Coach Wallace paused. ‘About a month. Maybe more.’
When Jasper saw Mugger’s miserable face looked even more miserable than usual, his brain finally came round to what was happening.
‘You’re going away?’ He gasped. ‘But we’re only a few games away from making the finals.’
‘I know it’s not the best timing, but you’re a good team who play well together. You’ve come a long way this year, and I know you’ll remember all the things you’ve learnt in training and on the field.’
The Rovers didn’t look convinced.
‘Will you be back for the finals?’ Nippy asked. ‘If we make it?’
Coach Wallace sighed. ‘Maybe. I’ll try my hardest, but I’m not sure I will.’
Nippy’s shoulders collapsed in a slump.
‘What’s one thing I’ve always told you about playing as a team?’ Coach asked.
Diego answered reluctantly. ‘No good team relies on one person. It’s a team effort from start to finish.’
‘Exactly!’
Coach tried to buoy the team up with his enthusiasm, but they could tell it was a flimsy cover. He was just as disappointed as they were.
‘And anyway, I wouldn’t be going if I wasn’t leaving you in such good hands.’
Coach smiled for the first time since they’d entered the room and put his hand on the shoulder of the man beside him. The man smiled and looked down, as if he was embarrassed, but he did nothing to stop the coach when he went on to praise him further.
‘This is Mr Riley. He’s a very experienced coach, who’s had years of playing and coaching. He’ll be looking after you while I’m away.’ He forced a laugh. ‘He’ll probably do such a good job, you won’t even notice I’m gone.’
Josie and Lil shot each other a doubtful look. Diego and Tricky, who would normally make a joke at this point, sat gagged by their disappointment.
‘If Mrs Wallace’s father recovers well, I’ll be back for the finals and hopefully throw a big party at my place to celebrate one of the best years the Rovers have ever had.’
The coach saw that his enthusiasm wasn’t working. ‘I think now’s a good time to hear from Bill … I mean, Coach Riley.’
The new coach lifted his head and stepped forward, leaving Coach Wallace in his shadow.
‘Firstly, I want to say that Coach Wallace is one of the finest coaches in the business and from what I saw on that field today, he’s had the privilege of working with one of the best teams in this comp.’
Tricky sat up straighter. ‘That part’s true,’ he whispered.
‘I know I have big boots to fill, but I intend to work very hard and do everything I can to be the kind of coach the Rovers deserve. I know the finals are coming up soon, which you have a real chance at being part of, but what I’d like to focus on is continuing Coach Wallace’s good work and creating a strong side that will be a force to be reckoned with.’
Coach Riley looked at each of the Rovers with a smile that was filled with finals glory.
‘You.’ He pointed at Nippy. ‘You move with great speed on the field, which is invaluable when a team has possession. And you.’ It was Josie’s turn. ‘You showed some fine backup work when your fellow players had the ball. A team doesn’t just work because of its strikers, but because of its hard work in getting the ball through the midfield.’
Both Nippy and Josie swapped quiet smiles.
‘You.’ He looked at Aamir with a small grin. ‘There were a few moments when I couldn’t tell what you were thinking, which I liked. I’ll bet you’re a player who gives nothing away and always keeps his opponents on their feet.’
Aamir was new to English and looked to Jasper for a silent translation. Jasper gave him a small thumbs up.
Finally, Coach Riley came to Tricky. ‘You’re Tricky, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir?’ Tricky felt like he was suddenly being addressed by the Prime Minister.
‘The way you move your feet, I’d have a guess that one day you’ll be playing in the great soccer stadiums of the world.’
Tricky sat bathing in the glow of Coach Riley’s prediction of future stardom. It was also one of the few times in his life when Tricky didn’t know what to say.
‘From what I saw out there today, there are a few of you who could go a long way with soccer if you’re prepared to work for it.’ The new coach’s eyes widened. ‘What do you say? Who’s with me in showing this league we can make it all the way to the final?’
‘Me!’ Tricky declared his loyalty instantly.
‘Me,’ Diego followed.
