Chapter 103 103 New Coach (1)
I demand your power stones as I was deemed to be worthy by the singularity to present you with its hero\'s tale, so motivate me to write more and upload chapters faster.]
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\'What\'s with all the stares,\' I asked Eva inside of my head as I quickly made my way to my chair.
Sitting down I heaved a long sigh, since arriving at school I\'ve been getting a lot of weird glances. Heck, some girls even came up to me and embraced me in a hug saying that they are there for me. The word thing is that I\'ve never spoken to those girls since they were from the high school building.
[hmm maybe they feel sorry that you haven\'t become a professional footballer yet, even though you have a system,] She commented with an amused smile relishing the fact that I was feeling uncomfortable. How do I know that she was smiling you might wonder well sometimes you can just tell by someone\'s tone of voice.
\'Why do I even bother asking non-football related questions,\' I say to her realising the fact that she tends to just joke around with me, instead of giving me a proper answer.
[Neither do I honestly,] she commented with a chuckle serving only to further dampen my mood.
"Are you okay?" I heard the familiar warm voice of Lexi causing me to look up from the table.
"Please not you too," I subconsciously commented as I gave a wary look not wanting to deal with another person showing me pity especially if that person is one of my best friends.
"Huh, what are you talking about?" she asked me in surprise confusion clearly written all over his face. I could tell that she was genuinely confused as to what I was talking about.
"It doesn\'t matter, how is your morning anyways," I asked her expertly changing the subject wanting to hear about something new.
Lexi didn\'t mind me changing the subject, in fact, she was quite excited to tell me about her day. Maybe a little too excited but I didn\'t mind it as she started telling me about what was going on in her family. Apparently, she is going to spend the Christmas holidays at her aunt\'s ranch in Alberta. The place is somewhere in Canada and according to her, it\'s pretty beautiful well from the pictures she\'s seen.
"What is with all the weird looks you are getting," Just as I was begging to forget about the weird looks, I\'ve been getting Liam\'s question brought me back to reality. He had just arrived in the class and immediately noticed the peculiar atmosphere in the class.
"My coach went crazy yesterday," I said to him with a look that told him that I\'m already tired of talking about this topic. He was quick to understand my look as he proceeded to talk about how hard his taekwondo training session was.
"I went like (bang) to his chest, and he went (swoosh) to the ground," he said as he excitedly narrated the happening of his training match.
At some point, he was reenacting some of his moves whilst adding some sound effects. I felt like I was right there just by watching his moves and listening to his life-like enactment of the match. Judging by the focused look on Lexi she seemed to be feeling the same sensation. His mystical-like battle ended with him talking about how he got scolded by his sensei for hitting the Soulja Boy You on his downed opponent.
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"Alright boys let me start off by apologising to all of you for what happened yesterday," Head Coach Baker told us with an apologetic look plastered on his face looking quite ashamed of what happened yesterday.
Glancing at my teammates I saw a few of them looking like they have heard something similar today. I would be right in my assumption as the teachers of the schools felt quite ashamed of the coach\'s actions. In almost every class I\'ve been in teachers came up to me and apologised for their former colleague\'s actions.
Oh Yeah did I forget to mention that Coach Garret was officially fired today? Yeah, I was in the middle of biting into my chicken pasta when the comms rang out and the school newspaper announced the breaking news. The girl that announced it sounded way too happy about the fact that she gets to talk about some real news. I\'m sure if it wasn\'t for the fact that the supervising teacher took the mic off her she would have continued with her rant.
"I want you to know that I have no tolerance for violence within my soccer program, you had a great start to the season, and I would like to encourage you to continue with it." Coach bakers voice reverberated again pulling me out of my thoughts and focus on him.
The Blad man dressed in the school\'s tracksuit was stroking his bald head as he continued to address us. Although he was just dressed in a tracksuit, he has an air of elegance to him which makes you feel important whenever he addresses you.
"My dear friend Hanz Bauer here will be taking over as your coach, You might know him as just a goalie coach but he is quite the tactician and has experience as an assistant coach with a professional team so you might learn something good," He continued his speech dropping a bomb into all of our minds causing the silent locker room to gain a bit of life.
Surprisingly, no one spoke up to voice their excitement but then again with what happened yesterday it\'s understandable. Oh well, it looks like it\'s going to take my teammates a while to get over the coach\'s actions. After all, from what I\'ve gathered a coach is someone you are supposed to be able to trust and even look up to.
However, Garret completely shattered that notion with his actions yesterday. While it might not seem like much to me since I never really built a bond with a coach it\'s a different for these guys. After all, most of them have been playing football since joining the school and have been learning from the very same coaches. So, seeing their coach snap at them to the point he started trying to fight their parents must have been a big shock.
"Alright, I\'ll let you get on with your training, continue to work hard and bring honour to your school and above all else have fun," With those final words head coach Baker left the locker room with a little fan fair. However, his speech had achieved its goal as we were all excited to begin training and put yesterday\'s incident behind us.
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"Rakim over here," Tom exclaimed as sprinted into an open space giving me a passing option before the red team could disposes me of the ball. Heading his call, I slotted the ball in between the space of Damian and Max who were charging at me.
Tom dint directly stop the ball but instead, guided it to the direction he wanted to go using his first touch. His next touch was to send a pass to someone in a green bib who was unmarked. Ryan was the one to receive the ball calmly stopping it as he scanned his surroundings.
That proved to be his mistake though as the body of Finn came sliding along the ground sweeping the ball from his feet and sending it out of the square. "Green teams chasing," Coach Oliver the fitness coach exclaimed from the side as he threw a new ball to an open player of the red team.
Currently, we are playing a possession drill that our new head coach Bauer came up with. We were put into a squared field and the fifteen of us were also split into three teams of five wearing a corresponding bib colour of green, red, and non-bib. In the drill, one of the three teams has to try and win possession of the ball whilst the other two teams must keep the ball from them. whichever team loses the ball would have to be in the middle next and to up the difficulty you only get two touches on the ball.
"Yes, Finn" I eagerly exclaim to the boy as he brought the ball from Oliver under his control. He was quick to react to my shout sending me a pass in the middle of the whole square. Receiving the ball with my left foot I turned with the momentum of the ball. Logan dawned in a green bib quickly approached me in an effort to close me down.
Not giving him the chance, I chipped the ball with my right foot sending it floating over his head. Max was at the landing point of the ball just like how I intended, and he rose to the challenge using his chest to skilfully bring the ball to the ground. Not bothering to hold onto the ball he sent a pass to Blake who was unmarked in one of the corners of the box.
This possession drill continued for quite some time as we battled for control of the ball. It was hard to accept the fact that I had to chance after the ball because of a teammate\'s mistake but it\'s all a part of the sport. The drill instilled a sense of teamwork within us as we actively tried to get open so that the people in our team wouldn\'t lose the ball.
At one point it felt like we were just instinctively trying to get into an open passing lane just so we could get involved with the drill. The green team consisting of Ben M, Ryan, Logan, Henric, and Jake had the most turnovers as most of their players were defenders and not used to having the ball and engaging as much. However, they were quick to win possession once it was their turn to chase.
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To Be Continued...