#5 - New Person. Who's This?
"Eh."
"Mm?" Cheng Hou replied.
"Can you practice with me?"
Cheng Hou stared at the shorter girl as if she was from a different planet. Cheng Hou could not believe what he was hearing. Someone in Singapore actually went to a primary school football field with the intention to train? And they weren't middle aged men trying to emphasize on 'tiki-taka'1, much less a girl? Cheng Hou subconsciously apologized to all the girls in the country for the generalization. Meili's inability to be a proper human being has toxicated his impression on the female counterparts of society.
"What?" Cheng Hou replied with a slight shock. "You mean taking fifty free kicks from such a far range in hopes of getting that one clip to post online?" He continued generalizing. The amount of times he had to play with people at public fields and they'd take countless of stationary shots from outside the box at far distances. The worst part of it all? Most of their shots were never on target. It was one terrible shot after terrible shots. Even if the shot was on target, they were so poorly driven that all Cheng Hou had to do was to catch them.
The girl blinked at him with confusion.
The boy blinked back.
"No?" She replied with a hint of confusion and offence in her tone. "I wanted to ask if I could use more of your cones. I wanted to do some dribbling work and then end that off with a shot on goal."
"Oh." Cheng Hou continued to stare blankly. If there was one word to describe him outside of football, it would be awkward. "Sorry."
"If you don't want to do it, that's fine."
"Ah, no. I don't mind training with you. I just didn't expect that," he chuckled nervously. "Let me just wrap up my wrist first. You go ahead and set up your drill."
The girl nodded and walked off with the rest of Cheng Hou's cones. He mouthed a few words to himself, asking what kind of conversation just happened. It truly was an unexpected turn of events. The chances of seeing people do personal training at public pitches in this country is super rare if they're of adolescent. People of their age would rather come in and do fancy tricks and round up the public to play matches in a King of Court style. But it's not impossible. Cheng Hou is an example and so was Darren. It was an expectation that so few hold for themselves.
But to ask a complete stranger to do a drill focused session together? That was out of the question. Cheng Hou felt as if this was one of those moments on Jeopardy and the question was "This moment has less than a percentage chance of happening." It was something that kept pondering in his mind as he took out his sports tape and started wrapping it around his left wrist. As someone who decided to completely dedicate their life to the sport, he noticed that not many people his age would choose to do the work.
However, that was just a judgement he made based on what he saw. He knows that those who were already playing at club level have also put in the hard work in private, it was what Darren said. It was just a terrible generalization on his part due to his general impression on the masses.
Cheng Hou wrapped both of his wrists with sports tape and began to tear out strips to tape up some of his fingers. As a 'keeper, the chances of injuring your wrists and fingers depends on how hard the ball is, how hard it gets hit, and the movement of the ball which can cause problems in one's technique. That's when a wrist can get sprained, or a finger to get dislocated. He had to learn it the hard way after he sprained his wrist when trying to parry away a shot loaded with power without the necessary protection.
That happened to me. The author. Once. It hurt.
The boy grabbed his gloves and walked towards the goalpost they were going to be using. He saw the way the girl arranged the cones. It was messy, as if she placed the cones down without intention but there was intent. The cones were placed in random orders to simulate a freestyle dribble drill. She planned to-
"-dribble in and out of these cones in a random manner. I want to practice cutting inside and taking positive touches away from defenders. I'll start from either left, right, or center so I can sort of simulate an active match scenario," the girl explained her drill to Cheng Hou.
"I saw you working on your footwork earlier as well. So as for you, just focus on tracking my movements and prepare for the shot. Make sure your positioning is correlated to where the ball is," she ended. "Is that alright?"
"That... sounds... good. Actually," Cheng Hou nodded. In fact, he looked surprised at the thought process. It wasn't just random, it actually made sense. Positive dribbling and touches for the attacker, and positioning work for the goalkeeper. He felt excited.
And he wasn't disappointed.
