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+---- Thread: On Swedish Pizza & Moroccan Coffee (/showthread.php?tid=10697)
On Swedish Pizza & Moroccan Coffee - Zoone16 - 2026-08-31
The sun was shining brightly over the training grounds and yet the air remained fresh as air in a refrigerator. The sounds of players running around doing drills, warming up breaking the natural ambient sounds of the early morning in Stockholm.
Franco Maestro had only been in Stockholm for about a month between training camp and the first academy games of the season at this point but already he was making his mark on the team. Stockholm Iddrotsklubb, or SIK, had had a strong start to the academy season, beating the Victoria Falls Eagles in the opening game, where Franco scored a goal, and followed through with a dominating win against Atletico Medellin where he scored a brace. Three goals in two games, this was more than an ideal start, it was a statement that he was one of the top players in his draft class.
Already several teammates were asking him how they could improve themselves to be as fast as him, which he obliged by making them go through with ridiculous drills outside of training hours. He would often make them run with heavy weights around their legs and ankles, or make them walk with ski boots for a few hours. To this day it has been fortunate that the coaches and medical staff haven't discovered these extra curriculars and that the results on the pitch have not given the staff cause to snoop around.
The main beneficiaries of the secret training regimen have been none other than Michele Honcho and Diehauser Van Schneider who have both scored goals in the latest game thanks to being able to get past defenders with ease with their newfound speed. With this, Stockholm has become an offensive powerhouse that academy defenses will be fearing all season.
Off the field, Franco has had a tough time getting adjusted to Swedish life. It is a quieter, more organized lifestyle compared to the chaos of Italy. The biggest change has been the food, something that despite being able to find the ingredients in the city, don’t quite taste the same as back home. His teammates have forced him to try local dishes, such as döner pizza and banana pizza, much to his horror; their reactions to him gagging making the whole lot laugh. Nothing like hazing others around food to build teamwork.
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Further south, on the Moroccan coast, Alessandro del Pirlo sits at a café enjoying a moroccan coffee. The warm south Mediterranean breeze contrasts vividly with his many years in Iceland and New Zealand. Here, unlike in Ecuador, he is known. The servers are friendly and refill his cup without him asking. Customer service, he thought, was incredible. The passion the moroccans have towards their new team is something similar to what he experienced in the European teams. You can tell that these people are passionate about the game and know that growing pains will mean glory later on. The populace is already attempting to make comparisons with the other former expansion teams of past seasons. However what they want this season is simple. First they want to win at least one game, preferably at home. Second they want to beat Dakar and hold bragging rights as the better African team.
Pre-season wasn’t much to be discussed for Alessandro del Pirlo, he was clearly out of shape and jet-lagged from his doubly long voyage across four continents. Sitting down for hours in a pressurized cabin takes a toll both physically and mentally. No goals scored and a minor pain in the left knee made for a sorry sight on the pitch. However he still had time, the games that mattered would come soon. Jonathon Jameson was the clear star of the team in the pre-season, scoring a few goals, notably in the surprise win against a Xelaju Cosmico team that looked like they came to morocco to take in the sights instead of playing. Hopefully other teams will repeat this mistake during the regular season.
As much as he enjoyed his first few weeks in Casablanca, Alessandro Del Pirlo couldn’t shake off the feeling that people treated hi with respect much like one would treat an old object or an heirloom within the family with respect and less as a person. Something to be kept around and shown off during a particularly large or important family gathering. Oh well he thought to himself, at least it pays the bills and the lifestyle. Del Pirlo was already getting some offers in Italy to eventually join their national broadcast team as a pundit. There is some prestige in that but at the same time, the idea of being in the public eye for some more years wasn’t rubbing him the right way. Perhaps as a youth coach somewhere nice and warm, now that could be an idea, so long as the coffee and the food was good.
(820 words)