From cero to a hundred

Training

It was 3.45 pm, we had just pulled out of the house and I could feel my nerves start getting to me, I put my earphones in blocking every feeling and voice as I listened to whatever it takes from imagine dragon.

I played it on repeat, so loud I was afraid my ear would start bleeding. "Jamie!" I heard my mum shout. "Turn the volume down, It's way too loud." She told me.

I did as she said and lowered the volume on my phone. Time went by, and after I heard the same song about 7 times we pulled into the training grounds. We parked the car and walked over to the entrance where a young girl was standing.

"Hi, you must be Jamie. I'm Ciara, I'm the coach for the U 17 team." She said shaking my hand. "Come on in, I'll introduce you to the rest of the girls." She said as she put her arm around me.

We walked over to where a bunch of girls were sitting down chatting and getting ready for the training session. "Hi girls! So this is Jamie, she's gonna be training with us for a week and if we feel like she's good enough she will stay with us for the year, if not, we have a place for her with the U 15 girls." She said. "Go on and introduce yourselves to her, tell us your name, your age, where you're from, what position you play and finally when did you start playing soccer for a girls team."

"Hi, I'm Mia, I'm 17, I'm from Oranmore, I play as a defender and I started playing with girls when I was 12."

"Hi, my name is Lilith, I'm 16, I'm from Creganna, I'm a midfielder and I first played in a girls team when I was 14."

They went on and on all of them saying what they had to, some people got mixed up getting a laugh out of it and then it was my turn. "Hi, I'm Jamie, I'm almost 15, I was born in Spain, but I live in gort now, I play as a forward and I first played in a girls team when I was 12." I said.

"Okay with that out of the way, put your boots on and then head to the pitch." Coach said walking off.

Most of them already had their shoes on so they headed off leaving just four of us, which quickly turned into two girls leaving. I looked up to see that the last girl was waiting for me to finish tying my shoes.

"Thanks for waiting." I told her as I joined her towards the pitch.

"No problem, first days can be intimidating sometimes. More so if you don't know anybody and you're the youngest one." She said. "I'm Jade by the way, but everybody calls me JB since my second name is Bailey.

"You're one of the younger ones from the team right?" I asked her.

"Yep, I'm 16, most of them are already 17 or about to turn 17 before the year ends, it's me and two other girls that are 16." She explained just as we reached the circle where everybody was standing.

"Okay girls, preseason started last week, we started getting our fitness back after the break, and now we've got to work on it more. We're gonna include a bit more of ball work this week though since we didn't touch a lot of it last week. But for now, start warming up, captains take the lead please!" She said as we all started jogging around the pitch.

They all chatted while we ran a few laps around the pitch while I just kept silent like I had when I trained with the boys the other day, until Jade ran up alongside me.

"So if you lived in Spain it means you know spanish right?" She asked me.

"Yeah, I know Spanish and also Basque since I lived in the north of Spain." I told her.

"No way! Say something in Spanish and Basque."

"Hola, me llamo Jamie and Kaixo, Jamie dut izena." I said.

"That means hello my name is Jamie right?" She asked me.

"Yep, can you say that in Irish?" I asked her.

"Conas atá tú, Is mise Jade, it means, how are you, my name is Jade." She explained.

We didn't have a chance to talk much after that since we put ourselves in the three lines of people that were created to start warming up.

After we finish warming up we meet up with coach once again. "We're gonna do some weight exercises, there's cones around the pitch, go in pairs and each place has a little card saying what you've got to do, when you're finished that move onto the next."

Jade came over to me after she finished explaining what we had to do. "Wanna work with me?" She asked me, I nodded before we both jogged over to one of the cones that were free.

"I don't really understand what you've gotta do here." Jade said as she scratched her head.

"I'll do it first if you want, so you know what you've got to do." I offered after I finished reading it.

"Thanks." She said before the whistle blew making everybody start.

We went around the circuit, no rest between the exercises as we worked on our whole body, we did weighted squats, weighted lunges, push ups, planks, tricep dips...

"Great job girls, now since the strength part is out it's time for some running!" She said making everybody scoul. "Over to the end line, keep a good steady pace, but push yourselves, do as many as you can, but all of you have to go at the same pace. Once again captains mark the pace." She said as she walked to one side of the pitch.

We ran back and forth for a good 10 minutes at a high speed, before the first two girls dropped off. 5 minutes later, half the team was off. The pace was high, but it was meant to be high, because if not we would all be running back and forth after an hour.

The 20 minute mark came and the three captains, me and two other girls were left. One of the captains couldn't keep up and step to the side, shortly after being followed by one of the girls.

Minute 24, me and one of the captains were the only two left. It was getting hard, not because I couldn't keep up, but because my legs started to hurt. But before I could even stop running, coach blew the whistle making the captain and I stop.

"Okay girls, I know you could have gone for a while more, but I don't want you guys to tire yourselves out. There's about another 40 minutes left so we'll do some passing drills, and then some passing drills combined with finishing drills." Coach said, before we paired off to do the first passing drill.

Once again Jade took a ball and told me to come over to her, so I did as she told me and joined her for the passing drill.

After we finished the passing drill and the shooting drill we all met up in the middle of the pitch once again.

"Great training today girls! So we have another training on Thursday and Friday. Thursday we will get some more possession exercises in and a bit less running and then Friday we will play a match. But right now, go and cool off and head back home. Jamie, can you wait a minute." She said.

As everyone headed away from the pitch to the sideline, I walked closer to Ciara. "Great training session kid, I feel like you'll do good with this age group. I'll give you the full week before I tell you my final decision, but you're on the right path."

"Thanks coach." I said before jogging off to put my boots on.

"Good training session Jamie." One of the girls told me as I sat down.

"Thanks." I said shily before I changed my boots.

I was about to leave and head to my car when Jade stopped me. "Hey!" She shouted, making me turn. "What's your instagram? So I can put you in our team group chat." She told me.

"Uhm, I'm not in the team yet, but it's just @jamielynch" I told her.

"I mean, you're gonna be in it so I'll just put you in earlier. My instagram is @jade_baley." She told me, just as I got a notification on my phone.

"Okay." I said, I turned around but stopped myself and looked back at her. "Oh, and thanks for partnering up with me." I told her shily.

"Don't worry about it, you're cool, I like you." She said before she joined the rest of the girls who were walking away.

"Bye Jamie!" A few of the girls called at me.

"Bye." I said as I jumped in my car.