Chapter 18

The warm-up area was equipped with cones, agility ladders, and other assortment of training equipment. The coaches present guided the participants safely and effectively through stretching exercises and light drills to prevent the occurrence of injuries while warming up.

Some stretched their limbs, others jogged in place, and a few were practicing quick footwork drills.

Meanwhile, Jesse did some light jogging before stopping and moving on to dynamic stretches to loosen up his muscles.

Afterwards, he practiced a few quick turns and cuts, imagining himself weaving through defenders on the field before ceasing his warm up.

Glancing around, Jesse tried to size up the competition. Compared to before when he newly arrived at the stadium, he was feeling a lot more confident and was hardly intimidated.

His mind was clear, he was ready for whatever was thrown at him.

Not long after, one of the coaches blew a whistle, signalling the start of the trials.

The first segment of the trials was the technical drills. These were divided into seperate stations each designed to test the participants' dribbling, ball control, passing, shooting, agility, speed, and precision; there were already a series of cones, hurdles, and small goals set up across the field.

The participants were then divided into smaller groups — each assigned to specific coaches who would oversee their performances in the drills — and assigned to different drill stations, allowing participants to simultaneously switch and alternate between stations when they were finished, and the tests to be concluded as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Meanwhile, the participants who were goalkeepers were to undergo a separate set of specialized drills that would assess their reflexes, positioning, and ability to handle the ball which were to include distribution and throwing accuracy, before they would eventually face the coaches in shooting drills designed to test their shot-stopping abilities in one-on-one situations.

Each group went to different stations to begin the trials, and Jesse's group was directed to the dribbling station first by their assigned coach.

The dribbling station involved a set of cones set up closely in a straight line at the beginning, and then a slalom fashion halfway through. The objective was to dribble and weave the ball through the series of cones as quickly as possible while maintaining close control and avoiding knocking over the cones.

The coach demonstrated the drill for everyone to see, showing them how it was done before bringing out a stopwatch and ushering the participants to line up and begin the exercise.

Jesse watched from the queue as the first few participants took their turns. Some of them struggled with the tight spaces between the cones but managed to get through, some were more abysmal and knocked over the cones in their attempts, while others moved through them with relative ease.

When it reached his turn, Jesse didn't dawdle; instead, he exploded forward, using the inside and outside of his right foot to weave through the cones with precision and speed.

It was like the ball was glued to his feet; he finished the drill flawlessly in record time without touching a single cone.

Dribbling was his domain and strongest point, after all, so completing the exercise was a walk in the park for him.

It was as easy as taking candy from a baby.

Next, they moved on to the passing station.

Here, participants were required to pass the ball accurately to a partner while a marker was between them, trying to intercept the ball. Once a certain number of passes were made in succession, or the ball was intercepted a certain amount of times, one of the players would switch with the marker in the middle, repeating the process until all of them had taken the role of the marker in the center.

Then afterwards, the next exercise would be focused on passing accuracy. In the passing station, a grid was marked on the ground with targets at varying distances — from short range to long range. The coach explained that they had to pass to ball to hit the targets, and use their ability to estimate and decipher how much adjustment the weight of their passes would require depending on the distance of the target.

Most of the participants didn't have problems with hitting the targets that were a short distance away, but they struggled with hitting them as they grew farther away, causing their accuracy to drop significantly.

They all had a wide range of results from the passing accuracy exercise, but none of them hit all the targets accurately.

And neither did Jesse.

In his attempt, he tried imagining the passing exercise was like taking a freekick — which, he had a talent for. But he was only mostly skilled at taking free kicks from the edge of the eighteen yard box. At longer distances, his accuracy dropped significantly.

As a result, Jesse didn't have perfect results in the passing accuracy exercise either. But he still managed to be amongst those who had the top scores.

As for the exercise which included passing the ball past the marker in the middle, Jesse did well there, making crisp, intelligent passes that didn't give the marker the chance to intercept the ball.

Taking on the role of marker though, Jesse was simply ham-handed — or in this case, ham-legged. He was a bungling mess and couldn't seem to intercept any of their passes no matter how he tried.

He was quite frankly abysmal.

Once the group was finished with both passing drills, the next station they headed to focused on shooting accuracy.

Jesse's group was tasked with taking shots from different angles and distances over a wall of mannequins guarding the goalpost. They had to aim for small targets within the goal and hit them for a successful attempt.

Luckily, the freekicks were only short to mid-range, so Jesse only had a bit of difficulty hitting the targets while attempting the mid-range freekicks.

For Jesse, short-range freekicks mostly required precision which he found pretty easy, so he had no problem hitting their targets. But mid to long range freekicks required the shooter to use a lot of power and at the same time, maintain a perfect level of accuracy.

It was a really difficult technique to execute.

Getting the ball over the wall wasn't a problem, but Jesse had to weigh his shot impeccably in order to not just keep it from soaring over the goalpost, but to also maintain enough precision to hit the specified targets.

Eventually, after spending a lot of time and effort deliberating cumbersomely on the technique he would use, Jesse managed to hit all the mid-range targets.

Jesse pumped his fists when his efforts struck them, feeling ecstatic.

He was in the zone.

Some members of his group let out stunned gasps.

He was the only one to hit all the targets in the short and mid range distances.

With this, he was certain he had made an impression.

A very, very big impression.

Once his group was done with the freekick exercise, they swapped places with the station of another group and went to the track that surrounded the pitch for the agility and speed test.

The test was pretty straightforward: they had to sprint through the hundred metre track in the quickest time they could possibly accomplish while jumping over a series of hurdles and small barriers across the way.

It was a perfect test on their speed, agility, and reflexes.

Jesse's group took turns dashing across the track and jumping over the obstacles in their paths while having their runs timed by the watching coach.

Many of the participants were very quick runners. So, although Jesse was pretty quick himself, he finished, ending the one hundred metre dash with a time which was just slightly above the average time achieved by most of the participants.

With that, they had completed all the technical drills and tests.

Since his group were done with the available drills, they were given a short break to hydrate and rest before the start of the small-sided matches which would be the final hurdle.

Jesse joined the other participants in the brief cooldown session.

He sat on the grass and grabbed the pre-packed bottle of water from his backpack before taking a drink from it.

The coaches gathered to review their notes while everyone relaxed — some looking exhausted, while others were still brimming with energy.

Jesse couldn't help but feel accomplished as he relaxed.

Some of the drills had been challenging, but they had also been fun and Jesse executed most of them with flawless ease. So far, he was doing better than most of the other participants, and that made him feel like he already had a foot in the academy.

His dribbling and shooting were all stratospheric, his passing and speed were over the roof. His defending… well, it was ground level at best.

But he was a winger, and he excelled in all the qualities that made an excellent winger. So, he didn't think it would matter too much.

As a result, he was over the moon with his performance so far.

Now, all that was left were the small-sided matches which would decide the final cut — not that Jesse doubted he had what it took to impress them.

He still had plenty in the tank and was raring to go.

This was his opportunity to prove that he belonged among the best. And so far, he was doing just that.