Chapter 44 Pen to Paper and a Tour
44 Pen to Paper and a Tour
Jason's signing for the Porto side didn't come with much fanfare and the only people present were Jason himself, Rico Gulaz, his agent, and the four officials on the FC Porto side namely, Pinto Da Costa, Sergio Conceicao, Rafael, and Filipe Carlos.
There were only a few club photographers present to take a few pictures that would be later publicized when the announcement was made.
More pictures would be taken of him in a FC Porto jersey later as well, but that would be when he had chosen a jersey number as the club wouldn't be putting too much effort into publicizing a virtually unknown youth player whose shirts wouldn't even be able to sell a hundred pieces as of yet.
Such extensive publicity was meant for more famous players with enough good performances under their belts to trigger explosive sales of club merchandise.
Jason wasn't such a player yet so he'd have to bear with the minimal treatment and publicity until his performances proved otherwise, and Jason didn't mind as he was one to let his actions do the talking most of the time.
After the signing of the contract and posing for pictures, Pinto Da Costa and Filipe left first as they had other things to do and meetings to be at, leaving all other matters to Sergio Conceicao and Rafael.
Sergio Conceicao also had to leave to join the team on a trip to the Estadio D. Afonso Henriques in Guimares, Portugal for the Taca da Liga match against Vitoria de Guimares.
But he didn't forget to have a conversation with Jason about how he was to join the senior team in training the day after at the CTFD Portogaia training complex.
Since Jason had done a medical examination just a few days ago and was determined to be match fit, he could join the team's training immediately, but as for when he would actually grace the pitch for his debut was not yet known.
Sergio also called one of the assistant managers, Vitor Bruno to come and take over the duty of taking Jason on a tour of the Estadio do Dragao and its facilities as well as helping him choose a locker and meeting the kit manager to select a jersey number.
After making all those arrangements, Sergio Conceicao left as well and Jason only had to wait for five-odd minutes before Vitor Bruno came along to begin the tour.
They headed to the stadium first and went in through the entrance reserved for staff. Vitor led them through the well-conditioned corridors, meeting various members of the staff and introducing Jason to them as the newest addition to the team before they finally arrived at the team's dressing room where Jason was told to pick one of the free lockers.
Jason didn't hesitate in randomly selecting one of the available lockers and they soon moved on after listening to some stories from Vitor who was making sure that the tour wasn't boring with his good conversational skills and apt storytelling.
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It could be seen that he was quite experienced in this part of his job.
Next, they headed out onto the field of the glorious stadium where they would meet the kit manager, Rui Goncalves. Nôv(el)B\\jnn
Jason stepped onto the beautiful green turf and closed his eyes with emotions raging in his mind as being on this field, despite not wearing a jersey or playing a match made him come to the terms that he had actually taken more than the first step and had joined a team that was already bigger than the peak of his past life.
And though he hadn't met his teammates or joined the team's lineup even as a sub, he still felt quite joyous deep inside.
He could almost imagine the fans in the stadium chanting loudly, but he was soon brought out of his imagination when the kit manager arrived.
Rui Goncalves asked what number Jason would prefer to have on his jersey but Jason simply asked Rui Goncalves to recommend a number for him instead as he knew that the number he preferred already belonged to another player at the club and there was no way the player would be giving up his number for a fresh meat on the team.
Rui ended up recommending either number 14 or number 21 as they were both numbers that no one was using and Sergio had instructed him to try to make Jason's number a lower digit that would signify his importance to the team.
Jason didn't fancy the number 14 and ended up picking the number 21 as his jersey number.
After that, Jason had to meet the publicity managers who told him that there would be an arranged interview for him here at Estadio do Dragao.
With that out of the way, they continued the tour, and Jason was taken all around the Estadio do Dragao's various facilities as well as meeting the employees of those facilities.
Right from the people in charge of cleaning to the people in charge of taking care of the field's turf.
He also visited the merchandise shop, the museum, and even the handball court that was also on the grounds of the Estadio do Dragao sports complex.
By the time they were done with the tour of the sports complex, Jason didn't have any energy left to do any more walking, yet despite his exhaustion, there was a happy smile on his face and after saying his goodbyes to Vitor Bruno who lead the tour as well as Rafael Hernandez who had accompanied him throughout the tour, he left with Rico Gulaz.
Rico took him back to the apartment that he shared with Mylo before zooming off in his car, leaving him to walk inside the building.
As Jason walked through the front door of the apartment, he couldn't help but notice that the building was awfully silent, so he figured that Mylo probably wasn't around.
Not that it mattered to him anyway, he thought to himself as he walked into his room to have a bath and freshen up as he had plans for the evening.
FC Porto would be having a match against Vitoria de Guimares in about an hour and he planned to watch the match of his team, so he didn't mind the silence.