Shooting the Shit with Keegan

After spending three hours cooped up in the chemistry lab, you roll up to training ready to kick the shit out of a soccer ball. The team warms up by dribbling a lap around the pitch, and then forms up in a semicircle around Daphne.

“We’re practicing first touches today,” the Japanese captain of the team announces in her characteristic no-nonsense voice. “It doesn’t matter how well you can pass or shoot if you can’t get the ball under control first. That’s why we’re going to practice first touches today. Partner up. I want you to pass the ball between each other and practice trapping the ball with each foot. Then, you’ll shift to one touch volleys and settling the ball out of the air, and you’ll finish off with three touch passing and receiving. Got it? Go!”

You kick your ball at Keegan, who catches it with his hands reflexively.

“You’re supposed to trap it with your foot,” you call out to him. “Know what those are? They’re the things connected to your legs.”

“Piss off,” Keegan laughs, dropping the ball and punting it back to you. “It’s not like we’re ever gonna do special goalie drills.”

“Fair point,” you say, firing off another shot at him.

He catches it with ease, making you wonder about your shooting abilities, but you figure he’s just a good keeper. You’re not a striker anyways, so it would be concerning if he couldn’t handle your ball.

“Daphne’s drills are good for you guys, but man, not so much for me. So I change it up. A man’s got to make do somehow,” he says, kicking the ball back to you.

“Have you thought about joining the varsity team for training?” you ask, trapping the ball with a swift move from your left foot. “They might not let you join them on game days, but I’m sure the goalies would appreciate someone else to train with them.”

“Have you met Coach Warren?” Keegan scoffs, shaking his head. “The man’s such a hardass. I like the way we keep it chill here.”

“You’re right, he wouldn’t let you join training anyways,” you say, thinking of all that you know about the man. “He thinks he’s too good for us.”

You kick the ball low and fast at Keegan, and this one he does trap with his foot.

“You got that right,” he says. “Smug-ass man with a smug-ass face.”

“Bit of an all round prick,” you agree. “And they get all the money and attention, too.”

“You know what this is like?” he asks, rolling the ball under his foot. “We’re like those clubs that will be left in the dust once the European super league is formed. Second class citizens. Nobody will care about them, can you believe it?”

There’s a gleam in his eye as he says those final words, the most fired up that you’ve ever seen him. The hard kick he delivers to the ball seems confirmation of that, and you grunt as you control it with your chest, barely bringing it to a stop by your feet.

“Whoa there,” you say, giving him a meaningful glance. “This a sore spot?”

Keegan shrugs, catching the ball as you shoot it back at him.

“It just grinds my gears,” he says. “A bunch of the big clubs can get together, make their own rules, leave everyone else to slowly bleed out without viewers or money? It doesn’t sit right with me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the current league system either—it does too much to protect the interests of the big clubs, but still, it’s better than what they’re trying to pull, you feel?”

“Oh,” you say, taking a second to digest what he just said. “So you’re mad at the super league, and not… not making varsity?”

Keegan blinks twice, also apparently somewhat surprised by your words.

“No, I never even tried out for varsity,” he says. “We got the hot girls here, remember?”

You take a look around the field, eyeing up the fit girls drilling, and give him a cheeky smile.

“How could I ever forget?” you reply.

“That’s the reason I bother showing up to training,” he laughs.

Before you know it, the next drill is called, and then Daphne runs the team through some tactics, holding a practice match to execute on the counter-attacking ideas that she has. As practice ends, you’re famished (as usual), and so you head into the dining hall with Keegan to polish off a hearty dinner.

Keegan +5