1.37 - A Blue Wave

37.

We hadn't talked tactics, but so hyped were the players that they'd defaulted to the false midfield formation. 3-0-3. The problem was that City thought we were going to park the bus again, and they'd come out with a ballsy 1-2-3 concept. One defender, the abominable Meghan. Two midfielders, including Sarah Greene. And three forwards, although none of them were particularly formidable in that role.

Basically, City were going for it. Hoo-rah. If you're going to defend, we're going to attack. City, fuck yeah!

But City had kicked off the first half. Which meant we started with the ball in the second half.

Lula, moving just fine on her mangled ankle, passed backwards to Freyja, who touched it to Nobby. She passed to Beth.

That's how long it took for City's kids to steam forward. Like a tidal wave, if you can imagine a blue wave. Pretty abstract stuff, I know.

Beth hesitated for half a second. I know what she was thinking. She was thinking 'what the actual'. Because ahead of her, she saw three Beth Heads against one defender. Surely this was a trap? Regardless, she played a simple pass forwards to Lula. Lula took a touch and passed it sideways to the advancing Eva. Eva controlled and passed it diagonally left-forwards to Bex. Bex scored. City's goalkeeper didn't even move. Once the ball had gone past her, she stood and pointed. At what? I'd never know.

I looked up at the scoreboard. The referee pressed her little button and the scoreline changed to 3-0. The countdown read 24:49. If we continued scoring at this rate, we’d win about 135-0. How’s that for defensive football?

I heard Ziggy laugh, and he started singing.

"Park the bus, park the bus, Man United!"

It was a song City fans had sung to make fun of United at a time when they were so superior to us that all we could do was defend for 90 minutes and hope not to lose. (We lost anyway.) Now the song that rejoiced in his team's superiority over mine was sung to mark our team's superiority over his.

Wait, what?

Fuck it. I joined in, too, and Jackie was way ahead of me. His contribution was to change one of the words. The three of us formed a triumvirate and bounced around in a circle.

"Park the bus, park the bus, Max United!

Park the bus, park the bus, I say!

Park the bus, park the bus, Max United!

Playing football the Max Best way."

***

The next five minutes were intense. Forget Mr Yalley and his sweaty neck. Every inch of me was damp. I stopped prowling the touchline in case I left a trail, like a slug.

City didn't change their approach. 1-2-3 all day long, baby!

We were three goals to the good. What did we have to fear? We stuck with the false midfield.

So it was like basketball - we get a shot then you get a shot then we get a shot. The first crack in my plan came when City realised we were playing those long, low passes out of defence. City were starting to anticipate them, to get between the defender passing and the striker receiving. That was muy muy no bueno. I pointed this out to Jackie.

"Every strength is a weakness," he said. He meant that our strength had been turned into a weakness, but I misunderstood him. I thought he was giving cryptic advice. "Frejya! Beth! Guys! Loop those long passes! Bypass!" I drew a big parabola with my finger.

That worked. It worked muy muy yes bueno.

Beth blocks the pass.

She gathers the ball and plays a short pass back to the goalkeeper.

Jane chips it high and long.

Meghan and Lula compete for the ball.

It breaks loose.

Eva is on it like a flash! She shoots low and -

- it's saved! Great reflexes from the pint-sized shot stopper.

But the ball squirts loose. Right into the path of Lula. She reacted fastest!

GOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL

It was 4-0 and I was in dreamland. Delirious. Seriously, I was on some kind of substance-free high. You could have sold me a bridge.

Freyja came running up to me, gave me a shake. "What? What?" It's my only lie-in this week! Let me enjoy it!

"She knows," said Freyja.

Huh? I lifted my eyes and saw Sandra, City's coach, thundering instructions to her team. All the bad chemicals came flooding back. "Shit," I said. I replayed the goal in my head. Eva had been too far forward. She had given the game away. Not literally. I hoped.

"3-2-1," I said. "Match them up. Man-marking all round."

Freyja nodded and zoomed off.

Jackie shook his head. "They'll have to start dribbling if you do that."

Fuck. He was right. If we blocked every pass, they would have to start running with the ball. Argh! "Give me an option," I said.

"Keep doing the false midfield. Or just say fuck it and play 3-0-3. Fuck the disguise. Go for broke."

I bit my nails. Maybe. Maybe we'd score 2 for every 3 that City scored. It didn't feel like much of a trade. "Ziggy, what do you think?"

"Could defend. Men behind ball."

"Yeah," I said. I liked it as a way to mess up City's flow. There was only one problem. "There's almost 18 minutes left. We can't defend non-stop for 18 minutes. Fuck." I looked over. "Sorry, Kisi."

She nodded at me, but she had the strangest look in her eye. "Play man-to-man, Mr Best."

"What about when they start dribbling us?"

"It's like we agreed," she said. "If they do that, then we have won."

"From four-nil up, I'd hope for more than a moral victory," I said.

"Trust in god, Mr Best," she said. "Have faith."

