If there’s one thing Callum Vance is good at, it’s running.
Feeling the wind rushing by him evokes a sense of euphoria, and jogging has never been his favourite activity.
It is too slow for his liking; he trudges up and down the training pitch, warming up his leg muscles, doing three laps around the field, his lungs fill with the cold West Yorkshire air.
Exhaling, a hot breath escapes his nostrils, mixing with the frigid air, making his breath discernible from the rest of the air around him.
He jogs forward three steps, lifts his right knee high to his chest, and rotates his hip outward in a wide, smooth circle to loosen up his groin.
He steps forward again and reverses the motion, swinging his leg from the outside in.
Callum walks forward, planting his left heel, bending his back knee, and sweeping his hands along the grass as if scooping up water, feeling a deep, satisfying stretch travel right up the back of his thigh.
He follows it up with straight-leg high kicks, bringing his toes up to meet his hands at shoulder height, testing the flexibility of his hamstrings.
One of the fitness coaches checks their watch and signals for him to fall in with the rest of the team.
Excitedly, he abandons the warm-ups and gears up for actual practice.
Charlie Taylor, the pacey English left back, calls him over to where he is standing.
“Over here, Lad!” the thick, sing-song tone of the left back’s Brummie accent oozes out.
As the 22-year-old plants his foot atop a ball.
The 22-year-old left-back looks relaxed but sharp, his training top pulled up over his knuckles against the chill.
“Welcome back, lad. Don’t stress out about the tactical stuff, the gaffer wants to see how you move in the box.” Charlie’s hand clasps his shoulder, his voice low and encouraging, guiding him toward the penalty area.
“We’re doing a dynamic attacking drill. Listen up.” Callum nodded quickly, locking his eyes onto the older academy graduate.
“I’m going to be stationed out wide on the left flank, picking up balls from the midfielders,” Taylor explained, pointing a gloved hand toward the touchline.
“Your job is simple but high-tempo. You start at the edge of the D and try your hardest to score. We will start without any of the defensive players, just small cones and obstacles for you to avoid. Then, as we progress, they can join in.”
“So, in essence, just finish as many chances as I can?” The younger Englishman asks with an eyebrow raised.
It sounded too good to be true.
Taylor dropped the ball and tapped it lightly with his left boot.
“I’m not putting air under it today, Cal. The wind is too heavy. I’m wrapping my laces through it and whipping it in low and hard, right into the corridor of uncertainty between the keeper and the defence. You’ve got one touch to redirect it into the net, just as you would in a real match. Got it?”
“Got it.” Callum nods, already feeling the adrenaline coursing through his veins in anticipation of the challenge, completely overwriting the biting cold that was gnawing at him earlier.
He makes his way to the D, leaning down in an anticipatory fashion.
The Italian goalkeeper, Marco Silvestri, stands on the goal line, lowering his centre of gravity and opening his body up, anticipating the cross.
PWEET, the whistle is blown by a member of the coaching staff, Callum plants his right foot into the turf and explodes into a sprint, the purple hypervenoms finding instant traction.
He darts forward into the box, accelerating quickly.
On the left flank, right where Callum had left him, Charlie strides up to the ball, sending it careening into the box like a vicious low whipped arrow slicing through the cold air with ease.
Callum’s instincts kick in, and he doesn’t smash it; his body acts before his mind can even process the ball’s trajectory, opening his hip and softening his foot to act as a redirecting wall, and he guides the ball with a low, driven strike.
The net ripples, the heavy nylon white fabric bulging outward with a loud snap before the keeper can even extend his hand out.
“Just like that, lad!” Taylor shouted from the wing, clapping his hands together.
Across the pitch, even a couple of the senior pros nodded in approval.
Just like that, the tempo for this drill had been set, and Callum was also set in the rhythm.
It became a textbook, Callum darts into the box, Charlie spots the opportunity and crosses the ball, low and ferocious.
Perfectly weighted for Callum to take into stride and finish.
The sound of the net snapping became addictive to him.
Rob Kelly, the assistant coach, claps his hands, applauding each goal.
He speaks up, his voice cutting through the air.
“Now that you warmed up, we are going to try it with the other attackers and the defenders.” Almost as quickly as the casual encouraging energy had settled in, it disappeared.
This was the real test.
Liam Cooper and Sol Bamba stepped into the heart of the penalty box, adjusting their training bibs and bouncing lightly on their toes.
Stuart Dallas and Robbie McDaid move into the box as well, they were to act as support or finishers, as they would under real match circumstances
Liam jokingly nudges Callum with his elbow, the taller man smiling.
