The players' day off came to a swift end, and now that it was all in the past, they had to jump straight back into training because they had a lot coming up.
Their next opponents Ronino FC weren't really in a good place in the League at that moment, they were currently sitting in ninth place, but after what they did against them in their first meeting this season, Norman had to make sure they took them seriously.
The players were now in their first training session after their day off and it was looking pretty nice for them.
Norman made them start with a couple of stretches and other relaxation techniques before moving on to the more serious part of their training session.
He had something interesting in mind for the training session today and it looked like it was finally time to try it out.
The players had to gather in front of him now for him to explain his interesting idea to them.
He carefully observed them as if he was counting them in his mind, and after that, he cleared his throat.
"Now, listen up everyone, what I'm going to be doing now is testing out trio attacking capabilities and at the same time the defense's defending capabilities." He illustrated. "What we will be doing is just the attacking trio going up against the defense starting from the center of the pitch. I want to see how this will turn out without any help from the midfield or anyone from defense, just the three of you against the defense.
"Also, bear in mind that I can switch out anyone from the attacking trio after each round, and the round ends when anyone from the attacking trio sends the ball out, be it a throw-in or goal kick."
<This sounds like it will be interesting>
'Yeah.'
"Now for the starting attacking trio, I want Mateo on the left, Fredinho in the middle, and Merino on the right." He disclosed. "And for defense, I want Aima and Adolf in the middle, Norman on the right, and Roland on the left. Now, everyone mentioned in defense, please move to your positions and the attacking trio, your starting position is the center of the pitch."
After calling out everyone involved in the practice, they quickly began to make their way to their positions but something or someone was missing.
"Isn't a goalkeeper needed?" Dave muttered before quickly turning his gaze to Norman. "Hey, coach." He called.
"Yes, Dave, you're the goalkeeper."
"Oh." The goalkeeper said in realization before quickly making his way to the goalpost.
<Oh, Dave>
'What?'
<Never mind>
'Good, you better keep it to yourself.'
<I intend to, I wouldn't have said never mind otherwise>
With Dave now in the goalpost, the defense were complete with the attacking trio at the center of the pitch.
"Now, before we start, I would like to add one more thing, all the rules of a normal football match exist in this practice session and you'll have to make sure the ball doesn't cross to the other side of the pitch which has nothing to do with what we're doing now because that will also count as round end, got that?" He explained before blowing his whistle.
That was the signal to kick off the practice session, and as soon as Fredinho heard it, he quickly pushed the ball to Mateo before he began to head down with Aima quickly heading toward them.
Mateo had to send the ball back to Fredinho just before Aima could get to him, and without hesitation, the striker linked it forward to Merino.
Merino raced straight toward Roland with the ball as Aima quickly headed back to his position, and just before he could run into the left back he pulled the back to Fredinho who quickly sent it rolling to Mateo with his first touch.
Norman quickly rushed out to try and take the ball off the winger with a sliding tackle, but he should have learned from their opponents that doing something like that against the winger, is always most likely to fail.
Well, this time wasn't an exception because the winger ended up chipping the ball over him before quickly jumping over him to get his foot on the ball.
"Don't let him through, Aima!" Adolf yelled before quickly pointing to the left where the winger was coming in from.
Aima quickly rushed toward the winger to try and stop him, but all it took Mateo to get past him was a neat nutmeg.
Now he had clear sight of the goalpost with the only one close enough to stop him being Adolf but the winger had no plans on letting him get close to him before unleashing the shot.
He fired the ball straight to the bottom left side, and just before Dave could get to it with his foot, the ball had already crossed the line before smashing straight into the net.
"Well, that was fast," Minino commented from the sidelines.
"Good job." Norman sniffled before moving a little closer to the goalpost. "But this isn't exactly what I want to see, Mateo did almost all the work there, what I wanted to see was a proper link-up in getting past the defense but Mateo eliminated two of them on his own."
"But dribbling is part of what helps us when we attack," Fredinho interjected.
"Yeah, but he overdid it, individual brilliance doesn't always work in matches and what I want to see with this part of the training session is how well you guys link up, not how well one person can do almost everything on his own with just a little help from his teammates." The coach expounded on what he really wanted to see to give the players a clearer idea of what they needed to do.
"So, no dribbling?" Mateo inquired with his gaze on him.
"Yes, Mateo, no dribbling, and if you must, dribbling past one person is enough, don't try to take everyone on," Norman replied.
"Okay." The winger responded with a nod.
"Alright, then, I'll give you guys a retry, get back to the kick-off spot.
_______ _______
That part of the training session was quite fun for the players because Norman got to test out a lot of interesting trios.
The midfielders thought they weren't going to be part of this but they were wrong because Norman wanted to test out a couple of trios with them, and that was where the interesting trios came from.
He was quite pleased with the results he got because he was able to spot how every single trio performed plus their individual capabilities in that wing, and now, he was going to use all that information to try and make his team better.
The training session was over now and all the players were in the locker room to listen to how they were going into this match against Ronino FC, in other words, their tactics, formation, and things to take note of.
They were all sitting down now with Norman standing in front of them.
"The most important factor for winning this match is acting quickly, they somehow managed to hold us down in our first meeting but if we strike them fast multiple times then that will become pointless for them." He articulated with his hand on his chin. "The problem now is, can you guys execute it fast enough?"
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