"Alright everyone, today we’re welcoming someone back to training. After a couple of months away with injury, let’s welcome back Alex Wayne!"

The Middlesbrough U18 players had gathered in two straight lines parallel to each other while facing each other. There was a bit of space between the two lines, enough for one person to run through it.

Alex stood at the head of the line and stared at David, who urged him forward.

"Come on, do I have to do this?" Alex sighed.

"Don’t make me make them make you," David said with a small smile.

"Alright," Alex sighed and ran between the two lines. As he ran through the lines, the players slapped him, giving him light taps on the back of his head. It wasn’t at all painful. Then he passed Will, who had been loading up his leg before delivering a kick to Alex’s butt.

"Goddamnit, Will!" Alex said as soon as he crossed the lines and held his butt. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for today, I wasn’t going to waste it with a soft slap," Will smiled.

David blew his whistle to get the attention of all the players in the squad. "Alright boys, although Wayne is back to training with us, he’s only going to feature in a few light exercises and a couple of cameo appearances if we’re doing a training match. He’s still a small way from making a full recovery."

Everyone nodded, and David continued talking. "Our next friendly is on Wednesday, against Rangers U-18. We’re taking on a talented team from another country so we have to be at our absolute best. So I don’t want what happened in the first half against the trialists to happen again. You were the better team, so I don’t understand why you were so passive. I thought I gave very simple instructions."

"To make sure that it doesn’t repeat itself, we’re going to go into full match training after we warm up. I don’t mind you not wanting to understand instructions, but unfortunately if you don’t understand and follow those instructions, I will lose my job. And the economy is a son of a bitch these days."

"Two teams, arranged randomly. Let’s go!" David said, then instructed his assistants to divide the squad into two teams.

There were a few players who didn’t get put into a team, including Alex. They were to stand by and then they’d come in for any underperforming players in the team.

Will got put into a team that had most of the starters. It was a 4-2-3-1 formation, and Will was going to play as the attacking midfielder. For the first time in a little while, he was set to play in his preferred position during training.

"Alright boys. Remember, this is how I want you lining up when you have the ball. I need the defenders to push up and-"

David spent almost an hour explaining what he wanted from the players before the match actually started. After that, they lined up with their respective teams.

Will had a couple of familiar faces in his team. Marcus Webb started as the central midfielder behind him, and Liam started on the left flank like he usually did.

"I’ve been hearing your passes have been off recently," Liam said to Will before the match started. "So feed me properly."

Will nodded slightly and then walked to his position on the field. He was feeling very calm about the game at hand, as opposed to his usual nervous self. That was because of the training he did the day before. His rating was 56 when he started training, but it jumped to 57 when it was done. That’s a whole number, and that was only after a day of training intensely on one attribute.

His teammates were better than him when he got the system, but not all of them were that much better than him. His rating had improved by three since then so he was eager to see how much he measured against the rest of his team.

The match was designed to last for one hour. Each half was going to be thirty minutes long.

The first ten minutes of the match were somewhat boring for Will. Nothing serious happened, possession was just being recycled by the two teams, and although the intent to score was there when either team had the ball, they just couldn’t produce anything.

For Will, it was even worse. He was playing as the attacking midfielder, and the main creative outlet, but he hadn’t done anything of note. He just made short passes, following the advice that the system overlay gave to him anytime he got hold of the ball.

Two minutes later, Will got the ball again, this time with his back to goal. The system alerted him to someone rushing him from behind so he pivoted his body forward before sharply turning in the other direction, performing a body feint.

When he successfully turned with the ball, he was introduced to a little bit of space so he could get his head up and look around for his teammates. He didn’t really need to do that, though, the system already flagged their locations on the pitch, and all he needed to do was to play a neatly threaded through ball down the right for Jason Reid, the right winger on his team, to chase and create a one on one with the opposing goalkeeper.

It sounded easy enough, but when Will played the pass, it was a bit overhit so Jason had to chase it down. By the time Jason got to the ball, the one on one opportunity had gone and he could only pass it across the goal hoping that someone would stick a foot in and tap it in.

Someone did get a foot to the pass. Unfortunately, the shot was ricocheted as a defender from the opposing team managed to get his body in front of it.

"Damn," Will muttered when he watched the ball roll out for a corner.

Will raised his hands in apology to Jason for overhitting the pass and jogged to take his position for the corner kick. He was seriously thinking about the chance that he squandered because of his pass. Even if the system made it such that developing his vision was not a pressing issue, he still had to be able to play the passes. Him just seeing his teammates wasn’t enough.

Will groaned internally as he had these thoughts.

’Yet another thing I have to work on,’ he thought to himself as the corner was played. It was headed over the goal frame by one of Will’s teammates and play resumed with a goal kick.