Who Are You? The Football Manager.

Chapter 1: The First Time I Talked to Barcelona

I walked around the outside of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and went past the other entrances to a grassy spot I knew of. I started moving the football around, just practicing some simple roll overs and step overs when a little boy wearing a Barcelona jersey, about the age of 5, came up to me and asked to play with me. I wasn't going to say no to his adorable face, so we started a mini game against each other. Of course I went ridiculously easy on the boy because he would get so excited when he scored a goal.

He was coming at me again, the football was a foot ahead of him; I knew I could easily get it but I waited and spread my feet apart. Just as I expected, he kicked the ball between my legs. I gasped in fake horror, much to the boy's amusement, I said, "oh no! what am I going to do? Are you going to score another goal on me??"

He ran around me and kicked the ball into the stadium wall, "Yay I made another one!"

I sat down pretending to be exhausted, "Wow, you are a really good footballer! You're just as good as..." I looked at the name on the back of his jersey, "Messi!"

Much to my surprise, the boy shook his head at me, "No" he said.

"No?"

"I'm going to be as good as all the Barça players combined!!" He yelled. I smiled at the boy, then a woman, I'm assuming his mother, came up to him and told him it was time to go. "Bye!" he told me, I waved my hand and smiled at him as he left. I was just getting back to practicing my moves when an older boy, maybe the age of 11, came up to me and laughed at me. I looked at him confused.

"You are a terrible footballer! You lost to a baby!" He says.

"I was obviously going easy on him; I didn't want him to be upset." I told the boy.

"Oh yeah? Why don't we have a match to see whose better, I know I'll beat you in seconds!"

Now this boy was really getting on my nerves, there was no way I was going easy in him. "Fine by me! Bring it on, but I'll warn you, what you saw wasn't how I actually play football!" We had been playing for 5 minutes and I had made 12 goals on the boy whereas he had only made 2. All of a sudden, he just sat down and he looked as though he was going to cry. I wanted to laugh at him, like he laughed at me, but my stupid kindness took over, he was just a little kid after all. "Hey, the game isn't over yet," I tell him.

"What's the point, I'm not going to catch up, I lost, I'm a loser."

"Come on now, you said you wanted to play a match, real footballers never give up, I know you can win, you have to keep trying, just one more time." He looked up at me and nodded. I gave him the ball to start with. He came at me dribbling the ball, he seemed wary of his moves, then he shot. It wasn't hard to block, if I had just stood there, the ball would have bounced off my shins, IF I had just stood there. But no, I swallowed up my pride and widened my stance, making the ball go through my legs, then I flicked it with the back of my right heel making it go past the goal line. Finally, to top it off, I let myself slide in the muddy grass to make it look like I was trying to save the ball, but was too late. I heard the boy cheer for himself quietly, I sighed and I knew what I had to do to make him happy. I laid down on the grass and started breathing heavily.

"What's wrong?" The boy asked.

"Nothing," I said, "I'm just too tired to play, you win." I told him.

"But I only scored 3 goals!" He said confused.

I sighed again, feeling my pride sink deeper, "Didn't I tell you the rules? It doesn't matter how many goals you make, the winner is the one who makes the last goal; you made the winning goal."