Chapter 24: Training resumes

“Here, give me the ball” I waved my hand and called for the ball.
“Take it…” Sam replied before sending a long ball towards me.

I controlled the ball with my chest and then brought it down at knee level and then took a right footed shot aiming at the top right corner… Louis dived in the same direction…

“Go in…” I said in a soft voice, audible only to me.

It didn’t go in… Louis easily caught it…

“Good effort but not good enough…” Louis said as he got up.
“That control of yours was good… it showed that your form is slowly returning…” Taylor commented on my effort.
“True… even under the pressure from Taylor you magnificently controlled the ball…” Louis seemed to be in agreement with Taylor.
“But you still couldn’t finish… it still wasn’t a goal…” Sam said.
“It is down to the goalkeeper’s prowess… Miroku can’t always beat the goalkeeper, can he?” Alex said.
“No, he can’t always beat a goalkeeper… sometimes the goalkeepers must get the credit for saving such shots…” Louis agreed to Alex’s comments.

“But I haven’t even beaten you once Louis, I must try to improve that…” I thought to myself.

A week ago I was at home recovering from yet another injury… Taylor inflicted it upon me that night… but that was the past… At the moment Taylor was training with us… helping me as well himself… his defensive skills were superb… he was one of the best defenders in England… only at the age of 19…

“Let’s resume training…” Louis said as he placed the ball in the centre spot.
“Yes, let’s start…” was the unanimous reply to Louis.

“No more straight forward shots… this time I will use something special…” I thought as I sent the ball towards Alex.

Alex passed the ball to Sam and Sam passed it back to Herbert… it was our usual passing game… Herbert passed the ball to Evan… and Evan to Alex… Danny tried to dispossess him of the ball but Paul provided him an option in the nick of time… Johnny did a sliding tackle to take the ball from Paul but he quickly lopped the ball to Sam… he was going to give me the long ball but with a wave of my hands I prevented him from doing that…

He understood that we were going into “Plan B” and passed the ball to Evan… then slowly we advanced as a team… and enveloped the opposition defense… Alex and Sam stood their ground in the centre of midfield… Paul took his position in the right wing and Evan in the left while I remained at the forefront of the attack, marked by Taylor…

Sam received the ball from Evan and gave a long pass to Paul on the right… Paul made his run drawing all the defenders towards him except Taylor. All the defenders being on the right the left was completely unguarded… Paul lopped the ball and it fell at Alex’s feet… he quickly passed the ball to Evan who had already started his run down the wings… I looked at Evan and he looked back… he neared the penalty box and rather than crossing the ball he entered the penalty box with the ball… just as I wanted him to…

The defenders had returned then… but it was as we planned… everyone expected Evan to take a shot but he didn’t he gave a back pass to Sam… and Sam instantly delivered a defense splitting through ball… a perfect through ball in front of the near post of the goalkeeper… I went after the ball and positioned myself to take a shot at the far post… I took the shot with my left foot…

As I kicked the ball, it rose and went in the direction I wanted it to… but somehow Louis got a fingertip to it even when he had lost his balance and before it could enter the goal Max cleared it…

“Darn it! Not even this worked! Then what can?” I thought to myself but the frustration was clear in my face……