THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME
chapter-500

For Zachary, days without Serie A football meant more time for training and honing his skills. So, as his teammates left for their respective international duties, he immediately began following his new training regimen.

Under the guidance and supervision of Coach Bjørn Peters, his fitness trainer, he went through drills to enhance his agility and coordination day in and day out. Anyone watching his training could tell that he was as focused as ever. He wasn't cutting corners or taking things lightly as he trained over the next few days.

That time around, however, Zachary made sure not to overwork himself. He followed Coach Bjørn Peters' advice and would only train for half a day.

As such, Zachary would do gym workouts, cardio, or other conditioning exercises early in the morning, from around six to ten. After that, he would rest for about an hour before running cones and working on his ball skills. And lastly, he would train his free kick technique before endings his day's training with a warm-down routine at around midday.

In the afternoon, after having his lunch, it was time to work on improving his other aspects. He would head to the language school and spend the rest of his day studying Italian. Then, after that, he would return home and spend time reading, following the sports news, or watching movies within the relaxing atmosphere provided by his villa.

And with all that relaxation time on his hands, it wasn't long before he started feeling well-rested and in bright spirits. As a result, he was really beginning to appreciate the captivating idea of taking time off from his often-hectic schedule.

Aside from training, learning Italian, and relaxing during the twelve days without competitive football, Zachary also spared some time to complete a select few of his long-planned investments.

He met his investment consultant on Monday, 17th November, just five days before his return to football action. And with her help, he utilized a few million Euros out of his saved 15-million signing bonus and spent the money on buying more shares from promising companies all around the globe.

Within a short two days window, he invested another one million Euros into Tesla, four million Euros into Netflix, and four million to buy a 2.9% stake in Leeds United, the struggling football club playing in the English Championship. But he didn't just stop at that. He also went against the expert advice of his investment adviser and splashed out four million Euros on bitcoins before ending his investment craze.

Of course, after spending all that money, he was only left with roughly a million Euros in his bank account. But that didn't worry him in the slightest, as he was still making more money on a weekly basis.

He was calm and collected since he had his roughly 636,000 Euros a month salary, playing bonuses, and juicy endorsements to fall back on. Additionally, there was still the seventeen million he demanded from Juventus as the balance from his 32-million signing bonus. So, as far as he was concerned, he wouldn't go broke even if he tried his utmost.

Wednesday, 19th November arrived right after Zachary finished making his investments. After attending that day's language classes, he returned home early at around 4:00 PM and immediately switched on the TV. Minutes later, he started watching Ivory Coast's match against Cameroon.

Since Zachary had already decided to play for Ivory Coast, he wanted them to win. But after sitting in front of his TV, he soon realized that his hopes wouldn't turn into reality.

Ivory Coast played well, launching relentless attacks through their agile forward players like Yaya Toure, Gervinho, Wilfried Bony, and Salomon Kalou. They were the better team on the playing field. However, even after doing all they could to create opportunities, they still failed to break down the tenacious Cameroonian defense. As a result, the game ended 0:0 after four minutes of injury time.

But even with such a result, the Ivorians were quite happy as they had managed to qualify for January 2015's African Cup of Nations as second in their group. As a result, they would be heading to Equatorial Guinea two months later to compete for Africa's most prestigious football trophy.

Having watched the Ivory Coast game, Zachary returned his focus to his training and Italian classes. He busied himself with his planned routines as two days passed in a blink, and Friday arrived.

Fortunately, by then, all his teammates had returned from their international duties. He turned his attention to Juventus' official planned schedule, hoping to join the rest of the squad to prepare for the away Serie A match against Lazio. He was ready to return to action with a bang and continue performing impressively for Juventus.

On Friday, the team held a light training session in the morning to hone the tactics for the following day's match against Lazio. Then, at three in the afternoon, Coach Allegri summoned all the players to the tactics room for the pre-match briefing.

"Let me take this opportunity to welcome you back from the international break," the coach said after all the players had taken their seats. "I hope you all enjoyed your time while representing your respective countries. Did you?" The coach swept his gaze around.

"Yes, we did," most of the players replied more or less in unison.

"Good!" The coach nodded. "I know that most of you must be tired after playing matches in various localities spread around the globe. But as professionals, you have to toughen up and start focusing on your club duties. And even though we only managed to train for a few hours today, we must still do our best against Lazio tomorrow. We must not lose. And we must not come out of the fixture with a measly draw. Instead, we must pull out all stops to defeat the opponents and maintain dominance at the top of the Serie A table. Are you with me, guys?" The coach roared.

"Yes, coach," the players replied.

"Are you with me? Are you ready to defeat Lazio tomorrow evening?"

"Yes, coach," the players replied again.

"Good." The coach smiled and nodded. He then spent the next few minutes complementing various players before talking about tactics and how to approach the game against Lazio the following evening. He spoke for an hour and then ended his pre-match briefing by announcing the line-ups.

On his list were the usual first-string players, like Zachary, who had rested for almost two weeks during the international break, Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal, Claudio Marchisio, and all the others who had been performing impressively over the past few weeks. And as expected, there was no Patrice Evra, the Frenchman who'd suffered an injury while playing for France a few days prior.

After announcing the line-ups, Coach Allegri didn't continue holding up the players for long. He quickly reminded them to be on time the following day before sending them back to their respective homes. He hoped they would utilize the evening to rest well and prepare mentally for Juventus' away game against Lazio the following day.