Fantasy Football-Chapter 41: About To Start.

It was common knowledge in the footballing world that playing in underground matches wasn’t looked upon fondly.

For starters, there were a lot of powerful figures involved in underground football, in the lower-ranked matches, the level of tampering was kept to a minimum, since the money being made there wasn’t that much, and they were still able to fill their pockets from the less wealthy clients who came to watch.

But at the higher stages matches like the proper Bronze-ranked or Silver-ranked soccer matches played in the underground field, there was a lot of betting and huge stakes involved.

And sometimes the Dons tend to instruct the teams under their payroll to take a loss or settle for a draw just so they could win big money from the fans’ bets.

They also generated a lot of money from those matches because the ticket prices for matches of this rank always cost a small fortune, and on top of that, there was the constant risk of players getting injured more easily in underground matches because of how rough the games were being played.

That was why the owners of clubs that didn’t participate in underground football tried so hard to create a divide between themselves and those who did, as they called themselves the legitimate football clubs, trying to portray that no one could influence or buy their clubs decisions.

And they looked down heavily on the clubs that played in underground matches, so when the Bariga YB coach heard that the Dark Elites were involved in underground football, he slowly started losing his respect for Mystic who he thought was on his way to do great things.

But even then, he couldn’t figure out how their participation in underground matches explained their ability to skip the preliminaries, his expression of shock slowly shifted to one of confusion. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Seeing this, the president—who had been waiting for his words to sink in—finally spoke up.

“It was also said that one of the Don of the underground went to visit Mystic, and he just so happens to be the Don of the Shomolu area, with all of this in place, I believe we can assume he gave Mystic an offer he couldn’t refuse—and now he’s supporting him.”

“And for a small club that a Don is serious about supporting, it wouldn’t be hard to buy their way into the main matches of the street championship competition, so after all my investigations and analysis, I’ve decided it’s completely okay for us not to dwell too much on them, as they won’t be a threat to us since they bought their way into the competition.”

The president of the Bariga YB team finished his explanation by giving his opinion on how he felt the Dark Elites had been able to get a spot so easily.

After hearing the president’s explanation, the coach felt it was much more believable than the idea that the Dark Elites could have gotten that good on pure ability alone that the committee invited them instead.

Neither he nor the president ever once considered that Mystic might have enough influence to sway the Street Football committee into letting them in so easily, because that would mean they had pushed one of the originally seeded teams down into the preliminary stage for the Dark Elites after believing the Dark Elites were better, and this thought was something both the coach and the president were trying hard not to even entertain.

So they just kept crediting everything to Don ID, convinced that Mystic must have somehow gained his favor, and they were all certain that no matter how much preferential treatment the Dark Elites were getting now, it wouldn’t matter in the end, because they believed the Dark Elites would never make it out of the round of 16, as every team that remained at this stage was a strong one.

–

While Mystic’s team was being scrutinized by people who didn’t expect to see them on the participation list, and who were busy trying to draw an invisible line between him and Don ID that wasn’t there—he had given his players a day off and a card, telling them the bill was on him and they could go out and enjoy themselves.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go with them, but he knew it wouldn’t really feel like a holiday to his players if he, their coach, was there too.

And that was because if he tagged along, they would completely restrain themselves in everything they did.

And Mystic didn’t want that, his whole plan was for his team to unwind from all the stress they’d been going through, so to him there was absolutely no reason for him to be there, spoiling their fun.

By not going with them, he felt he was also maintaining a certain level of respect within the group. He’d thought this far ahead, as he didn’t want any of his players looking down on him, especially since he was around the same age as they were.

With his players gone, he finally opened the mail he’d received in the morning, now ready to see the team they would face.

When he saw Agege Roundabout Rangers from the Agege region, he sighed in relief, because according to what his uncle had told him, they weren’t one of the top teams in the competition he had to be so scared of.

On the other side of the bracket were the teams his uncle had warned him about, like Vibe & Vex FC from the Ojo region and Bariga YB from the Bariga region.

But in the end, he realized that one of the teams he’d been told to watch out for was actually on his side of the bracket—The Local Wing FC from the Ikeja region.

Mystic took a deep breath, slightly happy they weren’t the ones he had to face head-on yet, and the reason for his fear is quite simple, and that was because all the teams his uncle had warned him about were clubs that had more than one Bronze-rank player, and he knew that at the current stage of his team no miracle would make him win a club like that when they are fully concentrated and lock in.

–

The next day came, and it was finally match day, the fans of Agege Roundabout Rangers flocked in, loud and rowdy under the afternoon sun as they chanted their club song.

Mystic peered outside from the visiting changing room and could immediately tell the momentum was not on their side. He had tried handing out flyers late the night before to a couple of Shomolu residents, hoping that, somehow, a bit of local pride would stir in them and make them come watch their local region’s team play in the street competition for the first time in a long while.

But most of the people he’d given flyers to didn’t feel the need to spend their money on a club that was just getting back on its feet.

Still, despite the fact that the entire stadium, of over two to four hundred local Agege fans—was against them, they still had a job to do: play their football and come back victorious.

So Mystic turned toward his team, ready to give them the big speech he’d been preparing.