Chapter 30: Airhead!

After his unforeseen interview with Alice, Axel had to head over to the stadium later in the day for their training session. 

It was a training session after their game last night so it was more like a recovery training session.

They started with some indoor yoga, yoga was known to help relieve stress and reduce the risk of injury so this was something they had to do the next day after a game.

It was also convenient that their training session today was going to be mostly inside because it was freezing outside.

Axel had never wished for a car so hard until today, despite all the layers he put on before making his walk to the stadium, he felt like he was going to turn into ice halfway through. 

He stuck with the yoga throughout the duration he was required to stick with it before going to play with the bench press, that's how he described it at least.

He temporarily turned off his mind and began to lift the weight, but just as he was slowly bringing it down, Peterson popped up in front of him. 

"The effects of using that every day is really starting to show on your arms." The winger said.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." The youngster replied without stopping what he was doing.

There was no way anyone who saw his arms were going to term them as too frail or spaghetti arms but you couldn't really call them ripped or huge either, they were just the healthy arms of a boy who made sure to put them to work every day while also making sure not to overdo it. 

"But they're not as huge as yours though."

"Do you want them to be?" Peterson inquired, showing off his right arm with a grin on his face.

"No, not really, I like my arms this way, for a midfielder, freedom of movement is a great asset and I'm afraid making them too big might affect my speed. Bodybuilding is not something a footballer should focus on, just work out enough to keep your body in top shape, that's all, from my perspective at least." He articulated before dropping the weight to sit up on the bench. 

"Yeah, you're right," Peterson responded with a nod. 

After a couple of other indoor activities, the players had to head to the pitch because according to Gregory, nobody said there was no field practice for them today.

They had to kick start their training session by running a couple of laps around the pitch, and for this exercise, all of them stuck with their jackets, gloves, and beanies.

As their breathing began to speed up and began to pant, the cold air they were releasing from their breathing began to become more visible but they always dissipated almost immediately.

After that, they did a couple of training drills. Technique drills, speed drills and now it was time for the shooting drill.

The ball was placed about twenty-five yards away from the goalpost, and from that spot, the players had to hit the target on the top left side of the goalpost.

Merino was the first to take the kick and the winger had no problem hitting the target.

Andrea was the next person and he was so close but it wasn't meant to be as he ended up hitting the crossbar. 

Up next was Codex, the player who stood out the most in their gathering now because of the orange spray he had on his hair. 

Axel didn't really pay much attention to Andrea when he took his kick but he just couldn't take his eyes off Codex now and Peterson didn't fail to notice that. 

"Wow, I didn't know his hair spray was so hypnotic." The winger muttered to his hearing with his gaze still on what was going on.

"No, it's not that." Axel shook his head.

"Oh, then what is it?" He asked before shifting his gaze to the youngster.

"I'm just wondering what inspired him to give himself the name 'Codex'. I've been thinking about it for a while." He replied before placing his hand on his chin.

Peterson was about to say something when someone popped up from behind to put his arm over the youngster's shoulders, it was none other than Maxi.

"Why don't you go ask him yourself?" The midfielder suggested with a mischievous smile on his face. "Trust me, he's going to give you a very interesting answer, this is an opportunity you can't pass up."

'Why do I feel like I'm being hounded by a commercial in real life?'

With a wary look on his face, he turned his gaze back to the action to see that Codex had just missed the target, and just as the defender turned his way, they two made eye contact.

He maintained the eye contact for a while before slowly bringing his gaze down. 

"No, I think I'll pass, I can't buy your product." He shook his head.

"Huh? What are you talking about, kid?" Maxi inquired with a confused expression on his face. 

After a couple of his teammates had tried their foot in the shooting drill, it was finally time for them to see if Axel was going to hit the target or not.

The midfielder slowly marched to the ball, imagining the voices of the fans screaming from the stands and cheering him on.

At a point, he forgot everything was just a delusion going on in his head and allowed a smug smile to make its way to his face.

It took a serious glare from Gregory to snap him out of his fantasy.

The young midfielder closed up on the ball as soon as the coach blew his whistle and just as soon as he got his foot on the ball, he lifted it with just enough force to get the job done.

The ball flew straight to the target and flew through it to fall into the goalpost. 

He had been doing continuous target practices on the pitch and his lawn right from the age of six so hitting targets from certain ranges were quite easy for him.

However, utilizing that for scoring goals wasn't really that easy for him because there wasn't exactly any way he could calculate the exact shot power and of course, there was also the problem of the goalkeeper being there to stop the ball. 

The shooting drill came to an end after a few more tries from the rest of the players and out of three tries from each of them, Merino, Axel, and Tacky were the only ones who managed to hit it all three times but Axel and Tacky were the only ones to hit it cleanly all three times.

With that over now, they moved to a different kind of drill. For this exercise, a defender had to be pressed in front of a mini goal post and then the players would face him in an attempt to get past him and put the ball in the goalpost.

Getting the ball taken away from them was an automatic fail.

The defender was going to be Paul because Gregory wanted it to be as tough as possible, and the first person to take him on was going to be Merino. 

"If the best dribbler in the team can't get past him then our chances are very slim," Axel commented as Merino slowly moved closer to Paul with the ball.

"Sometimes it doesn't just come down to how well you can dribble alone, there's also a little bit of luck to it." Peterson disclosed.

Just as he got close enough, Paul quickly closed up on him in an attempt to quickly take the ball off him but he forgot to completely close his legs and that right there was checkmate for Merino. 

The winger put the ball through from in between his legs before moving past him to tap it into the goalpost.

"Wow, that was easier than I expected," Axel muttered with amusement written all over his face.

"You're next, Axel," Gregory announced as soon as Merino cleared from the stage. 

'And just like I thought, he's doing it by who did best in the shooting drill.' He said subconsciously as he took the stage.

The ball was in front of him, and while he was waiting for the whistle, he tried to come up with something in his mind.

The first thing he always did when trying to come up with any idea was to observe, and during his observation, he noticed something quite interesting.

Paul was supposed to stand in the middle so that his body would cover the mini goalpost well enough but he was off a little by the left and that left a little bit of space on the right.

However, he knew there was no way he could outrun him just by taking that route. 

The coach's whistle pierced through the air a moment just after his observation and now it was time to see what he could do.

"Hey, how about I just do this?" He uttered before striking the ball with the side of his boot.

The ball rolled straight for a while and it looked like it was going out but then it suddenly curled just enough to the left to roll into the goalpost.

"Umm, will that suffice?" 

"No." Gregory's voice thundered behind him before he suddenly felt something thick hit his head.

'Ow, where did he get that thick notebook from?'

"The point of the exercise is engaging the defender, airhead!"

"Sorry." He apologized in a low voice as he slowly rubbed the point of impact on his head.

After witnessing something like that, most of the players couldn't help but burst into laughter.

'Geez, I was only trying to minimize my chances of getting injured from this.'