summary: in which you make the whole team watch parts of games where Pedri and Gavi communicate and then have them show the rest of the team how they perfected the technic.
a/n: this is part of the chaos i wrote at some point, @carolina-grace6 I haven't forgotten your req and I'm currently writing it, this is just a bit of world building i had done originally since it was supposed to be a multi-chaptered work but i ended up not liking it as much
It was a semi-normal Monday morning. After you managed to find a house in the weekend, which would hopefully soon become home, you arranged a morning meeting with the team. It wasn't training per say, but it involved tactical ability and technical skill. The ones attending were basically everyone apart from the goalkeepers who had no need of such information.
That's how you found yourself sitting next to your godfather at a big meeting room with the whole squad and a big portion of the rest of the stuff members. Apart from the training team most of the physios were here too.
"So I called you in today for a meeting because I noticed something that only two of you, as a duo that is, manage but is extremely effective and I think would up our game even more... No shade to the rest of you guys but Gavi and Pedri have perfected something that only their idols managed with Busquets"
"Hold up, explain I lost you already kid" your godfather stated
"I'm gonna play some clips and not say anything 'til they're over. Then each of you will take a turn guessing what I'm talking about. You two" you nodded towards Gavi and Pedri "will not make guesses, you will help me explain after, si?"
"No fun..." Gavi muttered like a kid, pouting a bit
So you played the video. It was clips of the two playing together, often moving in parallel lines, giving 'screen' to one another and passing the ball tiki-taka style.
"So, does anyone want to start?"
A while passed and most of them were close to what you noticed. Your godfather made the closest observation to what you had in mind.
"Okay, so what I notice is that the two of you don't talk, don't use hand signals and yet you communicate easily. As for how you practised I have no clue, especially because you say that nobody helped you with it."
"The observation is much the same, as for the training I had some thoughts. Boys care to demonstrate for the rest of the team what you showed me the other day?"
"Sure, give us like 10 minutes and get to the pitch" Gavi said.
"Make it 20, we need time to find everything and warm up a bit.." Pedri continued
"You have it, go..." you stated
"And while they do that, I'm going to explain a bit more. So what the two have been doing is basically moving to either opposite or same directions, depending on the game play but also things that they notice. That's why they set the tempo, they guide the rest of you without you really noticing, you just follow. This is going to be a lesson of wordless tiki-taka and I think with the right practice the midfield can use it to create more chances. For the rest of you it’s just so you can understand game play better and also read into whatever the midfield is doing. Also they do something that in football is not commonly used. I assume most of you know the basics of basketball. In some clips you can notice Gavi and Pedri giving each other ‘screens’ like basketball players often do so they have more space to dribble past other opponents. Now let’s go down so you can watch how they trained.”
“Hold up, why past tense?” Frankie asked.
“Well, I assume between Pedri’s injuries and Gavi’s acl tear they haven’t had the time to re establish a schedule. Under Xavi I think he was the only one to know about it so they would have to eventually tell somebody so they could practice again. Fortunately they agreed to show the rest of you.”
“Why didn’t we know in the first place though?” Alej questioned
“That I have no answer for. And I don’t know if you will get an answer by asking either..” you stated seriously.
“Well, their 20 minutes are up so let’s head down…” Hansi trailed off and all of you started moving towards the training pitch.
When you got there everything was completely different. The goalposts had been moved to the edges of the pitch and there were poles and obstacles everywhere. Human figures moved around, fake foul walls, you name it. And there they stood waiting for the rest of you to reach them. Each with a black cloth rapped around an arm.
“Okay, this is crazy. What have you done to the pitch?” One of the staff members asked.
“Only what’s needed I swear you will understand in a bit..” Pedri said
“Okay, boys no blindfolds, at least for the start. Don’t wanna scare the rest of the team..” you joked and the two laughed.
“No noise for the first then play something extremely loud, yeah?” Gavi asked and you nodded
They started moving. In and out, between obstacles at first without the ball. When they added it you and the rest just watched awestruck. They moved seamlessly, with extreme ease, knowing exactly where the other was positioned without even a glance, every pass accurate, none missed.
At some point, Gavi asked you to put an artificial crowd —that weren’t the culers—chanting through the speakers. After that was mostly a success with some passes being missed here the two stopped. They rejoined the rest of you sitting on the ground while you talked, taking a couple of deep breaths.