So that was pretty much the least helpful thing anyone had ever said to me. With a slight groan, I watched as City's keeper got the ball. She had no-one to pass to. Every time a City player dropped towards her, one of ours was shadowing her. So City's keeper moved a little bit further forward, and some more. Meghan, the hooligan, turned out to have half a brain, and she moved to the other side of the pitch. Our player followed, and so City's keeper had a free path to the half-way line. She got there and waited. We weren't stupid enough to attack her, but we couldn't track every movement every time - Sarah Greene broke free of Nobby's tracking and was passed to. She faked to lay the ball off, did a tiny move past our Japanese defender, and burst forward. Jane, though, had been on high alert. She flew out of her D and booted the ball into touch. It flew at about 8 million metres per second... right at me. I languidly angled a shoe, tapped the ball downwards, and let it bounce up into my hand. Meghan raced towards me to get the ball and take the kick-in. I hid the ball behind my back and said, "Not you."

Meghan looked uncertain, but she was by far the closest City player to the ball.

The referee blew her whistle at me.

With a cheeky grin, I handed the ball to Kisi. I held my hands up and backed away. All good! We're all having a lovely old time!

Kisi was about to hand Meghan the ball, but at the last second she hesitated. With a big frown, she said, "Meghan, why doesn't your coach give you instructions? Does she not like you?" And she relinquished the ball.

Meghan - god knows what was going on in her head - placed the ball on the touchline and kicked it backwards - blind - towards her goalkeeper. Lula was inches away from intercepting! City's keeper had better acceleration, though, and kicked it away.

Kisi smiled at me. The sweetest smile you ever did see. She turned away and clapped her hands. "Come on, girls!"

Jackie gave me one of his looks.

***

Freyja tweaked my tactic. Saved me from myself. She instructed Lula to goalhang, to make sure City always had someone to pass to, like we'd discussed. It slowed the tactical arms race, helped us run the clock down. Every time City passed, we got closer to victory.

But that was the high-level view. Close-up, it was wild. A complete slugfest. City got two low-quality shots at goal; we got one half-decent chance to break. Our legs were slowing. Our defenders were starting to make little mistakes. Nothing critical, but the emotional investment was taking its toll. Just as Jackie had predicted. It was my turn to give him an appraising stare.

***

Twelve minutes to go. Still winning 4-0. City were pushing, still sticking to plan A. I found the stubbornness thrilling. Their philosophy was: there’s a right way to play football, and we’re going to keep doing that. Insane. Insipid. Inspirational.

Pass pass pass. Zip zip zop.

Eleven minutes to go. City made a mass substitution. The same tactics with slightly worse players. Hilarious! But the new batch were fresher, ran harder, pushed us back. We didn’t give them space to shoot. They had three low-quality shots - four, five. And suddenly they were out of ideas. Why wasn’t it working?

We weren’t very threatening when we got the ball - our attackers had sprinted much, much more than usual and were running on fumes. But I tried to keep two players up the pitch - City had to keep at least two defenders back, just in case. It helped.

Ten minutes to go. Bex and Bella combined to cut out a run-of-the-mill City attack down our left. They screamed as they high-fived each other. Total commitment.

Nine minutes to go. The first sign of real danger. Sarah Greene, City’s pocket dynamo, got the ball and looked for someone to pass to. The only options were backwards, but she was done retreating. She was rebelling against her programming! Ban all robotics research immediately!

Greene switched the ball onto her right foot and danced forwards. She dropped a shoulder and took Freyja out of the game. So easy. It was beautiful. She had a shot lined up - Nobby came to block it. The shot never came. When Nobby looked up, Greene had already dribbled around her, and now she was one-on-one with Jane.

Greene is on a mazy dribble. She beats two players…

She shoots low and hard towards the near post.

But the goalkeeper flicks out a foot. Deflects it onto the post!

The ball rebounds to Greene… but she puts it over!

A lucky break for the Met Heads.

Weirdly, Beth took that as her cue to sub off.

She grabbed some water and drank deeply. Then she pulled me away from Jackie and jabbed me in the chest.

“Tell me you aren’t going to quit if we win.”

“What? No, I’ll do the rest of the season, if you aren’t sick of me. I do actually like you.”

“I don’t mean that, you cock. You said you’d quit your job if we won this game. I don’t want that shit on my head. Take it back.”

“Take it back?” I scoffed. Like we were 10-year-olds. Even the City girls wouldn’t talk like that. But Beth was super intense. Her glare could have melted a goalpost. “You’re serious.”

“I am serious, Max. You want to become an agent? You’ll smash it. I know you will. Whatever you do, I’ll be cheering you on. But you’re not there yet. You need money. How are you going to survive the winter if you need fifty quid from me? It’s not even October. If you want to quit your steady job and starve to death, do it on your own time. Don’t involve us in it.”

Fair dos. And she was right - I still needed the income. “Okay. I hear you.” She relaxed a bit. I added, “Don’t think we’re going to hold out, anyway.”

She jabbed me in the chest again, really quite hard. “Don’t you fucking talk like that, Max Best. Bella, sub!”

And she raced back onto the pitch - in midfield. When I’d met her, she was a striker. I’d moved her into defence. Midfield? What was she doing?

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I've added T3 to the posts that are currently exclusive to Club Legends, T2 for First Team Regulars, T1 for Talented Youngsters. It's to help me manage the posts so I can focus on the writing and not the admin!