Chapter 99 - West Ham

Hilton kicked the ball forward. Simone received the ball and then passed it to Freddy, who had gone up to overlap. Freddy immediately dribbled the ball past the centerline of the field. Then he gave the ball to Ryan. At the same time, Rustan escaped the offside trap, Ryan immediately sent a through ball to Rustan.

The Southampton right-winger sent a cross from the right side of the penalty box. Kazuki adjusted his position, then jumped up and did a volley. His body immediately fell onto the grass after kicking the ball. Fortunately, the ball went into Joe Hart's net, so Southampton managed to score for the third time.

The Southampton players gathered around Kazuki and hugged him. Winning 2 goals made Southampton's victory in this match more stable. After this goal George immediately replaced Kazuki and several other players also came in, he put in a defender and started playing negatively. Manchester City kept trying to score goals. In the 89th minute, Aguero managed to score, but his goal was the last goal of the match.

Southampton won the match with a score of 3-2. In this first round, they managed to get the fans off to a great start. In this match, Kazuki became the man of the match with two goals.

***

The next day, George took the day off from practice and told the players to rest well. Southampton's next match will be against West Ham United. However, there was still a week before the match took place.

During this week, apart from practicing, Kazuki also often played PS4 with Ryan. They were both good gamers. The thing that caught Kazuki's attention, when it came to games, was the rating given in FIFA 2012. Kazuki checked Southampton and looked at the stats. Kazuki was quite satisfied with the stats that FIFA provided, it was just that he was not satisfied to see that his header stats was quite low.

Kazuki intentionally posted his complaint on a social media account. Of course, he was only half-joking. However, Kazuki did not expect several other players to respond to his post with such enthusiasm.

Gareth Neill protested that his speed was lower than Mattheo's in FIFA 2012. Oliver Gerrard protested that his shooting accuracy was too low. Sergio Ramos also protested that his physical stats was weaker than Van Dyke's. This wave of protests was followed by many other football players. So EA immediately apologized and promised to fix the statistical error.

Kazuki didn't expect his prankster action to have such a wide impact.

***

Kazuki drove his car towards Southampton training ground. Near the entrance, some fans signaled to Kazuki so that Kazuki stopped the car, he opened the car window. The group of people asked for an autograph and a photo with him. Kazuki was fine, he agreed to the request.

When he was done, he returned to drive his car inside. After finishing parked the car. Kazuki walked into the changing room. After changing clothes, he entered the training ground. The place was still empty because the practice would start in an hour. Even so, Kazuki developed a habit of arriving earlier than scheduled.

He used that hour to run and do some light exercises. Kazuki's abilities were already quite good, the most important thing for him was to maintain his best state for as long as possible. Every football player would definitely run into bad circumstances once in a while, Kazuki should be able to get over those circumstances as quickly as possible.

After a long time of training, finally one by one Southampton players came to the training ground. They immediately greeted Kazuki who was practicing. Kazuki's habit was already known to the other Southampton players, so they weren't surprised to see Kazuki arrive earlier than the other players.

Moments later, George and the rest of the coaching staff arrived. Southampton started their daily training. Starting with physical training and warm-up, Southampton players underwent serious training after the training was completed, now entering the main training menu.

The main training today was the positioning and coordination of players.

In modern football, defense and attack was a unified whole. The striker was the most forward defender and the defender was the most back striker. In making a team into a single unit, a tactical system and good player coordination were needed.

When a team was attacking, how many people need to stay in the back to keep the counter-attack? When a team defends, what is the task of each player? Who should be looked after? Which spaces should be closed? Without an understanding of the overall situation, it is very difficult for a team to become a unified entire.

George tried to make Southampton into a unified entire. That's why George's demands on Southampton players were always high. Especially the young players who were now Southampton's mainstay. In this case, George tries to make Rustan and Ryan better trained in defense. Forward players must be able to defend well. That's George's principle.

When the players in a team were able to understand their task well and were able to carry it out. Then the team will undoubtedly be a strong team. With Southampton's quality, it is very difficult to achieve that, but at least they were trying to do their best.

Apart from the things above, George was also increasingly aware that Kazuki was not limited by one position only. Therefore, he tried to find the best way to utilize Kazuki's abilities without sacrificing the best ability he had, scoring.

Southampton training was continued every day. Unknowingly, the second round of the English Premier League was getting closer. In this round, Manchester United will play Chelsea. A big match at the start of the season. In the first round, Manchester United managed to beat Leeds narrowly while Chelsea feasted on goals at home against Swansea.

The second round of the 2012/2013 English Premier League season between West Ham United and Southampton will begin.

"Welcome everyone, Jim Kaglin here, I will accompany you to watch the match between West Ham United and Southampton.

In the first round, Southampton surprisingly managed to beat Manchester City with a score of 3-2 while West Ham also won when they traveled to Wolverhampton Wanderers. A little note, this will be Kazuki's first time facing West Ham in the senior event. The previous season, Kazuki missed the match against West Ham because he had not played in the first team yet.

Of course, this got everyone excited, will Kazuki be able to score against West Ham? Or will West Ham beat Southampton and marked Kazuki well in this match?

Let's look at the line-up of the two teams. Southampton again fielded the 4-2-3-1 formation.

Goalkeepers: Dean Smith;

Defenders: Freddy, Okhalo, Hilton, Benson;

Defensive midfielders: Simone, Rudolf;

Attacking midfielders: Rustan, Joe Bennet, Ryan;

Front: Kazuki.

Meanwhile, West Ham United fielded a 4-4-2 formation.

Goalkeepers: J. Jääskeläinen;

Defenders: G Demel, J Collins, W Reid, J O'Brien;

Midfielders: Taylor, M Diamé, K Nolan, M Noble;

Front: M. Jarvis, C. Cole

Let's see how the first half match between the two teams goes."