Following the same routine day after day, six more days passed. Training in the morning and matches in the evening.
However unlike the days before, on the sixth day something different happened. The rank changes no longer took place on the sixth day.
Obviously the sudden change rose the curiosity of the players. So they did raise their voice to question about the changes.
In response, the coaches simply replied, “We are in the crucial stage of deciding the players. And we’ve already selected most of the players however there are still some spots left vacant, so everybody give your all to grab the spot.”
The meaning behind those words weren’t profound and was rather as clear as crystal. It was simply to encourage those players who were ranked lower until then and also to test the attitude of top players.
And somehow their words did produce some results as well. Because of those words, some players who were ranked bottom gave their all to make it to the team while some players simply quit.
Probably the reason behind why they said those words was to test the mentality of the players.
Probably they wanted to see if top players could still maintain their demeanour and give their best despite hearing that most of the players were already selected.
It was also to test the mentality of the players in the bottom. They probably wanted to see if players who were ranked bottom could still give their best despite having little to no hope to grab onto the spots which were left vacant.
Regarding the sixth team also known as the wild card team for the rest of the days, they faced different University teams and finally at the last day, they faced the previous J-2 league champion Jubilo Iwata a professional team based in Iwata, located in Shizuoka prefecture.
Obviously Hiro never dropped his ranking in the entire 5 days. He maintained his dominance and clenched the top spot for the entirety of the ranking evaluation.
And since he maintained his ranking, two players from his team remained unchanged. Those two players were obviously Shun and Yutaka.
Learning from his mistakes and failures, Shun showed the most improvement out of those three.
Yutaka with the influence of Hiro and Shun, he too improved slightly. Especially his mentality, he was now starting to put some effort in improving himself. Although he couldn’t maintain his focus for a long time, it was still better than before.
And only in the fourth day did Hiro’s team faced the wild card team again. As for the rest of the days, they faced the team of the players present in the camp.
Racking an impressive 16 goals in 7 matches, Hiro was way too dominant. To the point, the second person who scored the most after Hiro had only 6 goals.
And although Hiro didn’t gain any skills or talent from the seven day training camp, he gained something even more valuable.
He gained insight about his shortcomings and also he tasted the bitterness of defeat after so long time.
And in those seven matches he only lost one single game, even the game against one of the university team in the fourth day, his team somehow drew the game.
**** ****
Queued up in the pitch, all those 70 players were now awaiting for the announcement of the coaches. Their seven day training camp had finally came to an end.
And unlike other days, today all those players were dressed in casual clothes. Their hands grabbing onto their luggage, they were preparing to bid farewell to the training camp.
Also they were awaiting for the announcement of the name of players who had made it to the National U-17 team.
Not even a single cloud marred the perfection of the vast expanse, as if nature in it’s benevolence had decided to gift humanity with a day of unblemished beauty. Sunlight cascading abundantly from above, today’s weather was very clear.
Under the sunlight, countless shadows of the players standing in the pitch had covered a quarter of the area of the pitch.
Soon some more shadows appeared in the ground as coaches and selecters entered the pitch.
Even till this date, head coach Haruki’s face looked the same. His eyes sharp and his brows knotted, he had the same stern looking face.
Infact in all those seven days, not even a single player saw him smile. As if he had vowed to keep that expression for the entirety of his life, head coach Haruki no matter how impressed he was, he never smiled in those seven days.
May be he did smile secretly. But since nobody saw him smile, who knows if he smiled or not.
Finally those shadows stopped as coaches and selecters stood infront of the players.
Swiping his gaze across the players standing infront of him, head coach Haruki stepped infront to speak something.
At first he slightly cleared his throat and then only he started speaking, “Ahum!!!”
“First of all, I’d like to congratulate each and every single one of you for making it this far without any injuries.” .
As stated by coach Haruki, not even a single player had gotten injured gravely in those seven days. Although few got injured slightly, everyone evaded serious injuries.
Clap!! Clap!! Clap!!
Players started clapping their hands as coach Haruki congratulated them. Then again, they quickly stopped as they noticed coach Haruki hadn’t finished his speech.
“You guys have done well. Although few of you performed lousily, most of you have done well. Especially Hiro, just in 7 matches, he has managed to score 16 goals. So I’d also like to request all of you to clap your hands to honour his remarkable achievement. He deserves it.”
As coach Haruki requested the players to show some respect to Hiro’s achievements, all of the players started to clap their hands.
Some envious while some genuinely happy for him, even so all of the players clapped their hands.
“It’s pretty much fixed that he’ll get selected.”
Those were the thoughts of most of the players.
This content is taken from 𝘪𝘳.𝘤𝑜