102 The English Football Cup

In the blink of an eye, months passed. A few weeks after the whole Madrid White incident, the Teesside players started returning to full fitness. As a result, David and Ayanfe lost their spots on the starting eleven and even found themselves playing a few matches with the under 21s. They still made quite a number of appearances off the bench, but they didn't quite manage to get a start.

Teesside were doing pretty well on the English Championship League. They were second place and two points adrift of first place with two games in hand. Their team who once upon a time was tattered and broken was in good shape. Everything was perfect.

The new year came along and after playing in the first and second round of the English Football Cup tournament, they players were currently inside a huge cinema like room staring in disbelief at the screen placed at the forefront of the room. Naturally, Omari was among the group of players staring at the screen.

"Fucking hell" Omari was in a daze as he stared at the screen. "Not again"

The London Blue logo and the Teesside Fc logo was on the screen in front of them, and for the first time since he signed for Teesside, Omari joined the majority of the players to grumble and complain.

"Why the fuck are we playing them again?"

"Better question, why the fuck did the EFA (English Football Association) have to reorganize the draft. We already got an easy opponent?"

"Yeah, weren't we supposed to play against Norhampton Red?"

Michael sighed when he saw the players complaining. He thought that he had already crossed this bridge with them. After the match against London Blue, they had started playing what he described as sexy football. They stopped giving the ball away, they pressed better and they were actually being creative with the ball. Watching their matches was exciting for him.

"Alright lads, as I've tried to emphasize so many times In the past, there is no such thing as easy opponents and hard opponents, we only have obstacles, obstacles that we have to overcome in order to move on to the next stage of the competition".

Some of the players seemed to be convinced when Michael said this. Omari on the other hand still wore a somewhat frightened expression on his face. While the others saw him having a good performance against London Blue, he knew that most of the things that happened with him was only due to luck. He could only get past the right back due to luck, his shot that should've been blocked was only deflected due to luck.

The simple truth that had been weighing on his mind was the fact that he wasn't good enough. He wasn't good enough to play against London Blue. And if he wasn't good enough to play against a team like them, then how good would he be if he was playing top flight football.

"Fucking hell" Omari muttered under his breath again. He walked out of the cinema like room since most of his teammates were leaving already.

The training they did that day was trying to correct the weakness that they showed against London Blue. They worked on pressing for a goal. It was the same player arrangement that they used the first time the only difference being that the thirty minute time limit had been reduced to ten minutes.

After they finished that session, Michael started training them to use long balls in attack. Although they used it frequently in most of their games, they never actually practiced it. That fact and the fact that playing with long balls wasn't their main style of play made multiple players raise a brow when Michael said they were going to train on it.

"Look, it's for starting counter attacks and fluid play". Michael said. "It's common knowledge that there's one fundamental rule when it comes to playing football, exploiting spaces. Some teams do it with passes like Manchester Blue, some do it with counterattacks like what Manchester Red did while playing under Salksjear. We're going to attempt to do it with long balls" Michael led the team inside the locker room while he was explaining.

There was a board with some red and black pieces stuck to them at the fore front of the locker room. He moved majority of the red and black pieces to the right flank on the board. "This is what happens when play is being shifted to the right. Majority of the players on the pitch are concentrated in that direction. Now in order to exploit the free space on the left, most teams use quick, clever passes. Maximum offence to you lot but you're not that good. So what if instead of trying to use quick witted passes which you can't do, you use one beautifully timed cross field pass"

The Teesside players started to understand what Michael was saying. Michael put down the marker and stared at his players. "Now, let's go"

They worked on long balls for the rest of training. After that, as had become the usual practice, each player worked on the areas that they found themselves poor in. Omari had already overcome his poor passing so he spent the remaining one hour in the gym. He had found a new weakness that he had… he had poor body strength.

After training was over, Michael addressed all the players before sending them home. When everyone left, Michael heaved an exhausted sigh… they had a long week ahead of them.

A/N: Sorry for not updating yesterday, I fell asleep.