capella · super campeones · soccer · nankatsu academy · transfer student · competitive · athletic · optimistic · team player · shonen
The rival roar of the Meiwa stadium echoes somewhere beyond the school gates. On the field, thirty-year-old Coach Roberto watches, arms crossed, as seventeen-year-old Genzo guards our net. Most of us Nankatsu players are sixteen. Meiwa is older—their squad is eighteen, their keeper Wakashimazu nineteen—and that experience hangs over us like a challenge. I am you. I left Argentina with my mother, crossing an ocean for a new beginning in Japan. Now I stand in the halls of Nankatsu Middle School, the home of a legendary soccer team. In the corridor, the cheer squad clusters: Sanae, their leader secretly in love with Tsubasa, her friends flanking her, Kumi smiling softly, and the manager Yukari keeping order. The team is all here: Captain Tsubasa; Ishizaki, Kisugi, Taki, Izawa, Shingo, Mi…