After over two hours in the air, the players finally arrived at Villarreal and just like always, a bus came to pick them up and drop them where they were going to be staying for the night.
Compared to Italy, the weather in Spain during this period of the year was quite cold and for that reason, the hotel had their heaters turned on to make sure that their guests had a warm and comfortable stay.
As always, the players had to share rooms, but this time, things were a little bit different.
Instead of two people per room, they were going to go with three people per room today, the reason being that the rooms they had here was just enough for that and they would also be saving some money no matter how small.
Mateo was with Dave as expected and as for their third roommate.
Minino wanted to join them but Mateo quickly shook him off, his past experience of sharing a room with the midfielder wasn't something he could easily forget.
Roland asked to join them after hearing him shake Minino off and the winger didn't hesitate in saying yes.
"Hey, Mateo, I already said that was never going to happen again, I'm a changed person now," Minino said as the winger slowly walked away with Roland.
"Yeah, but I don't want to find out about it today, maybe next time," Mateo replied.
Picking Roland over Minino as a roommate was simply the best choice for anybody because Minino, according to almost everyone on the team was the worst roommate ever.
Mateo was someone who loved the room to be tranquil whenever he was resting and because Roland was a quiet person naturally, he was the perfect roommate for him to have after Dave.
Now that the three were in their room, they started setting up their things in the way they were supposed to be.
Dave was the first person to finish, and as soon as he was done, he crashed down on his bed and let out a deep sigh.
"What have you been doing today that you got exhausted to this extent?" Mateo asked after turning his gaze to the goalkeeper.
He had a reason for asking that question and it wasn't just because of what happened now.
Just a few minutes after the flight took off, the goalkeeper started feeling drowsy and even now that they were in the hotel, it was still in his eyes.
"I did a lot of things today, Mateo." The goalkeeper muttered.
"A lot of things like what?"
"Well, I started out with running fifteen kilometers then I ended up spending most of the day in the gym, I didn't even know when I slept off in there." The goalkeeper explained with his eyes fluttering.
"Wow, you completely ignored the coach's instruction," Roland said.
"Shhh…. don't say that out loud, I'll be back to full strength as long as I get a good rest tonight," Dave muttered.
'My energy recovery is faster than you would expect anyway.'
<You know you could just tell them you were trying to complete a quest>
'Ha, stop joking with me, Catherine.'
"So, you're not going to check out the Estadia de la Ceràmica?" Mateo asked.
"No, and it's not really a big deal, I've been there before." The goalkeeper muttered.
"Alright, then, I guess I'll go see it without you." The winger said as he slowly made his way to the door. "You coming, Roland?"
"Yeah."
Dave kept his gaze on the door until the two left, after that, he slowly turned to the other side.
[ Biceps: 75% ]
[ Triceps: 70% ]
'Three days, right, I should be able to finish it the day after tomorrow or even tomorrow if the match doesn't exhaust me.'
<Yeah, probably>
"Yeah, it's almost done." He muttered with a frail voice before he slowly closed his eyes and dozed off.
_________ _________
The goalkeeper made sure to turn off his dream control before falling asleep to make sure that he would get that feeling of having a proper rest after getting up the next day.
The next day came by soon and that seemed to have worked pretty well for him as he woke up feeling as refreshed as ever.
He turned his gaze to his roommates to see that both of them were still asleep.
"Still asleep." He muttered before turning his gaze to the wall clock to see that the time was 5:40 AM.
<Guess you woke up a little too early>
'Well, I slept way too early without eating dinner so I guess it was expected.' Dave replied before sitting up on his bed.
Because of what happened yesterday, he didn't want to overexert himself with anything so he just did a few pushups in the room before he made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth and definitely find something to eat because he was starving having gone to bed last night without eating anything.
The match was set to kick off by 6:00 PM and that meant the players had a lot of time to train, rest and do anything they wanted to do before the match as long as it wasn't going to affect their form in the match.
Norman took his boys to the stadium by 11:00 AM for a short practice before the match and it was quite nice to see that the yellow submarine players had gotten there ahead of them for a short training session.
After practicing for a while, the players from both teams decided to take a break and that was the opportunity they got to converse with each other for those who wanted to do that of course.
"Hey, you must be, Mateo, right?"
Mateo was sitting on the floor at that moment beside Dave and slowly turned his gaze to his side where he heard the voice come from to see that a Villarreal player was sitting beside him.
"Yeah, that's me," Mateo responded with a nod.
"Cool, I don't know if you've heard of me, I joined the club this season from Celtic, the name's Fraser, Fraser Hamish." The player said before stretching his hand for a handshake which Mateo didn't have any problem accepting.
Looking at Fraser, he seemed to be about the same age as Mateo, you could even say he looked younger.
"The one sitting beside you is Dave, right?" Fraser inquired.
"Yeah," Mateo replied with a nod.
"Fraser, right? Aren't you the one who scored all two goals against West Ham United?" Dave said. " You're the nineteen-year-old right winger, right?"
"Yeah, looks like you did your research on me."
"Um….I always look into potential threats to my goalpost before a game against an opponent I'm facing for the first time, it's a habit." The goalkeeper expressed.
"Well, I guess that's normal for everyone," Fraser said. "I saw what you guys did to Lazio, that was pretty scary, I don't know how we'll able to hold you down."
To those, words, Dave and Mateo didn't really have any comment to make.
<You guys shouldn't give that kid any free space, he seems to be quite deadly whenever he's given enough space>
'Yeah, I'll tell coach about that, and since he's playing on the right, Roland will be the one taking care of him most of the time so I'm not that worried.'
After a few more minutes of training, it was finally time for the players to head back to where they were staying and get some rest before the match.
'No advanced quest was triggered this time, that's quite strange.'
<I don't know, maybe there was nothing for an advanced quest>
'Maybe, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what I get for the match quest.'
Time moved while the players did what they wanted to do with their free time and now that the time was just 5:52 PM, the players were all lined up in front of the tunnel waiting for the signal to start making their way to the pitch.
Villarreal were obviously putting on their famous yellow home kit, were Unique FC were putting on their custom-made away kit for the Europa Conference League.
It didn't take long before they were given the signal to start making their way to the pitch and that was when they started matching onto the pitch.
Jim and Steve gave their introductions and welcomed everyone and now it was time for the coin toss.
Unique FC ended up winning the coin toss which meant that they were going to be the ones to start the match from the kick-off spot.
"This is quite a match we have today, this match will decide who will be at the top of the group table at the end of match day two," Jim said.
"Unique FC are slightly the better team on paper after what they did to Lazio, but let's see how things play out," Steve commented.
[ Conjoined quest received ]
[ Complete five long passes ]
[ Make three one-touch saves ]
[ Quest rewards ]
[ +1 attribute point ]
[ +3 stat points ]
[ +6 skill upgrade points ]
[ +150 exp ]
'Okay, that seems to be fairly reasonable.' Dave said subconsciously as he made his way to his goalpost.
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