First match (1/2)
I could feel all the gaze turning towards me after the coach ended his speech. It was understandable since you could say I stole a place, and even if recommendation letters were a thing and that it was accepted and somehow normal, it was still frowned upon by many people.
"We already made the team, there's team red and team blue, Mark will be the coach of a team red while I'll be the coach of team blue. Please all go towards your respective team and best of luck to everyone!" He finished giving us the last instructions then assigned to each of us a team.
I ended up being in team blue, the team of the head coach I was talking with earlier, I could feel a few hostile gazes from my own teammates but luckily not all of them were as childish.
"Everyone form a semi circle in front of me!" Both coaches called out for their respective teams.
I followed team blue and gathered around Evans.
"Let's start by all introducing each other and our positions." Evans proposed hoping to try to form some synergy in the team. Having to play around a team will also be a first for me.
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"I'm Nathan Swift, I prefer playing as a central attacking midfielder but I can also play as a central midfielder or a winger, my biggest weapon are my long range passes and my centers."
A short brown haired guy spoke up, he neatly explained everything and now it was my turn to introduce myself.
"My name is Jude Sanchez, I'm a striker. I only know how to dribble and score. But I'll make sure to do my job well." I was the first person to only give a single position I could play in so it threw off many people but I didn't care about it.
Many people were skeptical about my introduction but the coach looked at me in a curious way, he knew about my upbringing and how my body used to be very weak as well as how I only started learning football 1 month ago.
He still decided to put his faith in me and put me as a striker. The other team opted for a basic 4-4-2 formation while our coach decided to try out a 4-2-3-1 formation with a cam and 2 wingers who will play lower on the field than usual.
Our tactic was to keep the possession on our side, the 3 midfielders and wingers will be relaying the ball with each other while advancing. So even if he gave me the position of striker he wasn't planning on relying on me. That was understandable but I still wished to gain the bonus rewards from the quest.
After talking for a few more minutes about each person's role we finally all headed towards our designated positions.
Our captain was none other than the brown haired boy who introduced himself before me earlier.
Nathan won the coin toss so we got to choose the goalpost we wanted to attack while team red got the kick off to begin the game.
Their captain was none other than the tall blonde haired guy I've seen earlier, he seems to be their goalkeeper. The most special thing about him was so calm he was.
Once everyone were in their positions the kickoff was finally played. They passed the ball back to their midfield and directly started running forward.
It seems like their coach opted for a very offensive tactic. All of the midfielders advanced towards our side of the field while passing the ball to each other.
As the striker I was the first to clash with their midfield and unsurprisingly they got past me very easily with a simple one two between the 2 center midfielders. My defensive skills were still as horrible as against Lavinho even if the opponents were thousands of times less skilled.
One of our wingers left his position and rushed towards the midfielders who got past me, that created an opening wide enough for the midfielders to send a long pass on the side towards the right wing.
With that simple move they already went past all of our midfield, and they didn't stop, the right midfielder rushed alone on the right side, he didn't even seem interested in cutting on the inside.
Right when our left back arrived in front of him, he passed the ball to one of the stickers and passed our defender with another simple one two.
They were sticking to the basics but that was enough to put chaos in our defense. One of our center backs as well as one of our midfielders rushed towards them to stop their offense but that's when he suddenly slowed down and centered the ball.
The ball headed straight towards the head of their second striker who was a very tall player. It seems like their plan was to rely on him and play around centers to make the best out of his height.
The striker had only one defender on him who was close to one head shorter than him so he easily shot the ball with his head.
The ball went straight towards the goal then hit the top bar and went straight in.
"Let's goooo!!!!!!" That was the first goal of the match, in less than 5 minutes, team red was already winning by 1 to 0.
The moral of our team sank down so early in the game, the game was 60 minutes so we still had 25minutes before half time but everyone was already in a low mood.
"Come on guys let's focus and get back in the game!" Nathan was the one who took the lead and went around to try and cheer everyone up.
Nathan then came close to me and whispered in my ear. "Listen Jude, we'll try to pull the same shit they did, as soon as the kickoff is played I want you to run towards their goal and then wait for me to get the ball to you."
I hated the idea of having to rely on someone else but I knew that currently I had no other choice if we wanted to win the game so I simply nodded.
At the kick off I passed the ball to Nathan and only focused on running towards the goal.
Nathan managed to dribble past a few guys and advance with the 2 wingers supporting him, then once he got close enough he cut in the side and ran to attract one of their center backs. When he saw that he was successful he sent a sharp center towards my general position.
I was already fairly tall for my age and my jump already reached 35 thanks to my training so when I jumped to head the ball I managed to hit it with no problem.
The only thing I didn't expect was that my heading being only at 10 also meant that I had no accuracy or control over it. Luckily the ball was hit straight towards the left side of the goal but that's when that tall blonde goalkeeper jumped in and saved it.
He wasn't only tall but also extremely flexible. My first shot in a match was saved by their goalkeeper. The center back then rushed to get the loose ball and advanced it to their midfield.
They already launched their counter attack and I was too late to stop it, luckily our right back was fast enough to intercept one of their one two passes.
We finally got back the possession. We tried advancing at a slow pace but their defense was already in a tight formation, they wouldn't get tricked by the same type of attack.
Luckily Nathan managed to send a long pass to our winger who went through the side on his own then tried to center the ball to me.
Unfortunately this time the pass was way less accurate than that of Nathan and came a bit in front of me so I tried trapping it with my foot.
One thing I forgot at the time was that my trapping was still at 10 and that I never learned how to receive passes since all my training was done alone.
The ball hit my foot and ended up rolling backwards, it started getting father and father from me, I lost all hope of making up for my mistake but that's when out of nowhere Nathan appeared from behind the midfielder who was planning on receptioning the ball.
Nathan easily overtook him in speed and went past him then found an open shot path and hit it on the lower left corner. Their goalkeeper tried stopping it but it was useless, the ball went right past him and through the goal.
1-1 at 16 minutes
The scoreboard was finally even again.
"Great assist Jude! Didn't you say you only knew how to shoot and dribble tho?" He asked with genuine excitement.
"Hahahaha that was a great shot Nathan." It seems like Nathan misunderstood my failed trap as a pass, but I wasn't planning on correcting him. I did get the assist and that's all that mattered.