Chapter 430: Welcome to Uventus V
Chapter 430: Welcome to Uventus V
Chapter 430: Welcome to Uventus V
Now changed from his previous into sports wear without any logos on it, Jason got on the treadmill and began warming up in accordance to Zargoza’s instructions.
On the side, Pirlo was engaging in discussion with Adele as they waited for Jason’s fitness test to be done.
Pirlo was taking Adele that Jason could quickly join the team as he didn’t need to be registered for the squad due to being under 21 years of age.
It was part of the regulations that a player who was younger than 21 wouldn’t be restricted by having to go through an extensive registration process and thus all that Jaon needed to play in Italy was a work permit.
Since officially getting one would take too long, Pirlo had decided to use one of the work permit waivers that the team had.
Each team usually had a few of these given to them at the beginning of the season and most times it wasn’t usually used unless there was a problem with getting a work permit for a player that had to compulsorily be on the pitch before a scheduled time, but luckily Uventus hadn’t had any such problems this season so Jason could quite literally take part in the next game once he was done signing the final papers.
As for whether he would play or not however, depended on the manager’s mood, after all, the team wasn’t in a dire need of his presence on the pitch, they were doing quite well for themselves at the moment.
Not where they would like to be for sure, but Jason’s presence on the team was just just as an added option for the time being and for how long that would continue remained to be seen.
While Jason’s fitness was going on, the Uventus players were already on the fields doing their team training and they were going quite hard at it, especially when they knew that they would be going up against the team that was currently holding on to the reins in the league.If they managed to win the game, they’d cut down the point difference between them to three and this would put them in a better position to take back the number one rank in the league standings.
With such a game at stake, how could they not be training hard?
However, the absence of their manager on the training ground was quite obvious.
Unlike other managers who were much older, Pirlo had still been actively playing football just over five years ago so his methods of training differed greatly from those types of managers.
He always got up close and personal to watch over the players’ training and sometimes worked almost like a personal trainer for the players.
At times, he even personally showed the players what he wanted to see from them, showing them different ways to switch up play, send in crosses, and pick out teammates in dangerous areas.
He especially came to life in the passing-type training sessions and personally showed the players time and time again that the passage of time had put no dent in the passing skills that made him a renown sniper passer in his legendary career.
Hence the Uventus players were almost always expecting to see him in training unless there was something else that required his attention and now that his presence was nowhere to be seen, they quickly started wondering why he was nowhere to be seen.
“I saw him earlier, I don’t think he’s left,” Cuadrado was telling Mckennie who had been asking him about the manager’s whereabouts.
As someone who benefited a lot from Pirlo’s personal training sessions, Mckennie always wanted to learn from the team manager and was quite disappointed that the manager was nowhere to be seen.
“I think it’s because of a player, the new guy,” Dybala who had been nearby joined in the conversation.
“I saw them going into the gym when I was leaving earlier,” he added.
He was also just recovering from an injury and had just barely began to join the team’s training but he’s had to take it easy and had to do constant check-ups with the medics so he had been undergoing a fitness test shortly before Jason arrived.
He had left the gym before Pirlo arrived with Jason, but he had seen them coming from afar.
“Oh, it’s that Jason guy then,” Mckennie’s eyes brightened up in realization.
“Good for you, you’ve got a fellow countryman joining the team,” Cuadrado said with a smile at Mckennie.
“I think they said he plays for Nigeria though, but yeah, he’s definitely a brother from the hood,”
“I can tell by his gangster attitude,” Mckennie smirked and did a little crip walk.
“You make it sound like you’ve been in a gang before when you obviously used to live in a rich neighborhood,” Cuadrado retorted with a teasing smile.
“You don’t know nothing about a hood ni**a like me bruh, I’m a real ni**a,” Mckennie snapped back.
“I wonder who he picked as a training partner? The new guy,” Dybala suddenly asked, sitting on a ball.
“That’s hard to guess though, it could be you, Bernadeschi, Chiesa, Morata, or even this guy,” Cuadrado replied, pointing to Mckennie at the end of his words.
“Why didn’t you mention agent 007?” Mckennie asked, referring to Ronaldo.
“Even though that is a very scary thought,” Mckennie added, remembering that when he had joined the club, he had also wished to take Ronaldo as a training partner, but he was advised out of doing so after which he went with Cuadrado.
Only after joining the team did he realize that he had dodged not just one bullet, but more than ten bullets because Ronaldo’s rate of training as well as his methods of training were insane and beyond his level of tolerance.
Even at 35, Ronaldo wasn’t cutting down on his training and was even adding more sessions with newer and more effective methods to keep himself in shape.
The training wasn’t the problem, the problem was the sheer amount of it.
Before arriving at the training ground for team training at 9 a.m. every morning, it was said that he woke up as early as 4 a.m. to begin training and would have gotten at least three hours of training before he would start heading towards the Continassa, where he would then go on to train more than everyone else.
While everyone else would begin leaving the training grounds, he would still stay behind to get some training in and even if he did leave, it was only so he could go to continue his training in his house that had more a more extensive amount of training equipment than a four star hotel.
Being Ronaldo’s training partner meant that you’d have to do all that, or at least something very similar.
Mckennie felt like he would die the one time he actually tried to do something like that and he wasn’t even able to finish the training plan.
“Why would anyone subject themselves to such a torturous training schedule?” Mckennie muttered.
“I mean, that’s why he’s the best in the world,” Cuadrado replied, eyeing Dybala mischievously and sure as can be, Dybala side-eyed him bombastically.
“Second best, Messi is in number one,” Dybala said, still side-eyeing Cuadrado who was doing his best to stop himself from laughing.
“Y’all can’t start that here, please,” Mckennie quickly rushed to defuse the situation before Cuadrado’s mischievousness caused an issue.
‘This guy,’ Mckennie internally shook his head, glancing at Cuadrado who was more mischievous than most people expected him to be.