My Four Superstar Ex-Boyfriends

Chapter 3: A Fresh Start

Two days later, in an office that appeared to be very classical or antiquated, Emily sat face to face with an older gentleman. The slightly dull atmosphere made Emily feel a little nervous. She was not a professional woman who often went for interviews. This situation was really new to her.

And, she was now interviewing for a position she had never thought of in the past.

"Ms. Emily?"

After a few moments of looking at Emily's prepared resume, the principal of the middle school where Carolina worked looked at Emily with a gentleman's gaze and read her name on her passport with some hesitation. Emily then answered.

"Yes, my name is difficult to pronounce, perhaps you could call me Emily."

"Okay then, Ms. Emily. You said on your resume that you can speak English, German, Spanish as well as French fluently."

"Yes, in fact I'm working as a translator at the moment. I did it for a living when I lived in Southampton."

Until now, Mr. Headmaster was communicating with Emily in German. After getting an affirmative answer from Emily, this Mr. Principal switched back to English.

"I heard from Carolina that you are very knowledgeable about soccer?" The old man with a full head of gray hair but still in good spirits pushed his old-fashioned glasses with metal rims on the bridge of his nose.

"No." Hearing that kind of comment, Emily was almost a little alarmed, and she immediately explained, "It's not really like that. I just, just have worked with some high caliber professional players ....... And have also come into contact with a few people who have UEFA professional coaching credentials."

"It sounds as if you once seemed to have been involved in a soccer-related career." Mr. Headmaster who uttered these words looked very certain. Under his gaze, Emily finally managed to gather the courage to speak after her initial nervousness, "I think I ...... I should have been the ...... life assistant to four professional players at one time? "

Mr. Principal gave Emily an encouraging smile, signaling her to continue.

"In order for this player to be able to maintain his excellent form all the way through, I'll be communicating with him about each day of his training and any problems he encounters in training. Of course, his physical condition will be very paramount, and if he senses any discomfort in any part of his body, I will have to check very carefully with the player himself. Discussing with him and analyzing his manager's ideas about soccer tactics is a very necessary thing, and I would try to understand the tasks that his manager has given him, and then together with that player I would tirelessly watch the matches that he has played. Over and over and over again to see where he didn't play well and where he did very well." Taking a deep breath, Emily, who had said all of this, finally managed to smile and look over at Mr. Principal, "Honestly, that's about all I know about soccer."

What Emily didn't expect was that when she finished that, Mr. Principal, who was sitting across from her, gave her what could almost be called a kind smile. The principal said, "No, son you're doing fine. I can see you are a very patient person. It takes a very patient person to teach kids to play soccer."

With that said, the principal of this school stood up and gestured for Emily to walk with him towards the window of his office. Through the wood-framed window that separated the glass into several small squares, they could see a sloping lawn. Someone had drawn a rectangle on the lawn, and on either side of the rectangle stood two goals tied with tattered nets.

In Emily's eyes, who always looked at the world's top stadiums, this was a stadium that was far, far away from being qualified. But a group of boys who didn't even have uniform clothes were playing there now, without any rules, but overflowing with a kind of warmth and the simple love of teenagers for something.

The principal stood beside Emily, smiling at the boys kicking the ball around on the field, but not saying a word.

So Emily said to the principal after following along for a while, "That boy in orange is playing pretty good soccer."

"Oh, that's Heinz, the best shooter in our school!"

Emily smiled when she heard such a compliment, but then she realized that four or five teenagers were just sitting on the sidelines instead of getting involved, which prompted her to ask, "Why are the kids on the sidelines just there watching and not playing soccer with them?"

"That's why our soccer team needs a new lead teacher." Not expecting Emily to see the problem so quickly, Mr. Principal turned to her and smiled broadly. This time, he had become extremely satisfied when he looked at Emily, and his attitude was much more cordial. He then gestured for Emily to return to her seat with him again before uttering a heartfelt speech.

"Ms. Emily, I don't need a 'tactical guru' who only boasts in front of the children. I want kids to enjoy soccer and have fun while playing the sport. Of course, I also want the teacher I hire to keep the kids safe. Forgive me, it may seem rude to say this to a young lady like you, but you'll have to look after them as you would your own children in the training ground. Can you do all that?"

"I ...... will try to do all that." After a few moments of very serious thought, Emily finally looked over at the older school principal and said rather solemnly.

"It also says on your resume that you once took a course in sports medicine as part of your college curriculum, but only completed 10 semesters, took a leave of absence when you were two semesters short of successfully completing your degree, and then never went on to complete your studies?"

"Yes."

"I hope that all that knowledge you learned during your college days will be enough for you to deal with some of the situations that might pop up on the field." Having said that Mr. Principal extended his hand to Emily, and after completing the handshake with Emily, who hadn't yet understood what was happening, the white-haired gentleman said, "You're accepted, Miss Emily."

