This Came With Me Too?
This came with me too?
A short while later, the training ground began filling up with U20 players.
"Alright. We'll split into the usual A and B teams and play. A team's missing a striker right now, yeah? This kid's filling that spot today."
On Coach Giuseppe Scurto's orders, I was slotted in as one side's striker.
Seeing whether I could hold my own among these players — that was the simplest way to tell if I belonged on the U20 squad.
Preeeep—
The whistle blew and the test kicked off. My body moved on instinct.
Years of bouncing between clubs had taught me how to lock into rhythm fast, even with strangers. On top of that, I'd played with these U20 guys before, so I had a rough sense of their tendencies.
Well — foggy ones, at least.
A few things were different from the past, though. They didn't know me. And the versions of them I remembered were a little further along in their development.
But that was fine.
If they weren't complete idiots, they'd figure out what kind of player I was within a few minutes.
Thump… thump…. thump.
Huh?
Was I seriously getting nervous over a test like this?
I could feel my heart hammering.
God… damn it… how embarrassing.
I clenched my jaw and shifted into the striker's position.
Thump. Thump! Thump!?
The moment I drifted near the opposing penalty box, something felt off in my body.
"Hoo…"
I drew a deep breath, forced myself under control, and locked onto the match.
Being a striker is lonelier than people think.
You can go long stretches without ever touching the ball.
But that was fine.
Just one moment. Focus everything on that brief window when the chance to score arrives, and put it away.
The ball started working its way up from the back.
The one silver lining: I remembered this match. Forcing my trembling body forward through the nerves, I edged into the penalty box little by little.
Whump!
Huh?
In my memory, the first delivery had been a high cross. This time, though, it came in low and hard — different from the past.
And damn, that driven ground cross was excellent.
The ball knifed into the awkward pocket of space between the keeper and the defenders.
I was half a beat quicker than the center backs. All I had to do was stick a foot out and it was a goal. Certain of it, I swept my foot through.
Thok.
"Huh?"
The ball rolling in low caught my foot and rocketed straight up over the crossbar.
An absolutely absurd shot.
No — what the hell was that?
But the sensation was familiar.
This was exactly why I'd been walking downhill.
A bad habit born from fundamentals that had only gotten worse.
My goddamn Triangle Foot.
Don't tell me…
In that instant, a suspicion took root.
Just like how coming from the future had stripped away any fear of those racist pieces of trash at school — had the ugly things that developed later in my career followed me back too?
That changed everything.
My weaknesses hadn't come from the injury.
They'd come more from shaky fundamentals and psychological factors.
No — I'd come back to the past. Shouldn't my experience have made me better?
Why was I dragging the bad stuff along with me?
I had a problem.
Whether it was the pressure from a long stretch of poor form, or whether I'd gotten too hung up on being called a heading one-trick pony — I didn't know where it had started.
But I knew the problem was there.
I'd just been looking the other way.
At some point, getting near the opposing penalty box made my heart race in a way that wrecked my movement.
Just like now.
And my finishing accuracy tanked. Inside the box, I became what they call a complete brick foot.
A girl's shot would have been better — at least those go on target. Those still count as shots on goal.
But I was something else entirely.
Like Raheem Sterling blasting one into the stratosphere against Lyon, I'd sky the ball into the heavens or smash it wildly left or right without discrimination.
That symptom is what truly turned me into a heading-only striker. It got so bad my agent asked if I'd caught the yips.
And just like that, I fell off a cliff.
A striker with exactly one way to score.
Yeah. I really was trash.
And with that kind of form, I'd been inducted into the 27 Club?
This absolute bullshit… that devil bastard was making me do the impossible and laughing about it.
"Keep going!"
Coach Giuseppe Scurto's voice cut through.
Right. The match wasn't over.
It wasn't finished yet, so I had to find something — anything.
First, think about what I could actually do.
What was I capable of here?
The second I stepped into the box, I kicked like an idiot.
So then…
I had no choice but to do what I was good at.
Heading one-trick.
From between the two opposing center backs, I started dropping deep toward their defensive midfielder and surging back up again, waiting for the ball.
Thump! Thud! Thump thud… thump?!
Pacing in and out near the penalty box sent my heart ricocheting around my chest like it had lost its mind.
Shit.
