4
11v11
The midfield coach left the room with a big smile on his face. He had convinced the manager to have Batalla and Anderson on the same team. It was far from having them play real games together but it was a start and plus if they played anywhere close to how they played in training the manager wouldn't need too much convincing.
It was forty minutes into the match. The toll of the day's training had begun to show on the players, especially the midfielders who had run around a lot and the strikers who had spent the day making runs, thankfully it would be over soon.
Both teams were almost equally matched, the first team equally distributed amongst them. On one side there was Ivankov, Zapotocny, Batalla, Ipek and Yildrim while on the other Tandogan, Erdogan, Keceli, Cimsir, Bahadir and Sen. Equally distributed, equally matched for now.
The manager watched on as Anderson received the ball and immediately combined with Batalla once again. The chemistry was easy to see and in a few moves their team was flooding into the final third, the manager could see several passes but he could also see the danger. The only reason Batalla and co hadn't run away with this was because the other teams were stacked with first team defenders and of course Cimsir who had stopped them more than once. In a minute the whole situation changed.
Erdogan stepped into midfield and bullied Batalla off the ball. Cimsir bodied the youngster and went off intending to receive the ball higher up the pitch and he did. The manager could only see one outcome now. Batalla's team had young, inexperienced defenders who were now scrambling back, having overcommitted on the previous attack not to mention among the attackers running through was Volcan Sen, a young pacey first team winger. None of the defenders on the other side could stop him.
The manager waited for Cimsir to deliver the killer ball but then…
Anderson came out of nowhere!!! It seems he didn't give up on the play after he was bodied to the ground. He got off the ground quickly and not only managed to get past Cimsir but nutmegged him before booting the ball seemingly into nowhere.
Batalla appeared where the ball landed and danced past the captain and released a perfect through ball with his left. Yidrim ran onto it and smashed it into the net before the poor second choice keeper could even react.
The team erupted into celebration, it was clear that it was a difficult match and that's exactly what the manager wanted. Batalla and co managed to control the game until the manager blew the final whistle. It was only a half of football anyway.
"Good game boys, the league starts soon so keep focused and keep going. We meet tomorrow same time."
Players on Batallas team stayed behind still celebrating and taking the customary winning team photo. The photographer then asked for a picture of Batalla and Anderson together as the winning midfield duo. Anderson was sheepish but Batalla took it comfortably raising his arms and attempting to flex his muscles which caused Anderson to laugh resulting in a cute photo of the duo.
"Hey want to stay back and work on freekicks?" Batalla asked as the field began to clear out.
Anderson agreed, he didn't have anything better to do anyway.