***Thursday, 10th January, 2020,***
"You all will be split into four teams from A to D,"
"The teams will be matched up against each other randomly and the winners from each matchup will play against each other in a final match,"
Coach Edwards was explaining how the trial matches for the day would be held to the teenagers who were almost boiling over with excitement at the upcoming matches.
It was the second day of the football trials, and it was the day when they would be playing the trial matches so that they could show their skills and hopefully catch the eye of one of the scouts.
The excitement in the air was almost palpable, but the tension was even more so.
Hidden beneath the excited eyes of the young aspiring footballers was a fear greater than their excitement… a fear of failure.
A fear that they wouldn't perform up to par and would be the ones to be rejected by the scouts because the truth of the situation was that, not everyone participating in these trials would be scouted.
Among these teenagers, there was only one who didn't have this fear.
Rather it wasn't that he didn't have this fear, but rather that he refused to let this fear show up and affect him in the slightest.
This person was, of course, Jason.
It was a big day for him too.
If he succeeded today and got signed to even a mid-tier team in any of the top ten European leagues, then he would have already surpassed the apex of his previous life.
He had been a pitiful low-class footballer who had only played in mostly unknown leagues and the peak of his career was played in the Japanese J1 league, but even though the Japanese J1 league was the top in its country and arguably one of the top leagues in Asia, it was still far from anywhere near the top European leagues in arguably every aspect.
But he had put all that behind him and was more focused on the football trials as he already knew that he had done everything he could to prepare and there was nothing else left to do but to get on the pitch and impress and that was what he was planning to do.
The teams had already been set by the management before that moment so Coach Edward took out a sheet of paper on which the names were written and began calling everyone and allocating them to their various teams as well as handing the teams to each one of his colleagues who would be acting as the coaches of the teams.
Jason was allocated to Team C, and he walked towards where his team members were gathering around their temporary coach as soon as his name was called while Coach Edward continued calling names.
As fate would have it, as soon as he caught up with his teammates, he recognized a few faces from the day before.
"Yo, Nico and Trevor," he called out to the two of them as he made his way in their direction.
"Looks like we are on the same team," Trevor said with a grin and took Jason's outstretched hand in a trendy handshake.
"I already feel pity for the guy that will be marking you," Nico said with a cheeky smile as he swung his arm around Jason's neck in a half hug.
"Haha," Jason merely chuckled as they engaged themselves in discussion while waiting for all their teammates to arrive.
After a few more minutes, their temporary coach who was waiting suddenly clapped his hands to get their attention, indicating that everybody had gathered.
As his only duty for the day was to make substitutions to ensure that every player had a chance to perform and influence the scouts, he didn't bother giving a pep talk and simply began to arrange the team according to the positions of the players.
"There are sixteen of you guys so eleven of you will be starting and five of you will be coming off the bench," he began.
"Those that will be on the bench shouldn't lose heart as you will all get to play while those of you in the starting lineup shouldn't lose your heads and begin to play like headless chickens otherwise you will be substituted," he added before he began to lay out the game plan and the starting lineup.
Team C would be playing in the 4-3-3 attacking formation and the starting lineup was,
GK: Ben Aarons, LB: Trevor Phillips, RB: George Floyd, CBs: Kevin Omar, Carlos Miller, CMs: Rico Pena, Kurt Williams, CAM: Jason Bolu, RW: Jordan Fusch, LW: Nico, ST: Daniel Forsberg.
Jason was appointed as the captain of the team, and they were given orange bibs which they wore over their jerseys before they marched off to the stands to clear the field for Team A and Team D who would be playing first.
Before they even got to the stands, teams A and D were already arranging themselves on the pitch, and before even getting to sit, they had already heard the sound of the whistle signaling the match's start.
As the team's captain, Jason felt like it was up to him to lead the team in the coming games especially as there was no coach to tell them a game plan that they should use, so he quickly started by introducing himself to his teammates and asking about their strengths on the pitch as well as their playing styles so he could connect them properly and come up with a game plan.
After speaking within themselves for a few minutes while watching the ongoing match, Jason was able to come up with a simple plan.
According to their discussions, the two center backs, Kevin and Carlos had no problems being full-on stoppers and while Trevor was a left back whose speed wasn't that high enough to outrun wingers, he was reasonably good at throwing long passes, unlike the right back whose asset was his speed.
The center midfielders, Kurt and Rico claimed that they had no problem playing anywhere in the midfield so they could swap positions easily should the need arise, and they could give passes to the wingers as long as they could free themselves from their markers.
The big lad Daniel was a finisher who had good accuracy with both his head and foot.
With all this information, Jason pondered if they could adopt a game plan that was both a mix of a possession and a quick-counter game plan where they kept the ball moving around deep while making the opponents come for the ball and as soon as there was a space created, they attacked fast with all the forwards making forward runs into the created space.
He brought this up with his teammates who didn't have anything against the plan and after a few tweaks, they settled on the plan, after which they settled down and watched the match that was going on while waiting anxiously for the time to run out.