Normally, it was Lil who led the way with team cries, but this time something didn’t feel right.
Jasper looked at Coach Wallace through his straggly fringe. He gave Jasper a small nod.
‘Me too,’ Jasper added.
The rest of the team added their quiet agreement.
‘Just remember,’ Coach Wallace eyed them seriously. ‘Always play fair, play well and play as a team.’ There was a slight catch in his voice as he said this.
‘Right,’ Coach Riley rubbed his hands like he’d just won a million dollars. ‘I’ll see you at training on Tuesday.’
Jasper thought he seemed eager enough, and if he was as good as Coach Wallace said, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Noggin stood up first from his seat, and the pink and yellow pompoms from his beanie bounced into his face. He flicked them aside and left the room with the others. Outside, Coach Riley walked up beside Jasper and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.
‘Can I have a word, Zammit?’
Jasper stopped quickly under the weight of his hand. Lil looked behind her and signalled that she’d wait near the bags for him.
What did he want? Jasper thought anxiously. There was a pause that seemed to last an hour. Why won’t he say anything?
‘I saw you out on that field today, Zammit.’
Coach Riley’s voice had that schoolmaster quality to it that made Jasper want to say, ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Yeah?’ Jasper’s skin pinched all over. The daydreaming. He knew it. Coach Riley had seen it. Now he was in for it. Maybe he wouldn’t even want him on the team.
‘Yeah.’ Coach Riley fixed Jasper with a measured eye. ‘I expect big things from you, Zammit. You play as well as you did today and we’ll get along just fine.’
Jasper’s shoulders fell in relief.
‘Yes, Mr Riley. You won’t be disappointed. From now on, I’ll give nothing but my absolute best.’
‘That’s what I’ll be expecting then.’
Jasper went to move past him.
‘Oh, and Jasper?’
Jasper turned. ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s Coach Riley.’
Jasper smiled. ‘Oh yeah. Sorry about that. Coach Riley.’
The coach smiled as he watched his new team move towards their parents. They were good players, and with a little more work he knew he could take them all the way to the podium, with him standing beside them as they received their very first championship trophy.
JOHNNY SAYS:
I remember one week we trained with tennis balls instead of soccer balls, all week, for the entire session. Training with a smaller ball meant we had to concentrate harder as the ball was so much more difficult to control, so we really had to master the correct technique.
‘And Jasper Zammit has the ball! That was a brilliant tackle, and his opponent never even saw it coming.’
‘Zammit is an expert pickpocket, Higsy, and the secret is he always goes for the ball, never the player.’
‘You’re right there, Richy, and when he has the ball, he gets it under control, keeps his head up and starts moving.’
‘He’s quite a talent and even though he’s had a change of coach only weeks before the finals, like a true professional, he hasn’t let it affect his game.’
‘Only the best can do that, and he’s lucky his new coach has latched on to Zammit’s impressive sporting skills.’
‘A
nd we’re about to see more! He moves forward, his eyes darting from the pitch to his team-mates downfield, his feet moving like magnets around that ball, and no one is even getting close to stealing it off him.’
‘You can almost hear the effort from here. A kind of grunting determination. A driving cry. A forceful …’
‘Grrrrr.’
Ronaldinho let out a half whine, half growl.
‘What’s wrong, boy?’ Lil leant down to pat the Maltese terrier, who looked into the packed afternoon training session of teams and coaches and didn’t seem happy.
‘Must be a cat.’ Jasper searched the field. ‘He’s the world’s friendliest dog until it comes to cats.’
But when Jasper followed Ronaldinho’s eyeline more closely, he knew it was no cat.
‘Stop it, boy. I know you miss Coach Wallace, but I’m trying to make a good impression here.’
Ronaldinho aimed another low growl at Coach Riley. He was standing with three association officials and laughing so loud that his voice boomed over the field like it had its own private PA system.
Lil scratched Ronaldinho behind the ears. ‘Maybe the coach has a cat and Ronaldinho can smell the fur on him.’
