Harry learnt that De Boar was the relative of one of the major shareholders of the company. He began his coaching career at the academy and his performances weren't bad. He was quickly promoted over others and finally got the position of the assistant coach last year.
Last year the team slipped to the 2nd position in the league for the 3rd consecutive season under the previous manager. The board, led by that shareholder, made a radical decision to fire him. De Boar was expected to take the job. However, the Chairman signed Ross instead.
Since then, from the higher ups to the ball boys, the staff at the club are split in two factions. The new faction led by the biggest shareholders and the old faction led by the declining company who founded the Peasants.
After a while, the verbal fight stopped, the training session began anew and Harry got to talk to the Captain for a bit. The Vice-Captain and the Goalkeeper weren't as supportive of Harry as he thought. They were in the Ross camp, but not supportive of Harry's signing.
For the next two days, Harry trained at the club, bonded with Wout, Pablo, Jarno and Nasgir, he participated in the pre-match meetings, he got to learn about the history of the club a little, he saw various verbal arguments and he completely adjusted to the atmosphere of the club.
There was one thing that Harry found uncomfortable. The spiteful gazes of a large part of people at the club. Harry couldn't understand their excessive hatred for himself.
Anyway, today is a big day for him. Yes, today on Feb 4, 2024 is Harry's Debut Match. He is going to play in his first match and it is a home match aswell.
This is a big match between two of the three giant clubs of N country. For Harry's team this is a match against the team currently sitting at the second position in the League. For their opposition, this is a revenge match after loosing in their home game this season. A Sunday night cracker, a match majority of the football fans in the country are interested in. It is Peasant's Club Vs The People's Club.
- - - -
Sitting amongst the home fans in the Peasant's Stadium, Alizey and her friends couldn't get used to the boisterous crowd.
The two teams had just come out of the tunnel. The announcer was naming the members of the line ups one by one when She heard him call, "Number Eighteen, Harry Bazz."
Alizey found the name familiar. She looked at the big screen which was showing a handsome lean boy shaking hands with the opposition players. 'That's the annoying guy who once fainted at my door.'
It was a a major coincidence that she was in the N country at all. One of her seniors, who she was close to, fell in love with a boy. She had met the boy in Amsterdam Museum on a holiday trip last year. Her senior and the boy had been in a long distance relationship since their time together in City A of the N country.
Recently, the boy sent her senior tour tickets of N country. Her senior could bring along 3 people, as it would have been impossible for her senior's parents to send their girl to a foreign country alone.
Consequently, Alizey was invited by her senior to tag along with the promise of her convincing Alizey's parents. Alizey couldn't resist, as her dream was to go to the E continent. Hence, although it was difficult, but Alizey finally came to the N Country with her senior and her senior's friends.
City E was one of their destinations. The boy her senior loved, also lived in City E and his elder brother was a player for the Peasants. The boy was thankful that his girlfriend's friends helped the two of them meet. He was very polite to the girls. He even helped the girls have an opportunity to enjoy by giving them the tickets to the match.
That's how the girls were sitting in the home fans side of the stands in the front rows. Hence, learning that someone she knew was playing in the very first match she was going to see from the stands was a shocking surprise for Alizey.
- - - -
Today the fans were exceptionally noisy. Unsurprisingly it was not because of the excitement. However, they were discussing the drastic changes in the line-up made by the coach. Shockingly, half of the regular outfield players were missing. The line-up looks setup for a beating.
A 17 year old debutant winger, an out of form striker, another young winger who failed to impress previously and an out of form defensive midfielder sitting behind the attacking midfield pair of captain and vice captain.
In defence, the left back was another youngster who failed to impress in his previous outings. Thankfully, the only saving grace was that the manager hadn't completely given up. The others in defence, including the Goalkeeper, were the usual established ones.
Wether Ross was making his mark and pressing his authority or making a last push to annoy De Boar before his ultimate sacking, Harry had no idea. He hoped things would turn out well on the pitch.
Gotze won the coin toss and chose to attack. The Referee blew the whistle at 9pm sharp, indicating for the kick off. Immediately, Wout kicked the ball to Pablo sitting deep. Pablo, with his first touch, passed the ball to Gotze who had come deeper inside the half. Meanwhile, Wout, Harry and Jarno had ran across the opposition half.
Gotze set himself with his first touch and sent the ball high and long to Wout with his second, starting an instant attack.
Wout out muscled and out jumped his man to flick the ball with his head in Harry's direction. The flick on was almost divine as it went over the unsuspecting opposition right back. Sprinting past the slightly dazed man, all of a sudden, Harry was in acres of space on the left wing.
Harry took the bouncing ball in his stride without slowing down, a touch sending the ball a little away from him and slightly inward towards the box. Perfectly enough, he had time to look up and see a red and white shirt dashing in between the opposition left wingback and centerback.
With the keeper not coming off his line, immediately, Harry knew that a big chance had come. So, he slowed down and adjusted his body before whipping in a low rocket of a driven cross in the path of Jarno.
The young man didn't make a mistake with his touch, trapping the ball cleaning infront of him at the edge of the box and controlling it to perfection. He adjusted his body and curled the ball with his right foot, giving the keeper no chance, he scored at the near post from 17 yards out.
1-0.
12 seconds into the match, without letting the opposition touch the ball, The Peasants had scored. The Referee blew the whistle, confirming the goal and the home crowd erupted in cheers. The players on the pitch celebrated wildly, unable to believe what they had just done. The opposition looked distraught, with their coach going crazy as he shouted to his players about their sheer laziness. Ross and his staff high fived, pumped fists in the air and jumped around like kids. Surely, this was the fastest goal in the division's long history.
'That's just wow!' For Alizey watching from the stands, those 12 seconds were magical. It was like watching her classmates play football games secretly in the computer lab.
In the K Village, listening to the commentary, Harry's grandfather was ecstatic as the commentators praised Gotze's pass, Wout's holdup play and the two young wingers' excellent capitalisation of the chance provided to them. He was in no made to listen further about their criticism on the People's Club's players. Like a child who got his favourite candy, he was jubilant and couldn't seem to find what to do with his excitement.
_________
Author's Note:
I apologise to all who were following the story. I will not be continuing the story anymore as I will not be writing in the near future.
I have ended the story on a good note, a fantasy/ game like goal, just so that it won't hurt as much. At this point, you can just curse at me and leave.
There are three reasons I won't be writing anymore:
1) I find my own story boring, compared to what I enjoy reading. I had a vision for this story, but I can't seem to put it in words the way I want.
2) It's mentally exhausting to write and I'm not good at dealing with stress. I read books to relax. Now, I feel restless.
3) Most importantly, I have hit a bottleneck. I messed up my writing rythm with the time skip. Later on, I fell down the stairs and since that break, I have seemed to run of ideas. Most of the times, I can't write anything at all.
This last chapter took me 5 days. I'm not even satisfied with it.
Once again, I'm sorry to you all.