After a long and tiresome argument, the senior students finally settled on who would get Jesse on their team. The rest may have been reluctant coming to that accord, but the team who was getting him was more than acquiescent about how things ended up.
Normally, the seniors never allowed those from the junior classes — JSS1 to JSS3 — to play football with them, because they just couldn't keep up with the senior students physically.
The seniors were faster, stronger, smarter, and had simply played the game longer — there was no way the juniors could compete with them without it feeling like a horrid mismatch.
But Jesse — they always fought over who would get him despite him being a junior student from the JSS3 class.
He was just that good.
The game continued with the teams on the sidelines waiting for their turn at playing the victors, and eventually, it reached the turn of the team Jesse had joined. Soon enough, he was playing on the field.
Eventually, his team played their fourth game in a row and were still yet to lose.
Every match they played had the very same straightforward tactic:
Pass the ball to Jesse.
And yet, that simple tactic just couldn't be defended against.
Jesse was a proper traditional winger — the kind who wasn't terrified of taking on players, but actually enjoyed it.
He had no formal training, no coach that guided him, and rarely ever got to watch football matches because he had no TV at home.
But Jesse had raw talent, the kind that made you want to stop and watch even if you weren't a fan of football.
He had been blessed with magic feet from a very young age and was a quick learner on the pitch. A lot of the time, seeing a football skill once was enough for him to make it his own.
And that was how he learnt to juggle, flick, and dribble — by watching, copying, and perfecting what he'd seen other players do on the football pitch.
He was like a one-man army, controlling the ball almost effortlessly and dribbling past defender after defender with fluid and unpredictable movements, and lightning-quick stepovers.
He was so good at beating players with his flair and technical ability, that his style of play at school bordered on being sadistic — no, it was sadistic.
He never just dribbled past someone; no, he made sure to make them regret ever stepping on the football field.
Of course, he would never try that out in the local community football field, where he played against people of all ages — ranging from full-grown adults to young adults and a few teenagers like himself.
Unfortunately for him, though, he had made that mistake the first time he played there about a year ago. He had heard that scouts came by to the community field from time to time, sometimes quietly blending into the crowd to watch the game before eventually making the decision to meet with players who caught their interest.
Playing there and dazzling as much as he could was Jesse's only chance at making it pro.
So, trying to impress any potential scouts in the crowd, Jesse had tried a lot of showboating skills on the field that day — and unsurprisingly, nearly got hospitalised.
...For all his efforts, there were no scouts present on the community field that day — or any of the days after for that matter.
He had to walk home with a painful limp after receiving the leg-breaking tackle, and as if that wasn't a terrible enough punishment, his mother dished him a subsequent beatdown when he arrived home for nearly ending up crippled.
What was it with African mothers anyways? Was their way of showing concern for you getting crippled by crippling you themselves??
What an odd way of thinking...
Anyway, he was banned from playing football by his mother after that, and she told him she never wanted to see him with a football ever again.
From that moment on, she wanted him to focus solely on his studies and stay away from distractions that would be counterproductive to them — especially ones like football that could cripple him for life.
If he ended up getting a bad injury, his mother would not be able to afford the hospital bill, after all. It especially worried his her, knowing that in such situations, the hospital's ulterior solution would be amputation.
Who would want that for their child? It was a nightmare for any parent.
But of course, like the stubborn goat he was, Jesse paid no mind and did not listen to her vehement Instructions.
There was no way for his mother to know he was playing football at school and in the community field, so how would she know if he did as she said or not?
As long as he kept the whole football business away from home, he would be perfectly safe from her wrath.
Well... or so he thought.
As always, nothing ever goes as planned in this accursed world, and today, karma gave Jesse a nasty bite in the form of another sliding tackle.
Of course, students at school never tackled hard because no one wanted to be responsible for any sort of dreadful injury to their peers — and besides, the matches were entirely friendly and non-competitive, so there was no reason or incentive to do such a thing.
As a result, yes, the tackle was very soft — so much so, that Jesse did not feel even the slightest pain or discomfort with the contact.
But, it was still enough to bring Jesse down flat into the dirty sand, soiling his once-pristine white uniform completely. There was no way of lying through this now, whatever he said, his mother would know only one thing could have gotten his clothes so dirty.
It was inevitable. He was going to get that long-overdue smackdown today.
Jesse stood from the ground, trembling as he stared down at his uniform which had been painted and unpleasant shade of brown. Then, he looked at the skies with complete and total resignation in his lightless eyes.
'Ah... I'm cooked.'