Reincarnated as a Footballer 2 Five Years Later

It was daytime and the sun was scorching on the public football ground in Kolkata. There were many young kids who were playing seriously. The surrounding crowds filled with many adults were also on their toes. The score was tied three all (3-3). It was the finals of the intrcity football tournament for the Kindergarten age group. The participants of the finals were the ABC Football Academy (wearing red coloured jersey) and the XYZ Academy (wearing blue coloured jersey).

As the kids were only in kindergarten, each half was shortened to 15 minutes in place of the usual 45 minutes and the ground size was reduced too. Only five minutes the second half was remaining. The goalkeeper of the red team kicked the ball with all his might and it flew towards the half line. In order to use this chance, all the players of the blue team with the exception of the goalkeeper moved forward into the red team's half - A do or die attack plan. It appeared as if the ball was going to the defenders of the blue team as the nearly all the attacking players in the red team were more tired than ones in the blue team.

But then all of a sudden, the main striker of the red team intercepted the ball and controlled it perfectly. As soon as the ball touched the ground, all the four defenders of the blue team came dashing towards him in order to steal the ball. The boy in the red jersey waited and as soon as all the four came close to him, he immediately passed it to his nearest teammate and shouted

"Hit it well over them and leave the rest to me!!"

The teammate complied and hit it well over the four players towards the opposing goal. Seizing this moment, the boy in the red jersey who was just about to be surrounded started running as if he was running for his life. The goalkeeper of the blue team also came dashing forward towards the edge of the penalty area in order to punch it back to his teammates but to his dismay the ball fell way short of the penalty area.

By this time, the young man in the red jersey had received the ball and was dashing towards the goal. Without any other options left, the goalkeeper too was charging towards the player in order to block it. Now on the field, all sorts of chants and shouts were coming in.

"Shoot it Vinod!! Shoot it past him!"

"Stop that shot Harish!!! Let us show him who is the best goalkeeper of the city!!"

"Shoot It!!!"

"Stop It!!!"

Even though the ground was pretty noisy, both these players were extremely focussed and they were so immersed that it appeared that they were in their own world.

Vinod, the striker wearing the red jersey now reached the edge of the penalty area and started taking small steps. Harish who was running towards Vinod was confused as to what he was doing. The defenders who were left in the dust by Vinod were catching up and were just behind the penalty area. Till this moment, Harish was sure that he could save the goal from being conceded but a terrifying truth struck Harish at that moment. As soon as he prepared to challenge Vinod in order to stop the ball, Vinod simply aimed at the lower bottom corner and shot the ball without taking any form in quick strides. Yes, it was a snapshot[1] and the time was up too. The referee blew the final whistle and the match was over too.

"ABC Academy wins the game with the score being four goals to three (4-3)! This is their second consecutive victory!" shouted someone from the crowd.

The chief guest of the match was Agnish Das, a former Indian national team captain. Seeing the losing team players crying he gave a quick speech.

"Hearty congratulations to the winners. You were the better team today. But do not take this to your mind and never stop practicing otherwise you might also face defeat against the same opponents. To the losing team I would like to tell only one thing and that is you people still have a long way to go! Besides it is not like you have lost in the very first round, it is the finals. You are the runners-up and do take all the positives from this match and work on your negatives."

After that quick speech of his, the awards were being given which were - Player of the Tournament, Player of the Match and overall Winners of the Tournament. The announcement then came in

"The player of today's match is Vinod Gaekwad thanks to his brilliant hat-trick. Further more he is the player of the tournament too thanks to his total tally of 12 goals and 4 assists throughout the course of the tournament. May I please ask the honourable chief guest Mr. Agnish Das to please give away the trophies." said the announcer.

Vinod simply came forward to the podium to receive his individual awards from the Agnish. He calmly received the individual awards from him and then also collected the team award along with the entire team.

That was it. The tournament was over and all the children were going home along with their parents. As for Vinod, an old man wearing a tuxedo with neatly groomed hair came out of a car and took his bag. Vinod then sat inside and the car started moving.

Inside the car, Vinod telepathically spoke

"Eric, delete the recording of today's match and show me my stats."

A mechanical voice then replied

"Match recording deleted. The stats screen is as follows"

NAME : -- Vinod Gaekwad

AGE : -- 5 years

NATIONALITY : -- Indian

BASIC STATS ----

HEALTH : -- 75

PACE : -- 10

SHOOTING : -- 9

PASSING : -- 8

DRIBBLING : -- 8

PHYSICAL : -- 6

DEFENCE : -- 4

Chapter end