Chapter 15: Top Brass's Decision

With the referee getting in between them, Jason held himself back from acting up any further and stepped back while trying to explain his grievances to the referee but it seemed that the referee saw everything that happened and brought out a yellow card while calling for a free kick.

'Bastard should have gotten red,' Jason thought angrily as he went to get the ball for the free kick since he intended to be the one to take it.

He had fallen just a few yards away from the penalty box and it was close enough for him to attempt a direct free kick, and that was exactly what he was going to do.

A free-kick routine had been part of his training for years and though he hadn't tested his free-kick skills against professional goalkeepers, he knew he was accurate enough to get the ball over the wall and into the net… probably.

'Let's just pray this works,' he thought while hoping that the goalkeeper wouldn't get a hand on the ball if he managed to shoot the free kick on target.

He set the ball down while waiting for the players of team A to arrange the wall.

While he waited, Jordan and Jerry approached him, "Are you okay?" Jerry asked.

"Yeah, it was nothing much, that dude was just trying to choke me out," Jason answered with a shrug despite his annoyance over the matter.

Seeing that there weren't any issues, they left to take position at the sides of the box while Jason took a deep breath to arrange his mindset and took four steps back his eye on the goal trying to analyze the distance, position of the keeper, the wall and how much power and spin he should put behind the ball.

*FWEEEEEEE*

The whistle to take the free kick was blown by the referee.

Jason took a glance at the wall one last time as he approached the ball before he swung his right foot in a smooth arc and hit the ball, sending a curling ball just over the head of the shortest person in the wall, past the goalkeeper who was rooted to the spot and into the back of the net.

GOALLLL!!!

Watching the ball fly over the wall and nestle itself in the top left corner, Jason couldn't resist making a shooting gesture with two fingers before bringing the fingers to his mouth and blowing off the smoke from the imaginary gun with a big smile on his face.

His teammates rushed to him in jubilation and this time he didn't mind because of the exhilaration he was feeling, he even sent a taunting sneer at the player who had brought him down and caused the free kick.

The only thing missing was the thunderous sound of fans screaming in excitement, but unfortunately, this was only a trial match and there were no fans present.

After the jubilation, they went back into their half and the match resumed, but this time as if they had a collective agreement, they all stayed behind the ball.

It was Team C's turn to park the bus and they held on till the match ended with their win and they walked off the field jubilantly after the referee blew the final whistle.

Before they could head inside to freshen up, all the participants of the trials were told to gather around and were congratulated for completing the trials and told that those who would be scouted would be gotten across to later as the scouts could get the contact details of the participants of the trials from the staff that organized the trials.

After the divulgence of information, they were released and the players slowly dispersed with Jason heading to the shower room immediately in a bid to clean up after saying his goodbyes, escaping before any of his teammates asked him to exchange contacts.

Thirty minutes later he was already opening the doors of his car and throwing his sports bag into the passenger's seat before getting into the car himself, starting it up, and driving out of the parking lot while wondering how long it would take before he was contacted by a scout and which kind of team he would be contacted by.

Meanwhile, back inside the stadium, Rafael Hernandez's phone rang suddenly while he was going over the clips of Jason's plays, prompting him to pull it out of his pocket and answer the call,

**Head Scout Andre**

The name of the current acting head scout and head of the youth department popped up as the caller ID.

Immediately Rafael saw the caller ID, he didn't waste any time swiping across the phone to answer the call and putting the phone to his ear, "Hello, Sir," his voice as he began speaking sounded like he was getting down to business.

"Rafa… what's the deal with the video clip you sent me?" the head scout's voice came through the phone, sounding a bit confused.

"That is the video clip of a talent I discovered for the club," Rafael quickly began explaining.

"Well, while I can see that he seems to have talent, I can't tell you my thoughts with only one clip that only has a few seconds in it," Andre answered back, the root of his confusion finally revealed, after all, it wasn't unusual to receive a video clip of a player, but they were usually much longer and consisted of enough scenes for a decision to be made concerning them so they were usually at least a few minutes long,

'But what was the deal with the TikTok-length video that one of his scouts just sent him?' Andre the head scout was wondering.

"Oh…" Rafael finally realized that he hadn't sent the rest of the clips that his assistant had been recording about Jason.

"I'll send the rest of the video clips soon, but I guarantee you that he is a talent worth developing," Rafael began arguing for Jason's matter while gesturing to his assistant to send the rest of the videos to Andre's email.

"I'll be able to tell when I see the clips, so send the clips, I'll review them and then get back to you," Andre answered, not losing his cool over mere words from a scout.

"The videos should have arrived in your mail by now, but I guarantee that you'll agree with me that he has talent especially when he hasn't received any formal training since he was young," Rafael continued trying to convince his head scout.

'Not received formal training but considered a good player in a place like USA, I doubt it,' Andre's biased thoughts about American players stood vehemently in the way of his belief in his scout's words, but since the videos began to appear on his email which was opened on the desktop's screen in front of him, he decided to open up one of the videos.

It was the video of Team C's second goal in the first match, but it didn't even involve Jason touching the ball as all he had done in that clip were body feints and jumping over the ball while confusing other players.

Andre wasn't impressed, but he still opened the next video which had every attack that Jason was involved in in the second half, and midway through the video, his eyes were already glowing, as seeing just the well-timed dribbles and how he managed to make them effective even if they were complicated already intrigued but by the time he watched the assist and goal that Jason scored, his mouth was opened slightly and he had forgotten that he was still on the call with someone.

His hands quickly moved the mouse to click on the last video which consisted of Jason's dribbles, assist, and goal in the second match.

Watching Jason score the freekick sealed the deal in Andre's mind as he quickly spoke into the phone, his tone containing a hint of excitement despite his attempts at hiding it,

"Rafa, are you still there?"

"Yes, sir," Rafael didn't waste any time answering as if he had known and had been waiting for him to speak.

'Shrewd bastard,' Andre thought, but that didn't change his decision or the words that were going to come out of his mouth.

"Bring him in, at any cost," Andre's affirmative voice came through the phone.

"Yes sir," Rafael replied and immediately heard the beeping tone that signified that the call had ended.

"Pack up and follow me, we have a player to catch," Rafael said in Portuguese to his assistant as he stood up and began heading out of the stands while dialing in Jason's contact details into his phone and saving it, with plans to call in a more silent location and after gathering more information.

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