“Let’s see ya, get past me then.” Making his way back to the D, Callum returns the smile before allowing it to fade into a more stoic and serious expression.
The drill restarts with the blow of a whistle, much more chaotic and with much more intensity.
This time, Charlie does not wait for him to start the run, but he whips in the ball early, with a higher trajectory.
Seeing the visual cues for the Cross, Callum glances ahead.
He spots Sol Bamba, a mountain of a defender capping the near post, while Liam Cooper tracks the space behind him.
Despite the presence of McDaid and Dallas, both defenders seem to be holding their own.
Dallas steps toward Callum.
Drawing Cooper out of shape a bit.
Callum, seeing the space, darts towards the far post, which catches Cooper off guard, fully expecting the youngster to stay central as the ball dips toward his head.
Callum converts his running momentum into a powerful leap; his leg muscles, like springs, send him shooting vertically upwards.
Bamba, having seen Callum’s run, tries to jump into the path of his header.
But he completely misunderstands the header’s direction, the ball connects with Callum’s head, going into the top left corner, away from the keeper’s flailing gloves.
The sheer power of the leap had given Callum the split-second advantage he needed, allowing him to hang in the air just long enough to direct the ball with pinpoint accuracy.
His boots hit the damp turf after what felt like seconds of air time.
Sol Bamba landed heavily beside him, shaking his head with a grunt of begrudging respect, while Liam Cooper threw his hands up in mock frustration.
“Bloody hell, kid, where did you get those cannons for legs?” Cooper called out, completely caught off guard by the sudden change of direction.
Stuart jogs backwards, giving Callum a sharp clap on the back.
“What a header, lad.”
From the touchline, Rob Kelly’s whistle blew twice, sharp and authoritative, keeping the intensity from dipping.
“Excellent read, Vance! That’s exactly the kind of gamble we want in the box!” he shouted, scribbling a quick note on his clipboard.
“Don’t get comfortable, defence! Reset, reset! Next ball is coming from the right!”
This time, Charlie gets into the box to support Bamba and Cooper going over to the D to mark Callum.
Lewis Cook, his fellow academy graduate, steps up and places the ball, sending a right-footed cross into the mixer.
The ball left Lewis Cook’s right boot with a distinct, snappy curve fading inward toward the centre of the box rather than whipping away.
With Bamba and Cooper now double-teaming Callum at the edge of the D, the space was suffocatingly tight.
Cooper locked his arm down, using his veteran frame to lean heavily into Callum’s shoulder, while Bamba hovered just a step behind, ready to sandwich the youngster the moment he made a move.
To make matters tougher, Charlie Taylor had dropped back into the box, using his defensive instinct to shut down the near-post space where Callum had wreaked havoc just moments before.
Callum realised that there was no amount of running that he could do to break free of this double team; he had to outsmart them.
As the cross arcs over the box, Callum leans back into Cooper’s chest, giving him the impression that he is going to push off and explode toward the goal.
Seeing Liam brace for impact and anticipate his run, Callum checks his run, taking an explosive step backwards from the goal.
It was the common yet versatile forward movement, the drop off, Cooper’s momentum carries him into the space that Callum vacated.
Bamba also took the bait, shifting his weight toward the goal line to cover the front post.
The ball falls perfectly in the now open space that Callum created.
Seeing this, McDaid drives into the box, Charlie comes short, but the ball is laid off to Dallas, who plays it to the near post, where Callum rushes to, Bamba drops off and comes toward him to try and get the ball off him, Callum plants his right foot beside the ball and goes into a shooting motion, but taps the ball across goal for McDaid to finish in the net with little difficulty.
The fake had been so convincing that Bamba’s momentum sent him sliding uselessly past, his studs tearing up a patch of damp turf as he committed entirely to blocking a shot that never came.
“Beautiful! Unselfish, lad!” McDaid shouted, jogging over to give Callum a high-five, clearly buzzing with the service.
“I thought you were smashing that one yourself!”
“Had to leave you a tap-in, didn’t I?” Cal grinned back, wiping a speck of mud from his forehead as his lungs burned from the high-tempo sequence.
Even Sol Bamba, dusting himself off as he got up from the grass, couldn’t help but crack a smile at the teenager.
“You got me there, kid. Real sharp. Don’t think I’ll let you do it twice, though.”
From the sideline, Rob Kelly was joined by Uwe Rösler, who watched the entire sequence with glee and utter satisfaction.
Rösler was practically beaming, his whistle dangling from his fingers as he applauded the phase of play.
