Rise of a Football God

Sam woke up feeling foggy and light-headed.

Looking around, he quickly determined that he was still in his bathroom.

"Babe!" He heard Kayla call loudly. "What are you doing? You're still in the bathroom? You'll get late for team training".

"Ah, yes, team training". Rubbing his temples, Sam stood up.

He looked around. 'What happened?'

Not remembering much, he quickly took his bath, left the bathroom and kissed his girlfriend goodbye before quickly driving back to the Spotify Camp Nou.

For the first time since signing for the Catalan club, he arrived late for training.

Like promised, Pedri bought their breakfast that morning even as alongside the rest of their teammates, they started training under the tutelage of their coach.

It was while they trained that Sam discovered something.

'This…'

It was like memories were overlapping with his own memories.

At first, he didn't understand what was happening but as more memories overlapped, affecting him, he finally started remembering what happened.

'Right, I got a memory orb'.

His eyes widened. 'And that memory orb had the memory of Lionel Messi!'

His eyes widened even more as he finally remembered everything. 'The memory of Lionel Messi practicing his iconic body feint skill!'

In the memory orb, Sam seemed to go through a time portal, overlapping himself with phantom memories of Lionel Messi, memories of when the legendary Argentine forward practiced his body feint skill and when he used it on the pitch.

In those few minutes that he spent in the bathroom, Sam lived almost 2 decades of Lionel Messi's career!

Every single body feint that Messi did in training, every single body feint that he did in a professional game, he lived through it all.

In that moment, as Sam remembered everything, his eyes widened because chemical processes started taking place inside his head.

In that moment, his fundamental understanding of the body feint skill deepened to a level that he never imagined possible before.

His memories, his instincts, all of them were honed.

And then, his system finally lit up with a new notification.

~----~

[Congratulations! You have inherited a memory orb of the legendary Argentine winger, Lionel Messi!]

[Your mastery of the Body Feint skill has improved to the Advanced Mastery Level!]

[Your Dribbling attribute has increased by +1]

***

[Owned Football Skills:]

[Passive skill: Stalwart]

…

[Active skills:]

[Basic mastery level: Step overs; roulette; knuckle shot; overhead kick; rainbow flick; trivela shot, basic penalty technique, scissor kick]

[Intermediate mastery level: Elastico; Cruyff turn; La croqueta; Power header]

[Advanced mastery level: Spatial awareness; Power shot; Body feint]

[Perfect mastery level: Freekick Technique]

…

[Legendary Inheritance: Elastico]

[Legendary Inheritance: Spatial Awareness]

[Legendary Inheritance: Power Shot]

…

Player Attributes:

*Pace: 86

*Shot: 87

*Pass: 85

*Dribbling: 85

*Defending: 40

*Physicality: 81

*Stamina: 89

Overall Rating: 87

~----~

In the blink of an eye, from the intermediate level where it was before, Sam's mastery of the Body feint skill increased to the advanced level.

"…!"@@novelbin@@

His eyes widened, not just because of the increase, but because of the potential that experiencing that memory orb gave to him.

'This…!' He was amazed.

Sam was amazed because at this moment, he felt and was convinced that the effects of the memory orb didn't just end at the Advanced mastery level of the body feint skill.

Afterall, experiencing almost 2 decades of Lionel Messi practicing and using the body feint skill was no joke.

Heck, just 1 such experience with the legendary Lionel Messi was no joke.

This was why at this moment; Sam was convinced that he already got a clear path towards taking the body feint skill to the perfection mastery level.

His eyes gleamed with excitement. 'All I need is time and patience, and diligence too'.

'I already saw how the G.O.A.T does it'.

'All I need is to follow his guidelines, doing what he did, repeating his actions and routine till I master it the same way that he did'.

Sam's eyes burned with a fiery zeal.

For the rest of the training session, Sam's teammates noticed something.

'Why is he suddenly so obsessed with using the body feint skill?'

With that, today's training session came to an end.

…

The next day, it was rinse and repeat as Sam repeated the same sequence of events throughout his day.

From completing his daily system quest alongside his training buddies, to training with the team, then going back home to meet his girlfriend, meditating for some time, and then sleeping; he did only that.

Like this, the days moved fast and in no time, it was another matchday of the Spanish La Liga campaign.

Sam did not play FC Barcelona's first game of the campaign since he was still relatively new to the club then, but he played FC Barcelona's next game.

From matchday 2 on, he played for 3 consecutive games for the Catalan club till the scandal brought his career to a sudden halt.

With Sam out as a result of the scandal, FC Barcelona played another league game before finally kickstarting their UEFA champions league campaign in the next game against the Portugal giants, Benfica.

After that, FC Barcelona played 2 more games, both being league games and now, it was matchday 8 of the Spanish La Liga campaign.

FC Barcelona were still very much in the title race alongside Real Madrid at the top, having pulled away from Atletico Madrid already and finally, the Catalans regained the services of their electric midfielder in Sam. Explore more stories with My Virtual Library Empire

FC Barcelona's next game was an away game against Osasuna.

(La Liga:)

(Osasuna – FC Barcelona)

In the build-up to the game, the question among fans of the Catalan persuasion was would Sam play in the game? And if he would, from what minute of the game would Hansi Flick introduce him after being out of action for a time already?

But when the German coach finally dropped his starting XI for the away game against Osasuna, the FC Barcelona fanbase was stunned.

In confinement, a lot of people expected Sam's skills to become dulled but nothing of the sort happened.

Rather, in confinement, training every day, Sam made sure that he remained sharp and physically fit.

He was preparing for his return to the pitch.

And after just a few days of training since the court hearing, he was able to convince the German coach, Hansi Flick that he was ready to start.

Hansi Flick made the bold decision of starting Sam against Osasuna.

Would this radical decision pay off?