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It has never been this hot in Liverpool, Trent swore, and he'd been living here his whole life.
It wasn't often that the training pitch was quiet, only tired gasps and the sounds of boots in the dry dirt, but the heat seemed to have that effect on them.
Even the South Americans seemed to be struggling, he saw Luis being dragged inside by Darwin around twenty minutes ago, and it was hard to ignore Alisson leaning onto the goalpost like a lifeline, pressing an ice cold bottle of water to his forehead.
Trent looked over at Slot, who, in his defence, also seemed to notice the effect of the heat on the team. The coach looked at his watch, contemplating, before sighing and blowing his whistle.
The relief of his teammates didn't go unnoticed, and Trent secretly felt the same, fighting to keep a smile off his face as he followed them in trudging back to the air conditioned training centre.
"This is so shit," Diogo moaned, flopping on one of the obnoxious red couches in the lobby. Cody huffed in agreement, sliding down the wall and closing his eyes, breathing in the cold air.
"I swear it never gets this hot in this place," Curtis complained, holding an ice cold bottle of Gatorade, "and I've literally lived here my whole life."
"Real," Trent found himself saying in response, and Curtis clapped him on the shoulder, leaving behind a wet patch on Trent's shirt.
"I swear, I thought I was going to pass out on the field," Diogo said. "Like, I was actually getting dizzy at the end of that."
"I was about to see the light, swear on my life," Cody muttered, still sitting at the wall. Curtis snorted, his wet hand finding another victim in Cody's training shirt.
"'Can't believe that Mo tapped out though," Dom said, joining their conversation, "I thought Egypt was meant to be dry and all that."
Trent raised an eyebrow at him, before searching the room to find Mo, only to see his sleeping form on yet another one of the club's red couches.
"Maybe it's like a different type of hot, y'know?" He said, nudging Dom with his elbow. "Like, the dry hot is different from just straight up humidity like this shit."
Dom stared at him blankly, before nodding. Trent couldn't blame him, his brain wasn't working in this weather either.
He knew that logically, he should be doing his vice-captainly duty of checking in on his other teammates, but half of them had reverted back to their native language at some point during the training session, and he couldn't be arsed to try to decipher Ibou's heat-muddled French or Kostas' slurred Greek.
"Where's Virg?" Trent heard Diogo ask, and he turned his attention back to the group. They collectively looked at Cody, who, noticing the sudden silence, opened his eyes.
"I don't know," he started, "I think I saw him going to the locker rooms before, but I don't know where he is now."
Trent groaned, bracing himself on the wall next to him as he pulled himself to his feet, passing his own water bottle Dom, who gratefully chugged down it's contents.
"I'll go look for him, I don't know what we're doing for the rest of the day so..." he trailed off. Diogo sent him a tired thumbs up, whilst Cody simply nodded in his general direction, the Dutchman's eyes slipping back closed.
"Hopefully nothing!" He heard Curtis yell as he walked away, and internally, he agreed.
Trent walked down the corridor, peeking into any open door for the sign of Virgil. From what he remembered, Virgil didn't seem to be having that much of a hard time compared to the rest of them, he didn't seem out of the ordinary in any way, not complaining about the heat nor the fact that they were training in said heat.
Plus, he hadn't started unconsciously muttering in Dutch, which was a win in Trent's books.
His ears perked up as he heard two distinct voices echo down the hallway, no doubt from the locker room. As he walked closer to the door, he soon realised that neither voice belonged to Virgil.
Pushing the door open, he was awarded with a sight that only confused him more.
Alisson was sitting on the floor, a very tired, barely unconscious Virgil laying on the floor, his head in the goalkeeper's lap. Alexis was kneeling next to the pair, slowly coaxing Virgil's shirt off. The Dutchman shuddered softly, face tight in what seemed like pain.
"W-what's going on?" Trent asked, looking between the three of them. Alexis glanced up at him, before looking at Alisson with urgency, and the Brazilian nodded.
"Alé and I just found him like this, we think it's heatstroke, " Alisson said solemnly. "Virg had a fever of forty a few minutes ago, we're just trying to cool him down now."
"Do you want me to get a water bottle from the cooler?" Trent asked nervously, unable to tear his eyes away from his captain's still form.
"No," Alisson answered, "an ice-cold drink will just give him cramps. We have to manually cool him down before anything."
Trent nodded, Alexis' movements catching his eye.
"You're giving him mate?" He asked the Argentinian wearily. Alexis shook his head, coaxing the straw of his cup to Virgil's lips.
"It's different," Alexis said, fully focused on pressing the straw between Virgil's lips. "This is tereré, it's a bit colder, it's what we drink in my city whenever someone gets too hot. Will help to hydrate him and get his body cooler. Better than cold water or those chemical drinks you people have."
Trent raised an eyebrow at Alisson, who just shrugged. Alexis seemed to succeed in his mission, and he gestured at Alisson to help Virgil up into a sitting position.
"That's it, small sips," Alexis whispered softly, holding the cup up for Virgil. The captain sucked on the straw slowly, his eyes half open, his hands limp in his lap.
"You're doing well, it’ll be over soon cielo, solo necesitamos bajar tu temperatura," the Argentinian said kindly, a hand running through Virgil's sweaty hair. Trent looked at Alisson in concern at the change of language, but the keeper didn’t seem too worried, so he calmed down.
Any relief left his body, however, once Virgil's eyes started to close completely, the straw falling out of his mouth as his face drooped.
“La puta que te parió," Alexis yelped. He snapped his fingers twice in front of Virgil's face. "No, despertar, awake!"
He looked at Trent, panic written all over his face. "Grab the cold packs from the freezer and bring them over."
Trent nodded meekly, running over the adjacent room which stored the team's cool packs, grabbing as many as he could hit in his arms before booking it back to the trio.
With the help of Alexis, they covered Virgil's chest and stomach with the cold packs, a few extra ones trailing down his arms and legs.
Alisson had untied the Dutchman's hair, and was gently stroking it with one hand whilst the other was holding yet another cold pack to his forehead. Trent looked at Alexis for further instruction, only to find him sitting face to face with Virgil.
"What hurts, Virg?" Alexis said softly, a hand gently landing on Virgil's cheek.
"Massive headache," Virgil managed to get out, groaning as he opened his eyes completely, blinking a few times. "Can we... Can we turn the lights off?"
"Yes, of course," Alexis said, fake reassurance in his voice as he side eyed Trent, the Englishman scrambling to turn off the lights.
VIrgil's sigh of relief at the sudden darkness was audible, and Trent heard himself letting out an almost identical sigh that didn't know he had been holding in.
”We need to tell Slot and take him to the emergency room,” Alexis whispered into the darkness, and Alisson made a noise of agreement. Trent volunteered himself, walking out of the room as quietly as he could to avoid disturbing Virgil.
He whipped out his phone, dialling his coach’s number, and ignoring the stressed cramps in his gut. He could only imagine what would’ve happened if only Alisson and Alexis didn’t find Virgil in time. He shoved those thoughts into the back of his brain as Slot picked up.
”Hey,” he started. “So… we have a bit of a situation.”