Numbers - A Ted Lasso OC Story

3 - Statistics and Americans

"Heya, whatchu doin over there Vanessa?" The familiar Kansas man's voice startles her out of her focus. She looks up from her work.

"Oh sorry, they tell me to come 30 minutes before I open but I only need 10 minutes to set up, so I do my homework, and some fun extra credit." She places her homework behind her on a back shelf. "You're right, I should be working, I can do that stuff later."

"Oh no no no, you know what you're doing I'm not here to tell you how to do your job." He points over to the television in the corner, displaying the pundits doing their regular pregame spiel. "You watch the game?" He asks.

"I just have it on in the background, not many people come here while the game is on. I just observe and jot my notes." She reaches behind her to grab her notebook, then looking over to... Tim? "Do you want, no never mind, you have other things to do."

"What?! Of course I'd love to see your notes, anything to help understand this weird sport huh, and I don't have much better to do right now, some of the players aren't even here yet." He leans over on the counter on his forearms, nodding his head. "Come on let's see em!"

Vanessa couldn't help but smile, not many people ask, or care frankly, about her notes and statistics. She wasn't great at talking with people, but she could always talk statistics with anyone.

She quickly swiveled her chair around grabbing her book and rolling her chair back to the front counter, plopping it down beside Mr. Lasso, Coach.

"So this is my page for last game, and this one is a collection of all so far this year. In another notebook back in my dorm I have last year's stats. But the big comparison between this year and last year is last year most goals were scored in the beginning of each half, 58%. But this year, while you are scoring less goals, more of them are being scored at the end of each half, 76%." She looks up, most people are bored at this point, but he seems to be enjoying her talking, maybe it would be good for him to learn though, based on how the team is doing.

"Oh and here, this is, well I'm not sure exactly what it's called... but look, each player and their shots and goals, how accurate they are with distance. Like #9 here, he stays quite accurate up to half pitch and a bit further. But this guy over here is super accurate a couple meters from the net but after that he's all over the place. Too much power to aim from a distance."

"Well look at that, you know if you came to practices you could get a whole lot more data, ya think?" Coach, she-should-probably-learn-his-name, added.

"Well yeah, hypothetically, if I saw practice I could get so much more data to make these even more accurate, since I'm only drawing from sample data not population data. But I'm not so I make do with what I have. Oh and, over here, this is the minutes the team holds on to the ball. Much more in the first half, your guys get tired fast... Sir." Vanessa looked up at the clock, she had to start set up. "Thanks for listening, I have lots more but I have to set up, so I can, you know, sell things. I have statistics for sales too, by the way."

"Oh of course, well I'll let you get all your stuff sorted. And please Vanessa, Just call me Ted there aren't any need for formalities here" Ted. TED! Ted was his name. Vanessa repeated it in her head a couple times, so she could write it down in her notebook once he left. "But maybe one day I'll bring you down for a practice, training, to add to those stats, and maybe help me out a bit."

"Ha, maybe. But uh, if I'm just calling you, Ted then, My friends call me Nessa." She never expected she would enjoy the company of a 40 some year old American man, but Ted was quite... odd, and she liked that.

"Well then Nessa, I look forward to seeing you again soon!" Ted taps his hands on the desk, before scurrying away to chase after the other coach, whom she decided to call Beardy, she didn't know his name yet.

She closed up her notes and got to stacking mugs and folding t shirts. T- Ted. Ted perplexed her. She had interacted with tons of Americans before, but he was so much different than all of them, whether it was his unwavering positivity, or his genuine interest in her as a person, or just his general pleasantness, she liked him.

And who knows, maybe she will take him up on his offer, and maybe change wouldn't be a bad thing this time.

***

YAY ANOTHER CHAPTER!!

I hope you liked it, cause I'm really exited for what the next few chapters will bring. They will probably be longer so you can look forward to that. Cause now we can get into the good juicy stuff... aka story line.

Anyway, have a great day!