Josh ignores him and loads up the game before getting to the team selection page. He turns to Adam and watches to his if his best friend will go through with it. Adam hits the random button and team names quickly flash past the screen until it stops on Accrington Stanley. The blonde can’t help but laugh in surprise as he has just randomly picked a low star league two team. Accrington Stanley were a team in the same division as both Adam and Josh’s team Bury last season. Even Stanley fans would admit their team isn’t the best and now Adam has to play a game of strip FIFA with them.
“Are you sure I can pick anyone?” Josh asks still smiling at Adam’s random choice.
“Yes of course, I’m still gonna win,” Adam says cockily.
Josh flicks around the menu screen until he gets to one of the best teams in the world Barcelona. Groaning Adam doesn’t think he is wearing enough layers now as he is going to play against the current European champions. The blonde now does regret going to such crazy lengths to give himself a handicap in this match.
“Do you want to just get it over with and ask the truth question now,” Adam asks as the match loads up.
Josh just laughs and shakes his head seeing the worrying look on his friend’s normally cheerful face. This will be the tall skinny teen’s revenge and Josh wants to enjoy every second of it. The match will be played at night in the Camp Nou and Josh kicks off getting the ball straight to the feet of Leo Messi. Charging down the pitch Messi skips past two players and fires a shot that is well saved by Adam’s keeper. Barely a minute of game time has gone and Josh already easily got away a shot on goal. A few minutes later and Neymar picks the ball up on the left hand side of the area. He runs right into the box and forces a cross right across the 6 yard line.
“GOAL,” Josh yells in delight as Luis Suarez taps the ball into the net and wheels away in celebration.
Adam winces as he watches the replay as that was an easy tap in goal for Josh. This is going to be a very long game he thinks grabbing the bottom of his black jumper and quickly lifting it up and over his head. Josh grins when he sees Adam’s two t-shirts underneath his jumper. His friend wasn’t lying about all those extra layers and Josh wonders if he can get Adam naked at all with all those clothes on. The game restarts and Adam tries his hardest to keep possession of the ball passing it all around the pitch. Josh is frustrated as he just can’t seem to win the ball from Adam’s players.
Barcelona’s players are miles better than Stanley’s but Josh is worried that Adam is a better FIFA player than him even with a crap team. In his desperation to win the ball back Josh sides in and fouls a Stanley player 30 yards away from goal. The resulting free kick is floated into the box where a Stanley player gets a head to it first forcing a fine save by the Barcelona keeper Bravo.
“Shit,” Josh cries out in anger as replays show his keeper barely tipped that header over the bar.
Josh is really worried that he can’t beat Adam even with such a big difference between the two sides. After his keeper catches the corner Josh starts to concentrate playing his way into the match and he is rewarded when on 24 minutes Iniesta picks the ball up on the edge of the area. He calmly skips around two players then fires a shot at the goal. Adam’s keeper saves the shot but the ball is deflected right to the feet of Suarez who calmly tucks the ball away for his second goal.
“Damn,” Adam says turning away from the screen, “Playing as a lower class team is harder than I thought.”
“Are you really sure you wanna do this?” Josh says feeling guilty because it is just feels too easy to score against this Accrington defence.
“Yes now play on,” Adam says gripping his controller tight.
“Fine then lose another layer man,” Josh says reminding Adam of the strip rules.
“Oh yeah,” Adam says lifting his foot up and peeling off his socks.
“You know this wasn’t my best idea in retrospect,” The blonde says throwing his dark red and black football socks away.
Josh stares at his friend’s small white ankle socks for a second before he decides to speak up.
“You’re right it’s really too much of an advantage for me,” Josh says, “So I say if you score just one goal then I’ll take that as a defeat.”
“A proper defeat?” Adam curiously asks.
“Yeah I’ll get naked, take the question a proper strip FIFA defeat if you can get just one goal,” Josh says hoping this will make the one sided match more competitive.
Adam nods his head then he smirks, “You know you will end up regretting this right?”
“Probably but then I won’t feel bad about beating you, makes it more sporting,” Josh says and Adam just shakes his head.
“You really love digging your own grave you know that?” The blonde says but Josh ignores him.
Straight from the kick off Suarez tackles hard and wins the ball back. Josh makes the talented Uruguayan charge forward beating two players with some fast dribbling skills before firing the ball into the top corner.
“Yes 3 nil,” Josh sings as Suarez wheels away celebrating a first half hat trick in under 30 minutes.
“I might not get one goal,” Adam says ruefully while Josh waves his arms around in celebration.
Grabbing the bottom of his dark red t shirt Adam is finally starting to understand how Josh felt in the first two games. Being forced to strip because you are not good enough is a horrible feeling. The blonde peels off his shirt revealing a white undershirt and Josh shakes his head.