“That is textbook football! The movement to drop off, the awareness to recycle, and the absolute composure to make the extra pass! Brilliant, Vance! That’s exactly how we break down stubborn defences!” He looked over at his clipboard, making a heavy tick next to Callum’s name.
“Alright, reset! One more round of this, then we’re moving into the tactical shape!”
Callum walks back toward the D, his lungs feeling like they are on fire.
And his legs feel heavy like he is trudging through a swamp.
However, a smile is permanently etched in his features.
It feels good to be back, not that Accrington was not welcoming, nor that their training sessions were not intense or engaging, but nothing beats the training pitch of one’s boyhood club.
It scratched an itch deep in Callum’s mind that even he did not know existed.
The whistle sounds once more, and Cook whips the ball in with an erratic inswinging cross.
The trajectory was unpredictable, caught by a sudden, sharp gust of Yorkshire wind that made the ball flutter and dip violently as it curved toward the six-yard box.
Because of the erratic flight path, the entire defensive line scrambled.
Liam Cooper misjudged the flight completely, his header glancing off the tip of his hair as he jumped too early.
Behind him, Sol Bamba reacted instantly, throwing his massive frame into the space to clear the danger, while Charlie Taylor pinched inside to cover the second ball.
Callum, watching the ball’s flight path from the D, realised that it was going shorter than expected.
It was not going to go far post, and it was far too low for a header at the near post.
It would be anyone’s ball, dropping right into the congested penalty box.
Striding forward, he doesn’t wait for the ball to land; he lunges into the area that he thinks it may land, and out of pure anticipation and partial luck, he manages to get a foot to it before Bamba, wedging himself between both the Ivorian Defender and Charlie, he realises that Marco Silvestri is already at the post blocking the goal.
Without looking up, Callum backheels the ball into the path of Dallas, who blasts the ball into the opposite top corner.
Marco Silvestri was left entirely stranded, his weight completely shifted to the near post where he had expertly closed down Callum’s angle.
He could only turn his head and watch as Stuart Dallas’s absolute rocket of a strike nearly tore the netting from the stanchion in the opposite top corner.
“Oh, class! Utterly brilliant, Cal!” Dallas yelled, running over and catching Callum in a brief, celebratory headlock before ruffling his hair.
“I didn’t even have to call for it!”
“Talk about vision, lad,” Charlie Taylor said, shaking his head as he walked out of the six-yard box.
He clapped Callum on the shoulder.
“To pull off a blind backheel with Sol breathing down your neck? Proper cheeky, that.”
Sol Bamba stood with his hands on his hips, a massive, booming laugh escaping him.
“Hey, Marco!” he called out to the frustrated Italian goalkeeper.
“Don’t look at me, man! The kid has eyes in the back of his boots!” The Italian goalkeeper merely shakes his head, getting up and brushing a few specks of mud off his gloves.
“He’s making us look like amateurs.” Silvestri bellows, his broken English melding with his Italian accent.
From the touchline, Rob Kelly’s whistle blew with a series of sharp, triumphant blasts, signalling the end of the drill.
He walked onto the pitch, clapping vigorously, a massive grin on his face.
“Unbelievable improvisation, Callum!” Kelly called out, pointing his pen directly at the young striker.
He turned to the rest of the group, checking his watch.
“Alright, grab a quick drink, lads! We’re moving onto the full eleven-v-eleven tactical shape on Pitch Two in three minutes. Callum, stay with the yellow bibs; you’re leading the line for the first team.”
Getting handed a yellow bib of his own along with a bottle of water, Callum takes the cool liquid in mouthfuls, spitting out some and gearing up his mind for the eleven vs eleven against the reserves.
Sliding on his own yellow bib, Dallas walks up beside him, and both Englishmen walk over to pitch 2, which is significantly bigger than pitch 1, falling into place among the other first team players.
Rösler stands before them, explaining the tactics once more.
“Remember, press heavily, choke the opposition in their own half and force turnovers deep in enemy territory. When you win the ball, immediately look to play vertically into space to catch opponents off guard before they can organise.” He makes hand gestures in an attempt to get his point across further.
“Brentford use width during build-up play through the utilisation of a midfield pivot; if we can stifle that pivot, we effectively defeat their attacking edge and force them to play in a fashion unfamiliar to them. And once we do that, a mistake will come. Get out there and demonstrate it to me.” Rösler dismisses them, like a captain sending his soldiers to wage war.
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This is one of my longest chapters to date, and I am having a lot of fun writing this book.
Thank you for your support!