Training

We finished our ice creams and headed home. After parting ways with Angie, I slowed down, almost dragging my foot on the street. Like this, I took almost ten minutes to reach home. When I got there, the house was empty. I just left my things in a corner of my bedroom and lied on the bed. I don't know why, but in this moment, I felt really tired. And in a matter of seconds, I was sleeping.

When I woke up, I was confused. 'Wow, what time is it?' As I looked around, the room was dark, making me think it was already night. Startled, I reached for my phone, only to see it was 4pm yet. Surprised, I started laughing at my own shock.

After a few moments, I stopped laughing and started playing videogames. FPS, as usual.

As I was concentrated in the game, I heard a knock on the door. I looked over and there was my brother, telling me that he and mom were already here. After finishing the match, I walked downstairs to greet Bruno and mom.

Right after, I took a bath and had dinner them. Then, I went to my bedroom and fell asleep while browsing on my phone.

The next day, I woke up feeling well. For the first time in a long while, I felt at ease and excited. I had already come to a conclusion.

...

When I arrived at school, I looked for Pedro. As always, he was together with his friends from the team.

"Hey Pedro" I called

He turned over and greeted me, while looking a little anxious.

I was going to give him the answer, but seeing everyone looking at me, I felt I little nervous. Then, I just turned and headed for my seat, ignoring the white elephant.

After the bell rang, I put my full concentration into studying. I really felt good, to a extent that even the classes seemed fun. After the bell rang for the third time, Pedro quickly came my way and practically dragged me out of class. I started making some small talk as we were walking, till he spoke to me

"So, Igor, have you thought about that?"

I answered directly

"Oh, Yes. I want to give it a try." Right after I finished speaking, a smile appeared in his face.

"Ok, that's good. Do you have football shoes?"

"Yes. Well... actually, I borrowed old ones from my brother, but I think they're still good."

"Ok then. In today's training I'll give you our team's uniform."

I just nodded and we proceeded to do what we usually would do.

...

After the bell rang for the last time today, Pedro came my way.

"Hey, come on, you gotta have lunch with the team today."

I nodded and followed him. When we got to the canteen, there was a large table with approximately 20 people at it. When I sit, I noticed there were a few eyes on me, but no one said anything, so I just ate like I normally would. As people finished eating, they would leave and there would be less people at the table. I was eating slowly, but that's just how I normally eat. When I finished, Pedro was already waiting for a while. There was only us and a couple more guys at the table. Pedro quickly got up and we headed to the football team's locker room. When we got there, it was empty. Pedro made his way to a cabinet at the corner where he retrieved a uniform set for me. We both got changed quickly and headed out.

The locker room was located very close to the field, so we got there in instants. When I entered the field, I noticed the players were all at the sidelines, near the bench, in small groups talking to each other. There were sounds of laughter coming from their way.

As we were approaching them, Pedro said

"Igor, you just have to stand by me. I'll talk to the team and present you to them. Then, we will start training."

I nodded.

When we got there, Pedro clapped his hands twice and all the guys turned to look at him. Some were standing, some were sitting on the floor, some on the benchs. When they looked at my direction, they became curious. Some guys who knew me appeared kinda shocked.

Then, Pedro started talking.

"Hey guys. I know that most of you have been worried about our next game."

When he said that, some people nodded, some just silently agreed.

"We did managed to pass the last game with a little luck. But, without Tomas, we have really no creator midfielder. Even if our form has been amazing, how long will it last?"

After saying that, he made a pause to see the reaction of the people listening.

"I think that, after making it to the semi-finals, everyone hopes for us to advance even further, right?"

Now, all the guys were answering loudly

"Yes!"

"We do!"

"Of course!"

Seeing everyone's reaction, Pedro continued

"If so, how do we play against a team that stronger than us? How do we win over them?"

Someone answered

"We gotta park the bus!"

"Yeah" someone agreed "We have to give our all and make sure that they can't score."

Pedro started speaking more loud now

"Yes! We can't let them score." But then, his voice gone down again.

"But, what about us? How can we score? Are we going to wait till they make a mistake? Will it work again?"

"We gotta try." Someone answered "And even if we can't score, we can at least take it to the penalty shootout."

Pedro said seriously

"Are you sure?"

Now, everyone was silent. They were waiting for Pedro to continue.

"I'm not so sure. That's why I found someone to help us on this game."

He looked at me, and everyone else followed his lead.

"This guy here is Igor. He plays as attacking midfielder. Some of you may know him. To the ones who know, you might be curious to why do I think that someone who hasn't been playing football for some time will be able to help us. But I've seen he playing, and he is talented. Plus... we don't really have much of a choice."

As he said that, everyone kept quiet. Is aw different expression on the face of each person. Some were curious, some were indifferent. Some had a dissatisfied look. I just kept my mouth shut and let Pedro continue.

"From now on, he will be training with us so that he can become used to our team's rhythm. Now, let's start training."

Then, everyone got up and started to run to the field. I just followed everyone's lead and started training.

'It seems that today it's a physical training.'

...

While I was training, Pedro was talking to someone. He was a player from our team. They seemed to be talking about something serious, seeing that they were alone and no one was disturbing them.

After a while, they both joined training with us.

And that's how it all started.