There were a few coveting expressions amongst the players, however Riku merely scoffed. He already knew who would receive the armband, so he patted the guy next to him and said his congratulations.
“Masayuki, come get your armband.”
***
Once the team had been announced, the players were feeling rather fired up. The coach had a mysterious charisma which seemed to pull the team together.
Even those who were relegated to the bench did not seem to have any complaints. The way he spoke made it sound like they were all one unit, disparaging any thoughts of individualism.
The contents of the discussion was surrounding the format for this year’s world cup.
There were 12 teams invited to the world cup. These teams then got split into group A and group B for the group stage elimination portion.
Each of the teams would play their own group in a round-robin style.
The top 3 teams of each group were then combined and forced to play another round-robin. This part of the competition was called the Super Round, and would dictate the final matches.
Top 2 from the Super Round played against each other for 1st and 2nd place, whereas the the next 2 teams played for 3rd and 4th.
Taking all of these games into account, they could play up to a possible 11 games in the span of 11 days.
Even in Koshien, teams were at least given a break once they made it into the quarter finals. However, the world cup would see them having to play a game every day.
“We’ve been put in Group A alongside Cuba, Dominican Republic, Chinese Taipei, South Korea and Canada.”
Once Coach Takashi said this, the table was shown upon the projection screen.
Ken saw the list of teams and sucked in a cold breath of air. He knew that Cuba and South Korea were tough teams, yet he couldn’t help but think of a certain person when seeing the Dominican Republic show up.
His thoughts moved to earlier this year when he faced the curly-haired monster batter from Shuei High.
‘I wonder if he’s in the team?’ Ken thought.
While he had improved leaps and bounds since they’d last played, Carlos still left an indelible mark on him. After all, he’d gotten one of his best skills after completing the urgent mission from the system in that game.
While Ken’s mind was wandering, Coach Takashi kept speaking.
“To be honest, it’s a tough group to start out against… But I have confidence in you all.” He stated, his deep voice resonating through the room.
“Cuba have the most U18 world cup gold’s and South Korea are only behind America. While we will be chasing our first win this year.”
This news certainly wasn’t the most uplifting for the players, but that wasn’t to say that they were scared. If there was one thing that young athletes had, it was supreme confidence.
Coach Takashi looked around the room a little, a smirk forming on his old face as he stroked his goatee.
“Good, very good. I see no one has lost any motivation. As long as you listen to us, I have the utmost faith we can secure that win…”
“So I guess I’ll ask you all… Are you with me!?”
“Yes sir!”
“Hehehe, I knew I wasn’t wrong about you all.” He stated happily.
With that, he turned to Chris and sent him a nod before moving out of the way.
“Okay everyone, the fixtures have been released. We’ll have only 2 days to get settled in America before our long stretch of games begin. First off we’re against South Korea…”
As Chris began to talk, the start of the film session had begun. Thanks to the Head Coach’s words, everyone was feeling motivated and therefore didn’t find it boring.
Chris was also very thorough in his lecture, intuitively pointing out the main points in a direct and interesting way.
Both Ken and Daichi were surprised since they’d never seen their dad at work before. Yet they could tell that he had done these things many times while he was a scout for the Yokohama Warriors.
Even Coach Takashi nodded in appreciation as he watched from the side, once again patting himself on the back for getting such a capable assistant coach.
After around an hour and a half, the session finally came to an end.
By the time everyone walked out, it was already 4pm.
“What are you guys doing now?” Ken asked, letting out a big stretch.
“I’ve got homework…” Kuro muttered gloomily.
“Homework!? Damn man, that must suck…” Ken replied, however inwardly he was gleeful. He hadn’t even been back to school, there was no way he’d be given homework now.
“You didn’t get any?” Daichi asked, raising his eyebrow in response.
Ken suddenly had a bad feeling rise up from within him.
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder suddenly, causing him to freeze in place.
“Ah Kenny, I forgot to tell you. This came in the mail from the school this morning. I almost forgot to bring it with me.”
His father handed him a heavy stack of papers before patting him on the shoulder a few times.
“Alright, I’ll see you at dinner.”
Chris left, leaving Ken in despair. Aki, Hiroki, Daichi and Kuro had large grins on their face as they saw his expression.
“Well, guess you DO have some homework after all.” Aki replied, letting out a hearty laugh before walking away.
“Come on bro, let’s get it over and done with.” Daichi stated, shaking his head and letting out a sigh.
Ken could only silently weep as he followed Daichi towards the dorms, not even able to lift his head the entire way.
Hiroki followed behind the two, doing his best not to laugh at the depressed Ken. He also had some homework to do since they would be missing out on at least 2 weeks of school.
Yet even though Hiroki was a training addict, he was rather smart and never dropped below 5th in exam results for his year.