Soccer System: All the Skills, One Player!

"All right, everyone." Alex clapped his hands, attracting everyone's attention and creating a silence. "Now that everyone is seated, let's talk a bit about the trip."

"Khum!" Coach Eddie, standing behind Alex, cleared his throat.

Alex looked back, and a bead of sweat dripped from his forehead. "A-ah, yeah. Before that, I have to introduce you to someone." He looked to his left, and the seated girl understood that this was the cue.

Then the pink-haired girl Lucas had talked to briefly got up from her seat. She was wearing a winter sports outfit that looked great on her body.

"This is Kader Akdemir, and she'll be part of our delegation during some training sessions and traveling to friendlies and championships." Alex said.

Kader smiled slightly and, in response to Alex's introduction, inclined his head in greeting.

"Hello, boys. I"m Kader and I"ll be helping you with drinks, snacks and a few other things during the trip. If you need a spare sock, you can also ask me. I hope we can work well together."

Most of the boys responded with nods or low greetings, but there was a unique energy in the air. Kader stood out. It wasn"t just his pink hair, but his sweet appearance that seemed to bring a fresh, gentle breeze after days of being frightened by Eddie"s training.

However, Eddie suddenly stepped forward, taking center stage like someone about to impose a rule.

"Besides, Kader is my daughter." The word resounded like a reminder of authority, and the boys' faces soon turned into expressions of surprise and tension. Some boys swallowed dry from fright. "If any of you try to touch her, or even behave in a way that displeases me, you'll be off the team, regardless of how good a player you are."

There was a heavy silence in the air until Alex, visibly relieved that Eddie had finished, continued with what he had planned to say. He sniffled and resumed his animated tone.

"Well, now that everyone has understood the rules and knows who our new member is, let's get down to the details of the trip. The journey to Liverpool will take almost six hours, so I want everyone to get ready." Alex pointed to the back of the bus where the rucksacks the players had brought were. "Also, no snacking. Several meals have been prepared especially for the group, with the right times to avoid any stomach problems or feeling unwell on the way. I want you to follow this to the letter, okay?"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He looked serious as he emphasized the importance of food. Some players let out little murmurs of assent.

Arthur leaned over and whispered to Anton, who was sitting next to him with an amused expression and his eyes twinkling.

"She's too pretty to be Eddie's daughter..." he commented in a low tone.

Arthur was uninhibited and flirtatious, so he wasn"t too afraid of the rules and always seemed willing to find something amusing in any situation.

Anton let out a chuckle, but glanced quickly at Eddie, making sure the trainer hadn"t heard him.

Loki, who was close enough to hear, laughed softly and whispered with a thoughtful expression.

"From her name, Kader Akdemir, I think Eddie met her mum back when he was playing. Her surname isn"t English, is it? It must be Danish or German," he speculated.

Arthur and Anton laughed at the theory while trying to control the volume of their laughter so as not to attract Eddie"s attention.

In the meantime, Alex continued explaining the route, ignoring the scattered whispers around him.

"As I said, the journey to Liverpool will be long, so use the time to rest, listen to music or concentrate. As soon as we arrive, we"ll go straight to the CT and we can warm up."

As the boys murmured amongst themselves, Kader pulled her uniform cap over her pink hair and turned her attention to her mobile phone, the earphones already in her ears.

Lucas, sitting two rows away, looked at her with a thoughtful expression as he held an open book in his hands. She had been quite cold to him this time, but the two times they had talked during the test, she had been quite normal. However, Lucas shook his head, sending all these thoughts away. It didn"t matter. She was too young for him, anyway.

This trip, for him, was a rare opportunity to compete in another country, and Kader"s presence would not take his focus away.

With a sigh, Alex finally finished his directions and signaled for the driver to start the engine. The roar of the bus filled the air and, little by little, the boys became more comfortable talking during the long journey.