“I’m 3 nil up and you still haven’t show off any skin,” Josh teases as Adam throws his t-shirt to the ground on top of his removed jumper and socks.
Adam would throw a teasing comment back at his friend but he is struggling. He has no idea how he can score one goal against Josh, in fact Adam quietly thinks it might be impossible for Accrington Stanley to score a goal against Barcelona. The blonde starts defending for his life trying to at least stop the onslaught of goals. Adam defends right up until half time but once the 1 minute of injury time goes up he loses the ball to Suarez. Josh has his hat trick start slide a perfect through ball between two Accrington defenders. Messi runs onto the ball perfectly and Adam already starts to lift his foot up to remove his socks before the world’s best player even takes a shot.
“And it’s 4,” The commentator yells as Adam peels off his small white ankles socks leaving his feet bare.
The half time whistle goes and Adam breathes a deep sigh of relief. Giving himself this big of a handicap was a risk but Adam never saw himself being 4 nil down at half time. Josh can see the worried look on his best friend’s face and despite the embarrassment Adam has caused him he still feels bad.
“Hey come on man cheer up,” Josh says brightly, “One goal and you win.”
“Adam can’t help but smile, “God you must love losing if you wanna keep giving me an out.”
Josh snarls for a second then grins, “I’ve been playing on the same team as you since high school so I know all about losing.”
The blonde winces for a second then shakes his head, today is really strange not only is he getting beaten badly on FIFA but Josh is now cracking in decent punchlines. Adam quickly skips through the menu screens to get the second half started while Josh just sits on his bed trying not to laugh at his own quick one liner. Accrington Stanley come charges out right from kick off and only a last second tackle by Pique stops Adam from getting a shot away.
The game now takes a smaller tone to the first half where Josh has all of the ball and all of the shots. Adam would be naked now if it wasn’t for the heroics of Davis in the Stanley goal. He has blocked every long range shot fired at him and twice his own defenders have helped to deflect Barcelona’s shots sending them just wide. The blonde is sweating while Josh is a picture of calm, he knows all he needs to do is keep making chances and eventually like the first half goals will go flying in. Josh is proved right on the 69 minute when the genius that is Messi once again cuts his way through the heart of the Accrington defence. His shot is once again blocked by Davis but Adam just has no luck as the save falls right back to Messi’s feet.
“5 nil mate time to strip again,” Josh says just trying to enjoy his easy victory.
“Shit this is getting bad now,” Adam says looking down at his bare feet mentally trying to work out how many layers he has left.
“You can still rage quit and run away,” Josh says but Adam responds with a grunt and starts to peel his white undershirt off.
Adam loses his shirt so now he is bare chested and the pile of clothes on Josh’s bedroom gets bigger. The blonde uses all of FIFA skill to try and keep Josh away from the ball by passing it all over the pitch. After a move where every single Accrington player touches the ball a long punt forward sets the striker Naismith through on goal. He has beaten the offside trap and is now one on one with the Barca keeper. Adam presses the shoot button hard and watches the ball fly past the keeper but also fly past the outside of the post.
“FUCK,” Adam wails slamming himself backwards on the bed in frustration.
“Awwwww so close,” Josh says trying to comfort his distraught friend.
Josh had almost given up after seeing Naismith run clear through on goal. The fact Adam had somehow managed to shoot wide convinces Josh that today is his day. Luck is on his side and Josh knows as a sportsman days when everything goes your way are rare so you have to embrace and enjoy them. 2 minutes after Adam’s best chance of the match Josh controls Iniesta who slides out to the left and whips a perfect ball right into the box. Suarez leaps out and powerfully head the ball into the bottom left hand corner. Adam groans as the score 6 nil flashes up on the screen and Josh feels his best friend’s pain. Putting his controller down Adam stands up and grabs the waistband of his tracksuit pants and starts to lower them.
“Wow you were so not kidding about the extra clothes,” Josh says seeing that Josh is wearing their team’s football shorts on under his trackie bottoms.
Adam doesn’t say a word as he throws his removed pants over to his large pile of clothes. The blonde knows he only has a couple more layers on but thankfully there isn’t long left in the game. Concentrating hard Adam battles to keep the score at 6 nil for the final few minutes of the match. In the final minute of normal time Neymar picks up the ball 30 yards from goal and fires in a shot that just whistles over the top of the bar.
“Ohhh nearly 7,” Josh groans watching his long range effort narrowly miss.
Mercifully for Adam the final whistle goes saving Adam from any more punishment. 6 nil is a hell of a score to be beaten by but Adam is still reasonably happy. He isn’t happy that he had to strip so much but he can see the smile on Josh’s face so maybe his best friend will enjoy playing a regular game of strip FIFA again. Josh just stares at Adam waiting for his friend to talk about how the match doesn’t count or how unfair it was to him. Amazingly the competitive blonde just sits on the edge of the bed in his football shorts just waiting.
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