Dream Training : The Champions

Rustan relied on his speed to duel with Real Madrid's left-back. The pace of Real Madrid's left-back was not inferior to Rustan's, so this player must stubbornly try to break through from the right. Even so, the Real Madrid left-back managed to throw the ball off the field with a clean tackle.

Rustan panted while holding his waist, he didn't expect that getting past Real Madrid's left-back was so difficult. Even at full speed, Rustan still couldn't breakthrough from the right side. With the attack failed, Southampton had to look for other opportunities to score goals.

In the 73rd minute, Simone, Wright-Phillips, and Ryan formed a triangle position and helped each other to break into the left side of the Real Madrid defense. Ryan managed to send a through ball to Wright-Phillips, who had run into the middle of the field. The Real Madrid defensive midfielder approached Wright-Phillips and tried to steal the ball from Wright-Phillips' feet, but, Kazuki popped up from the front. Wright-Phillips immediately passed the ball to Kazuki.

Sergio Ramos went up and restrained Kazuki's body from turning around. Kazuki didn't push himself, instead, he gave a pass to Joe Bennet, who was beside him. Bennet turned his body and did a Marseille turn to break through the Real Madrid penalty box. After that, he sent a curling kick into the top right corner of the goal. Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas immediately ran and jumped. His finger managed to touch the ball and bounce the ball off the field.

The failure made the Southampton players somewhat frustrated. Attack after attack launched by Southampton only failed. After the attack, Real Madrid began to stabilize their game. This time they calmly had the ball.

It was very difficult for Southampton to keep up with Real Madrid because they were exhausted. Entering the 80th minute, the mentality of the young players in the Southampton team began to get lower. Apart from a few players like Kazuki and Joe Bennett, the other players started to make mistakes.

Real Madrid put this to good use. In the 85th minute, Wright-Phillips made the wrong pass. Instead of giving the ball to Simone, he gave the ball to Ozil. The German-blooded Turkish player did not waste Wright-Phillip's blunder. He immediately dribbled the ball quickly in front of the Southampton penalty box. After that, he immediately gave the ball to the right-wing.

Angel di Maria left the Southampton left-back away with his pace. He immediately grabbed the ball. The Southampton center-back made a tackle, he was trying to stop it, but Angel di Maria changed direction and flicked it in front of Oliver Gerrard. The French striker did not hesitate to send a powerful shot that went straight into the Southampton net. Conceding this makes Southampton down.

In the following minutes, Real Madrid had the ball and the rhythm of the game. Until the end of the game, the score was still 3-1. Southampton lost in the semi-finals. Even so, this is not the end of Southampton's journey in the International Champions Cup, they will face the team who lost the match, Chelsea, against Bayern Munich for the 3rd place of this pre-season tournament.

After the match ended, Kazuki asked Sergio Ramos to swap shirts. In this match, the Real Madrid defender made Kazuki difficult. Especially with Iker Casillas as Real Madrid goalkeeper. This made it even more difficult for Kazuki to score. Luckily, Kazuki was still able to score one goal in this match.

***

"So tiring," Kazuki laid his body down on the grass. He was currently in [Dream Training]. He repeated the match between Southampton and Real Madrid many times, again and again in [Dream Training] but from 10 attempts only 1 win was achieved by Southampton.

In a normal match, as long as Kazuki got even a second of opportunity with sufficient shooting space, then he could score a goal. However, he was aware that against top goalkeepers, it is very difficult to score goals even when he gets chances.

From 10 trial matches, Kazuki only scored 4 goals. Even though this was quite good compared to the chances Kazuki got, Kazuki felt the odds and goals ratio was quite low.

Against Real Madrid, the other players clearly had a hard time helping Kazuki, so Kazuki almost always fought against the two Real Madrid center-backs alone. Another reason was that Real Madrid's game against Southampton managed to isolate Kazuki from the other players.

While waiting for the match against Bayern Munich to come, Kazuki would continue to train in [Dream Training]. Bayern has a great goalkeeper. Manuel Neuer. The challenge against Bayern Munich will not be lower than against Real Madrid. In addition, Bayern Munich will probably field all their star players in this last match. The level of the match against Bayern will only increase sharply.

Apart from Neuer, Bayern also has two very fast wingers, namely Arjen Ruben and Frank Trippery. Both players have incredible speed. Then in front, the legendary player Phillips Zico, Zico's ability and experience clearly cannot be underestimated. In the position of attacking midfielder, Thomas Müller filled the post.

Although in the attacking midfielder position, Muller did not have a fixed position. Muller called himself Raumdeuter or interpreter of space. He used to explore the last third of the enemy's defense and move around looking for space. Muller used to position himself between the midfield and the opponent's defense, or channels, as people used to call it.

Channels were more easily defined as channels or networks created by the space between one player and another. Usually used by players in determining the direction of movement without the ball, both in their efforts to receive passes and in tricking the opponent's defense to open up space for teammates.

However, what makes him a more difficult player to keep up with is the fact that a Raumdeuter didn't rely on the attributes that most wingers rely on; such as speed, agility, dribbling skills, or his ability to cross.

The main attributes of a Raumdeuter was anticipation, decision-making, composure, and most importantly, his off-ball movement.

A Ramdeuter was capable of exploiting space.

Seeing the possibility behind the impossible was his main skill.

Ramdeuter was also one or two steps ahead in the right place and the right timing whether it is behind the defense, on the flanks, between defense and midfield, or various other positions and situations.

If Kazuki played in the midfield, with his understanding of space, there was a possibility that he could imitate Muller's gameplay, or even better since his abilities in all areas were quite good, even if not good enough, Kazuki just needed to train hard in [Dream Training]. Too bad, Kazuki would rather be an executioner than an initiator.