“MORE STRESSED THAN I CAN IMAGINE.” SAYS CHUCK T. CHIPPERSON

Maci Gian

Technicali’s match against Supa Strikas is coming sooner than we know it, and despite the fact the spandex-wearing soccer players are going to be playing against someone their own size, and that their coach is under strict supervision, when their captain was asked how he felt about their next game, he simply stated:

“I’m more stressed than I can imagine.”

Chuck T. Chipperson’s gone on to say that while Toni hasn’t been ‘doing his usual stuff’, he hasn’t been fulfilling his role as a coach either. The other players seem to agree, with Marcus Mason Magnus Martinez, their midfielder, saying:

“It—it’s—I don’t want to say he’s being a bad coach, but—but he’s not really being a coach at all. I think it’s—I think it’s better than him being angry, at—at least.”

Thaddeus also chimed in, “Yeah, it feels like he’s trying to show off to the agent that he’s such a good coach instead of actually doing it.”

Technicali’s captain has once again stepped up to fill in Toni Vern’s shoes; getting to their stadium early to plan everything for the day, preparing their workout routines, and creating an assortment of strategies with the use of Toni’s ‘Virtual Home Soccer’ machine, or the ’V.H.S.’

“It’s one of the few inventions the Disciplinary Board was okay with Toni using,” Chuck explained to Futbol 360, “And it’s one of the few inventions he’s okay with me using.”

The V.H.S is no small contraption, but an entire room that can create perfect holographic simulations of soccer games with an assortment of players, obstacles, weather conditions, and difficulty levels. While Technicali mostly use it when they can’t practice outdoors, Chuck told journalists of its other use:

“It’s able to create holograms of a bunch of different players, right? They won’t always be accurate, and sometimes it’s a bit limited, but it helps us see all the possible moves our oppositions could make.”

He went on.

“Sometimes I’ll get here early—real early—and I’ll set up the simulator, then I’ll have it run through several scenarios and I take notes. It’s great, really. Makes me feel better when I have some sort of idea of what to expect.”

With something as useful as the V.H.S, on top of the team’s consistent training, Chuck’s statement from before was all the more confusing. Why be so stressed when they seem so prepared? They weren’t going up against Colossus or Iron Tank again.

“Y’see, the thing is—it’s easy to assume we were more scared about going against Iron Tank, cause they’re big and scary, and—and we were, don’t get me wrong, we were, but we knew we were going to lose.” Chuck said, “Losing sucked, but we expected it. You can’t trip over the bar if you never brought it with you in the first place.” He chuckled, “Supa Strikas though? We have a chance, and that’s what sucks. There’s that little bit of hope that maybe we can win, and it makes losing feel worse when it happens. Like man, we almost got them.”

Chuck lingered for a moment before he finished: “And I hate letting the guys and Toni down. They all work real hard, and there’s nothing worse than having none of it pay off.”

The other Technicali members were asked if they had any thoughts about their upcoming or previous match.

“I mean, lookit us. We’re not exactly tanks ourselves,” Thaddeus said with a laugh as he gestured towards the rest of his teammates then pointed to himself, “Bunch’a twigs in jumpsuits. Uh, but yeah, it was kinda nice knowing we were going to lose. We knew Iron Tank was going to plow through us, and they did. It was done ’n over with.”

“At least when we lose against Supa Strikas, we won’t have to visit the Disciplinary Board afterwards.” Kyle Kowalski added in.

Thaddeus laughed again, “They’ll probably think somethin’ happened to us. Bet they’ll give us a call after the match to make sure we didn’t get blown up by one’a Toni’s inventions or something.”

While Toni wasn’t available to share how he felt about the Super League agent assigned to watch over him, his players were.

“It’s Agent 5621. We’ve had her a couple of times before, she’s nice, yeah.” Kyle said.

“She’s usually—she’s the one that talks to us during, uh—after our late night games whenever Toni gets in trouble, and she’ll—she escorts us around the Board. We could all probably swap our uniforms and she’d—she’d still be able to tell who’s who.” Marcus laughed.

Rocky George, on the other hand, didn’t seem as fond of Agent 5621, stating: “No, yeah, I got nothing against her, but she’s one’a the only agents I can’t sneak past cause she always notices when one of us is missing.” He folded his arms, “All the other agents? They never notice—or they don’t care—whatever, but the amount of times we’ve been at their meetings and I’d go: ‘Hey, I need’a use the bathroom, I’ll be right back.’ And then I just leave? It’s gotta be well into the double digits. I can’t pull that off around her.”

Rocky was asked if he was worried he’d get in trouble for admitting to this, or if he feared he was missing out on anything important, but he scoffed.

“No, cause again: They don’t remember me. They can barely tell us apart when we’re in our uniforms, heck, I’m pretty sure the only one they do remember is Benedict cause he’s wearing all blue, so there’s no way they’re remembering my face. And second, all of those meetings are the same. Agents yapping, Toni yelling, and Chuck trying to cover for him.”

Technicali was asked if they had anything they wanted to say to Supa Strikas before their game.

After a few moments of silence, Kyle spoke up.

“I dunno? ‘Go easy on us’ I guess? Please?”

“If—if Toni takes out—if he uses anything out on the field like—like a robot, or some sort of enhancements, or—or anything, we did not know about it either.” Marcus said.

“Seriously though, go easy on us.” Thaddeus said, “My body’s still recovering from that one Iron Tank guy crashing into me.”