Norman brought up talking about the midfielders but the truth was that there wasn't really anything to talk about there.
His most viable midfield trio was Ferran, Minino, and Martinez but sometimes replacing Martinez with Frankie seemed to produce better results.
In ranking, these four were the best midfielders in the team, but that didn't mean that they were the only good midfielders in the team.
Edward and Harry had been getting very little playtime since Martinez joined the team and Norman switched up his midfield to include a defensive midfielder, a very smart decision by him.
That said, Edward and Harry were always on standby to join the game whenever they were needed.
Having six good midfielders in the squad meant that rotating his midfield wasn't something difficult although giving Edward or Harry playtime meant that he had to compromise defensively or offensively because those two were natural central midfielders, there was nothing more and nothing less to that.
Progressing play from the midfield with their passes was their niche but when it came to joining the attack or helping out defensively, they couldn't do much compared to the other four.
Still, this wasn't a problem Norman had to dwell on for too long because their next opponents weren't that tough, all he needed was a goal or two to win the game and continue his reign at the top of the table.
After discussing that and other topics related to the squad and upcoming matches for a while, Norman decided to put some of the things they talked about to the test.
It was a practice match and this time there was going to be a team of seven players on both sides.
The goalkeepers obviously filled in the first spot, and for the remaining six spots, he assigned four defenders.
One of the main goals for this drill was to see how Frankie performed as a left back so playing with four players at the back was necessary.
However, this meant that there weren't enough players for both the midfield and attack but Norman had everything sorted out.
He made sure both sides had a forward and a midfielder up front to deal with both the midfield and attacking duties. But still, it wasn't like they were going to be the ones doing all the work, the defense were going to give them a hand, especially the left backs.
Now that all that was settled, it was time to go through the selection process.
Since the goalkeepers were the permanent members of both sides, Norman made them be the ones to choose their teammates to fit the assigned positions for the practice match.
Being the senior goalkeeper, Dave was the first one to pick a teammate, and not wanting to waste this opportunity, the goalkeeper picked Mateo to be his forward.
"Yeah, it was obvious he was going to pick him," Minino commented before inflating both of his cheeks.
Alexander also didn't want to miss out on that front, since Mateo was already taken, he ended up picking Merino, the forward who was right behind Mateo when it came to pure football abilities.
However, this was a dumb move from the young goalkeeper, let Catherine explain.
'Maybe he didn't clearly understand what the coach said.'
Dave let out a sigh before proceeding to pick his other teammate.
He needed a strong center back so he ended up picking up.
For this round, Alexander seemed to have gotten a word of advice from Minino and decided to go for the midfielders.
Minino was one of the midfielders in the team that he really looked up to and after that advice, he ended up picking him.
Dave picked Roland to be his left back after that and Alexander picked Aima to be his first center back.
Norman was picked by Dave to be his right back and Alexander picked Pirlo to be his other center back.
With that round of choices, the only options left for both goalkeepers were a second center-back and a midfielder for Dave, and two fullbacks for Alexander.
Dave called upon Ferran to be his midfielder and Alexander, knowing that Frankie was already guaranteed to be his left back, picked Luis Roberto to be his center back.
With that choice, Dave was left with Martinez to be his other center back and Frankie moved over to Alexander's side to be his left back.
To conclude everything it was Norman, Martinez, Adolf, Roland, Ferran, and Mateo on Dave's side.
And on Alexander's side was Luis Roberto, Pirlo, Aima, Frankie, Merino, and Minino.
The coin toss was made, and it was determined that Alexander's side were going to be the ones to kick things off.
As soon as the high-pitched sound of the referee's whistle resounded through the area, Merino sent the ball rolling to Minino who was right behind him.
Ferran quickly rushed to the midfielder to take the ball off his feet at that moment but just before he could get to him, Minino moved the ball to Frankie who had already closed up down the wing.
Frankie quickly took off with the ball down the left wing as Mateo tried to get in his way, but just before the forward could get to him, he returned the ball to Minino before quickly moving past Mateo to receive it back from him.
Norman quickly rushed out and tried to tackle him, but the midfielder was fast enough to quickly shift toward the right with the ball.
Mateo was still right behind him and Adolf was in front of him, but none of that really mattered because his target was the goalpost.
He fired the ball straight toward the goalpost from twenty-five yards out aiming for the top right-hand corner.
That was such a well-taken strike from the midfielder, a strike that Dave wasn't really expecting but still, he was able to go after it.
It was a close call but he was able to get to it just in time to get the tip of his gloves on it.
That was the needed push for the ball to hit the crossbar before flying over.
"Woooah, Frankie, those were some mad movements." Minino sounded quite amused as he walked up to him and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Too bad we're up against Dave."
While Alexander's side were getting ready to take the corner kick, Norman seemed to be lost in his thoughts.
'I only thought about the defensive benefits but his offensive benefits as a fullback never crossed my mind, he might have a higher offensiveness than Roland.'