It was a pleasant surprise. Emily, who had recently only been able to get paid for her work as a text translator on the internet, was offered a job that would allow her to get another paycheck! And she was sure that even if she worked both jobs, she would still be able to have free time that she could use.

She happily tells her new friend Carolina, who got her the interview, only to be met with, "I told you you could do it."

Well, having taken the job, Emily, after cracking open a raspberry-flavored beer to celebrate, thought she'd do a good job of preparing herself before her first soccer lesson. So she thought and thought and decided to check out the Level 1 coaching related online training courses on the official coach training website at UK Soccer HQ.

Emily was already very familiar with the soccer-related fields in England, which was a big soccer country with a very perfect system, and all those who were engaged in soccer professor-related work needed to have the corresponding coaching qualifications. Even if you teach soccer in an elementary school, you need to be trained and certified.

Before this, though, Emily had never thought about becoming a practitioner in this area and hadn't cared about what exactly it took to get all these qualifications. Now that she was up there, she suddenly realized that she only needed to complete a four-day, 32-hour course in order to become a soccer coach with an FA Level 1 coaching qualification.

Feeling a bit surprised by such a fact, Emily kept her mouse next to the purchase of the course for a long time, and finally clicked on the free online teaching videos and English language materials given on the website .......

"I'm Emily, your new teacher. Today's lesson will focus on running in curves with the ball. But before I start the lesson, I need you to complete a set of fitness tests, which will be used to let me know how you usually train. Before that, I've finished checking the turf and found no hazards."

Although it was said that the soccer lesson for this group of middle school students would not start until 4:00 pm, Emily arrived at the school's soccer field at 2:30 pm the day after her own appointment. According to the Level 1 Coaching Code, a qualified soccer coach needed to make sure that the field was free of any spikes, or anything else dangerous, before the practice started.

So Emily, who wanted to do a better job at a job she might never get back, arrived at the hill-shaped soccer field well in advance. While checking the grass, she kept practicing along with the opening line she'd asked Carolina to record on her cell phone last night and read out in Czech.

Both Mr. Principal and Carolina had told her, as a non-Czech-speaking foreigner, that she could alternate between German and English as simply as possible, and that the children would understand. Emily felt that she needed to be able to make a good impression on the children with her memorized Czech introductions.

"But before I start the lesson, I need to ...... Well!" Emily, who was concentrating on memorizing those opening lines, inadvertently got her finger pricked by a bunch of spiky vines hidden in the lawn, and bright red blood just spilled out of her fingertip, which made Emily immediately stand up and run to one of the first aid kits that she had left on the sidelines, and took out alcohol cotton from it and wiped the dirt from her finger before pressing it on the bleeding wound. After doing so, Emily realized that she had run back too quickly earlier, and that she had no recollection of where she had been in her work of checking the lawn, and where she had hit the spikes!

It was so frustrating!

But the more this happened, the more Emily got fired up, which led to picking up a mallet with a sponge tied to it after putting a band-aid on herself and then pounding the lawn all over again starting with the suspect areas!

"Did you all bring your shin guards today?

"Good, and remember to bring them all in the future as well!

"As for the boys who didn't bring them, I borrowed five pairs of shin guards from the school gym!"

With that, Emily was up killing herself checking the lawn with a mallet after an unfortunate injury to her finger, and all the while not forgetting to correct her Czech pronunciation based on a sentence-by-sentence replay playing on her cell phone in an effort to pronounce every syllable exactly as Carolina had demonstrated it to her. It was after Emily had completed most of the pitch inspection that three boys in short-sleeved T-shirts and gym shorts approached her.

"Can I help you, ma'am?"

Emily, who had heard those words, stiffened up for a moment and took a deep breath before quickly straightening her already disheveled hair as she looked up before saying with a smile on her face, "I think I should be able to finish it myself."

Emily was really glad that the other girl hadn't heard the not-so-standard Czech she was mumbling viciously there, or the boy would have never asked her that in English.

"Pardon me, did you drop your wedding ring here?"

The boy asked again after getting a polite refusal from Emily. This made Emily froze before looking seriously at the other party, and then she realized that this boy she knew. He seemed ...... to be the one who made Mr. Headmaster rave, the best shooter in the school, Heinz.

"No, I don't have anything like that. I'm ......," said Emily, hesitating for a moment before trying to look a little more confident saying in Czech what she had just been memorizing, "finishing up the inspection of the court."

With that said, Emily switched the mallet she held in her hand to her left hand, extended her right hand to her players in a very friendly manner, and uttered one of the only few Czech phrases she knew: "I'm Emily, your new teacher."