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The Off Season - nckkss - 2026-08-18
The Off-Season
The rookie season was over. Hard-fought, with only the tiniest taste of glory, Nick Kasak was ready to move on from it. Onwards and hopefully upwards.
The end-of-term of feeling at the training ground was soon overtaken by… nothing. Players flying home to see their families. The coaches working on the draft and the tactics for the next season. Other players going on holidays. Perhaps some players even moving up into the majors?
Nick, driven with clear purpose and drive, chose to spend the time training for the season ahead. Determined to prove to his parents, his coaches and to himself that he could one day be spoken about as one of the greats.
Taking inspiration from his fellow players, he focuses on these two aspects of body and mind. Dante Von Wolfe is a driven athlete, working hard and never stopping. Perhaps if Nick just tries to work as hard he can reap the benefits. When at Accra, Blaise N’Kufo used to always have their nose in a book at lunchtimes or in the evenings, maybe this is what Nick needs too?
Day one, Nick decides to try and run a marathon around Cape Town, carefully planning a meticulous 26 mile route. Hey, he’s an elite athlete, a marathon should be easy right?
10 miles in, sweating, sunburnt and spewing, Nick lays by the roadside. He is fortunate enough to be picked up by a Kaapstad fan and not someone looking to harvest his tired organs. He starts reading The Republic by Plato but falls asleep.
Day two. Still sore from the ill advised and ill attempted run, Nick chooses to focus on less strenuous activities and feeding his body and mind instead while he recovers. Reading extracts of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Taking Le Tiss – The Matt Le Tissier Autobiogrpahy.
Breakfast – Scrambled eggs and 6 raw eggs in a pint glass.
Lunch – Omelette and 7 raw eggs
Dinner – Poached eggs, salmon and 12 raw eggs.
That night he throws up an awful lot of egg.
Day three – time to get back on the horse. A short weight session, some cardio and some healthy yoghurt. Lots of water. Attempting to meditate. Having to stop meditation because of needing to pee because of all the water. Reading material: The Stranger by Albert Camus. Confusing and not as many football anecdotes as you'd hope for.
Day four. Nick finds a patch of scrubland in town where a couple of goals have been set up. He joins in with some local kids. Word spreads, and before you know it, he’s playing football all day long with a smile on his face. That night he read Big Dunc: The Upfront Autobiography of Duncan Ferguson.
Day five. Training drills back at Kaapstad. The chef has taken pity and has started taking a keen interest in his nutrition. A sports psychologist tries to talk to him as he runs mazy lengths of the pitch and taking repeated corners. In the evening he sits down with Oeuvres de Descartes, the collected work of Rene Descartes, but gets distracted by I Think Therefore I Play by Andrea Pirlo.
Day six. After showering, Nick spends a long time in the mirror imagining if he could pull off Pirlo’s trademark hairstyle, but remembers a teenage grunge phase and how it probably would look terrible again. Behind on training for the day, he takes a bike ride up into the mountains, reading On War by Carl von Clausewitz. Well, just the introduction. The evening is spent attempting mindfulness and focus until his parents call and ask him if they can try and get London’s relegation reversed.
Day seven. Frustrated at the attempts made, Kasak wakes early, travels to the training ground, lays in the centre circle of the pitch and looks up at the sky. He couldn’t remember who said it, whether it was Rene Descartes, Andrea Pirlo or Duncan Ferguson, but it was time to stop worrying about everything and just get on with it. Trying hard to empty his mind of thoughts, Nick gets the ball and runs with it, dinking past imaginary defenders, looking up to the imaginary run of the imaginary teammate ready to receive the through ball. The ball feels light at his feet, the grass feels right under his boots, his lungs feel fresh and full of air. Energised and prepared.
That evening, he sits on the balcony with a small glass of wine, reading Born to Score by Dwight Yorke. His thoughts turning to the next stage and just how simple it all is.
“We didn't underestimate them, they were just better than we thought." - Sir Bobby Robson, on AS Paris, probably.