The tryouts finally began: team A vs team H.
It was decided that all matches would be 45-minutes games. Neto looked around himself not seeing any familiar face, rather seeing a mess of faces. The whistle was blown and the match began. Neto stood his defensive lane, knowing where he belonged and waited for the others to adjustt themselves.
He did not feel the vibe to play. Team H was hooking Team A by the throat; they did not let any of their shots get pass them. In fact , they played most of the match, half-pitched.
Nothing much happened until the 20th minute, when team H's LW came crawling into Neto's position. He was startled and this was his first action in the match. He hurriedly rushed for a tackle, but just found himself a nutmeg .He tried closing the distance between them both, but the opponent managed to find his way through and scored, making the match score 1-0. Team A's CF came growling at Neto that couldn't he defend better. His fellow teammates told him not to worry; that they would try to stay back as he was the only defensive player in the team.
Little did he know that staying back meant playing midfield. Neto wasn't a good player but he noticed too many holes off his team and team H was penetrating seriously. Tony fired a curve ball to team H's CF but Neto intercepted it on time, giving his team a counter attack. The interception sent the ball over to his team's RW, with which he feints team A's RB and sends it into the post. Match score:1-1
Five minutes left in the game, team A launched a counter attack , which team H availed them of and yet again, Neto found himself with Team H'S forwards charging at him. The opponent's RW was with the ball. Neto rushed to him. The right winger passed the ball to his CF , who passed it to their left winger. Neto rushed to the LW , but he went through Neto with a nutmeg and gave it to his CF. With no man back, fate was soon decided ."BAAM!" came the sound of the bar, and the ball rebounded to team A'S LW's heel . He takes a shot but it is sent out by team H's GK.
It was a corner kick for the opponent's team. The LW took the cross to his CF, but Neto immediately reacted , sending the ball away from his reach. Neto , in possession of the ball, sprints into the 18 yard box , and seeing he had no dribbling in him , he fires a shot against the opposing defender, which is fortunately a through ball to his CF. Team A's CF scores as a result of the lucky through ball, sealing the match .Match score 2-1
Neto was so full of himself because an aimless shot was luckily an assist to a goal- but not much.
Later that day, the match results for the 8 teams came out; thus:
TEAM A 2 - 1 TEAM H
TEAM B 4 - 2 TEAM C
TEAM E 0 - 4 TEAM F
TEAM G 14 - 6 TEAM D
2nd stage: the 4 winning teams were split into 8 teams of five players.
2nd stage teams: TEAM A , TEAM B , TEAM C , TEAM Z , TEAM M , TEAM E , TEAM Y , TEAM O
In another room , Samba and other Inland players were examining the results. One commented , " Man, 14-6 . What do you think about this guy, who scored 10 goals?"
Samba says, "It doesn't matter how good they are . It is the last stage that counts. It's there they would be examined to know those that would be chosen. Even a keeper has a chance of getting picked."