Football System: Classic Number 10
Episode 15: Great Players

Saturday, 19 July 2030. On that day I was told to go to the Cananga Mining training field, located in the Mining Pavilion Center, aka PPC, the people here said. 

PPC is a complex of buildings owned by Cananga Mining, there are facilities such as a training field, fitness center, entertainment center there is even their own owned hospital for their injured players. Of course, the quality here is not the quality of the existing land market in Jakarta, their quality is international even though they are still inferior to some other clubs that are not less rich. Yes, the end of all this is money.

Money, something very mystical to me. Just a sheet of paper but can make many people compete to collect it including myself. Paper with nominal numbers is also sharper than the weapons in the world, with the paper alone can destroy one country and create chaos in the country. 

With money, a club can develop very quickly. A large and smooth flow of funds will make a team or a club can progress, many have examples, Manchester City for example. The Manchester United club was not at first a great club, you could say they are still a mid-table or bottom club if the Arab oil king does not invest in the club. And look at it now, Manchester City is one of the best clubs in the English league with many domestic titles.

Not only Manchester City, there are still many clubs who have similar cases with them. In England there are Newcastle United, Chelsea and Manchester United who are city rivals. The most phenomenal is Paris Saint-Germain which is often abbreviated as PSG. 

Remember they bought Neymar by awarding him a Private Jet? Or the Mbappe transfer saga that did not go to Real Madrid simply because it was offered the position of Sports Director by the owner of the club? That's the power of money!

Cananga is also like that. Although not as fancy as the story of PSG or Manchester City. Cananga is one of the clubs that has the largest financial funds in the I-League aka the Indonesian League. They have a fairly rich owner, but their strength is not there, but the expertise of the lobby team of the owner of the club which in the end many sponsors are willing to invest in the club.

One of their sponsors is a domestic mining company, Miro Mining which is the main sponsor of the team.

That's what I learned after reading some articles about the Cananga FC Mining club.

I read all the articles about Cananga Mining after I was too happy after reading the notification letter that I passed the selection that day, so I was very happy and so could not control myself. I ended up reading all the articles about all of them, even the players who are currently the mainstay players in the first team. 

The point is I can't control my current happiness, it's always on my mind. Until the time when I and some others who also passed the selection, collected in the Cananga Mining training field. 

I glanced left and right to make sure the number of people who escaped and yep, did not change at all. There were only four people who passed the selection, including me, Derry, Zaki, and one player I had never seen before even at the time of selection.

I knew earlier that Derry had also passed, because that night he called me to tell me and also asked me if I had passed the selection as well. Zaki Iskandar was like that too, I had expected that he would pass the selection, the game at that time was really good. His playing vision is very clear, he is smart to use space and his passes are very accurate, he is my rival in the midfield!

And what I did not expect and did not expect before was the absence of the figure of Hilmawan Yoga. He always scores well on physical tests, the game yesterday was also not bad several times he managed to make golden opportunities even though I have to admit yesterday he was unlucky because Derry played no less slick. 

A class of players like Yoga Hilmawan is not accepted or failed the selection, I feel the luckiest person now because they managed to pass the selection. 

"Prophe mate!" Derry patted me on the shoulder after I was ignored by the mysterious figure.

Not long after, the Cananga Mining coaching team came and walked towards the four of us. I could feel a terrible air like it was coming out of all of them, let alone in the figure of Coach Giovanni Almeida, his figure had not changed much after the selection that day.

"Before I congratulate the four of you, you are the future flagship players of Cananga Mining" Coach Giovanni said as his eyes crept towards the four of us.

"Before we had a selection and in the end the three of you were the ones who met our criteria. And as you know there are only three of you accepted, and next to you there is one more person that makes you confused right?" The three of us stared at the figure of the man who had just been silently staring at it. "Let's introduce yourself"

The man then came forward, his face stiff and he walked like a ceremonial leader in the 17s. All his steps were like he had calculated before, so it looked neat and nice. 

"My name is Axel Raihan. My dream is to become the first Indonesian player to get the D'Or Balloon Trophy!" He said in a very loud voice, it made me and the others surprised. Her dreams were very high yet she did not hesitate to mention it, even in her reddish-brown eyes there was no look of hesitation at all.

His hair that was similar in color to his irises swayed in the wind, his curly hair reminded me of a player who had incredible speed. I was curious and in the end used the [God's Eye] skill to peek a little at the child's ability and it turned out to be a surprising result. 

'66 Shoot points and 69 sprint points! What the heck is this' I screamed in my heart after seeing those overly great status points. He's not at High School, he's almost at Professional level! If there is such a thing as natural talent, this is that natural talent.

"Axel Raihan is not a selection player like you, he is a player who was immediately recruited by our scouting team. He previously played for the Briscoe youth team"

The three of us together formed a large O in our mouths after hearing the name of the Briscoe team. Briscoe itself is one of the clubs that dominate in the Junior League, SD and Junior High leagues. 

Briscoe can be said to be equivalent, or even exceed the level of Buceros in the junior league. The team from Bandung is really a place of seeds superior domestic players. His words at the beginning were not playful, his abilities were indeed above those of the three of us.

"Yes enough, so for today you will start your first training in this team. Always remember, every exercise will be judged by all of us and we will determine to you whether you deserve to stay here, or if you have to leave earlier than here" 

The threatening remarks from Coach Giovanni closed the brief introduction today and the four of us started our first training in this team, I'm already looking forward to what's coming next.