Greatest Of All Legends

354  Skin Serenity II

**18th November 2020**

*8:47 am*0

Jason walked out of the airport with his bag in tow and walked towards a blue BMW i8 that had just parked in front of him.

"Welcome back," Adele said as she got out of the driver's seat.

"Thanks," Jason said with a nod as he went to pull open the trunk and put his bag in.

"Catch," Adele said as she threw the keys of his car at him and Jason deftly caught it with one hand.

"You're not gonna drive me?" He asked with a grin.

"That's boyfriend privileges, I'm just your agent," Adele replied and moved over to the other side of the car and pressed the button to open the door.

"What if I increase your salary?" Jason asked while getting into the driver's seat.

"You don't exactly pay my salary," Adele said while rolling her eyes at him.

"Tch..." Jason clicked his tongue as he pushed the start button.

He wanted to trick her into driving him as he didn't want to do anything other than just lie down for a few hours, but tricking smart women wasn't up his alley unless he started using his sex appeal and he was too tired to do even that.

"Funny how sleeping on a plane only gets you more tired than you already are," he muttered as he drove the car out of the parking lane.

"Speak for yourself, I can sleep anywhere," Adele replied.

" Anyway, how were your first international games? I wasn't able to watch the matches or anything, but I checked the scores and you guys won... And then I watched the highlights and if you don't end up winning this year's Puskas award or Golden Boy award, then the world must have turned upside down," Adele continued while nodding to herself with a very straight face.

"The season barely started though, many things can happen between now and the end of the season," Jason laughed as he drove.

" Impossible! If they award anyone else, the person giving the award must have been kicked in the head by a donkey to allow such a thing," Adele remained adamant about her opinion.

"It's the reporters who have the majority vote in all those awards you're mentioning so anything could happen... Not that I don't want it though," Jason said with a half laugh.

It was one of Jason's greatest desires to get a Ballon'd'or or any such significant award, but he also knew that those kinds of awards were very deceiving due to the process in which the winners were chosen.

It was no longer just a performance or numbers game, but rather one in which one had to be liked by the reporters who were to vote for the awards. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Of course, others apart from reporters would also vote, but the majority of votes belonged to the reporters and there were many times when their choice was unsatisfactory to the players and the fans, but the awards were given anyway.

The concept of fair judgement was true and false at the same time otherwise how would a player like Thierry Henry not have a single Ballon'd'or even after all he had achieved in football?

That was why Jason liked a particular phrase that Christiano Ronaldo always used to counter anyone challenging him with the fact that Messi had more Ballon'd'or's than he did.

'The numbers don't lie.'

Numbers were as close to the truth about a player's level as one could get.

If the numbers a player can amass compared to his competitors gave a clear enough distinction, then everything would be clear to everyone watching and waiting and that was what Jason hoped to become.

He wanted to become a player who amassed such numbers season after season that it would be clear if he was robbed of an award.

'Incompetence breeds disrespect,' Jason remembered something a teammate of his in his past life once told him.

That guy was the closest thing Jason had to a friend in his previous life and it was not of his volition. The guy was simply a hardheaded guy who chose to constantly talk to Jason every day whether Jason liked it or not.

One day, they had played a match against FC Shalke in a pre-season competition and they had lost terribly, conceding 13 goals and being unable to register three shots throughout the match.

As the no-names that they were, it was an understandable result as there was no way they could match up against a team like FC Shalke, but the fans at the stadium didn't care about such a fact and sang jeering songs at them all throughout the match.

That day, everyone on the team but Jason was in tears and even the manager stayed silent as he had nothing to say.

What was supposed to be a match to help the players gain exposure and regain fitness ended up in the most demoralizing situation possible.

The only reason Jason hadn't cried as well after that match was because his emotions were terribly dull at the time, and it was not his first time in such a situation so he was able to stay unaffected on the outside, but on the inside was a different matter.

It wasn't Jason's teammates fault that they weren't as good as the Schalke players, especially when they didn't have a tenth of the resources the Schalke team had, but the truth remained that they were incompetent and could not match up in any way which ended with them having their asses handed back to them by their opponents.

Since that day, the rule of numbers became clear to Jason.

Overwhelming numbers conquered all and that was exactly what Jason wanted to be, a conqueror... He still had a long way to go though.

"What time is our meeting with Skin Serenity though?" Jason asked Adele as he drove to his house.

"I got them to agree to a meeting at 2 since I figured you'd be tired," Adele said as she pulled out her phone, wanting to give Jason the details.

"Did I ever tell you I love you?" Jason asked with teary eyes feeling touched.