BUL Day 7 - Sleep well

You sleep well.

The chilly, but peaceful quiet in the dark only lasts until Tiff marches into the cabin, full of energy, literally banging two pots together. She keeps banging them even after everyone is awake and covering their ears.

She finally stops.

"Get dressed and get to the dining hall," she says. "Eat light, then go to yoga room 5 for warmup."

"What kind of drills today?" you ask. It can't be anything difficult because you have that practice game this afternoon.

"No drills," Tiff says, and the girls all murmur to each other in confusion. No drills?

"I'm not allowed to tell you. You'll see. You're on TV now, remember? You knew it was going to be crazy. They warned you. Quit acting surprised. Remember what I said. Eat light."

"Do we know who we play later?" Lara asks, raising her hand.

Tiff grimaces.

"Blue Team," says.

That's Adella's team.

You feel sudden apprehension. And then you feel relief. Playing against Blue Team today means you will NOT play against them in Friday's much more important game.

You all get dressed and eat a small breakfast, where the Blue Team watches you, and you watch them. There is very little interaction between the teams at the dining hall, and even less as you all go to different yoga rooms at the gym.

Tiff doesn't do yoga. She leads you through quick stretches, and then you have to change into your... uniforms? The uniform is not a soccer uniform. It's more like what olympic runners wear: like skimpy bicycle shorts and an extremely tight crop top. Confused, you and the others all put them on. It's not very modest for the girls like you, but everyone is too nervous about the day to be distracted by some bulges. You wish you weren't too scared to enjoy the view...

You wave at some of the cameras as all the girls in the camp walk out to the path into the woods, where half the teams split off and take another path. You wonder where they are going.

Your team arrives at the beginning of an elaborate obstacle course. It's long, with a LOT of obstacles. You can tell by looking at the map that it will be totally exhausting. So you will all be tired and sore for this afternoon's match.

"Cheer up, it'll be fun," you tell some of the girls who are complaining. Other captains are doing the same thing with their teams.

It's as long and difficult as you fear, but you are good at this. You are an athlete, even if some of the obstacles require a lot of upper body strength, which is not your strong suit. You still do well! You are fast and have good balance...

...until you get to the final obstacle. You are at the lake, and you have to cross a lot of spinning logs to get to the other side, but there's like this fog out there...

Someone hands you a staff with pads on the ends.

"What's this for?" you ask.

"For balance," she replies.

Oh no... You carefully go out, balancing... until you see that there is someone else in the fog up ahead, coming toward you.

So THAT is what this is about. That is why they split up the teams... part of this course is getting past this other player.

You see that it is... Kelly, a nice redhead from the Red team. She bravely tries to take you on, but you knock her into the water.

The rest of your team does pretty well, but a few of them lose their duels and get wet.

You head for the showers and rinse off the lakewater with the others. You are thinking hard about the game this afternoon. You have to win it. That will help your team be stronger for Friday.

At lunch you sit with Tiff and Lara, figuring out your game plan. You tell them what you want to do, and they both agree.

You bring the team up to speed on your plan, stretch, and get ready to play.

Soon you are in your new uniform and going onto the field. The weather is perfect.

The whistle blows, and you and Lara rush out like total hooligans. Your plan is simple: you and Lara are the stars. Blue Team expects you to come at them hard with your kind of offense. You don't. You and Lara don't even touch the ball except to pass it.

Aki is the plan.

Now that you are interested in Aki, you looked her up. It was hard to make sense out of the Japanese websites, but you were able to learn a bit about her. Her stats aren't that good... because she was out of action with an injury and didn't get to play much.

But when she did play, she was a sniper. She's slow... her handling isn't amazing, but it's good enough... yet when she shoots, she can place the shot wherever she wants. That makes her a threat to even the best goalkeepers, and Miranda isn't the best. She's good, but not good enough.

Your weird strategy is enough to give Aki two shots during the match, and that's two goals for your team.

Meanwhile, your defense succeeds in holding out against Adella, somehow by bullying her. By the time she realizes she has to give up the ball, it's too late. Hana scores once. The game ends 2-1. You won convincingly.

The team is so happy. They make you do an interview for the cameras afterward.