Football Lord - Chapter 18

The new week began as Tony who now had a car and a driver’s licence, drove his new car to the academy.

He parked close to the Under 18 training ground, as he moved to the locker room to go and quickly change into his training kit.

He had to wait for a while before the other players and staffs all arrived. Coach Taylor later came and spoke on this week’s training.

“Good morning, This week since we would be playing the Wolves under 18 team in the under 18 premier league. We would be focusing on your match sharpness and the tactics to be employed”

They went to the seminar room to discuss there tactics. Just like the first team under Manager Manuel Pelegrini in the year 2015, before Guardiola came in 2016, there favorite and first choice of tactics was a 4-5-1. That had four defenders, 3 central midfielders, two wingers and a striker.

They were to also understand and study other tactics incase they were to change tactics for a match.

“In this 4-5-1 the five midfielders would mainly consist of two central defensive midfielders who are to hold our midfield and create a wall for the defenders.”

“Then we will have one central attacking midfielder who is to work with the two wingers and the striker to exploit the spaces.”

Coach Taylor quickly explained what he wanted from the structure of the tactics before then explaining the game play and some other game tactics.

Tony who had a football knowledge of B-, knew most of the things expected for tactics of this level.

They were to have training matches from Monday to Wednesday with all teams using the new formations, for the coaches to be able to analyze the players to decide on the starting 11 on Saturday against Wolves.

During training, Tony decided to copy a speed skill he saw.

A player he saw had the Speed Grade B+, Tony decided to attempt to achieve the skill.

The condition was to successfully feed him three through/penetrative passes, during a match. Tony felt it was not that difficult as he already had a passing ability of C-.

As long as they were both chosen on the same team. After Assistant manager Coach Luka read the players starting the match, Tony could only dejectedly shake his head.

The winger was on the opposition team, and when he checked the condition again, it was still the same.

Since he could not achieve that condition, he checked for the next best skill he could copy with achievable conditions.

He saw that a midfielder on the opposition team had an agility skill of B+. Tony was happy as he knew the better the agility he had while dribbling the higher the success he could achieve trying to go past a player.

The condition to copy the skill was to dribble past the player three times during the match. Tony felt it was achievable as long as the player came to mark him during the match.

The match started with the opposition taking hold of the ball for a long time without scoring. Tony’s team finally had the ball for some time as they passed around looking for a way to put the ball into the net but couldn’t.

Tony who was holding the ball close to the other teams 18 yard box, finally saw what he wanted as the midfielder whose skill he was targeting for the match rushed out to mark against him.

He successful faked an attempt to move past with the ball, performed some stepovers as he then nutmegged the midfielder between his legs and then side stepped the player.

Most of the players on the benches laughed and even some players on the pitch also laughed at how the player was easily beaten by Tony.

Tony tried to race into the box with the ball, but he was closed down and was forced to pass the ball to his teammates.

The next time he had the ball and was close to the midfielder, the midfielder came to mark him again. Tony who decided not to try and embarrass him again, only tried to fake a pass and move to the other direction.

But the midfielder successfully followed the ball as he stretched his legs to kick the ball. Tony withdrew the ball from his foot as the midfielder unsuccessfully lunged at him.

The surprise and laughter from the bench this time was even more chaotic, as they laughed at the midfielders embarrassing moment.

Tony who could not be bothered with there joy, moved into the right wing as he exchanged passes with his right winger.

After receiving the return pass, Rose pinpointed the space he was to cross to in front of the striker of his team.

Tony tried his best to hit a perfect cross, but he horribly overhit the ball as it went towards his left winger instead.

Most players watching the match and his teammates wouldn’t have known that wasn’t his intention, but Tony and Rose who was already laughing heartily knew he horribly butched the cross as his crossing was still a grade of D-.

The match continued as it was still a stalemate till halftime.

After the second half began, Tony who was mainly focused on achieving his third and final dribble against the midfielder discovered that the player was using subtle means to avoid meeting Tony.

The midfielder was likely fed up at being embarrassingly dribbled twice by Tony that he was either too far from Tony or he would wait close to the half way line.

Tony had no option than to face the match, his team won a corner. And they finally scored as one his team’s central midfielder rose highest to head the ball into the net of the opposition.

Tony was happy, as his team was now leading. The other team pushed more players forward for the attack as Tony’s team were slightly on the defensive.

Tony who was defending to the best of his D- ability was even successfully dribbled by the midfielder he had dribbled twice in the first half.

Tony was not too dejected by the dribble as it was not too horrible and he didn’t want to be known for his defensive abilities.

The other team tried there best to find a goal but couldn’t. It was during one of there foray to find a goal that the same midfielder faced Tony holding the ball.

He attempted to dribble Tony in a equally embarrassing way, but made a mistake which gave the ball to Tony.

Tony who now had the ball used there opportunity to perform some feints as he dribbled past the player quickly for the counter.

Tony whose present speed was too poor for a quick counter with the ball, as some of the opponents were already closing in on him and the other defenders were falling back to there own half of the pitch.

Tony looked up as he saw a space he could pass to towards the striker of his team. He released an overhead pass that went over the heads of the player and fell in between the goalkeeper and the striker of his team who was being closely followed by the defenders.

The striker who was faster got to the ball before the defender and the keeper who had rushed out to get the ball.

He performed a body feint as if to shoot the ball into the net as the stance of the keeper was broken. Before he then quickly shot the ball into the net, before the keeper could recover his stance.

Tony and his teammates all rushed towards the corner flag to celebrate. Tony who was extra happy as he had also completed his three dribbles against the player, celebrated as if he scored the goal.

The match finally ended as Tony’s team successfully defended for the remaining minutes with pointers from the coaches.