The girl dribbled in and out of several different cones. She took small but positive touches in between the cones and set herself up for a shot. She curled a shot into the bottom corner with her right foot but Cheng Hou had a good read on it. He took a small step forward and pushed off with his hands reaching for the ball and held it comfortably as he brought the ball into his stomach. In all fairness, he did have a bit of his work cut out for him as primary school goalposts were smaller than regular ones. But the distance at which shots were taken were fairly close too.
He passed the ball back to the girl who walked back and repeated the same actions. A dribble in random directions as she found her way to the center of the goal. This time however, she struck the shot with her left foot. A greatly driven shot towards the top corner but Cheng Hou was equal to it, parrying it away in the air as he landed with a roll.
Third time was soon to be the charm as the girl repeated the drill. Cutting in from the left side and struck a perfectly driven shot to the left corner as opposed to the right corner, leaving Cheng Hou a fingertip away from the ball as he dived to his left. There was quality in how he performed but the quality in how she performed in this drill was exceptional. Solid, quick, intentional touches and a quick check off her shoulder2 before she instantaneously made up her mind on what kind of shot she was going to take.
It was a fun yet solid drill that was performed at high intensity for both players. They ended the drill with a simple touch and finish. Cheng Hou would distribute the ball to her in whatever fashion he liked - ping, grounded pass, driven pass, throws, or side volleys. The girl would then take a touch forward and execute a shot in whatever fashion she liked - driven, finesse, or volley. It was a finishing drill performed at a lower intensity but still kept them sharp on their technique. Compared to training with Meili who couldn't care less about training properly, and training with Darren who was often unavailable, this was a fresh breath of air for him.
The both of them talked as they walked back to their bags in the shade.
"Honestly, I didn't really expect that kind of training. I thought you were here just to mess around," Cheng Hou said bluntly as he took off his gloves and stripped off his sports tape.
"Really?" The girl raised an eyebrow, "That's a bit harsh. I actually had high expectations of you. You didn't fail to meet them."
"That's a relief. I'm surprised you had such expectations from the get-go."
"Why? I saw how you were training on your own. You did every drill with intent and quick. Your footwork was sharp and the your technique was great," the girl explained as she drank up on her water. "You looked dedicated to what was just a normal session, if not then I wouldn't have asked to train with you."
"And besides," she continued as she capped her water bottle. "I was supposed to train with my friend today, but she overslept. So I guess it's a great thing you came then."
"Really?" Cheng Hou replied back with surprise. "My friend was supposed to come here today. But she slept at nine because she stayed up binge watching on Netflix."
"Huh..." the girl stopped to think. "Are you talking about Meili?"
"Wang Meili?" Cheng Hou asked to confirmed.
"Yeah!" The girl perked up. "I actually went to her house earlier and tried to wake her up, but all she did was whine and said she was tired and told me she didn't feel like going anymore."
"That sounds exactly like her," Cheng Hou said with a chuckle. "I even messaged her to reconfirm our plans this morning and she left me on read. I'm gonna give it to her when I see her again."
"Me too!" The girl joked around with Cheng Hou. "Anyways, do you play for a club?"
"Ah. Nope," Cheng Hou answered back with a disappointing head shake. "Been unlucky with timing. Every time there's an opportunity I either have things to attend to, or I got injured. But I'm not letting it slip this year though. I'm gonna go for as many trials until I get accepted."
"That's good. At least you've got the mentality."
"What about you?"
"I'm at Sailors right now."
An 'oooh' came out of Cheng Hou's mouth. "So you and Meili play for the same team?"
"Yeah. We're currently training with the first team as well so I'm hoping for some opportunities to play with them!" The girl said with total excitement. "I'm just aiming to keep my place for the national team, you know?"
"That's insane," Cheng Hou said with a monotonic voice yet his eyes glimmered. "Right, what's your name ah?"
"Anri. And yours?"
"Cheng Hou," he stopped to think for a while. "Do you have Instagram? If you'd like, we can meet up and train again."
"Sure!" Anri got her phone out of her bag and exchanged social medias with Cheng Hou. The two of them talked for a bit more, about their favorite teams and players they looked up to. A conversation that went on from the moment they left the school, to the moment they departed and split up at the train station.
It's kinda crazy how connections get made at a primary school, isn't it?