Half past eight, and the Tennessee heat was already making itself known.
The pitches though, under the sun, were immaculate.
Baylor School had done everything asked of them, and then so, and the grass sat there in the morning light looking almost too good to play on.
For the players, they knew their journey wasn’t going to be easy with how testing the weather already was.
"Damn, I might have to go to Norway to balance my lanin or sothing after this."
"That might be tough for you. Why not try England? I an, Izan is still alive there," Pedri replied to Nico William’s comnt while Lamine trailed behind, who had been looking for the right pause to slip in a joke, but at the mont, he wasn’t getting any.
De la Fuente was already out there with his staff when the players erged.
He had his cap on and his sunglasses on his forehead while in conversation with his assistant.
And when the group had gathered, De la Fuente began to address them.
"Okay, people, it’s our first session in this country. Look around," he said. "We’re at a World Cup, and you got us there."
A few players, probably Lamine and Cubarsi, started to clap and whistle, but it didn’t quite catch on, making for an awkward codic mont after De La Fuente didn’t talk for a bit following that.
"The formula that got us the Euros two years ago," he continued, "wasn’t just talent. Every team at a tournant has talent enough to be there. It was the focus on ourselves. On our ga and not on what anyone else or any other team was doing."
He looked across the group.
"And that is exactly what we will be implenting for this tournant, too. There is a saying that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, but we will learn to adjust. So aside, video sessions and analysis, I do not want to hear, "These guys are doing this" or "this team that,"".
"For so of you, this is your first major international tournant."
Cubarsí nodded, and Huijsen beside him did too, as well as a few others who felt inclined to do so.
"That’s fine. More than fine."
Then, almost as an aside, he comnted.
"Last ti we played in a final, we had a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old playing in the starting lineups."
A few of the players laughed because it was funny to think about and because it was true.
Others too did because so of them had been that sixteen-year-old’s teammates back then and still hadn’t gotten used to him entirely even after he beca an adult.
"The title is ours," De la Fuente said.
"We just have to show up and take it."
De la Fuente nodded once, like a full stop, and said: "Let’s get to work."
The group broke, and the pitch filled with noise, with voices calling positions and things like the rondo starting to take shape near the centre circle.
Izan was still sitting at the edge, finishing the second lace of the new unreleased boots that Adidas had sent over for testing.
De la Fuente walked over and stood beside him before looking down at the boots.
They were new, white with red soles, as well as what seed to be a scythe on either side of the shoes.
"Nice boots. A bit uncanny with the art on the sides," he said as Izan looked up and showed a slight smile.
"Want a pair?"
De la Fuente lifted one foot and showed him the black Mizunos.
"These are enough."
Izan stood up, and the two of them looked out at the pitch without saying anything for a mont.
The session was finding its rhythm.
The rondo was going.
And Lamine was already talking too much.
Then De la Fuente said, "You’re going to have to lead."
Izan made a short sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.
But he glanced sideways at De la Fuente, and the man wasn’t being rhetorical.
He was looking at the pitch with an expression that sat sowhere between a request and a statent of fact, like he was also waiting for Izan to arrive at the sa conclusion.
Izan looked back at the pitch after that before bending to remove the shin pads he had put in since it was starting to feel a bit itchy.
"You know, I was fifteen back then," he said as he straightened, causing De La Fuente to turn towards him.
"What?" he questioned as Izan looked at him.
"When we won the Euros, I was fifteen, not sixteen," Izan repeated, but before he could say anything else, Lamine’s voice ca across from the rondo.
"Izan. Are you coaching or are you playing?"
"He can be both," De La Fuente said, recovering from the new piece of information he had just heard.
Laughter broke out from the circle as soone told Lamine to get back in position.
By this point, Izan was already walking over.
"Get in the circle—" Pedri kicked at him just as he got a bit closer.
"Outside, outside, you’re outside—"
He stepped in, and the session closed around him imdiately.
......
The days leading up to the tournant had a particular texture to them.
On one side, it was beginning to feel like rest, if you took out how drained they had to be to afford that rest.
Training got sharper as the week moved on.
De la Fuente’s sessions went from loose and exploratory on that first morning to sothing with real edge by day three.
The pressure got tighter while the intensity went higher with it until Cubarsí was running them in his sleep, which Huijsen confird because they were sharing a room, and it was becoming a problem.
The complex had settled into an almost religious state.
Breakfast at eight.
Session at half nine.
Video at two.
The evenings were their own, mostly spent playing gas, getting massages or getting extra rest.
Others, too, began calling ho, but soon June 11th ca in hot.
The opening ceremony was at three in the afternoon Chattanooga ti, and most of the squad had gathered in the main dining room by half two with plates in front of them and the big screen on the wall tuned to the broadcast.
On screen, the Estadio Azteca filled up in real ti with so eighty-seven thousand people, and all the faces that caught the cara showed that they were experiencing sothing indescribable.
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