Ran into a friendly acquaintance of mine at the gym. We’ve played against each other for years; he is quite a bit younger but was permitted to play in our veteran’s league because he was a professional referee or something. I was never quite clear on what the deal was, to be honest.
Anyhow, he had told me he was up for promotion to Serie A in the coming season, so when I saw him, I didn’t even say anything, I just raised an eyebrow. He smiled and pumped his fist; the league not only came through with the promotion to the top level but had him rated highest in the second league through the first half of the season. He’s smart, athletic, and multilingual, so I have absolutely no doubt he’ll be doing Champion’s League and the Euros before too long.
Competitive bastard too. I marked him for an entire game in an indoor tournament and had to throw everything plus the kitchen sink at him to keep him from scoring… and just barely managed to do that.