The next few days were spent completely on the road, with them having to go from one place to another just to talk about their experience in the national tournament.

At this point, the nervousness that some players had was also gone. The excitement had already disappeared, getting replaced by a sense of boredom for having to talk about the same things over and over again.

The one who suffered the most here was, of course, Higo. After disclosing that some teams had already been in contact with him, this had been the constant conversation topic whenever they went for an interview. Hell, the boy even felt guilty since sometimes, the interviewer would take more time with him rather than the rest of the team.

After the first show on Sapporo TV, Kumiko also debriefed the whole team about this matter. She knew that more people would talk about Higo’s future, wanting to pry their mouths open to reveal some secrets.

She talked about which part was appropriate to tell and which part was not, which helped the boys navigate their way through the whirlwind of storm ahead of them.

In the end, a week finally passed, and they finally got the calmness they had been waiting for. Gone was all the crazy schedule, and now, they were all back to their normal training routine. Well, at least that was for most of them.

Kumiko was still supervising the team. After all, before the new head coach was appointed, everything was still her responsibility. Higo and Makino were also the same, as they had to maintain their level of fitness for the national camp two months later. However, the same couldn’t be said for Kuroki.

At this point, the boy had already retired from the team. He didn’t have the time to go there anymore, having to put all of his focus on the University Entrance Exam the next March. He shifted his gear, from focusing completely on football back to the table, fighting with so many formulas and calculations there.

He might still come and visit once in a while, but the boy had basically just gone from the team.

"I know that they would be gone sooner or later, but I still think the time is far, you know? What, with Higo-senpai and Makino-senpai constantly being here? But Kuroki-senpai’s departure really makes me realize that their time is getting closer..." Kenji sighed in melancholy.

The others were also in a somber mood. The sophomore students were still okay since this was not the first time they faced seniors’ retirement, but for the freshmen, this sure hit quite hard.

Hell, even for Denji and Denki, who were quite experienced in their middle school, they still got affected by the current mood. After all, the closeness inside the team in high school was always different from that in middle school.

"Well, that means we need to get more serious, right?" Hiroshi said solemnly. "Next year, we will not have them with us anymore, so we need to stand on our own ground firmly. Come on! The training session today is doubled!"

"Sure!"

The sudden state of being fired up went unnoticed, but no one really spoke about it. Kumiko just watched everything unfold from the sideline, a small smile curling up on her face.

’Hiroshi-kun has started to take his role as the team’s leader seriously. Good. At least, the team will be stable once we leave later.’

Still, there was one issue that gave her quite a headache. That thing was the team’s last guardian, or to be more exact, the lack of its presence on the team.

So far, in this entire year, she has only had Higo as the team’s goalkeeper, with the emergency substitutions being Sano and Jun from the back line. Honestly, it was a miracle that no incident had ever happened in the past. Well, at least, the games against Esashi and Shimizu Higashi were quite close. But besides that, Higo was always healthy, alleviating the worry about that position.

Now, though, with Higo being out of the picture, she started to take her time practicing Jun and Sano more in this regard. Fortunately, those two also understood the necessity behind this, so they complied with the order willingly.

The unfortunate part, though, was that they had no talent in this regard.

"Come on, Sano-kun! Don’t always overthink the situation! Sometimes, you need to take an action first! Try to use your instinct!"

"Jun, you are the opposite! Don’t be too reckless and get out of your territory that quickly! Your opponent will punish you immediately!"

"Concentrate! Concentrate! Watch the taker closely and react only after you are sure about your own action!"

It had been a few days since she trained those two, and Kumiko just shook her head in disapproval. Seeing this, Hiroshi couldn’t help but ask, "The result is not good?" His tone was full of worry.

"No, it is just that I have been spoiled by Ryukkun’s quality in goalkeeping that I put a high standard for them." She answered truthfully. "They are decent, I can tell that, but once they meet a good attacking team like Sapporo Otani, they will crumble under the pressure."

Hiroshi’s face darkened instantly when he heard that. The boy had never thought about it before, since not only was this the coach and captain’s responsibility, but his position was far away from the goalkeeper, enough to make him think that he had nothing to do with defense.

Before, all he could think of was that as long as the goalkeeper could protect the backline and send the ball to him for a quick counterattack, everything would be okay.

Only after he became one of the team’s captains and started overseeing everything in the team did the boy learn that having a super goalkeeper like Higo was a blessing and a miracle at the same time. It was definitely impossible to get one as good as him so quickly.

"So, what do you think we should do, Senpai?" He asked.

Kumiko pondered for a moment before explaining, "At the end of the day, they are just an emergency goalkeeper. So, the best thing you can do before new students arrive next term is to open recruitment, praying that someone from your year or from the freshman class is interested in that position. Other than that... I don’t know, pray?"

Hiroshi’s face darkened instantly, for the first time realizing that the next year would be more challenging for the team.