‘Maybe, but whatever it is, he better get over it.’
‘Get over what?’ Noggin stood beside Lil and Jasper, wearing what stood a good chance of being voted the world’s most colourful jumper.
‘That jumper,’ Jasper reeled back and covered his eyes.
‘I know. It’s a little bright, isn’t it?’
‘It’d come in handy if you were ever lost at night,’ Josie smirked.
‘My grandma made it for me. How can I not wear it?’
‘Just tell her you wear it,’ Nutmeg suggested. ‘How’s she ever going to know?’
‘I couldn’t. She has this kind of built-in lie detector, and the minute I even think of telling a lie, she squints at me with these piercing blue eyes and I crumble.’
‘Looks like you’re stuck with the jumper then,’ Lil said sympathetically.
‘And more,’ Noggin sighed. ‘She said she’s working on something extra special that she’s keeping as a surprise. How am I ever going to get anyone to come to the dance with me if I’m dressed like this?’
‘What dance?’ Lil asked.
‘There’s a dance coming up at our school and we have to bring a partner,’ Nippy explained.
‘The principal says it’s supposed to help our social skills and make us more confident,’ Josie added.
‘Yeah, but every time I even think about asking a girl, all I want to do is throw up,’ Noggin complained. ‘How’s that going to improve my confidence?’
‘You people interested in training?’ Coach Riley called from the centre of the field.
‘Yes, Coach,’ Jasper called out. ‘So much for my good impression.’ He turned to Ronaldinho. ‘Stay here, boy. And no more growling.’
Ronaldinho sat down and sank his head onto his paws. He waited until Jasper was out of earshot before he growled again, this time a little louder.
Coach Riley had a baseball cap on backwards and a stopwatch and whistle slung around his neck. He blew the whistle and the rest of the team finished putting in shin pads and taking final sips from drink bottles before joining him in the centre of the field.
‘It’s two minutes past five. We start training at five, not two minutes past, so next week I’d appreciate it if we started our session on time.’
He stared at Nutmeg, who was doing up the tie on his track pants.
Josie elbowed him and, looking up at Coach Riley’s unamused face, Nutmeg quickly finished his tying and shot his hands down by his side. A focused quiet settled over all of them.
‘Good. Now we’re ready to begin.’ Coach Riley walked up and down the row of Rovers like a drill sergeant. ‘Before we start, I want to make a few things clear. I’m here to work as hard as I can to take you through to the finals.’ He spun around on his heels and faced the Rovers with a toothpaste-ad smile on his face. ‘Who’s interested in a shot at the big one?’
Tricky flung his hand up, followed with a little less gusto by the others.
‘A shot at the big one?’ Diego muttered to Jasper. ‘Who talks like that?’
‘But to do that, I need you to give me one hundred percent commitment. I need you to train like you’ve never trained before and play like your whole life depends on it. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, Mr Cliché,’ Diego mumbled under his breath.
Tricky answered for all of them. ‘We’re ready, Coach.’
‘Excellent. Today we’re going to begin with a strong warm-up. I’m not sure how Coach Wallace did it, but I’m a bit of a stickler for a completely thorough limber-up.’
‘Coach Wallace was pretty strict about it too,’ Noggin explained, but the look on Coach Riley’s face told him he wasn’t interested.
‘And during training …’ He stood so close that Noggin had to back away for fear of coming into contact with the coach’s rounded belly. ‘You will only speak when I’ve asked a question. Do you understand?’
The Rovers swapped small confused looks.
‘Yes, Coach,’ Noggin barely whispered.
‘Good.’ And there was that toothpaste smile again as he began pacing again. ‘The human body is like a car. It needs to heat up before it can function properly. This will avoid the possibility of cramp, lessen the risk of injury and make you physically and mentally prepared to play good soccer. Right.’ Coach Riley clapped his hands. ‘Here we go.’
He took the team through a session of slow jogging on the spot, followed by star jumps and high-knee lifts. He moved on to flexing, lunging and lots of stretching. Side stretches, thigh stretches and groin stretches.
