Dave was the last person to walk out of the pitch and as he did he received loud boos from Unique FC's fans, he had already gotten used to the fans treating him like this.
He was approaching the entrance leading to their locker room when he heard someone call his name from the stands.
"Dave, Dave!" Emma screamed until Dave raised his head to see her.
Dave didn't say a word as he stared into the eyes of his girlfriend who was always in the stands to support him during each of his matches and he ended up doing poorly.
"You did great." She said with a warm smile.
Dave managed to force a smile before continuing his work down the stairs. That was the way it had always been between him and Emma.
Every single match, he performed badly but she still tells him that he did great.
Dave was feeling really down as he found the door to their locker room, braced himself for what was about to come, and slowly opened the door.
He entered the room to see that all of his teammates were sitting on their various benches and with the way they were looking at the door, it was clear they were expecting him.
"What the heck were you doing out there?" Jonas was the first to jump up from his bench.
"Calm down Jonas, there are other ways to handle this," Adolf said pulling Jonas by his arm to prevent him from doing anything he would regret.
"I know Dave made a lot of costly mistakes but you guys." Ferran made sure to point at the three defenders. "Can't blame him for all the goals scored in the second half, you just stopped defending."
"Because there was no point doing so if the goalkeeper was going to bottle at the tiniest of shots," Jonas said.
"Look, Dave, I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything but you've really got to improve your game or you'll get replaced when our goalkeepers on loan start returning," Carlos said.
"There's no point, he's going to get replaced now because, I won't play any more matches if that guy is going to be between the sticks," Jonas said quickly storming out of the room.
There was silence in the room as Dave just stood there staring at the rest of his teammates.
It didn't take long before they began to leave one by one.
"You're just not trying hard enough bro." Mateo held him on his shoulder and said before leaving.
Immediately after everyone had left the coach walked into the room.
"Dave, can I see you in my office please?" He said.
Unique FC players were walking out of the stadium while talking to each other and just as Mateo was about to walk to his car he was stopped by a feminine hand.
"Oh hi, sis," Mateo said.
"Nice volley back there," Emma said.
"Yeah but it still wasn't enough to do anything," Mateo said.
"Where's Dave?" Emma asked, looking around.
"Dave," Mateo said looking back. "He's still in there."
"Why?" Emma asked.
"I don't know," Mateo said, raising his hand.
"You guys were saying mean things to him again," Emma said, folding her hands.
A swift engine sound was heard as a car quickly zoomed off from the parking lot.
"Oh look here he goes now," Mateo said, pointing at Dave's car which was already far gone.
Dave drove home as fast as he could and didn't even bother to pack his car properly as he stormed into his nice-looking and well-furnished house.
He didn't even turn on the lights upstairs as he made his way up the stairs in darkness and he still managed to find his room in the darkness.
He turned on the lights and threw himself down on the bed as images of the chat between him and their coach began to play in his mind.
"Even you know you're not doing any better Dave." Coach Norman said. "I'm going to contact your father so that we can start looking for a replacement as soon as the transfer market opens."
Those words alone stabbed him a lot of times in his heart, it was just too painful to tell him that he was getting replaced.
Right from childhood, he was told that he looked just like his grandfather who was one of the best goalkeepers in football history.
He was told by his parents and other people that he may have the talents of his grandfather as his father didn't have any football talents.
He started building himself as a goalkeeper right from childhood when he was keeping for his hometown boyhood club.
He did great back then and they managed to win a lot of trophies but as he advanced in his football career, his skills began to decline, and before he got to the stage of becoming a professional footballer his skills had totally become rusted.
He raised his head to look at the picture of his grandfather which was sitting on his cupboard.
He walked to the cupboard and picked the picture up, which was a picture of his grandfather with the European golden glove.
He had so much resemblance with the old man, brown eyes shining bright with hope, black hair that used to be long just like his grandpa's but he decided to cut it short, his jaw line was a little curvy, a slightly pointed nose and he had pink lips which seemed to be a little plump.
"Were they wrong to think I could be like you or did I just get way ahead of myself?"
He walked to the center of his room as the anger in him had finally boiled up to the max and that had caused him to angrily stomp his foot on the floor.
His foot went directly through the wood, his leg had fallen in there and had dragged his leg inside until the rest of his body had stopped him from falling inside.
"What the heck?" He said as he threw the picture aside and slowly pulled himself up.
He looked down at the hole which his leg had created to see that it was quite deep, like some kind of underground basement.
He rushed outside and returned with a wrench with which he used to pull the rest of the wooden underground door open.
He had also picked a torch with which he flashed inside the place before jumping in.
The place was actually too small to be considered as a basement; there appeared to be nothing inside, so he thought until he found a medium-sized black box lying at the other end of the room.
"This box looks familiar." He said as he picked up the box while trying to remember where he had seen them before.
The box was proven difficult to open but he still had the wrench with him, he stuck it between the little opening and pulled the box open to reveal a pair of silver gloves.
He didn't see the gloves for long as they quickly flew up emitting white light that quickly covered his view and somehow made him pass out for a few minutes.
When he regained consciousness it seemed like a dream but the fact that he was still down here explained that it wasn't but the gloves were nowhere to be found.
"That can't be possible." He said checking inside the box.
[ Welcome Dave ]
[ You have activated the goalkeeping system ]
A female monotone voice said in his head as the messages displayed on his screen.
"Huh?"
****
Please read Author's note below ππ