Narrator: James
What is football? This was the question every forward at Red Zone was asked in our briefing.
Well, not all forwards, it consisted mainly of Center Forwards and Strikers, of course we did not answer, no one was ready to give the wrong answer.
It had only been three days since we arrived at the Red Zone academy in England, not a lot has happened so far, we've been isolated and separated from each other in groups of two, I was with a Nigerian here, he was mixed-race, he calls himself SANTI.
SANTI was a pain in the ass and would cry every night, why was he crying? He probably missed home, chamaco mimado, clowns like that do not belong here.
He was also a weakling, though we had not been allowed to touch a ball yet. We had been allowed to train; he was fast, yes, but that was it.
He had zero stamina, zero strength, he could not even jump high and his height was not helping, he was short and tiny, he'll be outta here in no time. Right back into mommy and daddy's hands to cry even hotter tears, I'm sure he has been spoiled and babied all his life.
He sucked this much and the clown had the audacity to tell me he liked me and would like to team up with me cause he was sure I could finish up his passes well. Qué ridículo, qué payaso, no way in hell I would play with a spoiled brat.
We had been separated into five groups, one group for strikers and center forwards, another group for every other group of forwards, one for midfielders, one for defenders and one for goalkeepers.
Each group had a separate instructor and were briefed in separate rooms. ENZO got up to answer after minutes of an awkward silence, sir, football is a game of eleven players where each player is important to the team and the team works together to win games.
Is that right, our instructor asked, ENZO replied yes and the instructor congratulated him, he told ENZO he would have no dinner tonight for such a blasphemous statement and he was most certainly not cut out to be a striker, he probably did not belong here either.
This shit made me so happy. Así te pasa porcreerte la gran cosa, qué payaso, he didn't think we all did not say a word because we knew better than to do that, everyone knew football works differently in Red Zone, but bro still decided to talk.
Football exists solely for you lot, yes, you score the goals, you are the Kings of the field and all the other players exist solely to serve you, football is all about who scores the most goals, whoever scores the most goals is the best, nothing else is relevant, the team exists solely to serve you.
What we require at Red Zone are strikers who have what it takes to repeatedly produce goals, is it shot power, is it shot accuracy, heading, speed, positioning, all of the above, none of the above? It does not matter, all that matters is your ability to keep producing goals. These were the words of our instructor and they lit a fire in me.
We were ushered out after this and led into a hall with a lot of players, there, we were briefed even further.
We were told this, "From now on, you shall be living here, you can not go home and you will be ranked, on the large screens in this hall, you shall get player information, match information, pretty much any and all types of information."
"You will be put into twelve teams of eleven players, the goalkeepers will be ranked from numbers twelve to one, twelve being the lowest and one the highest, the defenders, midfielders and forwards will be ranked from forty to one each, the lower your number, the higher your rank, there are a hundred and thirty two players here and you would be separated into twelve teams of eleven players."
"You were all provided a health smartwatch, it would have your ranks up in three, two, one, check." That was not all of the information that we were briefed on but I had to check my watch and I was number 33, what the hell, SANTI came running to show me his own, he was number 6, what the hell? SANTI was a better forward than I was? What position did he even play?
Our instructor continued, "all twelve teams would play in a league format, each team would play the other once, the first four teams automatically stay in Red Zone, only the top 2 rated players among the other eight teams would remain in Red Zone."
"For all forwards, a goal was one point, two was three points, three was five points, if more were scored, add two points for each goal, an assist was half a point, two assists was a point, three was one and a half and so on."
"For all midfielders, the same is true. Defenders and goalkeepers, each clean sheet is valued at the number of defensive players in the game, four defenders and a goalkeeper comes at two points, three defenders come at three points, two at four points. A goalkeeper or defender scoring gives them three points".
"The winning team is allowed to swap a player from the other team
for a player on their team, however, this must be done in a voting system, your rank will increase based on your performances and number of points."
"Your overall performance would also be assessed to award points, you can't drop stinkers and get high points after being carried by your teammates who did all the work just because you score a hat-trick, any injured player would not be replaced and the team must play every match without that player but a team with an injured player gets one point added for every point they get. These rules are subject to weekly changes. The team sheets would be announced shortly, best of luck young gems, make us proud."
That was it, that was all, the team sheets were announced and we were told that all eleven players would stay in the same block and would be isolated from all the others.
SANTI was on my team, and although I did not really like him, he seemed quite good. So, I would use him to up my game; after all, I was the sole striker, and the team existed solely to serve me.
This team was utter dogshit, our Goalkeeper was a big Chinese guy, he was tall, yes, but he sucked with his feet, he also had very large muscles which would make him slower than your average goalkeeper, we would get raped by every team in this competition but who cares, I will score all the goals and raise my points all the way up.
We were told to go to bed and informed that our very next game was in eighteen hours. I could barely sleep from the excitement that overcame me, I wanted to see exactly what Red Zone had to offer.
Morning came, and a middle-aged man was introduced to us as our manager, he told us it was time for a brief warmup, we had breakfast, cleaned up and changed into jerseys. I was the No.9 and SANTI was the No.10, well, let's see how good of a ten he was.
I, SANTI and our No.11, James Steward were asked to keep the goalkeeper busy, we were told to not hold back, like hell I would.
I hit a low shot to the left hand side of the goalpost and this guy actually dived and saved it, he also tapped it to the side instead of the middle so that it didn't land back in the box, this guy is good.
What's your name I asked, "AKIRA NAKAMURA", he responded, shit, this guy was Japanese, not Chinese, hell, I shouldn't be like that, I hit another shot and he saved it effortlessly, okay, he's not bad at all.
SANTI asked me to pass and as I passed, he hit it first time with his left foot, lodging it accurately into the top left corner, he looked at me and said that was easy, he told me he had no idea how or why I could not do that.
The goalkeeper threw the ball back to him and the same thing happened, wait, was this goalkeeper really good or did I just really suck?
The goalkeeper passed back to him and he passed it to James, the Steward boy, he also hit a nice shot but it was comfortably saved, SANTI just shook his head and went to speak to the coach.
The coach came soon after and asked us to try passing and shooting, it would further test our goalkeeper and it seemed like what was best for us, I looked on in shock, what? I was being told I was not good enough for the second ever time in my life, the first time changed my life, the second will too.
Was this what it took to survive in Red Zone, I will do all this and more to further my football career, after all, that's WHAT IT TAKES...