Chapter 32: Casual Shooting Practice

The re-match against Juventus was set to happen on Tuesday and this time the match was going to be happening at the Etihad Stadium.

It was a match Axel would have loved to go see life since he wasn't part of the squad, but on second thought he decided to stay home and watch the highlights later.

The match was set to kick off by 4:00 PM, and the time being 4:35 PM now, the young midfielder was on the lawn entertaining himself with a casual form of training. 

Big plastic water bottles were things that needed to be discarded as soon as they were done serving their purpose of holding water, but Axel always made sure to keep some of them around just for things like this.

They served a huge purpose in helping him in his shooting practice, but he liked to keep things interesting while making it as challenging as possible.

That was the reason why he was standing in front of the garage with his gaze on the far end of the lawn, that was where he placed twelve water bottles in particular.

But he didn't just place them side by side in a straight line, he used them to form a curve and made sure to space them out properly so the ball wouldn't hit two in an attempt to just hit one after all it was one target per ball.

He also made sure to add a little bit of sand in the bottles so that they wouldn't fall easily under the influence of the wind or a weak kick.

From that point to where he was standing could be said to be about twenty-two yards and that was just okay for him.

Now all that was left was for him to take advantage of the balls in front of him and take out the targets.

There were just twelve balls in front of him, and that meant that for each target missed, there was no second chance. 

This casual training session was something he did alone most of the time, but today, he had company and that company was also going to be doing the job of being his stopwatch.

Ryan visited his friend to see if he was watching the match at home after informing him that he wasn't going to the stadium to see it live, but he ended up getting roped into this.

He was sitting on the steps in front of the house with a stopwatch in his hand, the look on his face made it clear that he was being forced to do this even though that wasn't exactly the case. 

"Alright, Axel, are you ready?" He asked with a dejected voice before getting his hand ready to push the start button. 

"Yes, always ready," Axel replied before doing a light jump to get his foot ready.

"Okay, then, go."

He slowly pushed the start button at that moment and without even waiting for a split second to pass, Axel took the first kick.

It looked like he was walking his way up from the right side of the curve as the ball flew straight to the first target in line on that side and knocked it down, it also made slight contact with the next target but that wasn't enough to knock it down.

He continued in that direction until all twelve targets were on the floor and all the balls were far away from him, and as soon as that happened, he quickly turned his gaze to Ryan who took the cue and quickly pushed the stop button. 

"So, how fast was I this time?" The young midfielder inquired abruptly.

Ryan didn't reply immediately as he stared at the screen of the device with a look of contemplation on his face and seeing that look on his face, Axel couldn't help but get worried. 

"Ryan?" He called, his voice lower than it was a few seconds ago. 

At that moment, Ryan quickly shot his face up with a smile and said, "Twenty-one seconds."

"Seriously?" Axel muttered, a grouchy expression slowly appearing on his face. "That's two seconds faster than last time, you made it look like I was later than last time. You totally killed my mood there."

"And that was precisely what I was aiming for." He responded with a smug look on his face.

Axel glared at him for a while before letting out a deep sigh.

"Let's do a triangle next." He said before he began to make his way to the fallen bottles.

"Wow, you never stay mad long, do you?" Ryan inquired, that smug look on his face was completely gone now. 

"You want me to stay mad over something as trivial as this?" He replied as he started forming the triangle with the bottles.

"No, not really but still even when it's something serious you never stay mad unless it has something to do with your sister or…."

"How fast do you think I can beat the triangle?" Axel inquired, quickly changing the topic. 

"Umm….You don't know but it will probably be less than twenty-five seconds."

"I'm hoping I can beat it in less than fifteen."

"Less than fifteen?" Ryan gasped. "Yeah, good luck with that, that's not even possible in the slightest."

"You're not so sure about that." He replied before getting up on his feet as he was done with the triangle now.

The balls weren't that evenly spaced out in this one as he had to make a full triangle but that was just him raising the difficulty level a bit higher. 

"Anyway, how did Alice's first job experience project go at school?" He asked as began to send the balls rolling back to where he was going to be kicking them from.

"Well, she's been in a really good mood lately so I guess it went well but you'll have to ask her about the details the next time you see her."

"No, that's not necessary, knowing that it went well is all I needed."

With that said, he slowly began to make his way to his kicking spot.

"So, Ryan…."

"Wow, what even happened to my notification sound." He cut him off instantly with his gaze fixated on his phone's screen.

"Huh?"

"Peterson scored the opener just two minutes before the forty-fifth minute." He revealed.

Hearing that, Axel couldn't help but light up his face with a smile.

'I see he's already making up for all the chances he missed in their first meeting.'

"So, we're leading then?"

"I would love to say yes, but it looked like they just got their equalizer, in the second minute of added time. How did they even let this happen so fast?" He looked quite baffled with his hand on his cheek.

Axel on the other hand looked infuriated and that was because he got his hopes high a few seconds ago because of that goal from Peterson.

"I didn't want to say it, but do we really have the best center-backs in the world along with the goalkeeper who was second best in the league last season?" He muttered. 

*****

Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Your power stones and golden tickets would be much appreciated.