Risks

"Madrid White have asked to speak with you. If things go well, they could be submitting a forty million euro bid for you in the winter transfer window"

Omari was stunned for a few seconds after he heard the words. He probably would've been stuck in a daze if Alex wasn't pressing for a response at the other line of the call.

"We-we'll talk about this tomorrow" Omari stuttered. "In person. I'll tell my dad to drive me over and we'll have a formal discussion"

And just like that what was supposed to be a good night's rest for Omari turned into a sleepless and restless night. It wasn't until two in the morning that Omari finally fell asleep.

He woke up barely two hours later as usual. This time though, instead of doing his morning football exercises, he walked straight into the shower. He spent an entire hour just standing under it as cold water poured out on his back.

"Fuck" He muttered under his breath.

Even though he has supposedly made his decision regarding the contract offer from Teesside, it was still a hard decision to make now that he knew that there were actually teams that were interested in him. Michael just told him that a few clubs had inquired about him, there was nothing concrete at all.

This time however, Madrid White contacted his agents, they wanted to agree terms and draft up a contract and everything. This was real.

And as much as his brain told him that staying in Teesside, at least for the meantime, was the best decision to make, how many youngsters playing in the championship would have the guts to turn down arguably the biggest club in the world (for those that would try to bite me for this, I put arguably there for a reason). They're Madrid White.

After coming out of the shower, Omari put on his clothes and went to have breakfast with his parents. After breakfast, he went to school and as usual, had training with Teesside.

"Alright lads, today we're working on creativity" Michael said to everyone as they were changing into their training outfits. "Now I know it's not exactly orthodox, but I feel like this is something that each and every single one of you needs to have. Particularly, after that last match against London Blue, I realized how shit each and every one of you are in that aspect"

"I'm going to divide everyone randomly into teams of seven. For thirty minutes, one team is going to press the other and the team being pressed has to score two goals before the time limit is up. If the team being presses scores two goals, then the team pressing will have to do two laps round the pitch while running at their top speed. Same things apply if the other team lose"

When everyone heard his conditions, they were about to protest but after further thought, they decided that the punishment wasn't so bad after all. The next words that came out of Michael's mouth however started an uproar.

"Oh, and I forgot, each player can only take a maximum of two touches before he has to pass the ball" Michael said with a smirk. Everyone immediately started trying to protest his decision.

While everyone was screaming and shouting, Omari had a thoughtful look on his face. At the current moment, he had forgotten about Madrid White's contract offer and was trying to figure out how he was going to play with just two touches.

Omari was more of a traditional winger, he liked to take defenders on to free up space inside the box and send in crosses. Maybe he'd dribble into the box every once in a while. For someone like him, he couldn't be restricted to a particular number of touches, it'll kill his playing style.

There were probably a lot of other players in the squad that had the same type of problem as Omari. The only difference was that while the rest of them were screaming and raising their hands in protest, Omari was trying to think of a way to adjust his playing style to fit in with the set criteria.

Michael probably made such a training exercise to improve decision making and creativity whenever they were caught in a tight spot. If that was the case then he probably just didn't want them losing the ball, so as long as he passed the ball around he should be fine.

"Oh, and before we start I just wanted to tell you all something Sir Alex told me" Michael said all of a sudden. "So we were playing against this club, I've forgotten the club in particular, and he told us to excite him. He said we should attempt dribbles and long passes and whatnots. He said he didn't care if they went badly, he just wanted to be at the edge of his seat. He didn't want us to take risks, he didn't want us to play it safe" Michael started walking away from the training pitch. "Do you know why you lost against London Blue? Because you lot didn't take risks, you played it safe. You played short passes, you were afraid of losing the ball… but that's not what football is about, football is about taking risks and that's what I want to see. I want to see you playing football, not knocking a ball around hoping it enters the net"

"So… let's get started"

A/N: We didn't lose! I actually started watching the match praying for a draw (The one time God really answers my prayers) and now I think we were robbed. No way was that a penalty. Taylor screwing us over as always, but let's not dwell on that. We move to the next one.

Fucking robbed (I say this knowing I'm risking getting absolutely bantered by City fans and Scousers)