Soccer System: All the Skills, One Player!

[Bonus Chapter]

After lunch, when everyone was in the changing room, Lucas approached Raphael and asked him if he wanted to take part in the extra training session that Miguel, Felix, Arthur and Anton would do after the collective training session.

To Lucas's surprise, the serious look that Raphael had been wearing all morning went away instantly, and he agreed cheerfully.

'Thanks for the tip, Lucy.' It was all Lucas could think of at that moment to thank his classmate for her help.

However, little did he know what awaited them at collective training. With the same rigidity as the first week, Wednesday's training began without a soccer and off the pitch.

The grounds of Brighton's training center were vast, so there were not only soccer pitches, but many buildings for a wide variety of purposes. Among many things, there was a hundred-meter athletic track. It was a straight track, not an Olympic track.

"That's exactly what you're thinking, boys. Today, we're going to do some explosive speed training!" Eddie, with his hands on his hips, exclaimed.

Denis sighed. "Ha... I knew something different was coming when he told us not to put our boots on and to stick to our normal shoes."

"What did you say, Denis?" asked Eddie, his eyes finding the sleepy Denis in the middle of the group of boys.

"N-nothing, sir!" Denis became alert and stood up straight away immediately.

"That's what I thought." Eddie crossed his arms.

Alex, the assistant coach, laughed briefly at the situation and stepped forward. "Guys, don't worry. Today's training will be more relaxed. We'll do ten shots of a hundred meters each, then we'll do a training session focusing on dynamic passing."

When the boys heard about the ten shots, they were already more discouraged. They weren't lazy, they just wanted to play fast soccer because they loved soccer more than anything in the world.

Alex knew this and revealed something to cheer them up. "If you do well, we'll play a team game instead of passing. What do you think?"

A team game meant creating two teams and playing soccer, not just practicing passes between teammates, and that cheered everyone up.

"Besides, here's what we're going to do. The six fastest will be in one team, the six slowest will be in the other." Alex said with a smile in the corner of his mouth.

Determination spread among the boys like a fire burning straw. Obviously, everyone wanted to be on the fastest team because, as well as being able to say they were faster than so-and-so, they would play on an ultra-fast team against an ultra-slow team.

Soon, the first four boys were in place. They were Arthur, Aidan, Denis and Luiz.

Running twenty-five meters was just a matter of explosiveness, running fifty was explosiveness and technique, but running a hundred meters was a combination of these factors plus the breath factor. So yes, whoever came first in the hundred meters was faster than the others.

Arthur looked at Aidan, who was on his left, then at Denis and Luiz. Of all of them, he was the tallest and obviously had the advantage in the race.

When assistant Alex fired upwards with the cork gun, Arthur took a step and saw no one in his field of vision for a second, and only a second at that, because in the next second he saw the three opponents overtake him as if it were nothing.

Aidan, with his red hair in a bun on top of his head, ran faster than anyone else. He seemed to have rockets on his heels, because Arthur had seen no one run that fast before.

The others weren't far behind. Denis, although very sleepy normally, was quick too, and Luiz Fernando, even though he was a defender, was a few centimeters behind Aidan the whole time.

In a few seconds, when the four of them crossed the finish line at the end of the track, there was a clear time difference.

"Aidan did 12 seconds; Denis did 13 seconds; Luiz did 13.5 seconds and Arthur... you have a lot of potential to improve still, don't worry," said Eddie, holding up a stopwatch.

Arthur was on his hands and knees, panting. He raised his head, tossing back his blond hair.

"How soon... did I do it?" Arthur asked.

Eddie looked at him and thought for a second before answering. "15 seconds, kid."

Arthur's gap to Luiz Fernando, the third-placed rider, was just 1.5 seconds. A basic calculation showed that. And for speed and time, 1.5 seconds was too absurd a difference to ignore.

All his life, Arthur knew he wasn't quick. People didn't praise him for his speed, but for his finishing ability, height, beauty and so on. However, he never imagined himself as a slow player, and he didn't even have many muscles.

"Damn, I need to improve my time." Arthur was exasperated, tired.

Soon after the first four boys, another four stood by, and Alex fired high into the air, warning them to run.

This time, it was Miguel, Hillebrand, Raphael, and Felix who were running. Three ends and a steering wheel. As they passed the finish line, Eddie pressed the timer button and stopped.

"Miguel was the best. Congratulations. 12.2 seconds. Hillebrand, you surprised me. 12.5 seconds. Raphael did 13 seconds and Felix did 14 seconds." Eddie counted the players' times out loud once again.

"There's nothing to be done. I'm just a steering wheel." Felix shrugged.

In fact, speed wasn't a determining factor for the position he played. Besides, he was muscular and almost 1.90 tall, so it was hard to ask him to be as quick as his fellow winger.

On the other hand, Raphael was frustrated by his time. "13 seconds?! I haven't progressed at all since high school?!"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

At that moment, Raphael looked at Hillebrand, who was talking to Miguel about their times. Raphael and Hillebrand were left-wingers and therefore direct rivals. Raphael had been a starter in the game against Liverpool, but speed was a determining factor for wingers in soccer and this test could be enough of an excuse for Eddie to choose Hillebrand as a starter in the next friendly game.

Raphael gritted his teeth. 'I need to make better time!'