Chapter 144: Volume 2, - 144: Second Balls

Chapter 144: Volume 2, Chapter 144: Second Balls

The damp training grass outside Liverpool bit back beneath Rayan’s studs, short-cut and slick from the morning drizzle.l

At 10:00 sharp, the intensity shifted with a sharp, double-toned blast from Rui’s whistle. The easy, restorative pacing of the previous afternoon was entirely gone, replaced by a dense, suffocating block of high-contact training designed to prepare them for Everton’s physical demands. The air was thick with the scent of damp grass, liniment, and sweat, and the players were already breathing hard within ten minutes of the warm-up.

"Second!" Morino barked, spinning away from a tight marker and clipping a driven ball into the feet of a central midfielder.

"Drop! Drop!" Coatez roared from the centre of the back three, organising the defensive line as the white-bibbed attacking unit surged forward.

Rayan tracked back on the left flank, his boots digging into the firm turf as he shadowed Ricardo Esgaia. The reality of senior training hit him like a wall. Every time the ball came loose in the central channel, it became a violent contest of shoulders, arms, and raw momentum.

"Win it!" Viktor shouted, leaning shoulder-to-shoulder into the centre-back as they fought for position to contest a high, looping clearance from the keeper.

The ball dropped out of the grey sky with heavy spin.

"Man on! Set it!" Morel yelled across the pitch, shouting the warning just as Rayan sprinted in to claim the knockdown.

Before Rayan could cushion the bouncing leather, a heavy shoulder-to-shoulder challenge caught him cleanly from the side, establishing immediate leverage. Rayan’s breath left him in a sharp wheeze, and the ball bounced off his shin, skidding away toward the touchline.

Rayan let out a frustrated grunt, picking himself up off the damp turf and shaking out his arms. At fifteen years old and sixty-one kilograms, he couldn’t outmuscle men who had five or ten years of professional conditioning on him; trying to win a direct physical duel was a losing battle.

’Scan earlier. Position the body. Release faster.’

The restart came immediately. Another long, contested ball floated out of midfield, dropping into the left channel where Rayan was stationed. This time, instead of waiting for the collision, Rayan checked his shoulder a second earlier, kept his centre of gravity low, and used his body to shield the space between the defender and the ball. As the pressure arrived, he didn’t try to absorb the impact; he cushioned a one-touch layoff into the path of Morino’s overlapping run and spun off the contact.

"Inside! Move!" Morino called, snapping a return pass back into Rayan’s path.

Rayan received it on the half-turn, sliding the ball past an oncoming midfielder with a quick, instinctive touch. For a split second, an opening appeared ahead of him, a narrow corridor of green grass leading toward the edge of the penalty box. He attempted a basic, functional step-over to unbalance the retreating full-back, his right foot sweeping over the top of the ball before pushing it forward. It wasn’t clean or flashy, but it shifted the defender’s weight just enough.

"Runner! Set!" Pedro yelled, darting into the pocket.

Rayan released the ball instantly, feeding it through the narrow gap before the second central defender could slide across to close him down.

"Good movement! Keep the tempo!" Rui shouted from the centre circle, his voice carrying over the sound of studs grinding into the turf.

The session was carefully segmented to manage load, breaking the high-intensity blocks with short, sharp tactical resets. During one such pause, a performance assistant stopped beside him, tablet tucked against his forearm.

"Calves?" the assistant asked quietly.

"Heavy. No tightness."

"Any pull when you accelerate?"

"No."

The assistant watched him perform two short calf raises, glanced back at the tablet, then pointed toward the water bottles. "Drink. Two minutes. You’re in the next set."

Rayan nodded, taking a hurried gulp from his bottle while the assistant moved on to check Morel. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath in the damp wind, the accumulated load of the morning reminding him precisely of his age and weight disadvantage against senior professionals.

"El Mansouri," Rui called sharply, catching Rayan’s eye without raising his voice. "You’re holding the ball a fraction too long when the pressure comes. If you wait for them to set, you’re dead on this pitch. One touch, move it, find space. Stop trying to carry it out of traffic."

"Understood, boss," Rayan nodded, wiping a streak of sweat from his forehead.

Rui blew his whistle again. "Set! Play!"

The final small-sided tactical games resumed in a relentless blur of transition and recovery. Eager to impress, Rayan instinctively started to jump out of the left side of the pitch to intercept an aerial second ball before it reached the opposition midfielder, but he caught himself midway, remembering Coatez’s organisational demands. Instead of gambling on the interception, Rayan checked his momentum, held his defensive distance on the wing, and let the initial pass travel.

As the opposing midfielder took his first touch, heavy and slightly loose under pressure. Rayan closed the remaining yards sharply, cutting off the inside passing lane and forcing the carrier to turn all the way back toward his own central defenders.

"Stay! Good hold, Rayan!" Coatez barked from the defensive line, nodding his approval as Sporting compressed the space.

Rayan kept his position, maintaining discipline and closing down passing angles rather than chasing individual glory. Every time Sporting lost possession, the defensive shape snapped into a coordinated press, cutting off passing lanes and forcing hurried long balls back toward the halfway line.

By the time the morning session officially drew to a close nearly ninety minutes later, Rayan’s legs felt like lead weights, and his entire upper body ached from the constant shoulder-to-shoulder collisions. Players bent double with their hands on their thighs as the final whistle echoed across the turf, breathing heavily into the damp air.

Along the touchline, the fitness staff moved quickly, collecting the GPS tracking pods from the mesh pockets at the back of the players’ training vests and clicking them neatly into charging trays. One of the performance staff stood beside the charging trays, tablet open as he reviewed the session loads. Vasco waited near the tunnel entrance with his clipboard, ticking off names and directing players toward their recovery groups.

"Keep walking, don’t just stand there," a conditioning coach instructed, steering a group of slow-moving players toward the indoor recovery corridor.

A few yards away, Morino and Esgaia were bickering good-naturedly over whether the white bibs had crossed the line during the final transition sequence, their voices echoing off the brick facade of the training facility.

Eduardo Quaresmo walked past, dripping with sweat, and gave Rayan’s sweat-soaked shoulder a heavy, friendly thump as they fell into step together toward the shade of the tunnel.

"Well, kid?" Quaresmo grinned, wiping his face with a training bib. "How does senior training feel compared to the academy?"

"Heavy," Rayan managed, gasping out a breath as he straightened up slowly, feeling his muscles instantly begin to stiffen in the cooler air off the grass. "Everything happens twice as fast."

"Welcome to senior training," Quaresmo laughed, turning toward the interior doors. "Nobody gives you time because you got bumped. Get inside, drink your electrolytes, and get to the physio room before Vasco starts hunting for people."

The coaching staff were already waving the remaining players off the pitch, directing them toward the indoor recovery corridor as the morning session officially came to an end.