The Superstar Contingency (2018 FIFA World Cup Future Fanfiction)

Chapter 6- The Tempestuous Situation

"Zack! Look alive! You're almost there!" Zlatan shouted.

I charged across the field with the ball looking for and opening but the Swedish team was not making it easy for me. Unless I try this... I angled my foot a bit and kicked the ball, giving it a spin which caused it to curve into the upper left of the goal.  I just scored!

"Impressive!" Zlatan expressed.

For once I actually earned his respect...

This was the last day I had to practice with them all since the cup officially starts tomorrow. I thanked Zlatan and the team for the opportunity and wished them good luck. 

As I gathered my things, Zlatan stopped me. "Zack. I want you to keep practicing alright? You're really improving."

"Of course!" I smiled.

"If we ever get the chance to practice again. I want to see that you've improved ten times from where you are now." He stressed. 

And once again he's a little hard to please...

"Thanks, I will." I replied while laughing a bit. He patted me on the shoulder and offered me a ride back home which of course, I couldn't refuse. It's actually REALLY cold today.

--- (Cristiano's place)

I made it back and noticed that Cristiano was STILL not out of bed. What's going on? It's like, 11:40AM he'd usually be awake around this time... I looked in his room and he was still laying down with the bed sheets over his head. That's when I decided I should start poking him...

"Hey." I poked.

"Cristiano." I poked again with my voice sound a bit louder. Still no response. Is—is he ignoring me?

"CRISTIANO!!" I yelled. He flinched and fell out of bed.

"What Zack? What is it?" He groaned.

That's when I looked and saw that he seemed stressed out about something...Wait...was it about the world cup?

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Yea I'm fine...I'm just gonna get something to drink." he got up and started walking. Without brushing your teeth or fixing your bed head? Yep, somethings bothering him. 

Enough beating around the bush.

"Cristiano. Be honest you're worried aren't you? I confronted.

"What? No I'm fine really!" he lied. He then attempted to pour himself a glass of water but missed the cup. 

That's when I glared at him hard...He had no choice but to accept the fact that I already knew. 

"Ok! Yes im worried! You satisfied?" He grabbed his face. 

I don't blame him for being this way. According to Fabio, Germany and Spain won the last two world cups. So not only could he be facing against the winners of the last one and the one before that, but he could end up facing Sergio, someone who he thought of as a friend who now hates his guts...

If he goes in tomorrow with this current mindset of his, he'll surely lose...I need to spend some time with him, I owe him that much anyway.

"Cristiano, get your training gear on. We're gonna go to a place that I'm sure will help you think things through." I walked to the door.

"huh?" He said, hardly listening.

--- ( The practice field)

I brought Cristiano to the practice field Neymar brought me to last time, so we could have a one on one.

"Zack it too cold for this!" Cristiano shivered.

"I need to show you this! Come at me!" I said. He ran towards me with his ball at his feet. But I stole it from him and double touched it into the goal. He was playing rather sluggish.

"Ohh look at that! I just scored against The Great Cristiano!" I mocked him.

"Was that? That one of my moves! But you don't even play soccer! How did you--?" he questioned. I interrupted him.

"Yes I've actually been paying close attention to you during Portugal's Training. I wanted to show you that if no one else out there believes in you, there's a guy over here that trusts and believes in you one hundred percent. I know you can do it Cristiano, and I won't accept this recent mood of yours. Aren't you supposed to be the World's best footballer? I want you to show everyone that! So lead your team to victory!" I finished.

Cristiano just looked at me and smacked his face with both his hands to come back to his senses.

"You're right. Alright! Let's do this again! And this time you aren't getting a single goal on me!" I could tell he was happy again. And at the same time, so was I. We played for a few and decided to call it quits after a while. 1 – 4 isn't exactly the greatest score to look at after all. But I decided once we were done here, I'll take him to one more interesting place that I'm sure he'd enjoy.

--- (Inside the mall...)

"Coffee...mania?" He said sounding surprised.

"Yes! This place is amazing!" I said sounding like a kid at a candy store. .....and now I have to go use the restroom... Unfortunately there isn't one inside the place. But there was one nearby, I just needed go downstairs and it'd be right there.

"Hey, im gonna go to the restroom. I'll be right back!" I told him. I ran all the way to the bathroom to take of my business.

Afterwards, I washed my hands and darted out. By mistake, I ran into someone. And MAN did it hurt! They hardly budged, I only knocked off their sunglasses. I picked up the glasses and handed it back to them.

"Sorry, that was my--" I didn't finish. This was the person that I had zero intentions of seeing. As I looked up, I realized that it was Sergio that I bumped into.

"You need to watch where you're going...Zack was it? Cristiano's cheerleader?" he said. 

As you could tell, the blood between us is pretty bad. Ever since last night, Anything that he could potentially say just rubs me the wrong way for some reason. But I need to keep calm and not have an outburst in front of people in the mall. It would be pretty bad for the both of us if people found out that Sergio Ramos was in this mall.

"What's it matter to you? Just saying, it's pretty despicable of you to hate a teammate of yours so much. You need to ease up on him, try working it out instead of assuming random shit!" I yelled not containing myself well.

Sergio punched me in the face and I fell to the ground. Damn that hurt...

"You need to stay out of this, it DOESN'T concern the likes of you." He raised his voice back at me.

I spat on the floor because he busted my lip. He began walking away but stopped moving because, I got up saying one last thing. "Now THAT'S...where you're wrong, because this does concern me. Cristiano helped get where I am right now, so I owe it to him... but hope you never run into Portugal during the cup, you won't be victorious by the time this is over."

He continued walking until I could no longer see him amongst the crowds of people. I went back to the bathroom to clean myself up so once I went back, Cristiano wouldn't say anything.

"Hey you made it! Here I was thinking you'd never make it back." Cristiano said joking around.But his laughing slowly died down. "Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Never better!" I promised while smiling. Everything is perfectly fine right now. But this World Cup is going to be a serious one. I just hope we're all ready for what's about to come.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rate, Share, Comment and more importantly, Follow me! I WILL follow back!

Next Chapter Hint: Faces From the Past