The rules of tennis ball were quite simple, just like lawn tennis or table tennis, the ball was only allowed to bounce on your side once after coming through from your opponent's side but instead of sending it back with just one hit after allowing it to hit the floor, the rule was quite different in tennis ball.
The players were allowed to touch the ball with every part of their body except their hands as much as they wanted before sending it back, as long as it didn't touch the floor the second time everything was okay.
Mateo with the help of Dave had set up the net in the middle quite a distance away from the table where the women were still sitting with their attention on what they were doing.
There were two types of tennis ball games just like they were two types of the normal tennis game and what they were going to be playing now was the lawn tennis version well, because they had the space and the perfect floor for it and the materials required for it were available.
"Are you guys ready?" Mateo said as he bounced the ball on the floor while moving closer to Dave.
"Yeah," Merino said with a nod before Minino, who was standing beside him, did the same.
"Okay." The winger said before dropping the ball on the floor and trapping it under his foot. "We need an umpire, who's going to be an umpire?"
"I can do it," Edward said.
"You know all the rules of the game right?" Mateo asked.
"Yeah," Edward said with a nod.
"Okay, umpire, are we good to go?" The winger said.
"Of course."
As soon as those words left his mouth, Mateo lifted the ball with his feet and quickly lobbed it over Merino and Minino who were a bit clueless.
The ball flew over them and bounced on the floor before Merino quickly made his way to it and stretched his leg to get to the ball but he was too late as the ball bounced on the floor the second time and kept rolling further down.
"That's a cheeky move, Mateo," Minino said as Merino slowly got up from the floor.
"I didn't see anything wrong with it," Edward said before pointing to Dave and Mateo. "One point to them."
"Even if you had gotten hold of that ball, how would you have controlled it?" Pirlo asked with his gaze on Merino who had returned to Minino's side now with the ball under his feet.
"That's why I'm here, all he needed to do was hit it up for me to take over," Minino said.
"You didn't even follow him," Adolf said.
"Because I knew he wasn't going to get to it on time."
"Enough talking, we have a game in progress," Edward said.
Merino quickly lifted the ball with his feet and jogged it for a few seconds before sending it to Minino who touched it with his knee once before sending it over to the other side from the top.
Dave quickly rushed to the ball and waited for it to bounce on the floor before he quickly closed up on it and sent it back to Mateo with a backheel flick.
"Thanks, Dave," Mateo said as he caught the ball with his feet and began to jog it.
He jogged it for a few seconds and flew it over to Dave as soon as he got closer.
The goalkeeper gave the ball a few jogs before sending it back to Mateo who hit it up with a header and just as it got down enough for him to kick it, he sent it over to the other side with a smasher.
The smash was quite an efficient one as it bounced on the floor and hit Minino on his head. He tried to get control of it once he saw it coming toward his head but he seemed to have miscalculated everything as the ball hit his head and bounced on the floor the second time.
Mateo quickly went for a double-high five with Dave as soon as the ball hit the floor the second time.
"Two points to Dave and Mateo, zero points to Minino and Merino," Edward said with the appropriate gestures.
"And I thought a side with a midfielder and a winger would do better than a side with a goalkeeper and a winger," Adolf said.
"Yeah," Pirlo said.
"It's not over yet," Minino said.
'Why aren't they back yet?' Dave thought after turning his gaze toward the table area to see neither Ferran nor Emma was anywhere around the area.
<Maybe she's the one delaying>
_______ _______
Ferran had taken Emma to one of the most special places in his house, a place of memories for the midfielder.
The room was quite large and almost didn't have any form of furniture or temporary structure apart from the two large trophy cabinets standing by the side and looking ahead, on the wall was his jersey collection, he had all the jerseys that he had collected from different players all over the world attached to the wall and in a very nice way to.
He kept all the jerseys in rows according to their numbers and the highest jerseys there were number tens followed by number sevens. Mateo's number tens jersey was even there.
"Wow," Emma said, moving closer to the jersey collection. "You've swapped shirts with Ciro Martinez before." She said with her gaze on Ciro Martinez's Barcelona black away jersey.
"Yeah, it was back when I was still at Wolfsburg, it was a friendly match, I was brought in on the seventieth minute when we were already losing four goals to nothing." The midfielder said with a smile. "After the match, I went straight to him and asked for a shirt swap and he said yes, he's a pretty nice guy."
"Yeah," Emma said with a nod before turning her gaze back to his jersey collection.
"The only jersey I really want to get now is Fernandez's number seven jersey," Ferran said.
"Why did you leave Wolfsburg?" Emma asked, ignoring what he just said. "You were once in the fourth-best league in the world and then you decided to drop to the eighth-best league in the world."
"It wasn't about the league," Ferran said, shaking his head.
"Then what was it about?" She asked.
"I wasn't getting enough playing time, you would have known that if you were following German sports news." He said. "I spent most of my time on the bench for two seasons. I didn't like it. Unique FC offered me an opportunity to build myself and make myself known to the world and I am taking that opportunity."
"Okay."
'I guess spending time with players other than Dave can help me gain some useful information.' She thought.
"So, do you want to take a look at my few individual awards?" The midfielder asked, pointing toward his trophy cabinets.
"Yeah, sure," Emma said with a nod after staring at the cabinets for a little while.
****
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