Greatest Of All Legends

"My name is Antonio Conte. You can call me Antonio,"

"As you know, I am your new manager after er, Nuno. But I am not here to speak about him or what his mistakes were or whose fault it is,"

"What needs to be done instead is to look at how things can move forward,"

"I am very strict person and have er-... high expectations of my team but you guys are good so I don’t think we have any problem," Conte made a small joke to lighten the atmosphere.

"I play em-... different type of football than your former manager but it’s not difficult and I know you will adjust well,"

"Before that, the thing I want from... At a team, the players may be good, the tactics can be good, but the spirit cannot be ignored,"

"The desire to win, the fire to never give up even if we’re losing the game, the burning pride to win trophies. That cannot be ignored and that commitment..."

"That level of commitment is what I want from my players because I will push you hard and I will have expectations,"

"It’s not that I want you to suffer, no. I want us to win, and win, and win again,"

"I hope you are with me eh, guys?" Antonio asked.

"Yes coach," the players answered collectively.

"Good, now go warm up. Gather back here when you finish, we have lot of work to do and tomorrow is our next match. We don’t have much time," the manager ordered.

The Tottenham players quickly began moving, starting with light jogging, they switched to joint mobility exercises and dynamic stretches before finishing with some high-intensity short-distance sprints and some quick feet drills.

After some fifteen to twenty minutes of warm-ups, the players gathered around Antonio Conte again.

"As I already said earlier, we don’t have much time since we have a match tomorrow but we’ll do what we can today,"

"I usually have my team play three defender formations and after looking at the players we have on the team, I’ve decided on the 3-4-3 formation for us,"

"The basic explanation is this. Three players at the back, two wing backs that go up and down the field and are the width of the team, and then three forwards, a striker and two inside forwards,"

"Did you understand that?" Antonio asked and got nods from the players.

"Good,"

"It’s too late for a tactics class so I want something simple from you guys. Tomorrow I want you to play like you can in this formation. I’m not giving you any specific instructions yet,"

"Just try working on how you fit into this shape and play like you can," he told the players.

It was too late to start giving the players any instructions as all that would do would be to confuse them in the coming match.

They were still used to Nuno’s style of play and if he tried to force them to play his way, things could go horribly wrong, so for now all he was changing was their shape on the pitch.

They could work on the specifics after the first game.

Also he wanted to see better what the players could do and how they reacted to various situations so he would know who had a place in his team or not.

The team training for the day was transition training, mainly transition to counterattacks after receiving the ball and also some defensive transitioning as well.

Like Jason had expected, Conte demanded a lot from his players but because of the game the following day, the training ended early, however, the Tottenham players still felt it in their muscles.

With Antonio constantly shouting orders to the players during training and making sure no one stayed idle almost throughout, the players caught a glimpse of what their future would be like after today.

While the other first team players ended their training as they needed to avoid exhausting themselves because of the game, Jason wasn’t so lucky as he still had to do an extra hour of recovery training.

He wasn’t yet cleared yet to get on the pitch, but he wasn’t unfit either so his trainer didn’t have to take it too easy with him.

Thankfully, Jason was already used to hellish training and despite it being his first time in a while tiring himself out this much, he didn’t feel too stressed out from the training.

His next scan was coming up soon and a medical would come right after that and if he passed the two, then he would be considered fit enough to get back on the field, hence why he was putting in all the work to get back to top shape.

All the time off the pitch had almost left him feeling depressed and now he just wanted to have fun with a ball at his feet.

Unlike normal people who seemed to get more timid after serious injuries, always thinking twice before trying to dribble the ball, Jason had somehow ended up getting a totally different reaction.

As someone who had gotten many injuries in his previous reality, he was already dull to the traumas injuries caused, but lately he had felt himself getting much more daring.

Before he wanted to play football to get a goal as quickly as possible, but now he was beginning to find himself amused by the exhilaration that came when he went up against a player marking him and won.

He was getting addicted to what seemed like his own talent.

He knew that his skills were the result of two lifetimes and years of continuous effort, yet now that it felt so easy to do, so ingrained in his body and movements, it felt like raw shocking talent.

His body moved the way he wanted it to and with so many moves in his arsenal there was almost always a way to escape any situation.

It was amusing.

It was addicting.

It was self-destructive.

Many times within the last week, he had caught himself going up against his teammates in scrimmages and opting to dribble his way out of complicated situations when there were clear passing options.

Of course his teammates tried to avoid tackling him hard, but he knew when he got past that even if they had tried to tackle harder, he would still have escaped.

As he dribbled more, he naturally aggravated them into even forgetting that they were supposed to watch themselves, yet like a monster feeding off their aggressiveness he only moved sharper and dribbled faster and with even more ferocity.

At some point, the trainers had to check the calendar again to wonder if he wasn’t already done with his recovery.

It was for this reason that his final scan and medicals had been brought almost two weeks forward.

However while Jason’s recovery and performances on the training ground was impressing everyone, his teammate and trainers alike, it was giving another person a headache.

Antonio Conte had almost shouted himself hoarse at Jason, telling him to pass the ball and let the team counter faster, but Jason was instead ignoring him and doing his own thing like a football junkie now completely addicted to dribbling.