Greatest of All Legends

Chapter 429: Welcome to Uventus IV

“17,” Jason replied to the Uventus manager.

“Hmmmm, interesting number, that’s the same number De Bruyne wears I think?” Pirlo worded like he was talking to himself.

“Christiano also used to wear that once,” he continued,

“Why do you want that number though? I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m just curious,” Pirlo finally directed the question to Jason.

“It’s my birthday, the 17th of June, I consider it like my lucky number, kind of,” Jason laughed lightly as he responded.

“I see,”Pirlo’s face softened a bit and for a second, Jason almost thought he would smile, but he didn’t.

Pirlo quickly called to someone on the side and gave them orders about Jason’s jersey,

“Uh, how would you want your name to be written on the jersey?” Pirlo asked Jason, turning away from the person he was talking to.

“Just Jason is fine,” Jason replied and Pirlo turned back to the person he was talking to, using his eyes to ask if the person got all that down.

The reply was favorable and Pirlo told the staff member, “Tell them to have this done quickly, we’ll need to take pictures soon,”

The staff member nodded affirmatively and left quickly.

Andreas Pirlo soon resumed his walk, with Jason, Adele and a few others following after and Pirlo gave him a bit of a tour as they moved towards the gyms where the fitness tests would be carried out.

“So, I’m sure you know a little bit about us here at Uventus but here at Uve, we have a tradition of sorts where a new member of the team has to become a training partner with an existing member of the team,”

“This would allow the new members to get used to the new surroundings quicker, you know, get used to the place, build friendships, and even start picking up the language a bit before they undergo language learning classe-… wait?” Pirlo suddenly paused mid-sentence and turned back to Jason, suddenly realizing that from the time Jason arrived, he had spoken to Jason in Italian and Jason had also responded in Italian.

“You can speak Italian?” Pirlo asked, amazement showing in his eyes.

“Uh, yeah,” Jason replied calmly.

“Ahem, that’s good, you wouldn’t have to spend any time learning the language,” Pirlo muttered, reigning in his curiosity at where someone of Jason’s age could speak very fluent Italian despite having not lived in Italy… at least, that was what the records said.

“Anyways, as I was saying, we usually have our newer players pair up with someone they can learn from and even train with, someone who can show them the ropes around here,”

“The good news is, you get to choose your training partner,” Pirlo continued his explanation.

“That’s easy then, I want to work with Christiano Ronaldo,” Jason didn’t hesitate and didn’t even let Pirlo finish. The moment he heard there was a chance for him to become the training partner of the one person he admired the most, he was sold.

“Haha,”

For the first time since they met, Pirlo laughed a bit.

It was almost like he was laughing at Jason’s choice and that somehow was more scary than being given the cold shoulder.

“See the thing with choosing a training partner is not as easy as it sounds because it is a commitment from you to work with that player and it is an obligation from the player to take you in according to the rules of the club,”

“What this means is that you’re at the mercy of that player’s schedule, training style, training time, and even meal types,”

“This is not something that can be done half-heartedly especially when it’s with someone like Christiano,”

“If you become his training partner, it means you actually become his training partner and have to undergo the same kind of training he undergoes, the same amount of training he does, and you must also do it when he does it, meaning if Christiano wants to train from 5 am in the morning to 8 pm in the evening… which he often does, then you’ll have to do the exact same thing for as long as Ronaldo is your training partner,”

“While we expect a lot from our players and they are obviously professionals, most of them cannot keep up with Christiano in training,”

“You might want to think again,” Pirlo smiled, shaking his head at Jason’s naivety.

He understood where Jason was coming from and what it would mean for someone like Christiano to be his training partner, but at the same time, he knew that often times being placed beside the strongest version of anything you could ever aspire to be could be quite damaging, especially when you found out what they had to do to become what they were and then you realized that you couldn’t even keep up with their efforts.

In this case, ignorance was often bliss, but Jason didn’t think so.

He had already failed once and if the price for getting to learn from one of the greatest players to ever play the game was just merely keeping up with their training endeavors, then Jason would willing do it.

He was already training as hard as he could even without anyone pushing him.

“Where do I sign up?” Jason asked with a smirk.

“… I like your confidence… I’ll hand you over to him after we’re done here,” Pirlo said flatly, impressed that Jason was still willing to work as hard as Christiano Ronaldo who was also known as the genius made from hard work

With that settled, Pirlo spoke to Jason about some of the interviews he would have to do in the coming days as well as the media shoots he would be doing after the examinations, as well as the final signing of the transfer documents.

Soon they were at the gyms where the medical exams would be held and Jason was handed over to the team’s medical specialist.

“This here is Enrico Zargoza, the team’s no.1 medic, he’ll be in charge of this medical exam and you’ll meet him a quite a few number of times during your stay here,” Pirlo said, gesturing to a man that looked to be in his fifties with an amiable look on his face holding a tab and looking at Jason.

“Let’s just hope you guys can keep seeing each other’s faces to a bare minimum,” Pirlo added, his words sounding quite negative and rude, but it was for the best.

Jason seeing Zargoza’s face more than required would mean that he had sustained an injury and that was no good for anyone, especially Jason.