1. Kick (Thomas Muller)

in which the team is assembled

It was the next morning, and now that Libby had agreed to affiliate with Thomas even more, on purpose, she had to inform her coach.

Even if her coach said no, which was bound to happen (in the obvious circumstances), she was prepared to fight for her own performance as forward.

She dialed her Coach's number, knwoing that he was enjoying his break by slumbering the day away, and waited a few moments.

"..hello?" A tired voice rang from the other end.

"Coach! It's me, Libby." Libby said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Libby, what?" Coach said a little too violently.. Libby suddenly felt stupid about this whole plan. Why in the world would her coach allow her to train with some team that she barely knew?

She couldn't believe that she was thinkimg sanely while her Coach was angrily listening to her mumble.

"Um...well..." Libby began, trying to find a way to ease out of this.

"Spit it out, Stimme." Coach spoke sharply into her ear.

"IwaswonderingifIcouldbetrainedbyGermanyformypositionasforwardforthebiggame..." Libby spit out all at once, dropping her guard, and letting her mouth ramble, as it had done many times before.

There was a sharp silence, broken by Coach's sigh.

"Okay." Was all he said.

"Yeah, but if you just let me explain. I think that-wait what?" Libby stammered. She didn't believe that she had heard him say what he had just said.

Did he actually approve of this nonsensical plan that was made just a couple of hours before out of pure instinct?

Maybe Coach was just too tired to actually function properly. Yeah that was probably the case...

"So...?" Libby was too afraid to ruin her victory.

"This will be good, Libby. Good work, more publicity and the press will love it. I'll talk with you later. Just...you probably met some guy right?" Coach said with a scoff.

Libby blushed, but immediately recoiled.

"WHAT?" She screeched. Thomas or any guy wasn't the reason that she was doing this. She was strictly doing this for her own good.

"I mean, there can't be any other reason you would want to be trained..." Coach said smugly. Okay, Libby thought, this was getting weird.

"Okay, whatever. I'll call you when I see them." Libby said emphasizing that it wasn't a boy. Libby mentally threw up at the thought of this.

Thomas and me? Pass me the barf bag, Libby Thought.

Libby was still astounded by how easy Coach had let this happen.

"There has to be a catch..." Hope contemplated after Libby had told her after they had both woken up. She sipped on some lemonade, nodding her head at Hope.

"There's no way he'll let you do this, plus I have to approve." Hope grinned, nudging Libby. Hope knew Coach was right, there had to have been a boy for this to actually plant in Libby's mind.

"Shut up, I swear there's no boy," Libby shrugged. Hope sipped some of her water, both of them walking down the street. Why did everyone believe that there had to be a boy involved for this to happen.

"Well, he's liking the way the press will eat it up, you know how they are. Plus, he thinks it'll make more people come to the games." Libby shrugged.

It just so happened that a few members of the German team and Libby were meeting up at some café to discuss the situation, with their coaches of course.