*Fweeeeeeeeeep*

My dad, serving as the referee, blew the whistle, kicking off the first football game of my new life.

*Ding*

[Host detected playing football. Collecting data]

"Huh?!", I exclaimed as a holographic window straight out of a sci-fi movie appeared, floating in front of me.

Blinking to double-check caused it to vanish as abruptly as it had appeared, leading me to doubt my eyes, "Was I just hallucinating?"

"Nick! Watch out!", I was broken out of my reverie by Tony's shout when I noticed the ball approaching me.

'Now's not the time to doubt my vision!', I chastised myself as I dashed towards the ball.

A quick look around informed me of the utter chaos from the terrible positioning of the kids, resulting in a crowded midfield and a blind rush towards the ball.

'Let's stabilize our formation first', I decided as my feet controlled the ball. I opted to slow the tempo down in order to solidify our formation.

With only a few minutes to form a game plan, we'd agreed to play in a (3)-(6)-(2) formation after I had explained my plans to dominate the midfield using numerical superiority and retain a majority of the ball possession.

"Hey, Charlie! Team up with Arthur to apply pressure! Oi! Pass the ball back!"

"Hey! Form a triangle as you play! Make sure there are two people available as passing options!"

"Wingers, spread out! We have enough people in the middle!"

"Oi! Tony! Move up and play as defensive mid when we have possession!"

I barked instructions to my teammates as I moved around the midfield busily, performing one-two passes with them.

Perhaps intimidated by my never-before-seen assertiveness, our team's movements started synchronizing as one as we exchanged the ball organically, each pass possessing a purpose.

Two minutes in, our formation was stable and we were dominating the midfield, not letting the opposition touch the ball for a minute. Reasoning that this was a strong enough base to build an attack on, I instructed Tony, "Tony! Raise the line! You play as sweeper!"

Fearing for his team's stamina as his teammates haphazardly chased the ball, Oscar instructed them to drop down and form a dense, two-layered defense to weather the upcoming storm of attacks.

Seeing the opposing players, including the strikers, park the bus with only the wingers remaining in an advanced position made Oscar's plan to rely on counterattacks apparent.

I was impressed. With a 12-a-side match in a field designed for 9-a-side matches, forming a dense defense is truly the best move as it would make it difficult for us to find any space for passing.

*Huff-Huff*

Realizing that my stamina had also regressed with my age, I dialed my activity down while I instructed our midfield to spread out wide and the wingers to actively run up and down the wing to attract the side defenders.

I also directed them to attempt as many crosses as they could into the penalty box and encouraged the strikers to attempt headers regardless of their accuracy.

The frontline came quite close to scoring a goal with Mia even earning a couple of corner kicks, causing the worried opposition to spread out in an attempt to prevent the crosses.

Having spent the last few minutes recovering my stamina, I commenced the next part of our plan upon spotting a few holes forming in their defense.

Using hand signs to assign Arthur the responsibility of the midfield, I utilized the skills I'd honed as a striker to silently advance forward while avoiding the opposing players' field of view and position myself just below our frontline.

"Here!", I shouted out loud when I spotted an opening for a pass from the left wing. Alarmed at my current position, Ron rushed to me followed by Ben to apply pressure as I approached the ball.

Watching Ron run towards me, I swayed my upper body and swung my right foot to fake a pass, softly nudging it onto my left foot to pull a touch step-over and accelerate away.

I encountered Ben blocking my path as I noticed him throw is right leg towards the ball in an attempt to steal it. Almost on instinct, I quickly moved the ball onto my left foot from my right and sped past Ben, successfully accomplishing a La Croqueta, to finally face the opposing defenders.

Spotting two defenders rush towards me while the two others marked our strikers, I chose to utilize my teammates instead of attempting another individual breakthrough.

I lobbed a pass to Mia as I dashed forward towards the goal shouting, "Back!"

Thankfully, Mia understood my plan and fed me an exquisite through-pass bringing me one-on-one with Jack.

Everything slowed down while my vision widened, as my dormant instincts of a striker awakened. I watched Jack rush out of goal towards me and felt a tug, probably Oscar, on my back.

I took a step forward to balance myself on my left leg as I leaned back to use Oscar as support and kicked the underneath of the ball to attempt a lobbed shot.

I saw a panicked Jack jump and stretch out his hands towards the ball, managing to brush his fingertips against the flying ball, slowing it down and slightly altering its course.

His efforts proved futile though, as I watched the ball float into the goal while falling down and felt electricity coursing through my veins as I pushed myself off of the ground.

Turning around and dashing towards an excited Charlie running towards me, I jumped onto his lap screaming, "Yeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!" 

I screamed at the top of my lungs as I experienced the thrill of scoring a goal anew.

"Damn! Nick has awakened his inner Ronaldo today!", as I got off of Charlie, I listened to my teammates expressing surprise and delight at the goal with a wide grin.

Spotting Mia making her way towards me with a wide smile, we celebrated with a high five before I complimented her pass, "That was a fabulous assist. Honestly, good job on picking up on what my plan was"

Her smile got wider as she replied, "That goal was all you, Nick. You brilliantly set up the situation, it was a no-brainer to pass to you there"

**************

The deadlock now broken, Oscar's team chose to abandon their previous strategy and play more aggressively to equalize.

With the opposition attempting to attack aggressively, I decided to use this period to actively distribute the ball around, making them chase it around, further depleting their stamina.

When I felt they were sufficiently exhausted, I ordered our team to attack, this time remaining in the midfield.

With the defense subconsciously drawn towards me, the attacking players could move around easily in the created space, as I bombarded them with long passes, one of which found Joe, our winger, who had just sped past his marker.

Zooming down the empty space like a racecar on an empty track, Joe supplied an accurate cross to a perfectly positioned Mia, who effortlessly headed it into the goal. 

"Wow! Did you take lessons from Scholes?", joked a dumbfounded Charlie, as he questioned if I always knew how to pass accurately.

**********************

*Fweeeeeep-fweeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*

The match ended with my team winning 6-1 over Oscar's as I sat down, completely drained.

"Hey, Nick! Did you take some kind of medicine? What is up with your form today?", asked Oscar with a tired face.

"Haha, maybe I was lucky due to it being my birthday?", I answered nervously as I scratched the back of my head.

"Damn. You looked like a completely different player. Think you'll be lucky against the Rangers on Sunday? We could use another hat-trick then", questioned a skeptical Oscar, referring to the upcoming match at our club.

"Maybe", I answered with a cryptic smile as I got up before freezing,

*Ding*

[Data recorded]

////////// Author's Notes:

Phew, I now have a newfound respect for authors who manage to write a thrilling action scene. 

Formation - it is used to designate the starting positions of the players. The numbers indicate the number of players assigned to (defense)-(midfield)-(attack)

Pressure - to pressure a player to give the ball away by surrounding him/her with your teammates

One-two - passing the ball to your teammate and recieving it back

Raising the line - asking the defense to move up the field, effectively allowing the midfield to focus on attack

Sweeper - the player responsible for clearing any balls heading towards the goalkeeper

Park the bus - all players defend by never crossing the half line

Cross - lobbed pass from the side to the penalty box of the opposing generally performed by a winger

Lob - through the air

Through-pass - passing to a position the player is running to instead of passing directly at them. Used by attackers to outrun the defenders

Hope you enjoyed reading :)