Cause and Effect

One

I stared at the football goal in front of me, the sunlight bouncing off the crossbar, and causing me to narrow my eyes.

"Go on then Nia," Hector smiled lazily, from his position on the grass. "Top bins, yeah?"

"Top left bins," Granit specified, as he sat down beside Hector. "Put a nice curl on it."

"No pressure at all, huh?" I chuckled, taking a run up and kicking the ball. It sailed easily into the left side of the net.

"Nice, Ramos!" Hector yelled.

"Well that wasn't top bins, was it?" Granit laughed.

I rolled my eyes playfully, and flopped down on the grass beside my two best friends. We were out early for training today, and had a few minutes to relax.

"That was so top bins," I argued.

"One of those big wheelie bins, maybe," Granit smirked.

"Whatever."

"Hey, by the way," said Hector, interrupting our argument. "Thoughts on the new boss?"

"Who doesn't wanna be coached by an Arsenal Invincible legend?" Granit shrugged. "It'll be weird going from someone with heaps of experience to someone with none though."

"I think the club is ready for it though," said Hector. "Although I am gonna miss Arsene Wenger. He was the first person to believe in me, you know?"

"Aw, that's cute Hec," I smirked.

"Shut up Nia," he complained. "Are you gonna give an opinion? You haven't said anything yet."

"Oh, I don't know," I shrugged my shoulders. "I hope he's a nice guy. I've seen a lot of his game analysis that he does, and he's great at reading the game, so he can't be that bad."

"Talk of the devil..." commented Granit quietly, looking towards the gates.

The rest of our teammates were joining us on the field now, and with them was Arsenal's new manager, Thierry Henry. To tell the truth, I was pretty excited he was here. This guy had Arsenal in his blood, he couldn't stay away from the team, and he'd always have a special place at the Emirates. I took a moment to observe him. He was reasonably tall, with dark skin and eyes, and black hair cut so short it almost wasn't there. He carried himself with the confidence of a man who was so important that we put up statues in his honour.

Oh wait... that's literally a thing.

Granit nudged me, and when I turned to look at him, he wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

"French guys, huh?"

Hector snorted.

"When she has a perfectly good Spanish guy right here? I don't think so!"

We laughed at him, as the three of us stood, and began to head over to the others. Alexis and Mesut joined us at this point, and so overheard the last part of our conversation.

"Where's the perfectly good Spanish guy?" Alexis teased. "I don't see him..."

"Well hello to you too," Hector said.

"How long have you been out here?" Asked Mesut.

"Not that long," I replied. "Don't wanna be late for the first training session of the season, hey?"

"Pre-season," corrected Alexis.

"That's right, Spain," Granit nodded. "I'm so excited for our tour, y'know."

"Home sweet home," I grinned at Hector. "Pre-season tour in Spain was like Arsene's last gift to us."

"We should have gone to Chile," Alexis complained.