My Goalkeeping System

After the jubilations and applause, Dave and Diego returned to the locker room, Dave wanted to pick up his coat and he needed to change into his clothes.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were a professional footballer?" Diego asked as the goalkeeper slid his hands into his coat.

"Footballers don't just go around telling every young boy they meet that they're footballers do they?" The goalkeeper replied.

"I guess so but that's because people already know who they are," Diego said.

"Exactly but not every footballer is that well known like me, at least now you know who I am." He said before opening the door. "Hurry up, I'll be waiting for you outside."

After walking out of the room, he made his way straight to the table where the lady from earlier, the one that had announced the winner, was sitting alone now.

"Hey." He said as soon as he stopped in front of her.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"Um…not exactly, I just wanted to thank you for what you did today, you know, checking the rules and making a good decision according to them." He said.

"There's no need to thank me, I was just doing my job." She said,

"Yeah, but in the kind of world that we are in today, someone else in your position could have closed the rule book and made a decision that would satisfy the majority." He expressed. "I'm grateful to you for not being one of those people."

The lady didn't say anything and just responded with a slight nod.

"Hey, can we go now?"

The goalkeeper slowly turned to see Diego standing behind him.

"Yeah, let's go." He said before turning his gaze back to the lady. "Um…see you later…."

"It's Sofia." She said,

"Okay, see you later Sofia." He said before he began to make his way toward the elevator with Diego.

"Were you flirting with her?" The boy waited for the elevator to close before he could ask his upsetting question.

"Flirting? I'm married, you dumbhead." Dave said, sounding a bit offended.

"Yeah, I saw the ring but a lot of married people don't stay at home, especially influential people like you." He said before crossing his arms.

"Aren't you too young to be filling your mind with things like that?"

"It's common knowledge."

"Fine," Dave said before letting out a sigh. "Since you want to know why I was there with her, I was just thanking her."

"For what?"

"For making sure you won the tournament today, who knows what would have happened if it had been another person in her position tonight." The goalkeeper said.

"Yeah," Diego muttered. "I never thought of it that way."

The two talked about a few other things until the elevator finally stopped and opened up for them to step out.

Nothing was said between the two during the process of stepping out from the elevator and making their way to the exit.

On getting outside, they could see that the sun had completely set and the sky was dark now as expected but the area was still shining bright all thanks to the street lights.

"I guess this goodbye," Diego said, staring directly at the goalkeeper's face.

"I guess so," Dave said with a smile on his face.

"Before you go, I just wanted to say thank you, I don't know how today would have ended if it weren't for you, things don't usually go this well for me but it looks like you helped me fix that today." He expressed with a smile on his face and heavy eyes which Dave could tell were slowly filling up with tears.

"I'm glad I could help and to be honest, It was really fun helping you out."

At this point, Diego couldn't hold it in anymore, he quickly stepped closer to him and tightly wrapped his arms around him.

"Thank you, Dave."He said as droplets of tears trickled down his cheeks. "My friends will never believe me when I tell them that I got to spend a whole evening with a professional footballer but that's okay, at least Ferran will."

The two stayed like that for a while before Diego slowly pulled away from him and cleaned his tears.

"You play in the Bilbeth Premier League, are you here on a pre-season vacation?" He asked.

"My pre-season vacation ended yesterday, right now I'm on a pre-season tour with my teammates."

"Oh, when and where are you guys playing your next match?" He asked.

"We're playing Benfica on Tuesday at the Reale Arena," Dave replied.

"Reale Arena, that's quite far from the part of Barcelona where I'm staying," Diego said.

"Okay."

"Anyway, I have to go now, bye." He said before he turned and began to run home.

Dave watched him with a smile on his face until he was out of sight.

<Looks like you made a friend today>

"Yeah." He muttered.

The two had only been together for just a couple of hours but they seemed to have developed some kind of bond, the way the boy hugged him was proof of that.

The goalkeeper made his way back to the hotel and made his way straight to the large room where the PlayStation was kept to see that most of his teammates were there including Mateo who was sitting on one of the seats going through his phone.

"Hey, everybody, look who's here," Edward said as soon as the goalkeeper entered.

As soon as they all noticed him in the room, they broke into screams that took Dave by surprise.

'What is going on?'

"It's the speedster!" Someone yelled. "The smasher!"

"What the heck is happening? Today's not my birthday, you know."

"Who said anything about a birthday?" Mateo said.

"Then why are you guys acting like this?" The goalkeeper asked.

"We're just happy for you," Merino said.

"Huh?" He said with a confused expression on his face. "About what?"

"About this," Mateo said before turning the screen of his phone to show him the replay of what he had done in the tennis ball game. "You didn't even give those guys a break, how come you didn't play like that when we were teammates back at Ferran's house?"

"Oh, you guys saw that," Dave said with a nervous smile on his face.

'Of course, they would see it.'

"I didn't know you could move so fast and efficiently," Roland said.

Dave didn't say anything and just kept that nervous smile on his face.

'I'm pretty sure none of them would have seen this if it wasn't for Mateo and his damn phone.'

"Um…Dave." The left winger called.

"Huh?"

"This was the final of the tournament and according to what I know, you haven't been in the tournament so how did you get into the finals?"

"I was never in the tournament, I was just helping out a young boy, a friend I mean." The goalkeeper replied.

"A friend?"

"Yeah." He replied with a nod.

****

New year mass release goals.

A magic castle= one extra chapter.

Two magic castles= two extra chapters.

Mass release for goals met last month will still be rewarded on the due dates.