My Goalkeeping System

"Oh, come on," Dave said in frustration as he watched the ball fly past the crossbar.

<That was really close>

\'I don\'t care about how really close it gets, I just want it to hit the damn crossbar.\'

He took a few steps backward before closing up on the second ball and with a kick, he sent it flying toward his target.

He watched the ball as it flew toward the crossbar and smashed on it before falling over.

"Yes!" He said with an excited voice.

<That\'s one out of two, I think you\'re off to a good start>

The next two balls had flown past the crossbar without touching it but they had both come really close to hitting it.

"Off to a good start." He muttered before biting his lower lip.

<You were off to a good start until you missed those two and now it\'s one out of four>

\'You don\'t need to remind me of that.\'

He stared at the last ball on the floor and took a deep breath before closing his eyes.

He pulled his leg back and kicked the ball with less short power and more precision.

The ball came the closest to hitting the crossbar this time but it didn\'t touch it and fell behind the goalpost.

Dave let out a deep sigh before slowly sitting down on the floor.

[ Quest Failed ]

<You just need a little more practice>

"Hey, that was a really good kick."

Dave turned to see Mateo approaching him with a ball in his hand.

"Yeah, but I would have loved it to hit the crossbar," Dave said.

"At least you\'re starting to get the hang of it," Mateo said before throwing the ball up.

He stopped the ball from hitting the floor with his right foot and jogged it for a while with both feet before he sent it flying toward the crossbar.

The ball flew straight toward the goalpost and slammed on the top right-hand crossbar before falling over.

"Waooh," Dave said in amazement.

"It\'s a little something I\'ve been trying to perfect, to be honest, I didn\'t expect it to hit the crossbar." He said.

"You have really good aiming with your right foot especially."

"You also have good aiming, if not you wouldn\'t have been able to set me up for those goals, you just have to keep practicing to get better, I\'m still practicing to get better," Mateo said.

<Exactly>

After about four hours, the training for the day had come to an end and now it was time for them to start heading back to their various homes.

Dave and Mateo were the last players to enter the locker room.

The goalkeeper walked straight to his locker, opened it, and brought out his phone to see that he had gotten seven missed calls from Clark.

\'Oh, dear.\' He said subconsciously as he picked up the phone.

He was about to call him when his phone began to vibrate with an incoming call from Clark.

"Hello." He said after quickly picking up the call and holding up the phone horizontally instead of placing it against his ear.

"Hi, Dave, I\'m on my way to your house now," Clark said as his voice resounded from the phone\'s speaker.

"Okay, I\'m at the stadium but we just ended the training session so I\'m heading there right now," Dave said.

"Okay," Clark said before ending the call.

"Was that Clark?" Mateo asked, heading to him now, the call was on loudspeaker so he heard some of the things Clark had said from the other end.

"Yeah, he wants to discuss something important with me, I have to go," Dave said before quickly making his way out of the room.

He made his way to his car as soon as he was outside and he didn\'t waste any time in starting the engine and zooming off as soon as he entered the car.

It didn\'t take him long to arrive at his destination and after parking his car in his normal parking spot, he got down from it and walked toward his front door to see Clark standing there.

"Hey," Clark said with a little wave as soon as he spotted him.

"Hey," Dave said, walking up to him.

"Is Emma not around because I\'ve been knocking for quite a while now and there has been no response?" Clark asked.

"Yeah, she\'s not around, she works for UCPD now," Dave replied before opening the door.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot she had that appointment this Monday. I\'m glad she got the job."

"Me too," Dave said before walking into the house.

The goalkeeper walked straight to the kitchen to bring drinks for the both of them while Clark walked to the couch and sat down there.

It didn\'t take long before Dave returned with a bottle of wine and two glass cups.

"So, have you read that email?" Clark asked as Dave went on to fill the second glass cup.

"I forgot to tell you," Dave said before picking up one of the filled cups and handing it to him.

"Tell me what?" Clark asked, taking the drink from him.

"I didn\'t see any e-mail." He said before picking up his own glass and taking a sip from it.

"Did you check your spam folder?"

"Now that you\'ve mentioned it, I realize that I didn\'t check it." He said before slowly pulling out his phone from his pocket and checking his spam folder. "Oh, there it is."

"Let me see," Clark said, reaching for the phone.

Dave handed him the phone and after properly going through it, he turned his gaze to him.

"Okay, it\'s saying the same thing." He said before dropping his glass of wine on the table.

"Let me see," Dave said, taking the phone from him.

He slowly read the contents before turning his gaze to Clark.

"Well, they didn\'t drop much details about the contract and stuff." He said.

"Yeah but I\'ve already contacted them and they\'ve dropped the details for me, they are giving you a pretty good offer if you ask me."

"Before I make any decisions, I want to know how many players they have sponsorship deals with," Dave said.

"They have a lot of players under their wings across Europe and beyond, they also have a lot of popular players working with them," Clark explained.

"Give me a name or names."

"Roland Hills, Alphonso De Lena," Clark said.

"Wait, Alphonso, De Lena, Arsenal\'s goalkeeper?"

"Yeah, that one," Clark said. "You should also know that they are one of the official sponsors of AC Milan."

"You can\'t be serious," Dave said, shaking his head.

"I am," Clark said before he brought out his phone from his pocket and played a video. "See for yourself." He said, handing Dave the phone.

Dave took the phone from him which currently had a commercial video playing on it.

The video had almost all the AC Milan teams in it and they were promoting Footy Wears\' products.

"Wow." He said after the video ended with Footy Wears\' logo which was a blue circle with two boots crossed against each other in the middle.

"They may be smaller than Adidas and Nike but that doesn\'t mean they are as small as most people would think and they are offering you sixty-five thousand euros per week," Clark said.

<That\'s a pretty good deal>

"I agree," Dave muttered with a smile on his face.

***

Hope you enjoyed the chapter?

If I get up to a hundred golden tickets before the end of the month I will release six chapters on the first of December.