章節 4: Trials Begin...

A group of men dressed in sportswear stepped on the pitch where the crowd of teenagers eagerly awaited the beginning of the trials.

They were being led by a middle-aged man with a wide body frame and a body that looked well maintained, except for his slightly bulging abdomen that showed signs that depicted the beginning of a pot belly.

"Can I have your attention please?" he said in a loud voice when he arrived before the crowd with his entourage, but it seemed like he did not need to ask as the crowd of teenagers was already silent and looking at him attentively.

It was quite strange considering how teenagers usually were, but they seemed to recognize his position and knew that standing out in a bad way during an occasion like this would be bad for them so they acted like model citizens and stayed quiet.

"Good," the middle-aged man nodded to himself as he understood what was going on.

He liked this feeling of power as it would make things easier for him and he wouldn't have to hold up a microphone and scream into it just to get his words across.

"My name is Edward Newgate, but you can call me Coach," Coach Edward began while stroking his almost nonexistent beard.

'Interesting name,' Jason thought with his trademark slight smiling face not displaying his inner thoughts.

"For today, my job is to lead this soccer trials, while it is your job to impress me and those well-dressed gentlemen over there," he continued and motioned towards the group of spectators that were watching them very closely.

Whispers began to sound among the crowd, but Coach Edward paid it no mind and continued speaking,

"The trials will be held for two days, that is today and tomorrow,"

"For today, you shall be going through various training drills to check your physical ability and tomorrow, you will partake in trial matches to show off your skills," he explained the context of the football trials to the crowd of teenagers.

"Due to your large number, we shall be splitting you into groups and each group will partake in the available drills and you will switch with groups that have finished their drills until you all have participated in every drill," he paused after saying this as if wanting his words to sink in and let them know that he would not accept any form of disorder.

"My friend Luke here will be calling out your names in the groups you have been allocated," he continued after the pause while also gesturing to another middle-aged man who had stepped up and was now standing beside him.

Without wasting any time or bothering to introduce himself, Luke held a notepad in front of him and immediately began calling names,

"Leon Cromwell, Marshall D. Teach, Yagami Light, Sung Jin Woo…" he let out a long string of names, and as he did, the recipient of those names stepped out of the crowd and stood on one side without needing to be told.

"... James Bond, Bruce Wayne, and Jason Bolu," After calling eleven names, Luke finally stopped calling names.

"All the people called will be in Group A, you are starting with speed drills, James will lead you," Coach Edward took over from Luke and allocated the groups all while gesturing towards another of the sportswear-wearing instructors behind him who had stepped forward after being appointed as the instructor of the first group.

"Follow me," he said with a glance at the group and began to walk towards the tracks outside of the green pitch.

Jason was among the first group that trudged behind the allocated instructor, James.

He didn't bother trying to talk to any of his fellow group members as he was trying to guess what types of drills he would be subjected to today.

Since Coach Edward had said that they were starting with speed drills, that probably meant that they would be doing a sprint race, probably individual 100m dashes while the instructor measured the time.

'Seems like fun,' he thought, his body primed and ready for anything that could be thrown at him.

He had been preparing for this day for years, so there was no way he was not ready to take on mere drills.

The only thing that could prove a slight problem for him was the match that they would have the next day, though he doubted if there was anybody among the kids here that could outplay him, one could never know.

'Hopefully, I don't get terrible teammates,' he sighed as they arrived at the tracks.

James took out a stopwatch with his right hand and held a notepad in his other hand, then began giving instructions, and just like Jason had thought they would be doing individual hundred-meter dashes.

Each one of them would have a chance to run a hundred meters and they had to do it as fast as possible as the time they used to do it would be measured to determine an approximate speed and acceleration range.

"Leon Cromwell will be starting," James called out after explaining the objective of the speed drill.

A teenager who stood at a height of 5ft9 and had blonde hair stepped out in response to his name being called and went to the track and got into the starting position, and so the speed drills started.

When his turn came, Jason managed to complete the run in 11.3 seconds which was the top speed in his group.

After speed drills, they had stamina drills next in which they had to run 5km on the tracks.

This time they all did it together and as he expected, he came first this time as well.

This already managed to earn him some raised eyebrows from the scouts and different types of gazes from his various group members, but he stayed quiet with a smile and paid no attention to the gazes he was getting from his teammates that were gradually turning negative.

After all, the football trials were more akin to a war than a joint training session and anyone who stood out too much would easily get noticed and garner some negative feelings from the people he was outperforming.

It could even lead to alienation during trial matches because they wouldn't want him to outperform them on the pitch as well.

'Hopefully, it doesn't come to that, otherwise, the situation could become a little troublesome,' Jason thought hopefully.