The Villareal academy
Lavinho gave me 3 weeks to train before I joined the academy so I was planning to make the best use of it. I already warned my dad that I was going to spend the first 2 weeks fully focusing on my physical abilities again.
Even if I was very bad in football I was still 174 cm which was pretty tall for someone who just turned 14 year old. If I couldn't master football in 3 weeks I could still maximize my advantages.
During those 2 weeks I trained with the sole purpose of getting a body capable of following up on my football trainings.
The one thing I noticed while training with Lavinho was that other than my mediocre level, my body was getting in the way of the training, during a 2 hour session I had to take more than 10 breaks simply because of how poor my physical condition was.
So I put most of my focus into training my stamina, I didn't want to waste any of my training time.
And finally after 2 weeks of a healthy diet and pure hard work I got the results I was expecting.
[Stamina: 35-> 45
Acceleration: 24-> 32
Top speed: 23-> 30
Jump: 25-> 35
Agility: 30-> 37
Kinetic vision: 40-> 46
Reaction speed: 29-> 36
Power: 20-> 28
Balance: 25-> 32]
I've finally started gaining a decent body, the only unsatisfying thing was my power which was still under 30.
Now I still had 1 more week before my beginnings at the academy. I wasn't sure what to train on and focus on so I created my own training drills.
My daily session was split into 2 groups of drills, the first group was dribbling and improving my ball control while the second group was purely for shooting.
At first I wanted to repeat the same training I did with Lavinho but without an opponent I didn't know how to train my defense skills. So I simply decided to push those away since my goal was to become a striker anyway.
During this week I noticed the huge difference my 2 week training made. I had way more power in my shots and my balance while dribbling was way more stable. But the biggest difference was without a doubt my stamina, now that I didn't have to take as many breaks I could train even more efficiently. And since my stats were still very weak they were rising very fast.
Unfortunately I knew that the higher my stats the harder it would be to increase them naturally, but that's when my special weapon will come into play. I already saw the huge difference a quest reward could make.
Nonetheless my training I couldn't help but admire the effects of my training.
[Kicking power: 13-> 20
Shooting accuracy: 13-> 21
Volley: 22-> 28
Long shot: 11-> 17
Free kick: 11-> 14
Penalty kick: 11-> 17
Ball control: 18-> 26
Dribbling: 19-> 27]
With this, I was still not good but it was way more decent.
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"Alright so sign here and go enter the stadium, you'll find the coach in there, his name is Evans."
I listened to the lady's words and filed in all the necessary informations on the paper then signed it and gave it back to her.
[Congratulations on completing the quest "joining an academy!"!]
It seems like officially being admitted into the academy was all that I needed to complete this quest.
[Do you wish to receive your reward?]
[Yes] [no]
Without much thoughts I accepted the reward which in turn gave me another notification.
[Congratulations on obtaining 25 stat points.]
I didn't mind it too much and simply headed towards where the coach was, he seemed to be giving out drills to many young kids around my age.
"He's gonna get scolded isn't he?"
"Yeah he's done for." I could hear a few kids look at me and chuckle.
The coach looked at me with a questioning gaze so I went ahead and introduced myself.
"Hello coach, my name is Jude Sanchez. I got asked to come here after finalizing my admission."
"Oh so you're the one who got admitted directly through the recommendation letter?" His words made many kids turn at me with a curious look but he didn't seem to say it in a mean way.
"Yes that's me sir."
"For how long have you been playing football?" He asked while wondering about my level.
"I learned the basics 3 weeks ago and have never played in a team in the past." I knew it was best to simply be honest.
'So everything he said in the letter was true huh?' The coach looked at me while deep in thoughts.
"I don't know if the person who recommended you told you this but today is the admission tests, that's why there are so many kids doing drills and that's also why I'm here. I'm the coach of the main U15 team so I'm only here exceptionally. Your coach for now will be my assistant Mr Mark." He said while introducing to me his assistant.
"Nice to meet you sir." I tried to be as polite as I could, my goal was to integrate the main team and I only had 4 months left for that so I knew I better have the coach on my side.
After 15 minutes the coaches talked to each other and finally seem to have come to a conclusion.
"Guys gather up!!" Evans called out to everyone on the field, they all stood in a straight lign, then Evans made a sign for me to go join them which is what I did.
"First of all thank to all of you for coming. All 50 of you are here to join our academy and integrate the reserve team then maybe even the main team. So right now I'd like to inform you all that we've already selected 21 of you who will stay a bit longer. Everyone else have failed this admission test." Evans said in a strict tone.
He started naming every single person who have failed, once he was done there were only 22 people left in the lign, including myself.
"As you all already know this year there is only 9 available places but there is still 21 of you here. That's why we will be having a 60 minute game in which we will observe all of you and keep only the 9 best players." Evans started explaining how the match will go on.
"Sir how will we make the teams if we are 21 people?" A young very tall, blonde haired guy asked. He seemed to be the most confident kid here.
"Today there will be a small exception. As some of you may already know this year there was one person who got admitted thanks to a recommendation letter, which explains why out of the 10 initial places there is only 9 left. That person is none other than Jude Sanchez, it's his first day here and he will be participating in the match." The coach pointed pointed towards me.
His words took me by surprise, I indeed was already in my sport clothes but I wasn't ready to play in a match so early on, I didn't have any experience with team play and even my passing stats are all at 10 and haven't gone up at all since the start of my training.
I was going to try to ask the coach about it but suddenly a screen popped in front of my face and stopped me from doing so.
[Quest: First match
Difficulty: E
Description:
Win in the admission match and show that you deserve your place in the academy.
Reward: 5 stat points
Bonus reward:
2 stat point for every goal scored.
1 stat point for every assist.]