“This was… amazing” your godfather was a bit speechless at them time so you stepped in.
“Indeed. Very well done guys. And just ‘cause I’m curious how long have you been practising like this? And also when did you start using it?”
“So, like we started practising a couple months after we met I think..” Gavi stated.
“And we started using it like 2 years ago or so?” Pedri continued while turning to his partner in crime when answering the second question.
“Can I ask something?” Alej, the ever curious
“Sure..” Pedri trailed of a bit hesitant
“Why didn’t you tell so we could all practise together?”
“Look, it’s extremely difficult to practise this with a whole team, for many reasons. Apart from the fact that it’s too noisy for the first few times ‘cause we don’t actually have Bluetooth in our heads or something and for at least the first months you still need to talk, there is also difficulty in communication the more people you add to the plan. It’s not something that either of us was taught because it’s not something that an academy teaches you. Not even La Masia ever had something similar so we had nothing to use at first.” Gavi explained.
“Then we started watching old matches, not just Barça with Xavi and Andres, I’m talking any midfield of whatever team has ever mattered in the history of football. And after that we started building around it. That took up close to 3 years to do. And then we started using it bit by bit during matches. But then most of the time at least one of us was injured so we couldn’t make a schedule that would be permanent so we put everything on pause..” Pedri continued
“That’s crazy… like literally this is next level. But it will take so much time no?” Hansi asked you and the boys.
“Well, not really. It took us so much time for multiple reasons, but the two more difficult to deal with are out of the way now so it’s fine. I think that by pre season we will have found a basic footing. I’m not talking blindfolds, that takes time and we have yet to perfect it.” Gavi explained.
“You are being optimistic Pabs, but I like it. I’m going to say like middle of autumn.” Pedri made his own prediction.
“Okay so how do we practice this? We need schedules, groups, sets, reps, difficulty levels. Guys explain, we need details to go of off” Said Carlos, a member from the coaching stuff.
“Okay, first things first. There are two ways to up the level. You have the amount of the obstacles and the circumstances. So for obstacles I think we should begin with something tamer than this, ‘cause this is like as bad as it gets and it’s not realistic either. In terms of circumstances you have many combinations to choose from with the easiest levels being playing with no noise and playing with an opponents crowd as sound.” Pedri explained.
“So what are like the levels above those?” Pau asked.
“Then you play with a blindfold and no noise, then with noise, then in the rain, then in the rain with a blindfold, until you do all three together…” Pablo trailed of.
“That’s insane to even think of.” Lamine expressed.
“It is and we understand that from a point and up it’s dangerous as well as a bit useless. In the end, you will always be able to see your teammate, we just added the blindfolds because it helped us personally. We don’t know whether it’s going to help the rest of you or not.” Pedri stated.
“For reps I think we should see how it plays out first and then decide. For groups I was thinking to put it in a program that changes the synthesis after a two week margin so we have combinations of people to work with and see who fits who better. Obviously, you two are out of this last part as we already know you are best suited to play this by each other’s side, no?”
“ I agree. About schedule, well that's always the difficult part. We can’t practise before the main training or after because it’s going to be ten times more tiring at first. So maybe like the days we hit the gym we have this as post-lunch?”
“That could work I think”
“I think it’s best if we try a couple of schedules until we find what’s the absolute best.” Gavi expressed and the rest of us agreed to go with that plan.
With this game plan you knew that the team would be even better. Tiki-taka had always been a favourite style of play for you. With this team that sat in front of you, you were sure you would be able to bring it back.
"Can I ask the two of you something?" Hansi addressed the midfielder duo
"Earlier, you said that the two reasons it took so much time for you are dealt with. Are you okay to tell me what these two reasons are?"
"Hmm okay, let's sit down then" Pablo replied, knowing this was a tough subjec for his best friend.
"The first and easiest reason to say out loud is that we simply didn't have the time to practise. Since nobody knew about it we couldn't fix a program that actually worked. We were inconsistent if you get what I mean" Pablo explained
"The other reason is that... that most of the time at least one of us was injured. I was injured so many times last season and Pablo was out with an acl tear and everything got out of hand." Pedri expressed in one breath, Pablo put a hand on his shoulder.
"That's all behind us Pepi. It just shows our strenght and resilliance. Now we are fit and ready" Pablo said looking his best friend in the eyes, smiling.
Hansi too smiled. 'These two are so important not only to one another, but also to the team' he thought to himself.
