Chapter 17: Off the ball

As they tried to snatch the ball away from the senior players, they only exhausted themselves. Every single player in the senior team played so brilliantly that they couldn’t even get near to the ball.

Unable to snatch the ball, they began to man mark every senior players. But man marking only works when each and every individual is capable of stopping the respective players that they are man marking. And in terms of overall ability, it was evident from the moment they stepped on the pitch that they lacked far behind to the senior players.

Even though Hiro surpassed every other player in the field in terms of skills and potential, he couldn’t do anything at all. Marking him as a threat, the senior players didn’t even let him touch the ball.

“Tch- They’re not even letting me touch the ball.”

Hiro clicked his tongue in frustration.

The opponent players would pass the ball back to the keeper everytime Hiro rushed towards the player with the ball. As if they were openly admitting that they couldn’t take him by themselves, they took absolutely no chance against him.

But even after passing the ball back to the keeper, they didn’t try to waste time. Instead the keeper would instantly pass the ball forward and initiate a counter-attack. The keeper was playing the role of the anchor who’d control the tempo of the game.

Hiro’s teammates would once again prove to be absolutely useless against the senior players in terms of individual skills.

As the keeper would kick the ball towards their goal, Sasaki would find it troublesome to stop the senior player. Ken would come out of his post to defend the ball and leave the post wide open.

Talking advantage of the situation, the senior players would simply pass the ball between themselves to score in an open post instead of trying to dribble past the keeper.

At the 34th minute of the match, Ken would once again make the same mistake of leaving the post as he did many times during the match. And it would nearly cost them another goal. However Akashi would go on to block the ball with his face.

After passing through Sasaki and ken, the opponent player would shoot the ball in an open post, just then Akashi would jump sideways and take the shot on his face. He would successfully manage to block the shot.

The ball would then fall on Sasaki’s feet after the rebound. Sasaki would quickly get cornered as the opponent striker would rush towards him. Luckily Hiro who dropped deep to defend against the opponent’s attack would find himself near to Sasaki.

Despite being pressured by the opponent striker, Sasaki would pass the ball to Hiro. And at 35th minute of the match Hiro would go on to score his second goal against the senior team.

The senior team would continue with their tactic even after conceding the second goal. With that tactic of theirs, they would nearly seal the match at the last minute of the match with another goal.

However goddess of luck would do them real bad as the shot hit by their striker would go on to hit the goalpost and once again they would concede another goal on rebound which would cost them a crucial goal.

With that final goal, the score of the match would read as such; team senior 3 – team newbie 3 𝓫𝓭𝓸𝓋𝓁．𝓬𝓸𝓂

The game would end up in tie.

And just like that, Hiro would go on to score 3 goals against the senior team and help his team to pull out a draw against the senior team.

After the end of the match, later in that day at around 9:47 PM.

“Argh!! Such a tiring day”

While lying on his bed, he tried to recall the event’s which took place during the day.

“I need to work on my off the ball movements.”

After analysing his play, he noticed a fatal flaw in his playstyle. Even though he was phenomenal when he had the ball in his feet, he sucked really bad during the moment when he didn’t have the ball in his feet.

Just by keeping him away from the ball, the senior players were able to completely nullify him.

“What do the star players do when they don’t have the ball in their feet.”

He began to wonder.

He tried to recall as much information of the future as possible. In his mind he played several matches and tried to analyse the movements of the world’s best players. But since the camera never focused solely on the individual, he couldn’t get much information from the several matches he analysed in his mind.

However while he was recalling about the playstyle of the several world class player, he noticed something. Even though it looked extremely trivial, but each and every player he analyzed in his mind had one thing in common.

They were always in search of space and they always positioned themselves in the space where the probability of getting the ball was maximum. Andreas Messi would always turn his head in search of the most optimal route towards the goal. Christian Romero would always look for the space where he can get the ball.

Even if they didn’t have the ball in their feet, they’d always be searching and scanning. The world class player’s would always be in search of the space and weakness to exploit.

“Okay I’ll work on my off the ball movements before the first prefectural match.”

He mumbled.

After analysing countless matches, he fell asleep. Even though he wanted to analyse more matches, his young body couldn’t keep up with his thinking. On top of playing a match, he also completed the daily mission given by the system.

The first prefectural match of the national tournament was about a month away. And within two weeks, they would find out their first opponent. Since the tournament was played in a knockout format, there was no second chance. The tournament was all or nothing.