The following morning, the atmosphere was thick with a palpable tension.
The basic warm-up had gone fine, with Rico easily keeping pace with the squad, but the real test began when the balls were brought out.
The morning session went into rondos.
The drills started with an intensity as the veterans zipped the ball around the circle with speed, eager to expose the eighteen-year-old kid from America.
Rico started a fraction of a step slow, as he quickly got caught out and was forced into the middle of the circle.
However, it only took him a moment to figure out the pace of the drill.
He anticipated a pass from Lee Clark, shooting out his leg to intercept the ball cleanly.
Once he was back on the outside of the circle, the one-touch passing came easy to him as he made the chasing defenders look like uncoordinated amateurs as he bypassed their frantic pressing.
Chris Coleman then blew his whistle loudly, calling the squad over to begin the tactical drills.
Standing in the center of the pitch with his clipboard, Coleman named his starting eleven for the upcoming weekend fixture.
Rico was placed into the starting eleven as the central playmaker.
A visible wave of annoyance rippled through several of the veteran Fulham players, who glared at the teenager who had just stolen a spot after one day.
The squad moved into the tactical shape as Coleman went over their defensive positioning, outlining the pressing triggers and the structural shape he demanded when they lost possession.
Rico absorbed the tactical instructions, his footballing IQ making the complex system seem like basic arithmetic.
The animosity continued to brew during the subsequent technical and shooting drills.
The players were split into attacking circuits, required to play swift one-twos before driving a shot into the bottom corners of the net.
Rico had done well.
He was faster, stronger, and far more technically gifted than anyone else on the pitch.
Every pass he made was laser-guided, and every shot he took found the back of the net.
He did noticeably better than all of the established Fulham players, who were beginning to get annoyed with Rico outshining them on their own turf.
When the session transitioned into practising attacking corners, Rico naturally jogged over to the corner flag, intending to take the crosses himself.
However, Chris Coleman waved him away, shouting for him to get into the penalty box.
Rico reluctantly jogged into the crowded penalty area, positioning himself to attack the ball.
But the deliveries were atrocious.
The designated corner takers kept whipping the balls wildly past him, overhitting them, or aiming them into terrible zones away from his towering runs.
Rico was getting visibly annoyed, his patience wearing razor-thin.
“I can’t take a corner when these guys can’t hit a cow’s backside with a banjo,” Rico muttered loudly in fluent Portuguese as another ball sailed harmlessly out for a goal kick.
Suddenly, a loud laugh echoed next to him.
Luís Boa Morte was cracking up.
Rico had forgotten that Boa Morte was Portuguese.
As the final drills wrapped up, it was time for the highly anticipated eleven-versus-eleven scrimmage.
Rico was handed a neon starter’s bib, placing him in the midfield behind Louis Saha.
Rico walked up to Saha as they took their positions.
“Run back post.” Rico could instantly see Saha wasn’t listening to a single word the eighteen-year-old was saying, his jaw set in stubborn defiance.
Realizing the striker was going to ignore him, Rico casually jogged over to Boa Morte out on the left wing.
“Run back post, and I’ll find you.” Boa Morte gave a subtle nod.
Chris Coleman blew the whistle.
From the very first minute, it was blindingly obvious what the Fulham veterans were doing.
They were freezing Rico out of the game.
Whenever a center-back or a full-back looked up to distribute the ball, they would actively look past Rico, deliberately playing long balls over the top or funneling the play down the wings.
Rico was finding himself, standing in acres of space in the midfield while his teammates refused to pass him the ball.
Realising he wasn’t going to be handed the keys, Rico decided he was going to take the game by sheer force.
He didn’t wait for his teammates to give him possession; he began hunting the ball down himself.
When the opposition reserve squad tried to build out from the back, Rico pressed with terrifying speed.
He anticipated a sloppy pass from a reserve midfielder, lunging in and winning the ball.
The second he took a touch to carry it up the pitch, he was hacked down.
Every time he won the ball, he would carry it forward, only to keep getting fouled by teammates who were desperate to take him down a peg.
Ten minutes into the brutal affair, Rico finally managed to collect a loose ball near the center circle.
He spun perfectly on the half-turn, dropping his shoulder to evade a lunging tackle from Lee Clark.
Looking up, Rico spotted Louis Saha making a darting run between the two opposing centre-backs.
With a flick of his right boot, Rico played a through ball that bent perfectly into the space behind the defensive line.
Saha ran onto it, breaking away into the penalty area.
