A Rough Half

The ball gets booted about a bunch for the first ten minutes or so, but you only need to make a couple safe passes to keep the match moving. You would say it’s been uneventful, but games like this are always on a knife’s edge, where even the tiniest difference could make a goal happen.

Jack has the ball now, and he’s bringing it up, looking for options. A Kale defender gets in close, forcing his decision, and he kicks it towards Daphne. It’s the wrong call, and done imperfectly—a Kale centreback manages to intercept it before Daphne has a chance to jockey for it, and all of a sudden she’s sprinting up with the ball, tapping it over to a midfielder when Khloe gets near.

The counterattack is ruthless. The two midfielders play the ball between them a series of short passes, easily circumventing Katie and then Mars, meaning that you have to drop away from Wright to stop their advance. With two people on the ball, it’s tricky for you to get the ball off either, but you cut in as you sprint in from the side, getting between them. It’s impossible for the one on the left to pass to the one on your right now, or you’d get the ball, and the midfielder on your right tries to break away from you, pushing for a little more speed, but you manage to keep up, and Valentine by this point is in position to make something happen with the midfielder on the left.

You draw closer to the one on the right, eyes flicking between the two of them, and see Valentine taking the ball off the left one. She runs a short distance with it, sees that Mars is open, and gets the ball to her, relieving the pressure.

You, meanwhile, are doubled over and breathless, and the midfielder who you were tailing gives you a hard look before dropping back.

———

The ball’s coming your way again. There’s twenty-five minutes left on the clock, and the score is still tied 0-0. The midfielder on the right passes to Wright. He’s been doing that lots recently, and you’ve had to run down Wright more times than you can count.

You know the play’s coming, and so you’re already close enough to Wright to begin contesting the moment she makes her first touch. The Kale striker is good on her feet, and the ball is always just frustratingly out of your reach. You’re feeling darn tired on your feet, and when she gives the ball a quick tap to the side that you weren’t expecting, you chase after it and trip up, falling to the ground. Wright carries on unperturbed, charging towards the goal.

Val is not far away. She’s supposed to take over the chase, but a look of concern crosses her face as she sees you sprawled on the ground. It’s a delay that lasts all of a second, but a second is all that Wright needs to get into the box, and now it’s down to a one-on-one.

Keegan has his eyes on Wright. She kicks the ball and it flies into the air. Keegan jumps up, arms outstretched, and the ball flies just past his fingertips and into the goal.

You stay slumped on the ground for a little longer.

———

You tackle the ball off of Wright, a quick kick sending the ball back towards the Kale goal. She doesn’t have a chance to pivot fast enough, and you’re running with the ball now. You start to look for someone to pass the ball to, but you realise there’s open space, and you push through it.

There’s a moment when you imagine running the ball all the way to the goal and scoring, but it’s a fanciful thing that you dismiss as you see the midfielder on the right closing off your way forwards. You know that you could beat him on a normal day, make it past him and towards the goal, but you know you don’t have the gas to do it at the moment. He looks fresh-faced and full of energy, while you’re absolutely drained, and so you lock eyes with Khloe, passing the ball over to her.

The play goes off. Khloe takes a second to find an opening and sends the ball to Jack, but Kale has had time to react now, and closed off his options, so the ball goes back to Katie, and then bounces around the middle of the field for a while longer. Nothing ends up coming out of the play.

———

When the ref blows the whistle, wrapping up the game, you’re down that one goal. It’s a tough loss, and the team’s looking mighty somber. You shake hands with the Kale team, and then file back to your side of the field in silence.

“It was always going to be a tough game, but we shouldn’t have lost it.” Daphne is not mad per se, but something dangerously close to it. Her voice is quiet, but it carries. “Many things went wrong today. We take moments like this to reflect and improve. I could tell you all what I think each of you should have done better, but I think it is better when it comes from yourself. Let’s start with you, Keegan.”

“I didn’t save the ball,” he says with a frankness born of frustration. You can see it in the lines creasing the corners of his face. “Not when it counted, at least. The other ones were easy, but I didn’t show up when I had to.”

Daphne nods, and gestures to Charlie, who is ready with his part. “I should have picked up earlier on the fact that they were targeting Alex and running him down. I could have played closer to the center, relieved the pressure more easily. There were a couple moments when I was just a little too far out.”

The team turns to you. “It’s like Charlie said. I should have took the pressure better. I wasn’t ready to run down the ball as much when we were playing reactive, and I missed that pass towards the end. That might have been a goal.” You see nods from all around. It was an honest assessment, a bit of a painful one to make, and a reminder that you had better start putting in the hours again.

The team continues going around the circle, each person identifying the things that they could have improved. When Daphne wraps it up, pointing out the opportunities she could have made rather than the shots she took that got saved, she gives the team a nod.

“It wasn’t a bad performance, but I’m expecting better,” she says. “I’ll see you all on Monday for training.”

With that, the group breaks apart, and you head into the locker room to shower and get changed back into your regular clothes. Not much talking happens in the locker room. Most people, including you, are caught in their own heads, replaying the match, figuring out what they could have done. The key moments of the match flash in your head over and over again, and when you emerge from the shower stalls, you’re determined that you’re not going to be humiliated like this again.

Back out on the pitch, you catch the eye of the Kale striker. Her gaze lingers on you for a second, and you wonder if you should approach her—but then again, you’d also agreed on lunch with Jack, Helen, and Mal to talk over the econ homework.

Daphne -2
Katie -2
Khloe -2
Jack -2
Keegan -2
Charlie -2
Jason -2
Javier -2
Mars -2
Valentine -2

100 Chapters Deep.

When I first started, I thought this story would go for 250 chapters or so but... we're still on the Saturday of the 2nd week of the semester, and this story will end after Burn Night (end of the 8th week of the semester). In other words, I have no damn clue how long this thing will go on for anymore.

But, the only reason that I've gotten this far, written this much, is because of all you readers out there. Thanks for all the comments, likes, favorites, and support that you've given. The feedback (even and especially the critical bits) really does keep me coming back.