I cursed inwardly, fought through the heaviness settling into my limbs, and kept moving.
I signaled for the ball from a midfielder grinding his way up the middle. The moment he played it, I dropped quickly and laid it out wide toward the right flank.
"Hmm. The shot was weird, but the movement isn't bad."
U20 coach Giuseppe Scurto murmured.
"Well… he's been a striker this whole time, so the basics are there."
"I'd like to see a real moment of quality, though…"
Spreading it wide let the right winger collect. He jinked this way and that against the fullback, then suddenly spun and whipped in a left-footed cross.
Now!
I'd been wrestling with the center backs; I dropped off with the winger's movement, then exploded forward.
The center backs failed to fully track my sudden retreat, and they couldn't stop me as I charged in and leapt.
Thwack!
Ripple~!
"Bravo! Bene! Teo!"
Coach Giuseppe Scurto called out with a thoroughly satisfied look on his face.
Whew… at least I'd saved some face.
After the goal, the rest of the test match dragged on a little dull.
There simply wasn't that much I could do inside the penalty box.
So instead of forcing shots at goal, I made a different choice.
When the ball came to me, rather than stubbornly trying to shoot, I linked it out to the nearby wingers, or laid it off to midfielders arriving from deeper positions, keeping the attack flowing.
That was how a Triangle Foot like me had managed to stay in the game at all — and thanks to it, the match kept moving.
One more chance did come my way after that. I rose high to meet a cross from the flank and produced a clean header. For a split second it looked goal-bound — the direction was that good.
But the opposing keeper wasn't going down easy.
Thwack!
He flung himself full stretch and got a fingertip to it, tipping the ball wide for a corner. A frustrating moment — and yet, strangely, I felt light.
Close. Still… I'd gotten enough out of this.
The test had confirmed it all over again.
Playing as a striker wasn't going to be easy.
"Good work, everyone."
The test match wrapped up, and as the players started packing things away, U20 coach Giuseppe Scurto called me over.
"Teo. I liked what I saw."
Haha… if he liked it, that might actually be a problem…
But his answer caught me off guard.
"I think you're solid."
Coach Giuseppe Scurto looked at me and smiled.
"From where I'm standing, you've got more than enough quality. Want to come up to the U20s?"
He was calling me up after a miss like that?
I hadn't seen that coming.
Or was he choosing to look at the positives — the way other coaches had before?
I hesitated for a moment, then shook my head.
"I really appreciate the opportunity. But I'd like to try something else, so I'd prefer to stay where I am."
Coach Giuseppe Scurto's expression shifted slightly.
"You're seriously going to play center back?"
"I'm just trying something different. Center backs matter a lot in Serie A, right? It might be the right fit for me — I should at least give it a shot."
Giuseppe Scurto looked like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Why? Why won't you play striker? You've got talent. That kind of seasoned movement isn't something just anyone can pull off. It takes years of hard work to get there."
I hesitated, then answered.
"I'm sorry. Being a striker at the U20 level is harder than I expected. I was all over the place during the match, and I made mistakes…"
I got the refusal across however I could. But Coach Giuseppe Scurto wasn't backing down easily.
"No. You missed that first ball, sure. But everything after that was excellent. Laying it off to the winger, linking with the midfielder arriving from deep — you were building the attack. How does a young forward make decisions like that?"
He studied me like I was some kind of curiosity.
"That's not the kind of play someone your age should be capable of. Far more mature."
I flinched.
Well… that was because I had a lot more football experience than it looked like, so pulling off those plays wasn't a problem…
I forced the words back down my throat. There was no way I could explain that.
"I just…. got lucky."
"Lucky? No. That's talent."
Giuseppe Scurto sank into thought for a moment, then spoke again.
"Fine. In two weeks, I'm calling you up to the U19s."
In two weeks?
I looked at him quietly.
"Think it over until then. Center back isn't an easy position either, you know. You can't just switch and expect to be good at it."
His eyes were serious.
And he wasn't wrong.
You couldn't just change positions on a whim.
Coach Giuseppe Scurto held up his index and middle fingers toward me one last time.
"Two weeks. Spend that time actually playing center back with the U19s. And think hard about what path you really want."
"Understood. Thank you for looking out for me."
But there was no other way.
Right now, I was in no condition to play as a striker.
I had to find something else.