My Goalkeeping System

After having their lunch together, the four had spent a few more hours together talking and laughing, it was a really enjoyable time for all of them and with twenty minutes remaining for the time to hit four PM, Dave had decided to go get ready for their evening training.

He went upstairs to put on his training outfit and, walking into the room, the first place his eyes landed was on his bed where he had left his phone before going downstairs a few hours ago.

He walked to the bed and sat down there before picking up his phone.

He still needed to talk to his father about what Norman had told him and although his previous calls were unanswered with him not making any attempt to call him back up till now, he was still going to try again.

He clicked his dad's contact on his phone and slowly placed it against his ear.

The call rang on his end for a while before he finally picked up the call.

"Hey, Dave," Tom said as his voice resounded through the speaker of Dave's phone.

"Hey, Dad."

"How are you doing?" Tom asked.

"Don't ask me that question," Dave said, trying to hold himself back from shouting. "Because if you really cared about how I was doing, you would have called a long time ago to know, the match was last night and it's almost evening now."

"I've been busy with a lot of things Dave," Tom said.

'That's your excuse for everything.'

"Busy with what exactly? You want to tell me that you are busy every hour of the day, even last night."

"Did you call me to complain about me not calling you to ask if you were okay?" Tom asked as the tone in his voice suddenly changed to one that indicated that he was slightly annoyed.

"Why would I bother since I already know you're going to give me that silly excuse," Dave said. "I heard you made a decision with your board to leave me out of the squad for tomorrow's match."

"Yes, Dave, you'll be left out of the squad because you need to rest for the match after that one," Tom said.

"And who told you that I needed rest? You didn't even call me or ask any of your medical staff if I was going to be fit for the match and you just assumed that I needed rest." Dave said. "Since when did the board start making decisions on who plays or not? Are you guys trying to take the coach's job from him?"

"Norman assumed that you would be fit for the match, he wanted to start you so we had to make the decision to make sure that you weren't part of the squad," Tom said.

"I am fit to start that match dad and you know Alexander can't start a match when I am available," Dave said with a hint of desperation in his voice.

"But you are not available, I already told the Bilbeth Premier League board that you're not, that's why you're not in the squad," Tom said.

"You went that far to keep me out?" Dave said with a shocked expression on his face. "Did you also tell them that I was going to be out for one week so that I don't get to play the remaining matches for the season?"

"No, Dave, this is for your own good, I saw what...."

"You didn't see anything dad," Dave said, cutting him short and before he could say anything again, he ended the call.

He threw his phone on the bed before turning his gaze to the entrance to see Emma standing there and judging by the look on her face, he knew she had been standing there for quite a while.

"You heard all that, didn't you?" He said before turning away from her.

Emma didn't say anything as she slowly walked closer to him and sat beside him on the bed.

"Hey." She said placing her hands on both of his cheeks to turn his gaze to her. "It's just one match, it's okay."

"One match that I was supposed to play," Dave said. "He doesn't value my opinion and that's why he makes decisions like this without seeking my opinion first, he didn't even call me or come to see me and he just went on to make that silly decision."

"He was just trying to look out for you," Emma said restoring the eye contact that he had broken.

"His idea of looking out for me is trying to fight for his selfish ambitions," Dave said.

"Hey, don't say that, he's your father and he was only doing what he thought was best for you." She said.

Dave wanted to say something but he had quickly bitten his lower lip to swallow the words.

"He's succeeded in keeping me out of the squad but he's not going to stop me from going to training." He said as he quickly got up from the bed and got into his black training outfit.

"See you later babe." He kissed her before quickly making his way to the room's exit.

"Please don't do anything stupid." She said but Dave didn't reply to her as he quickly made his way out of the room.

Dave tried to act normal after he had gotten to the stadium with Mateo as he didn't want his aggression to transfer to anyone who didn't have anything to do with it as that deep feeling of anger was still burning inside of him.

It didn't take long after the two had entered the pitch for the coach and the members of the coaching staff to start making their way onto the pitch.

The players had quickly gathered in front of them so that they could tell them their focus for today's training.

Norman had spotted Dave among the players and you could say he had quite a surprised look on his face.

"You know you're not supposed to be here Dave," Norman said.

"What, you don't think I'm fit to train either?" Dave said.

"Huh?" Mateo said with a confused expression on his face.

"I know you're fit to train but your father doesn't want you to be part of this training session because you're not part of the squad for tomorrow's match," Norman said.

"What?" Adolf said with a surprised expression on his face.

The players were surprised as this was the first time that they were hearing that Dave wasn't part of the squad for the match.

"You were aware that what happened to me last night wasn't serious, why didn't you tell him that I could start?"

<Your father said he did Dave>

"I did Dave, I even told him what the nurse said but he kept saying that you weren't for to start," Norman said.

"Maybe he knows he will flop in the match and decided to keep him out," Jonas said from where he was standing.

"What did you just say?" Dave asked quickly, turning to him with a fierce look on his face.

"I said you were going to flop like you always do," Jonas said unfazed by the look he was getting from Dave.

"Since you're going to talk about flops, why don't we talk about who has been a flop in the last two matches and even the whole season," Dave said. "Players have just been breaking past you like you're a standing tree, you claim to be the best left back in the team because you can run but how many chances have you created so far this season?

"That left-back position was leaking in that last match before Roland was brought in, he outperformed you despite playing the lesser minutes and I am sure that Sandro would have put that ball in if you were there instead of him, you're just a flop of a left back with an oversized ego!"

"Come on Dave," Mateo said, quickly pushing him out of the area before he could continue what he was saying. "Hey, it's okay."

Dave was breathing heavily as he had let out some of the things he had always wanted to say to Jonas, that was just some of it.

Jonas had a stunned expression on his face as he was never expecting that response from Dave and the other players had shocked expressions on their faces too.

"I have never seen Dave act so pissed off before," Minino said with a baffled look on his face.