The bus finally hit the road, and soon the landscape of buildings and tarmac gave way to the green, open countryside that surrounded the roads of the English countryside. The boys, still restrained by the morning"s sleep, exchanged whispers and low laughs, while others surrendered to the sound of their favorite songs on their headphones.

Lucas looked out of the window, watching the morning sun slowly rise in the sky and the white clouds disperse. He finally closed the book in his hands and put it in his rucksack.

Alex, the coach, finally relaxed in his seat after giving his initial instructions. His expression changed, his shoulders slumped, and he let out an almost youthful smile, turning to Eddie, who was in the seat in front. With a light touch on the shoulder, he said:

"Eddie, why don"t you tell some of your stories? The boys here don"t even know what it was like to play when the goalkeeper"s uniform was wider than the goal itself."

Eddie"s eyes lit up with undeniable enthusiasm. He sat down, turned to face the boys, and clapped his hands, drawing their attention.

"Do you think playing now is difficult? Well, let me tell you about the time when football boots weighed almost twice as much as today"s boots. Now that was suffering!"

So Eddie started telling stories that seemed too exaggerated to be real - like the day he saved a penalty with one hand because the other had a sprained wrist, or how he played a match in a hailstorm.

"And that's no exaggeration! The pitch was like a river and yet I still gave an assist to our striker when I shot forward."

Laughter was inevitable, and the excitement on the bus seemed to infect even the driver, who watched them through the rear-view mirror with a slight smile on his lips.

"So Eddie was a goalkeeper. That explains why he"s so tall." Lucas concluded.

Eddie continued for a few more minutes, describing memorable matches and even the time his uniform got soaked in mud that he had to change it in the middle of the game.

The hours passed, and the initial energy gave way to sleep. Some boys dozed off with their heads resting against the seats, while others sat with their arms folded, trying to switch off from the noise of the bus engine.

Time passed like this, in a comfortable calm, until the stomach of one player, Miguel, emitted a loud and unexpected noise. Everyone turned to him, and a restrained laugh broke out. Miguel, without humor, scratched the back of his head.

"I guess it"s time to eat, huh?" he commented, drawing more laughter.

Eddie, who was already looking at his watch, confirmed it with a nod.

"All right, lads! Time for a snack."

The snack brought energy to those who were sleepy and bored on the journey.

"What if we played a game of headers?" asked Raphael, pulling a ball out from under the bench.

Everyone liked the proposal, and the boys soon got organized, trying to keep the ball in the air only with their heads while sitting on the benches. Laughter filled the bus again, and the sound of "Oops! It's going down!" and "Play it back!" echoed as the game went on.

The ball passed from one to the other in almost perfect coordination until one boy missed his header and the ball went straight through the driver's cab window.

The bus swerved slightly, and the driver looked back with a serious look on his face.

"Game over, boys. Back to your seats." Alex picked up the ball.

Sitting back down, the mood gradually became more serious. It was now only thirty minutes before they arrived at the training center.

Aex stood up again to say something to motivate the boys, but when he looked at them, they were all perfectly focused and serious. They were definitely thinking about the game against Liverpool.

Liverpool was a city that blended the classic and the modern. The streets were full of life, with people from different cultural backgrounds traveling along busy avenues and quiet boulevards.

Lucas felt his heart racing. Of course, he had heard about Liverpool, especially as the birthplace of great football legends. Seeing the city up close and breathing the same air that so many stars have breathed made the moment special.

As the bus entered one of the main avenues, a colossal stadium appeared in the background, with the huge letters "Anfield" standing out against the cloudy sky. Some of the players straightened up in their seats as they saw the famous stadium in the distance, a symbol of the glories of British football. They wouldn"t be playing at Anfield, but just being close to that sacred temple of sport was an inspiration.

Finally, the bus turned down a narrow street and headed for Liverpool's training center. As soon as the bus was parked, Alex stood up and took one last look at each of the boys, who were already admiring the modern training center through the windows, with extensive areas of grass surrounded by high walls and metal gates.