The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

Hell, even two weeks wouldn\'t be enough for them to get ready at the fullest. However, it was better than nothing.

As for the game against Teiryo… Akira had already seen their game, and honestly, there was nothing special in it. They just got lucky they always drew weak opponents in the last couple of rounds. However, Akira was confident his players could beat them in two straight sets.

"Okay, let\'s focus on Konan first and think of what can we copy for them," Akira spoke, gaining everyone\'s attention. "First, they have their wing-spiker, Lucas Silva Morais." He pointed his finger at the boy… No, the man with tan skin smiling at his teammates in the video.

"He is a native Brazilian, coming here for an international student exchange program. I don\'t know since when did our country have a strong relationship with Brazil to the point that we accepted their high school student to come here, but the fact is, he is here, and if there is one thing I learned about Brazilian people, it is the fact that they are always excellent in sports."

By the tone they heard coming from their coach, all the players there could guess that Akira had some sort of prejudiced feeling for the Brazilian people. However, they didn\'t want to point it out, as they were too afraid to do that. Still, when they heard the respect Akira showed albeit begrudgingly toward the Brazilian people, they knew the relationship was not so simple.

It was like… Hate playing against them, yet still respect them as athletes.

"Anyway!" Akira coughed, forcing the others to focus again. "He is Konan\'s wing spiker, a third-year student who has been here for more than two years. And if you look at his game carefully, you will see his physical ability is abnormal.

He has the same jumping ability as Ezaki from Shimoyawata, a quick speed that is hard to follow, a powerful spike like Nitta from Kyoei, and a predator instinct in front of the net. A perfect package to be the team\'s ace."

Even though they all could see it, everyone still gulped in fright when they heard Akira mention Lucas Silva\'s strong points one by one. Even though he wasn\'t that tall, just slightly smaller than Asahi who was the second tallest of the team, his upper body was always higher than the net whenever Lucas Silva jumped. That alone was enough to destroy any opponent\'s blockers.

However, what was scary was his speed and instinct. At some point, he would show a lazy gesture as if he was tired, then in the next second, he would already be in the opposite wing, flying without anyone noticing and hitting the weakest part of the opponent\'s defense.

"He has one glaring weakness, though," Akira added.

"Eh?!" All the eyes turned to the coach instantly. "Weakness?!" They all were surprised that the coach was able to find the weakness of the ace of the best team in Japan.

"Yes, this is something I found out after some digging," Akira said, looking proud at himself. "Even if he has been living here for two years, Lucas Silva is still not proficient in the Japanese league. He often uses English and maybe some Portuguese that slipped from his tongue, yet his Japanese is awful, often causing miscommunication during the game."

The atmosphere lightened up for a moment as they all thought it was a weakness that they could expose. However, before they could start discussing how to do that, Megumi poured the cold water to kill their excitement.

"Don\'t get your hope up for too much." The girl said. "People have already noticed his weakness before, yet he is still able to perform well and bring the national trophy to Konan in the last two years. It shows that while the miscommunication is annoying, it is not something that would affect them all.

And this Lucas Silva also has strong teammates behind his back, so it would be difficult to take advantage of it."

Everyone slumped dejectedly when they heard Megumi\'s words. Yeah, the language barrier wasn\'t something that could be hidden for too long. Any team that watched their game carefully would notice the communication struggle in the team. If the other teams who learned first couldn\'t take advantage of that, who were they to think they could do better?

The atmosphere turned gloomy as Akira paused the video, letting everything sink onto their head first before continuing the review.

"As for the next notable player they have… Here, the number 14, the setter of the team!" Akira pointed his fingers at Sawada. Yuki and Riku straightened their back immediately, looking forward to the coach\'s analysis. "His name is Nobuhiro Sawada, a freshman just like Yuki and Riku. But don\'t underestimate him, thinking that because of his tiny body, he is easy to be bullied for.

The fact that he could enter the regular team after just two months of joining the best team in the country shows that he has an amazing talent, at least no less or maybe even better than Yuki."

The atmosphere kept getting gloomier the more Akira talked about Konan. All the players there knew how terrifying Yuki\'s talent was, so for the coach to say Sawada probably has a better talent than Yuki… They didn\'t want to imagine what kind of monster he was.

"He is an amazing setter," Akira said. "It doesn\'t matter what happened on the court, but he will always be able to give you a perfect set every single time. He can set from anywhere in the court, and it doesn\'t matter if the first touch is awful, too low, or too high, but he will be able to turn it into a perfect set.

Also, his ability to recognize his teammates\' strengths and weaknesses and work with them is amazing. With him on the court, you will always see all the Konan players performing far better than their usual quality. He elevates the team to a new height."

The last part was probably the scariest sentence Akira had ever said to the team. If it was Riku or their other teammates, they all would be happy to have such a player on their team. However, to hear that assessment from the coach to the player that was going to be their opponent in the future, everyone couldn\'t help but feel a shiver down their spine.

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Riku himself looked excited. He was always the player who could perform better the stronger the opponent was, so no one commented on him.

"As for the other players, of course, you cannot underestimate them." Akira continued. "Although I didn\'t say anything specific about them, that doesn\'t mean they are not good or something like that. They are the core of the best team in the country, so of course, there is no way they would be terrible. For example, this one." He pointed at another player.

"His name is Kenta Maeda, and he is their second-best scorer after Lucas Silva. He is a strong type of spiker that the team would use whenever they want to break the opponent\'s wall head-on. As for his power, let\'s just say he is in a similar tier as Gondo and Nitta, and you all know how terrifying those two are. Then, we have their libero…"

Akira spoke for more than ten minutes, giving the detailed profile of all the Konan players. The more they listened to the meeting, the more they felt terrible. They didn\'t know how could they win a game against such an amazing team. In their mind, they had already given up the game, with the worst scenario suddenly popped up there.

\'Is it really over for our team?\'