Dave let you out a deep sigh after watching the last ball out of his five tries fly over the bar without hitting it.
"No, I'm not," Dave muttered before he quickly rushed to the piles of balls and picked up five balls.
[ Hit the crossbar twice in five tries ]
He didn't want to listen to whatever Catherine was saying as he slowly took four steps backward before closing up on the first ball in the row and aiming it toward the top crossbar.
The ball flew toward the crossbar and had come really close to hitting it but unfortunately, it failed to hit.
'That was really close.'
For the second one, he only took two steps backward before closing up on the ball and kicking it toward the goalpost.
The ball flew straight to the middle of the top crossbar and smashed on it before falling over.
"Yes." He muttered in excitement.
The third ball had also come close to hitting the crossbar from the angle, but unfortunately, it had failed to hit it.
He was now down to two balls.
"What did you hear when I said at all costs?" Dave said as he closed up on the fourth ball and instead of using the side of his foot like he had done with the other ones, he decided to tip it.
The ball flew toward the goalpost from the side and for a second it looked like it was going to fly past it until it suddenly curved and smashed into the side of the crossbar.
Dave stared at the crossbar with a stunned look on his face, he knew he could do it but he couldn't believe that he had just done it.
"I finally did it." He muttered before falling to his knees. "I finally did it but why isn't the quest complete message popping up?"
'Yeah, that's right.' He replied before quickly getting up on his feet.
He took the shot with the same technique that he had used on the fourth one but he wasn't lucky this time as the ball flew past the crossbar from above and it didn't even get as close as the first one got but that didn't matter.
[ You have successfully hit the crossbar twice in five tries ]
[ +5 skill points received ]
'Seven skill points that means I can unlock that double stamina skill now.'
Dave quickly turned back to see Mateo approaching him.
"You wanted some extra training time after starting early with Ferran, trying to increase your work rate I see."
"Well, a better work rate means better productivity and I really need better productivity," Dave said.
"Yeah, and the productivity is showing quite well in your case," Mateo said with a nod.
Dave got home by 3:50 PM to rest for a while before heading back to the pitch by 6:00 PM to get ready for the match which was kicking off by 7:30 PM.
The first place he went to as soon as he entered the house was the couch, he crashed down on it before bringing out his phone from his pocket.
He scrolled through his normal social media space before he found an article relating to their upcoming match.
'Unique FC versus Lave City, will Dave Richards be able to put up a show like he has been doing recently?' He read subconsciously.
"I'll try my best, but I hope Dave Richards will be able to put up a show." He muttered.
Before 5:00 PM, he was already ready for the match, he was dressed in Unique FC's orange jacket and sports trousers as he made his way down the staircase.
He expected Emma to be back by this time but for some reason, she wasn't back yet.
He walked to the couch and dropped his bag there so that he could open it and check if everything that he was going to be needing was there and intact but just as he was about to open the bag, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.
He brought out the phone to see Emma written there as the name of the caller.
"Hey, babe." He said after picking up the call and placing the phone against his ear.
"Hey, how are you?" She asked from the other end.
"A bit stressed out but I'm fine." She said, "Where are you now?"
"Home but I'm about to start heading to the stadium." He replied.
"Okay, I just want to let you know that I won't be returning home now but I'll be at the stadium before the match kicks off, this is Unique FC's home match so I'll be there as an official reporter."
"That's great, you also get to the post-match interview on the pitch right after the match right?" Dave asked.
"Yeah," Emma replied.
"Cool, I'll see you there then."
"Yeah." She said before ending the call.
"Official reporter." He muttered before turning his gaze to his bag.
He arrived at the parking lot with his car to see that there were a lot of cars already parked there which meant that a lot of his teammates were already in the stadium.
Just before walking into the stadium, he checked his watch to see that the time was 6:07 PM.
The first person he met in the hallway was Mateo who was heading in the opposite direction.
"Hey bro." The winger said, raising his hand for a fist bump.
"Hey," Dave said. "Where are you heading to?"
"Coach is busy with your dad in his office at the moment so I want to grab myself a snack in the meantime," Mateo said.
"Okay," Dave said before the two continued their walk in their separate ways.
He got to the locker room to see that his teammates were all dressed in their training outfits.
It didn't take long for Norman to show up after he had changed into his training kit.
He talked to them and tried to give them a sense of motivation for the upcoming match.
After that, the players made their way to the pitch to start the Pre-Match warm-up before Lave City players arrived.
"Let me try a power shot," Mateo said as he dropped the edge of the box and slowly moved back.
Dave had successfully kept out two of his first shots and that was why he was going to try and add more power to his shots.
The winger raced toward the ball and drilled it toward the bottom left-hand corner with a tremendous amount of shot power.
Dave dived toward the ball, but it was just too fast, even for his ball magnet as the ball rolled into the back of the net before he could get his hand to it.
"Nice shot," Dave said, getting up from the floor. "Can you take the ball a little further away from there now and try from that far out."
"Sure," Mateo said before he kicked the ball.
The ball rolled until it stopped a little distance away from the edge of the box.
"Hey, guys, why don't we all try a turn-by-turn free kick shootout on Dave?!" Mateo turned to the rest of his teammates and yelled.
"I'm in," Ferran said, moving toward the area.
"Me too," Roland said.
"Sure," Minino said with a shrug.
It didn't take long before seven players gathered on the spot for the free kick shootout.
"I'm going first," Mateo said before rolling the ball a little to the left side which was his best side for taking free kicks.
[ Keep out all eight balls ]
"Oh, yeah." The goalkeeper muttered with a smile on his face.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter?
If I get up to a hundred golden tickets before the end of the month I will release six chapters on the first of December.