‘Always move slowly in and out of stretches, hold them and never stretch too far.’
After that he made them do push-ups, jump-squats and run two sprints around the perimeter of the grounds.
At the end of the run, Noggin collapsed to the ground. ‘Coach Wallace was serious about training but this is ridiculous.’
‘Do you want to make the finals or not?’ Tricky was just as puffed out but was enjoying the new harder routine.
‘Yeah, but I didn’t know I was signing up for military training,’ Jasper gasped.
‘You’re all just used to an easy ride.’ Tricky shrugged Jasper off. ‘A little hard work won’t kill you.’
‘It might,’ Aamir joked. ‘Then what will you tell my parents?’
Jasper and Lil laughed. Tricky ran ahead in a huff. The rest of the team finished their run and joined Tricky and his gung-ho attitude in the centre of the field.
Nutmeg leant forward and rested his hands on his knees, struggling for breath. ‘If I pass out can someone call an ambulance?’
Diego slapped his hand on Nutmeg’s back for support. ‘I will, if I don’t collapse first.’
Coach Riley had his clipboard in front of him and finished writing as the team slowly assembled in front of him.
‘Now for some sit-ups.’ He put the clipboard down and pulled a large, heavy looking ball from a duffle bag beside him. ‘This is a medicine ball. I want you to sit in two lines facing each other with your knees up. The first person in the line throws the ball to their partner, who catches it, lies back, sits up and passes it back. When they’ve done the same, they pass it to the player beside them.’
Jasper looked at the size of the ball and gave Aamir a lifted eyebrow look.
‘Too hard for you, Zammit?’
‘No, sir, it’s just that …’
‘Because you can sit out of this session and the game on Saturday if you can’t keep up.’
‘I can keep up.’ Jasper felt a cold chill shiver down his back.
‘Good, then let’s go.’
After the team huffed and wheezed through their sit-ups, they used the overweight ball for a session of speed passing, where the coach kept the ball alive by having the Rovers pass it in a circle to whichever player he
named. With ruddy faces and sweaty brows, they listened as Coach Riley explained their next task.
‘This exercise has been used by some of the world’s best coaches, and I guarantee when you nail this one, you’ll have much more success when it comes to playing soccer.’
Coach Riley bent down and pulled four tubes of tennis balls from his bag.
‘We’re going to train using these. It helps you hone your skills for when you use the soccer ball. It’ll take a while to get used to, but I want you to use all parts of your feet and body to trap, dribble and kick. And don’t forget, use both feet. A good soccer player masters using both feet equally well to control the ball.’
He divided the players into pairs, teaming Lil and Jasper up, and threw a tennis ball to Jasper. ‘See how you go with this, Zammit?’
‘Yes, Coach.’
Jasper and Lil moved away from the other players and began with a few simple passes. Jasper wanted to prove to the coach he was serious about training, but he found it tough getting his feet used to the smaller ball and fumbled with it as if he was a beginner.
‘This is tougher than I thought.’
‘It’ll get easier.’ Lil passed the ball to Jasper, who shot his foot out but missed it completely.
‘Why can’t I do this?’
‘Coach said it will take a while to get used to.’
‘Is it going to be sometime this century?’
Lil smiled. ‘Probably.’
Jasper ran after the ball and tried again. He looked up to see Aamir handling the ball with his feet like he had grown up playing soccer with almost any sized object, which was probably true. Aamir told Jasper he played soccer with anything he could find when he was in Afghanistan and Pakistan – rolled up rags, cans of drink, even small rocks. Jasper had a feeling you could drop a golf ball at Aamir’s feet and he would still be brilliant.
Jasper’s skills at this kind of thing were a different story altogether. He kicked the ball to Lil, who trapped it steadily with her foot.
‘How are you doing this so easily?’ Jasper’s frustration wasn’t only at how bad he was but that Lil seemed to be a natural at it.
‘It’s a state training method my brother’s coach uses. He taught it to me ages ago.’
Jasper Zammit Soccer Legend 3 Page 2
