"The first change that I am going to be talking about is our formation. I stayed up all night studying Lesica United's playing style and I have discovered what makes them deadly attacking-wise besides Okafor's individual efforts," Norman said.
"And what is that?" Adolf asked.
"They attack mainly down the wings and make it look like the wings are their main attacking options and then all of a sudden, they switch and turn the center their main attacking option knocking their opponents off guard so that before they can reposition themselves and defend, they have already done what they wanted to do and Okafor just makes things worse," Norman explained while trying to give the players a better understanding by illustrating with the board and the plastic dots.
"Okay, so what formation and style do you think we can beat them with?"
"I was coming to that, but you should bear in mind that we have never used this formation in a match but we've tried it out once." The coach said.
After saying that, pretty much everybody in the room had figured out what formation he was talking about.
'Five-three-two.' Dave said subconsciously.
"We'll be playing with the five-three-two formation, I need three center backs so that there can be at least two players on standby waiting for them to switch to the middle and stop them from taking us by surprise," Norman said. "But before I jump into further explanation of how everything's going to go, you all should know the players who will be starting with this formation.
Dave will be in between the sticks as always, Norman will be in right back, Roland in left back, and the three center backs will be Adolf, Pirlo, and Aima."
"Come on coach, I should at least start in a formation that requires five defenders," Jonas said.
"Start where? In a center back position?" Norman said, forcing out chuckles from some of the players in the room.
The left-back had a furious look on his face as he mumbled something before slowly putting his face down.
"You'll be part of the match Jonas but you're not in a good enough condition to be starting," Norman said. "Now back to what I was saying, the midfield will have our usual midfield trio of Edward, Ferran, and Minino and the attack will be led by Fredinho and Merino."
After elaborating more on his tactics and making sure the players understood it well enough, the players were allowed to head home by 11:40 AM and return before 1:00 PM to start the pre-match warm-up as the match was going to kick off by 2:30 PM.
"That was fast," Emma said.
She was coming downstairs when Dave opened the door and entered the house.
"Yeah, we didn't have any training session, Norman just talked about his new tactics so we're supposed to return to the stadium before 1:00 PM to start the pre-match warm-up," Dave said as he moved closer to her.
"That won't be a problem, I've got everything you will be needing ready in your backpack upstairs," Emma said as she slowly took off the backpack on his back.
"Thanks, babe." He said with a smile before kissing her. "I think I need to go upstairs and get a little rest."
The goalkeeper slowly made his way upstairs and after reaching his room, he slowly made his way to his bed and crashed down there.
He stared at the ceiling for a while before slowly closing his eyes and just a few minutes after closing his eyes, he found himself in an endless dark space.
"I sleep at night and end up in an endless white space, I sleep during the day and end up in an endless dark space." He muttered as he looked around before calling, "Catherine." But there was no response from her.
"Catherine." He called again but there was still no response from her. "What's going on? Why isn't she responding?"
The goalkeeper sensed someone approaching him from behind and quickly turned to see two large red skulls causing him to let out a scream, a scream which had reflected in the real world as he quickly shot his eyes open.
"Hey, hey, hey," Emma said as she quickly rushed to him. "What happened?"
Dave didn't reply as he began to look around the room strangely while breathing heavily.
"What happened?" She asked after grabbing his face and turning it to her.
"I was in this dark room when suddenly these strange things popped up behind me, they looked really scary and alive," Dave explained abruptly.
"Strange things like what?" She asked.
"Red skulls," Dave replied.
"Yeah." He said with a nod. "Please get me a glass of water."
Emma stared at him for quite a while before replying.
"Okay." She said before getting up from the bed. "It hasn't been up to five minutes since he made his way here and he has already slept and had a nightmare during the day." She muttered as she made her way out of the room.
"What was that Catherine?" He muttered as soon as Emma was gone.
'Locked out? How is that even possible?' Dave questioned. 'And this isn't the first time I'm seeing something after dozing off during the day.'
'I didn't know the system could get glitches.'
'How do you know that it may happen three times in a single month, I haven't had it for up to a month?'
"Here's your water," Emma said after quickly entering the room and making her way to her.
"Thanks," Dave said after taking the glass of water from her.
'You haven't answered my question, Catherine.' The goalkeeper said subconsciously as he slowly took down the contents of the glass cup.
He turned his gaze to his girlfriend to see that she was indeed strangely looking at him.
"Is there something on my face?" He asked, touching his face.
"No, no, not at all." She said, shaking her head. "It's just that it hasn't even been up to five minutes since you made your way up here and you've already fallen asleep to have a nightmare."
'It hasn't been five minutes?'
He couldn't believe it as he was aware that the time in his dream was very slow.
The last time he slept off during the daytime, it felt like five minutes but when he woke up, he discovered that he was way late for training.
"You're not serious." He said as he brought up his phone to see that the time was 11:52 AM. "You are serious." He said with a stunned look on his face.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter?
If we can hit 1000+ privilege unlocks before the end of this month, I'll do five chapters mass release on any day between the 20-25th of January.