My Goalkeeping System



Funding out that the team you were going to be facing in two days trashed the league leaders in their league five goals to nothing was pretty frightening.

If it was just a one-goal victory or a two-goal victory perhaps it might be dismissed as some lucky win and that happens in football but there was no way scoring five goals without conceding any could be considered lucky.

If PSG were in a poor form of struggling to win matches and drawing most of their last matches then that result wouldn't be all that shocking but they had been in great form so far, they even trashed their last opponents before Lyon, six goals to two.

After finding out about that result, Dave told his teammates, the three that were there at least, to not worry about it.

He assured them that they were going to pull through no matter what kind of storm Lyon might come to that match with.

Those were his words but even he didn't believe that much, he told them not to think about it but thoughts of it kept on popping up in his mind frequently during their training session.

It was quite true that they got a huge leap in strength this season, that was why they had managed to get so far, but there was a limit to that or to be precise, they were no super team.

They could beat most of the teams in the league this season and could even rival the strength of Supreme United and Dynamo FC now but they haven't really met any tough teams so far and that was about to start changing in the Europa Conference League round of sixteen.

'You know I would have been glad if I never found out about this scoreline because my mind is starting to overthink things but I guess it's for the best, now I know to not attempt pulling any punches with them, I'll have to use everything in my arsenal.'

<You're hilarious, so you were planning to pull your punches with them?>

'No, I was just saying that I wasn't planning to activate any attribute from the start, but I might do that now.'

<Oh, and which attribute are you going to activate? I see you haven't really made up your mind yet>

'Yeah, I was wondering.'

<About what?>

'I haven't tried it before but is it possible to activate two attributes at once in a match?'

<Oh, so that's what it is>

'Yeah.'

<Well, the answer is simply...no>

'Can't say I wasn't expecting it.'

<However, it can be made possible with a little tweaking by me but I won't do that because activating two attributes at once is too dangerous and has a good chance of sending you to your early grave even before the match reaches halftime and without you doing anything>

'Oh, I see but since when are you able to tweak the system's programming?'

<Since you got the system but it is only for some minor parts>

'Oh, so making it so that I can use something that can kill me is a minor part of the system?'

<Yeah>

'That makes perfect sense.'

<I know you're being sarcastic>

'Well, of course I am.'

Today's training session was one of those sessions that Norman took really seriously and he was supervising everything mostly on his own to make sure none of the players were goofing off.

They went from rondos, to shooting practices, and precise accuracy training but this time from closer range and every other thing they usually did during training sessions.

Norman made sure they spent the most time on the precise accuracy training because the amount of big chances his team missed in a lot of matches was really worrying.

The record for the most big chances missed so far this season belonged to them yet they were still the team with the most goals scored this season.

That was something really impressive but the point was that if they had scored half of those chances missed they would have way more goals now and perhaps they would also be a couple of points ahead of Supreme United at the top of the table.

If they had to beat then this finishing problem had to be fixed.

<You know if you guys get a deadly striker, one of Roland Hills' level at least, a lot of matches would be easier for you, and Mateo wouldn't have to do most of the work alone most of the time and stick mostly to creating chances which he does really well>

Dave was just standing by the side watching the players try to hit the target placed on the left side of the goalpost from twenty-five yards out when Catherine said that.

'Yeah, but as you can see there were no summer transfers for us probably because the club is running low on funds.' Dave replied. 'But Fredinho is doing okay at least and despite being young Gregory is quite clinical in front of goal.'

<Yeah, my thoughts are that Fred should be sold and then a new striker who knows his stuff should be brought in, Fredinho and Gregory can be his backup>

'If that's going to happen, I won't be here to closely see how it works out. This season is almost coming to an end, I just hope I don't leave the club without making a good impact but making a great impact would be great.'

<And by that you mean winning the treble?>

'Precisely.'

The training session had to come to an end after a couple of hours and now that it was over, the players had to make their way to the locker room to hear what Norman had to say about their tactics, formation, and lineup.

He didn't talk about them yesterday and since they were going to be leaving for Lyon in the evening tomorrow.

"There really isn't going to be any changes to our lineup except that Frankie will be starting in the defensive midfield position and Pirlo will be starting in the center back position alongside Adolf." He revealed after standing in front of the players for a while without saying anything. "Now for the tactics, let's just say we will be using a more offensive style of play, you don't usually get involved in the attack but I want to see you moving up front to aid Merino.

"Frankie will be the main link-up between the midfield and defense and he will also be there to cover up the spaces left by the defense when moving up front and Mateo, you have a free role as always do whatever you can to make sure we get an early lead but don't go overboard, I would have given you the primary role of creation but you're arguably the best finisher in the squad."

That was just the basics of everything he had laid out because he wasn't really done analyzing his tactics but he wanted to tell them about this bit so that things would be easier for him tomorrow.

________ ________

A couple of hours passed and Wednesday was finally here, the day the players were going to be making their trip to Lyon.

They had a training session that morning and by evening, they were already on their way to Lyon.

"This is going to be my first time in France," Mateo remarked with a hint of excitement in his voice before turning his gaze to Dave who was sitting beside him.

"Yeah, me too." Dave smiled. "We wouldn't be making trips like this if we had not qualified for the Europa Conference League."

"Well, we could always do that when we have breaks but you're right, making a trip to other countries for matches just gives a different feeling, that feeling that gets your blood pumping." The winger replied.

"Mhm." Dave nodded.

It took them almost two hours to arrive at the airport and they could see through the windows that the sky was almost completely dark with the stars becoming visible now.

A bus was already waiting to pick them up as they alighted the aircraft and they wasted no time getting on it.

The streets of Lyon were brightly lit as they drove down it and there were a couple of shops open with a good number of people walking up and down but compared to the streets of Switzerland this wasn't really that much.

It didn't take long for them to get to the hotel where they were going to be staying and as soon as they got down from the bus, it turned around and drove off.

While his teammates had already begun making their way inside the building, Dave slowly looked up before taking a deep breath and just as he was about to take a step forward with the traveling box he was dragging along something happened.

[ System deactivated ]

'Um…Catherine, what's going on?'

<I think it's another glitch>

****

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'm feeling a bit under the weather today so you'll just have to do with this one.