Reincarnated As A Footballer - 12 The First Week Scrimmage

That was it. That literally crushed the hearts of every Vålerenga player on the field. That was when they realized what they up against. This Sao Paulo’s team literally dominating in everything as their dribble, their first touch, their passing skills, their communication completely outshone the home team. Within another five minutes, they SPFC U-14 had scored two more goals and this meant the score was seven goals to zero for Sao Paulo.

The Vålerenga team was exhausted. Even though physically they would have been able to manage but that mental blow was the key factor here. The ball was now with the keeper Ivan. He passed it to Aksel who was unmarked. Then Aksel started running and when we was about to pass to the LM, he noticed that he was absent. Some of the players had given up by now. Seizing this chance, the opposition player snatched it from him and started a counter attack.

The goal now for SPFC was to completely crush the Vålerenga players especially Vinod since he was the only player in the Vålerenga side who posed some sort of a threat for them. Vinod was now going back to help the defence but was running slowly thanks to his mental fatigue. Despite his football maniac nature, even he was unable to come to terms with what had happened. That was when the CDM Lizziero, who was closely following him throughout the second half, taunted him in order to completely break him apart

“What are you doing? Going to defend? Well you were not able to do anything special to our defenders when they were attacking, what will you do when it is our attack? Just give up. You can rest easy now dude. You have done enough. Ha! Look at you! You are not able to run too! And you think you will be able to stop us?”

This made Vinod think for a bit as he stopped running. Firstly he did not think that the CDM knew how to speak English. Secondly, he looked at the coach and saw that he was writing something down expressionlessly. Then he started thinking

‘Haven’t I done to my level best till now? Should I give up? But if I do give up now, will I be able to face Greg who has done the utmost to see me as a footballer?’

Then an important image came to his mind.

(FLASHBACK START) It was when Eric was accompanying another homeless friend of his while they were watching a Sunday League match in the outskirts of London. The score was 2-1. There was only three minutes in the match left and his friend asked him

“Who do you think will win this match? ”

“Of course, there are only three minutes let now, so if things go on like how they have been, it will obviously be the team who are leading.”

“That is where my friend you are wrong. Look at the faces of the players of the team who are leading and look at those of the trailing team. Their faces say it all! I can bet that if things go on like this, there is a 99% possibility that the trailing team wins, you can’t say; but remember this, both in football and in real life, the moment you give up, is the moment you truly start losing your match. You might not win, but you at least have a 0.001% possibility of turning it around”(FLASHBACK END)

‘The moment you give up is the moment you truly start losing the match ‘ This sentence was ringing alarm bells in his brain. That was when the attack failed and it was a corner for SPFC. It was then that he noticed that some of his team mates were still struggling to take possession and create a chance to score a goal against their opposition, as he went near their penalty box.

He then quickly started rushing towards the CDM as he saw that the ball was flung towards him. Without caring about his image, his position, his form, he jumped right in front of Lizziero and came in front of the ball and headed it awkwardly to Ivan who caught it safely. He then looked at Lizziero, his coach and finally his team mates and shouted

“WHO THE HELL IS GIVING UP!!!!”

This made his dorm mates, Karl and Chidera grin a little and surprised the remaining members in the stadium. Vinod along with Chidera went straight towards the half line where the last line of defence of the SPFC players were standing.

The game had resumed with just two minutes in clock left. Ivan passed it to Karl who started running with the ball ignoring the defense. As he saw an incoming player, he turned the ball back to engage in a small physical battle with the opposing player. As the player engaged with him, he simply gave a back heel pass to William who was behind them through the opposing SPFC player’s legs. As soon as William got the ball, he gave a high lob to Aksel who was standing right next to the left side line. Seeing the trajectory of the ball,the SPFC players thought that it would go out. So they slowly went towards him only to find out that Aksel could also jump very high. Aksel somehow managed to keep the ball inside and started dribbling towards the opposition goal. By now, he was some forty meters away from the goal. Suddenly, he shot the ball to the other side of the pitch where William was standing. William was thirty meters away from the goal now and he received it. He started running to the right hand corner of the pitch and gave a cross. But unluckily for him, he hit the ball too hard, so it went too far ahead and it looked like it was going out of bounds only to be stopped by Vinod.

Unknown to others, Vinod felt very calm now. He was clearly able to see everyone near him on how they were moving, whom they were guarding etc. He was in a state of extreme concentration now. He felt like he could do anything. So after receiving the ball, he dashed towards the goal. There were five defenders surrounding him and he wanted to the corners of the penalty box. As the opposition came, he evaded the first defender, nutmegged the second. As the third guy came to him, he faced him with his back, turning away from him. The defender thought that he could buy his team some time by engaging in a physical battle with him, as there was no pass course for Vinod and he was in the keeper’s line of sight. So he could shoot too. But boy was he wrong! As he tried initiating contact with Vinod, he juggled the ball once only to flick the ball up to behind the defender and then went past him agilely. Then the for the fourth guy, he simply Rouletted him and he was in the position he wanted to be in. As the fifth guy was onto him by now, he immediately then shot the ball to the far right corner of the goal. It hit the top post (nearly at the right corner) and went straight to Chidera who then scored.

Everybody in the ground except for the dorm mates was shocked. Little did they know that Vinod wanted to use this as his signature so that even he was not in a position to score or pass, he would at least create a chance using this. He could do it when he was alone but that was not the case in a match. There were many external conditions that drastically dropped the accuracy of this shot/assisting style which made it nearly impossible to use this as a weapon of his in a match. With that, the first scrimmage match in the training camp against Sao Paulo U-14 was over and it was an overwhelming defeat for the Vålerenga U-14 – III with the final score as

San Paulo U-14 :- 7 – 1 :- Vålerenga U-14-III