Instead of standing still to admire his pass, Rico tried to support the attack.
He arrived unmarked near the penalty spot, creating a massive two-on-one advantage against the goalkeeper.
Saha had the perfect chance to square the ball to Rico for a tap-in.
But the French striker ignored Rico entirely.
Saha selfishly took the shot himself from a tight angle, and the goalkeeper deflected it wide.
Minutes later, Rico’s starting team was awarded a goal kick.
The legendary Dutch goalkeeper placed the ball on the edge of the six-yard box and saw Rico dropping deep, demanding the ball as Van Der Sar played the pass.
Rico received the ball deep in his own half as Lee Clark sprinted toward him, intent on flattening the teenager but Rico slipped the ball right between the captain’s legs and accelerating past him leaving Clark in the dust, Rico carried the ball aggressively past the halfway line.
The opposition defenders were pinned down by the attackers as they kept backing off to protect the penalty area.
Realizing he had so much space, Rico aimed a low, driven shot perfectly toward the bottom corner.
The ball skipped wickedly off the wet grass, forcing the opposition goalkeeper to dive at full stretch, barely managing to tip it around the post for a corner.
The resulting corner was a disaster.
A Fulham player whipped a poor cross into the box that was cleared by the first man.
The ball fell perfectly to the edge of the box, where Brian McBride, the American striker who had openly trashed Rico on television—collected it.
McBride turned and launched a counter-attack down the right wing, accelerating into the space left behind by the attacking full-backs.
It looked like a certain goal-scoring opportunity, but Rico had tracked all the way back from the edge of the opposition penalty area, sprinting with a terrifying pace that defied his massive frame.
As McBride took a heavy touch out, Rico launched himself into a perfectly timed slide tackle.
He wrapped his long leg around the ball, dispossessing McBride with a crunching impact that left the veteran striker tumbling onto the grass.
Rico didn’t stop.
He popped back up to his feet, keeping the ball in play, and carried it up the pitch on a solo counter-attack.
He blew past a retreating midfielder and drove directly toward the corner of the penalty area.
Without breaking stride, Rico whipped a vicious cross right across the corridor of uncertainty.
Just as they had discussed, Luís Boa Morte had made the run to the back post.
The Portuguese winger slid across the grass, connecting with Rico’s delivery to tap the ball into the empty net.
1-0.
Boa Morte popped up, pointing directly at Rico with a grin, acknowledging the brilliance of the assist.
For the rest of the game, Rico was an unstoppable force of nature.
He kept dominating the midfield, relentlessly breaking up play and dictating the tempo.
Slowly but surely, he earned the begrudging trust of his teammates, who finally realised that giving the kid the ball was the best course of action.
He kept making impossible chances and defending with his life.
When Facundo Sava tried to carry the ball through the centre, Rico remembered the Argentine’s dismissive TV comments.
Rico went into the tackle hard, winning the ball but deliberately leaving a little bit extra on Sava, checking the forward with a shoulder that sent him crashing to the dirt.
Moments later, Rico received a pass thirty yards out.
Without hesitating, he fired a rocket.
The knuckleball dipped and swerved all over the place, beating the goalkeeper but it dodn’t beat the crossbar.
The thick metal frame rattled loudly, echoing across the training ground.
As the scrimmage neared its end, Rico ended up taking a goal kick for Van Der Sar.
From his own six-yard box, Rico smashed a long ball that travelled three-quarters of the pitch.
It bypassed the midfield, dropping onto the head of Boa Morte.
The winger managed to win the flick-on, nodding the ball into the path of Louis Saha.
Finally doing his job, Saha managed to finish it, burying the shot past the keeper.
2-0 Fulham.
Chris Coleman blew the final whistle, echoing across the Motspur Park grass.
A/N) I said it before, Rico is going to be the engine.
And to be the engine, you’ve got to be a one-man team.
And because of that fact, teams his on have more success than they should.
Also, let me explain how Fulham can win the league because I see comments about it.
First of all, Saha won’t leave to United in January 2004 as Fulham refuse the sale, as they keep they’re best striker.
And they still have a good team.
Secondly, Henry gets injured because of the Fulham and Arsenal game, as Arsenal drop points, and Fulham run away with it.
Thirdly, Rico has the season of a lifetime, hence the Ballon d’Or.
Fourthly, Rico exposes how to break them down, as everyone just copies his flow as they draw games they should win.
Finally, it’s a story about a pretend footballer, who cares.
He’s going to sign with Arsenal next season anyway; let him be an Invincible.