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Chapter 46 First Training Session with the Porto Senior Team I
***24th January 2020***
Jason and Mylo arrived together at the CTFD Portogaia training center at 6:48 am both breathing heavily, but as compared to Jason's just slightly faster than normal breathing, Mylo was wheezing as if the air that was passing around had decided to ignore him and not go down his lungs.
Jason merely glanced at him before taking his eyes away, noting down Mylo's lack of stamina which seemed to be a contrast to his "stamina" elsewhere.
To be fair, there was no way Mylo would be a match for Jason in terms of something like stamina when Jason had a lifetime of experience with training methods that he had been using to train ever since he awakened in this reality, but at the same time, Mylo's stamina was a bit too poor compared to what was expected of him at academy level football.
This enlightened Jason as to why Mylo didn't make too many movements during the Familicao U-19 match and hardly ran after the ball, leaving the pressing of the opponents to his teammates.
It seemed that he knew his own inadequacy in the stamina department and tried to cover up for it by making fewer movements and conserving his stamina.
What he hadn't realized was that the youth team's staff had noticed this weakness as well. It was also probably one of the reasons why he hadn't been given a contract to the senior side.
He may have had enough ability in other areas to be able to hold his place on the senior team, but one couldn't just join the senior team rooster of a first-rate team in Europe by only being good in a few specific aspects.
Their all-round ability must reach a certain level in every aspect before they could be considered for a professional contract and Mylo was missing a few points from the criteria and one of those was his poor stamina.
However, if he kept up with what he had done this morning and had followed Jason for a run to the training center, then he should be able to at least improve his stamina a fair bit.
Normally, coming to the training center this early and while running all the way was not something that Mylo would usually do, however, Jason getting a professional contract and joining the senior team seemed to have awakened something in him and had shocked his brains enough for him to try putting in more effort in training to be able to join the senior team as well.
That was what had brought about the current situation, and he was already almost having regrets, but when he saw that Jason's breathing was significantly less compared to his wheezing, he gritted his teeth and threw away any ideas of quitting and stood up straight to follow Jason through the gates of the training enter despite his aching muscles and how hard it was to catch his breath.
Once inside the training complex's grounds, they split up and went to their various training grounds as the training grounds of the senior team and the junior team differed.
After splitting up from Mylo, Jason headed to the field that was used for the training of the senior and reserve teams of FC Porto(FC Porto and FC Porto B).
Upon arriving there he noticed that only one person had arrived and was on the field juggling the ball, the person also looked quite familiar as well.
Jason first put down his sports bag, took out his white-gold Nike Mercurial Superfly 5 CR7 FG soccer boots, and swapped them on for the new balance trainers he had on.
After putting on his cleats, he jogged onto the field while calling out to the figure juggling the ball,
"Hey Fabio," Jason called out, prompting Fabio Viera who had been juggling the ball with his full focus to look over at him in surprise.
"Ball," Jason called again, not stopping his movements and just as he requested, Fabio hit the ball high in his direction.
Jason positioned himself while waiting for the ball before jumping and using his chest to control the ball and bringing the ball down to his awaiting feet where he immediately started juggling it before hitting the ball in a low-driven pass back at Fabio.
Fabio trapped the pass and waited for Jason to run up to him before saying, "I saw the news about you joining the team, congratulations," he said with his hand stretched out for a fist bump.
"Thanks," Jason bumped his hand in acknowledgment.
"You're the only one here?" Jason asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, I usually arrive early, training usually starts at 8 unless in special situations," Fabio replied.
"... So we have about an hour before the others arrive then?" Jason said after a pause.
"Yeah," Fabio nodded affirmatively.
"That's cool, we can get a bit of extra training in then," Jason said with a smile, relieved that he wouldn't have to train alone till 8 am as it was always better training with someone.
"Alright, let's start with a two-touch rondo," Fabio said with a smile, happy to have found a training partner with similar tendencies as he did.
With a mutual agreement in place, both of them began doing simple training and warm-ups to prepare for the actual training that would commence when the whole team arrived.
By 7:30 though, two more people arrived and joined Jason and Fabio after introducing themselves to Jason as Pepe and Otavio.
Yes, it was the same Pepe who had played for Real Madrid and had won three La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey titles, and three UEFA Champions League titles and was now the captain of the FC Porto team at 36 years of age.
Otavio was a player on the senior team who had been part of the previous season's squad which had lifted the Primera Liga.
After some basic introductions between each other, they continued their training with Pepe and Otavio joining.
Soon enough, others began to arrive, but they didn't stop what they were doing.
They were now doing a two-touch rondo with one man in the middle trying to intercept the ball.
Fabio was the current middleman and was currently experiencing hell as Jason, Otavio, and Pepe passed the ball cleverly around him with less than three touches to spare, yet he was not any closer to retrieving the ball.
Luckily for him, Sergio Conceicao arrived at that moment and called for all the players to gather, putting an end to their makeshift training session.
With their pre-training at an end, Jason just kicked the ball at the open goal over 50 yards away, but he realized that he had slightly miskicked and the ball had a bit too much elevation on it and wasn't going to go into the net, but rather looked like it would hit the crossbar, so he turned away while muttering,
"Crossbar,"
*CLANG!*
As he had expected, the sound of the ball hitting the crossbar rang in his ear less than a second after he had turned away.