apart from the ones the first years used.

Byron walked into the main building and looked up following the signs until he saw "Coaches center" everyone was already there, how were they all here before him? Byron entered the room and only Paul was standing in front of them alongside Annabel.

"There has been a change of events, Marion's team B will be having a match by noon tomorrow." Paul said while examining the look on each player's face.

"Which team is it, coach?" Arthur asked.

"Tenzin prefecture." Paul responded and Annabel seemed shocked.

"Tenzin... Tenzin... Yeah, I saw a player with that name on his jacket, he had a weird haircut and green eyes. His name was-" Byron was cut short by Annabel who said the name.

"Tony..."

"Haven't you been itching to see them play?" Paul asked Annabel.

"Yes, in the summer tournament... This team can't win Tenzin as it is right now." Annabel bit her fingers.

"What's Tenzin?" Byron asked.

"Only the third strongest youth high school team in the world." Benjamin responded while leaning against a wall. "A team so big they deemed the Spring tournament we're playing in. A waste of time."

Everyone murmured to themselves exchanging rumors as well as theories. "Our teams stacked, are they really that good?" Xavier said thoughtlessly.

"My brother is above all your levels... He's leagues away." Annabel said.

"Your brother?" All 17 players said in unison.

"Yes, Tony Octavio Maximus... is my brother and he's probably the second-best B-team youth striker there is."

An emergency meeting that showcased that our newly put-together team would be facing a deadly adversary for our first exhibition. "Now I see why it was so important."