The Love Of Soccer

Surprise

Adam's POV

Classes went by quickly. It was already lunch. Surprisingly, Anna got a call from Zidane.

Hello? Anna?

Yeah, hi

I need you to meet me by the fields at your school. Your first practice is going to be here. I'll see you in 5 minutes.

Ok I'll see you then

Bye.

Bye

And he hung up. Turns out I'm actually going to have fun at lunch. But... what about the rest of the students? Won't they go a little... crazy? I mean big time soccer celebrities here! But it was his decision, so I went with it.

"Come on Anna let's go" I said.

She paused " You're sure you're allowed to come right? I don't want them kicking you out"

"Anna, I'm the one who got you on the team, I talked to Zidane for a whole 2 hours during your practice and it seemed as if he didn't hate me, maybe he even likes me. Don't worry" I said, giving her a reassuring hug.

But immediately I realized someone must've seen because I saw a camera flash out of the corner of my eye. Iman, of course. Anna's friend.

"Um" I said motioning to Iman.

Anna turned red as she backed away from me "I guess it's official?"

"Not until your parents and mine approve" I smiled.

"You're such a good boy" she laughed, and we made our way to practice.

***

My prediction was correct. Many kids surrounded a fence. In the fence was Real Madrid. Zidane spotted us and came over.

"Hello Anna, Adam, I'm just going to say this now. I'm done talking all professional with you. I'm your coach and we should be friends, okay? We're one big family." He laughed as he brang us into the fence. The security guards had to keep some boys from my science class out.

We walked in, all eyes on us. First Cristiano came up to us.

"So this is our new keeper!" He exclaimed with a grin on his face. And he held out a hand for me and Anna to shake "nice to meet you, I'm Cristiano, you already knew that, but you can call me Cris" he smiled, "and you guys are?"

"I'm Adam" I smiled, "and this is Anna, you're new keeper"

Anna's POV

"Ah, nice to meet you two. As you know we've already made it into the World Cup. Now we have our actual games starting. The first is with Barça. If you learn fast enough, we're hoping you can play for that game in a few weeks. I'm going to go back to training, we'll get you both introduced later, get training" he smiled.

Zidane brang me a training jersey and shorts. I quickly went to the changeroom and changed. I had on my gloves and my cleats. I had the same cleats since grade 7, I guess I was too lazy to get new ones.

Zidane decided Iker Casillas would teach me.

He taught me basics of diving, which I already knew, so we quickly finished that. We went onto collapsing saves with I was familiar with, but when he went onto upper 90's saves, I struggled.

"It's okay, I'll teach you" he said.

He taught me techniques, and how to dive without getting hurt. But I still couldn't.

"You're afraid of jumping that high aren't you?" He asked.

I nodded my head. Again he told me not to worry and continued working with me. We spent most of practice trying to do upper 90's saves. And surprisingly, by the end, I actually was able to do it. He took some shots and I saved 80% of them.

"You learn fast, tomorrow, we work on kicking"  he said as we joined the others. Zidane told Adam and I to stand near him.

He introduced us to everyone, and still, I didn't know the whole team. I was always a bigger Bayern fan, but they already have an amazing goalkeeper. I guess here Iker Casillas was getting tired of goalie, maybe they wanted someone new. Or maybe they desperately needed someone so they took me.

Everyone greeted us with smiles, shockingly I learned upper 90's saves so quickly. All I had to work on was my kicks. But, those were my weakness. I absolutely cannot, cannot kick as far as a professional goalkeeper for my life. I guess, I'd have to wait and see.