My Goalkeeping System



'Hey, Catherine, you have roughly accurate information of what SS Lazio players should be able to do in a match, right?'

The goalkeeper was back in his room now and had his gaze on the ceiling as he lay on his back.

<Yeah, I have that kind of information about almost every team in Europe but it's not as accurate as you think>

'That's okay, seeing a little bit of what they can do is okay.' He said subconsciously before turning his gaze to Mateo to see that he was already fast asleep.

He returned his gaze to the ceiling and didn't move it away from there for a while until his eyes began to get heavy and finally, he shut them and dozed off.

Just a few minutes after falling asleep, he found himself in the empty white space with Catherine standing right in front of him with that expressionless look on her face.

"What did you do to your hair?" The goalkeeper asked with a puzzled look on his face.

She had silver hair now and the glasses she had on when he saw her last were gone.

"What, don't you like it?"

"No, it's not that, the silver hair looks fine and you, I just wish you would keep up one appearance." He replied.

"One appearance? But the only thing I did was change my hair and remove the glasses, my face is the same.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, just forget it, let's get on with what I'm here for." He said before shaking his head.

"Okay."

As soon as she said that, the whole scenery began to change as he suddenly found himself standing between the sticks in the Stadio Olimpico with the pitch filled with his teammates and SS Lazio players.

The stands were filled with fans from both teams and they were all cheering loudly for the team they were supporting.

It looked like Lazio were going to be the ones to start the match from the kick-off spot as a player with the name Carrigher written above the number nine on the back of his jersey was standing over the ball there.

He was obviously waiting for the referee's whistle, and as soon as he heard it, he quickly passed the ball to his closest teammate.

Dave was quite surprised by how well his fake teammates were able to control the game but he sure had a lot of shots to deal with and almost all of them came from outside the box.

Andrea Enzo managed to find his way around Roland with neat footwork and once he got a little closer to the edge of the box, he fired the ball toward the goalpost.

Fortunately, the ball was sent flying toward the top right-hand side of the goalpost meaning that it was quite close to Dave who was able to easily send it over the bar with a punch.

"That's the fourth shot from him in fifteen minutes." The goalkeeper muttered with a puzzled look on his face.

'They have players who can comfortably score from a distance, if you didn't leave at that time, you would have known that this is the reason why your coach wants two defensive midfielders in this match.' Catherine explained.

"Players that can comfortably score from outside the box, that's scary but, noted."

_________ ________

The goalkeeper spent thirty minutes there which was the time required for the night to be exhausted in the real world.

He wasn't able to finish that match but he was able to learn a couple of things from it.

'Fierce but somehow we managed to get a goal without them scoring.' He said subconsciously before sitting up on his bed.

<Yeah, you did a good job of stopping them without using any of your abilities>

Dave didn't reply to that as he turned his gaze toward Mateo's bed to see that he wasn't there.

"He left already?" He muttered before picking up his phone to see that the time was just 6:00 AM.

The match was set to kick off by 4:00 PM and that meant that the players had some time for a training session before the match.

Norman took his boys to the Stadio Olimpico in the morning for a short training session before they returned to the hotel to rest and get ready for the match.

"I'm quite surprised they didn't show up until we ended our session," Dave said before slowly sitting down on his bed.

"Maybe they're going to do it later before the match starts or they're not planning to train until the pre-match warm-up," Mateo said before pulling off his shirt.

"Yeah, maybe," Dave said before getting up from his bed. "I'm going to take a shower."

_______ _______

There was an hour left before the match kicked off and right now the players from both teams were on the pitch warming up for the match.

Dave was supposed to be in the goalpost telling someone to try a shoot out against him, but he was out on the pitch juggling a ball with both of his feet and other parts of his body.

"Hey, Dave, pass the ball over here," Fredinho said as he made his way to the goalkeeper from behind.

"Sure," Dave said before he quickly turned toward him and sent the ball flying to the striker.

Fredinho stopped the ball with his head before he brought it down and began to joggle it with his feet.

"You know I was just talking with their goalkeeper." He said before sending the ball back to Dave who was able to neatly catch the ball with his foot in mid-air.

"Jorge?"

"Yeah, he seems to be quite excited to face us and he asked me to tell you if he could get your shirt after the match." Fredinho expressed before catching the ball with his foot.

"Oh, sure, but he could have just come to ask himself, I also wanted his shirt," Dave said.

"Um….he seemed to be quite busy with what he was doing, I was the one who went over to his side." The striker said.

<Lazio players are quite nice, don't you think>

'Yeah, they seem to be nice people but does that extend to the pitch.'

<Nobody is nice in a football match, Dave, every player will do everything possible to make sure his team wins and you're no exception>

'Yeah, you got that right, you have to be ruthless when you're fighting for something.'

There was only ten minutes left before the match kicked off and right now, the players from both teams were lined up in the tunnel's exit waiting for the signal to start making their way to the pitch.

Lazio were putting on their normal home jersey which was the blue shirt and white shorts kit and their goalkeeper was putting on a lemon-green kit just like Dave.

Unique FC, on the other hand, were putting on their custom-made away kit made specifically for the Europa Conference league.

It was a black kit with broken orange stripes on the upper part and a couple of orange polka dots below, the short was just plain black.

The players stayed for just a few minutes before they were given the signal to start making their way to the pitch.

"Welcome to our viewers from all around the world, it's your regular commentator Jim Waterson and with me here as you all have guessed already is Mr. Steve Jefferson." Jim expressed as the players made their way to the pitch.

"Welcome everyone, it's match day one of the Europa conference league group stage and we have Lazio facing off against a team that hasn't been in this competition for a while." Steve articulated.

"It was a really close call for them in the second leg of that qualifiers match, FC Basel were quite close to eliminating them, but Mateo came in clutch to make sure his team made it this far," Jim said. "Unique FC has been an outstanding team this season both in the league and in Europe, I can't wait to see how this match will turn out."

The captains from both teams went to the officials for the coin toss, and at the end of the day, Lazio ended up winning which meant that they were going to choose a goalpost first and were going to be the ones to start the match from the kick-off spot.

[ Conjoined quest received ]

[ Thwart two counterattack opportunities ]

[ Make seven crucial saves ]

[ Quest rewards ]

[ +2 attribute points ]

[ +150 exp ]

[ +3 stat points ]

[ +5 skill upgrade points ]

'At least it's not linked to the one I got yesterday.' He said subconsciously as he made his way to his goalpost.

Carrigher was standing over the ball now waiting for the referee's whistle and as soon as he heard it, he quickly passed the ball to the midfielder close to him who immediately sent it flying toward Andrea who had just zoomed past Roland.

"Oh, it's that quick kickoff attack."

Andrea could have done something with that chance but unfortunately for him, Dave got to the ball first and sent it flying out toward their side and out for a throw-in.

"Wow, Dave Richards' gotten really fast, or has he always been that fast?"

"You seem to be quite better than I thought," Andrea muttered before he turned and slowly began to move back to his side.

"That's one opportunity thwarted," Dave muttered after letting out a sigh.