Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 12:25 pm
The Eshian team has now arrived in Centralis, and is training at Olympic Stadium in preparation for their opening match against Aut-Ves-Nat. They know that this will most likely be the hardest game of the group stage, so they're training for the next two days to prepare. Hopefully, they can establish group synergy before the big game...
Coach Kenneth Morgan assembled this team to be about as good as it could be, but he still had doubts. Could a team from Eshialand, of all places, even get out of the group stage, let alone win the Baptism of Fire?
However, as he watched the team train, his doubts slowly began to melt away. Jacob Harran was just as good as he was with his club, and it looked like he could put up quite a few goals. Melissa Carey was a natural-born leader for the team, and she could play extremely well on both offense and defense. Sarah Silver and David Gorman were amazing defenders, and it looked like Steven Lachey was going to be a star forward for the team.
However, one player who he never expected was Dominique LaPlante. He had put her down for backup Right Back, which would see her getting almost no playtime, what with Silver being so good, but she was a lot better than your average backup. She actually looked like she could be in the starting 11, perhaps replacing George Habisbrauer or Carter Langley... so, he decided to test her at Center Back and Left Back, just to see what would happen. Yep, she was one of the best defenders they had, perhaps even better than Silver... the only reason why she wasn't put in the starting 11 at first seems to be because her club didn't appreciate her enough to let her play. She had played for the Eshialand Soccer Association's Cleveland Lakers the previous season, but only had 9 appearances in their 50-game season, all as backup and all in the final 10 minutes of the game.
Morgan now had a tough decision: would he play LaPlante or not? If he did play her, who would she replace? Habisbrauer or Langley? Would taking a risk on her even be worth it in a game as critical as the Aut-Ves-Nat game? Or would not taking the risk cost even more?
He decided not to think about it for a while. For now, he put her down as backup LB/CB/RB, so as soon as any defender was pulled out of the game, no matter who they were, LaPlante would take their place. Worrying about whether to start her or not would be too stressful for now.
The coach then went back to watching the training, assessing the rest of the team. Lysander Moore was pretty good in the midfield, but Harriet Copeland was lacking a certain something... it looked like she wasn't playing to her potential. That was completely understandable, saying as this was just a training game between the starting 11 and the backups, but it wasn't great for him, since he was trying to assess everyone's performance.
He had a plan for that. He split the team in two roughly equal halves: 6 starters and 5 backups on one side, 5 starters and 6 backups (including LaPlante, who played like a twelfth starter) on the other. The winning team would get free democracy sausages all around. (Elizabeth Michaels didn't play, but she got democracy sausages anyway, so it was fine by her.) This way, both sides had something to play for, and he could see each side's potential. It turns out that if you want someone to do something, giving them free food for doing a good job was the way to go, because, sure enough, Copeland played even better than Moore, with an aggressive play-style not unlike his own, back when he used to play... that must've been 7 years ago now... but now wasn't the time for nostalgia. It was time to figure out what he was supposed to do with this team. They had potential in spades, but how was he going to put that potential to good use?
After that day of training, Morgan was happy with his team. He had a solid team, one that might actually make it out of the group stage. He looked down at the schedule, which read as follows...
TEAM SCHEDULE: ESHIALAND
Matchday 1: Aut-Ves-Nat vs. Eshialand Olympic Stadium, Centralis
Matchday 2: BYE
Matchday 3: Eshialand vs. Islands Of Ventro Northcote Oval, Prescott
Matchday 4: Naufre vs. Eshialand Olympic Stadium, Centralis
Matchday 5: Eshialand vs. The united states of sonindia Hamilton Multi-Purpose Venue, Hamilton
This was gonna be fun.
Coach Kenneth Morgan assembled this team to be about as good as it could be, but he still had doubts. Could a team from Eshialand, of all places, even get out of the group stage, let alone win the Baptism of Fire?
However, as he watched the team train, his doubts slowly began to melt away. Jacob Harran was just as good as he was with his club, and it looked like he could put up quite a few goals. Melissa Carey was a natural-born leader for the team, and she could play extremely well on both offense and defense. Sarah Silver and David Gorman were amazing defenders, and it looked like Steven Lachey was going to be a star forward for the team.
However, one player who he never expected was Dominique LaPlante. He had put her down for backup Right Back, which would see her getting almost no playtime, what with Silver being so good, but she was a lot better than your average backup. She actually looked like she could be in the starting 11, perhaps replacing George Habisbrauer or Carter Langley... so, he decided to test her at Center Back and Left Back, just to see what would happen. Yep, she was one of the best defenders they had, perhaps even better than Silver... the only reason why she wasn't put in the starting 11 at first seems to be because her club didn't appreciate her enough to let her play. She had played for the Eshialand Soccer Association's Cleveland Lakers the previous season, but only had 9 appearances in their 50-game season, all as backup and all in the final 10 minutes of the game.
Morgan now had a tough decision: would he play LaPlante or not? If he did play her, who would she replace? Habisbrauer or Langley? Would taking a risk on her even be worth it in a game as critical as the Aut-Ves-Nat game? Or would not taking the risk cost even more?
He decided not to think about it for a while. For now, he put her down as backup LB/CB/RB, so as soon as any defender was pulled out of the game, no matter who they were, LaPlante would take their place. Worrying about whether to start her or not would be too stressful for now.
The coach then went back to watching the training, assessing the rest of the team. Lysander Moore was pretty good in the midfield, but Harriet Copeland was lacking a certain something... it looked like she wasn't playing to her potential. That was completely understandable, saying as this was just a training game between the starting 11 and the backups, but it wasn't great for him, since he was trying to assess everyone's performance.
He had a plan for that. He split the team in two roughly equal halves: 6 starters and 5 backups on one side, 5 starters and 6 backups (including LaPlante, who played like a twelfth starter) on the other. The winning team would get free democracy sausages all around. (Elizabeth Michaels didn't play, but she got democracy sausages anyway, so it was fine by her.) This way, both sides had something to play for, and he could see each side's potential. It turns out that if you want someone to do something, giving them free food for doing a good job was the way to go, because, sure enough, Copeland played even better than Moore, with an aggressive play-style not unlike his own, back when he used to play... that must've been 7 years ago now... but now wasn't the time for nostalgia. It was time to figure out what he was supposed to do with this team. They had potential in spades, but how was he going to put that potential to good use?
After that day of training, Morgan was happy with his team. He had a solid team, one that might actually make it out of the group stage. He looked down at the schedule, which read as follows...
TEAM SCHEDULE: ESHIALAND
Matchday 1: Aut-Ves-Nat vs. Eshialand Olympic Stadium, Centralis
Matchday 2: BYE
Matchday 3: Eshialand vs. Islands Of Ventro Northcote Oval, Prescott
Matchday 4: Naufre vs. Eshialand Olympic Stadium, Centralis
Matchday 5: Eshialand vs. The united states of sonindia Hamilton Multi-Purpose Venue, Hamilton
This was gonna be fun.