Huddle Up
Huddled by the benches, Benson's teammates all lent their ears as he spoke. It was a brief, motivational piece, and in all earnestness, they needed it.
The soccer team known as the Cubs who were the junior squad for the Lions of Gatesview High, were down two to nothing. Being in he seventy seventh minute, the game result was sure to be final, that is if not for a sudden mana of scores from the losing team. As this was highly unlikely, William Benson, the only white boy on the squad, and of a peculiarly shorter stature than his darker skinned teammates, spoke with a false bravado, which at the time, you could have believed had you been one of those to have heard it all. Benson would have had the little extra you had seemed to miss.
He finished and the whole team broke their circle with a unified, though out of tune, “Go Cubs!” and jogged into the field, heads high, as well as their spirits, even then, as they were all too aware of their impending and seemingly set fate in the Coryan province Junior Soccer League.
As all got into formation, William got to his spot as centre midfielder. To his left was George, a stout, burly youth with an austerity to him reflecting both his furious need for a goal even just one, as long as it were his own and a fear of going home without having given his team a win the whole term, as was the duration of the youth's league.
The right midfielder was Terrance, on whose face you could see the discomfort that accompanied embarrassment. The shame he carried after delivering a league winning and, need I say, record setting thirty assists in the previous season. It didn't take a blind man to see that he did not want to anywhere near that field.
The strikers were fraternal twin brothers Oswald and Herman Biltoy, both of whom, despite their upsetting state coming from the timeout, were as eupeptic as though they were on the currently winning side. Benson applauded their positivity, himself feeling it to be the reason the whole squad had not broken down. Footballers the Cubs were, but seventh graders they were as well, and that meant the audacity to crumble onto the ground and give one good yammering in the blinding November sun was not off the deck for some of them, just needed the right provocation.
Said persons who were prone to throwing an utterly tantrums were none other than the left wing back, Deon, and the adjacent centre back, Valentine. The two were barrel bodied fatties whose short tempers were the only reason they weren't regularly made the butt of every joke ever told during their middle school years. With their clean shaven heads reflecting perfectly the one o'clock sun's beams, the star also illuminating their almost identical football round faces, glowing with a million little beads of sweat, you would would have thought them to be in twinship.
The right back and centre back next to him were polar opposites. Where the winger was an average build like that of William, Gregory the centre back, was a Goliath, the tallest boy on the field.
The centre was called Simon and he was a coloured boy with a red face that looked to be in a permanent blush.
Keeping the gate, though it could be argued he was doing a rather horrible job on the day, was none ther than Keith Onners, another burly boy with a wide chest promising to be a wider than any bodybuilder's without even lifting a single weight.
Such was the the failing first eleven squad of the Cubs, hopeful yet not delusional. The odds weren't in their favour. It did not take being the twelve year olds they were to know that.
When the referee blew the whistle, the rush first seconds after the freekick by team Cobra's left midfielder, Brian, a coloured boy whose stature lay between William's sleekness and Keith's effortless preadolescent masculature, flew by in a flurry.
William found himself frozen, yet not understanding why. He thought it may be temporary haziness, he tried shaking it off, and... nothing.
He was entirely aware of everything: Nerdwick, Cobra's single striker crossing the centre, of Keith, who exhibited speed beyond anything he had shown Coach Debeck in training, make the steal, Cobra left winger Eric, make an interception as Keith passed the ball to his captain who remained still as a statue.
He heard the dozens of voices cheering them on—mothers, brothers, the occasional grandparent and drunk uncle and aunt and the even rarer older sister who was probably just there to get the attention of a cute boy—attending their little brother's soccer match an attempt at not looking shallow.
Suddenly, he saw it all, the field, it's scale grand for community junior league soccer that was, the players the lines most of all he saw the clear cut path from the left winger, who was rather disinclined to his designation and the centre back who was little out of breath—a little, maybe, but just enough. He saw the keeper, Lewis Beckner, a dozy eyed, matchstick of a boy who was only there for decoration after the real keeper, Brendon Karda, got suspended for his successive tackles of Cobra's last opponent's fickle striker.
What William saw just then, was not an opportunity to win the league—that had been thrown out the window ten games prior, when they lost to league suckers, the Hambull Calves.
What William saw then was redemption. And he was not about to let it slip past, to let the cock Cobras walk away on a clean sheet, mark the Cubs as easy pickings for the next season, he was going to score!
He broke off in a sprint to the Cobra's vacant left wing's rightful spot, and made himself open.
It was a quick succession of passes, the last one from Terrance to George nearly intercepted by Cobra centre mid Freddy, before the ball was at the Captain's feet.
It was now or never, the time for redemption. Just one goal to not look like the poopsquad of the league.
He could hear the crowd at his school's home side, egging him on, with almost as much passion as the coach, who even as he stood at the sidelines, was always the phantom twelfth player on any team.
William rushed forth to the chubby, exhausted defender, went right, then left, drove on, and out of the corner of his eye, with just mere milliseconds to do it, hugged the ball with his heels, and jumped over an incoming defender's sliding tackle and hit the ground running as he steered the ball into the eighteen area.
It was him and dozy-eyed Beckner, and his instincts could not have been more right.
The boy was half asleep from not having had any action the entire game. He was practically falling against the left post.
William, heart in his hands, the world on his shoulders took his shot.
Goaaaaaal!
The crowd roared ferociously, as if they were the Lions for whom the Cubs minored.
The Earth shook under his feet as they cheered on, the sound deafening. The first goal in all of the League. They were not the poopsquad. That honour would be going to the Velville Falcons.
Oh, how he pitied them now.
But bathed in the half a minute long adulation as they reassembled and got ready for kick-off, Cobra's first kick-off the whole if the league!
The whistle didn't come fast enough, the world slowing to a near perfect stillness. He could see the breaths taken by each of the teammates immediately in his line of sight.
Time, however slow it had run just then, did not afford him the opportunity to glance over behind him as the whistle blew from the middle aged referee's mouth.
This time it was not all a haze, and he did not freeze. He ran with the wind, in line with the wingers.
He blocked a pass from the opponent's right wing.
William peddled the ball forth, not a second and a half later, coming up against the Junior league prince himself Nerdwick. There was no other way of explaining how he escaped the boy, whose perfect build allowed for the perfect amalgamation of speed and strength, except that he had just been better; merely skirting past a striker who had been made to drop his guard under the security of having secured the league title, but now, as William made the brush past him, suddenly aware that this was the time to go out with a bang, and he may have just let that slip.
The Cubs were closing in, halfway through to the enemy's gate and everyone who was coming in for the ball was either too tired or too incompetent.
The second goal came without a hitch after the Captain's having secured the ball. The crowd went wild.
Soccer moms and dads thundered their cheers on the home side's stands, jumping up and down and launching fists into the air.
Oswald had done it, and William gave him a thumbs up, though given they were in the same direction of the striker's line if sight, William was inclined to believing it was the Coach's that had made him respond with a glowing smile. He was glad nonetheless. Overjoyed would be more like it, but now, only one goal down, it was difficult to pin down the extremity to which his positivity flew.
It's that brief passage of time again, the one before he blowing of the whistle as the slower members get in formation. William checks his wrist watch. It's analogue and therefore takes a second for him to read.
A minute left.
It's do or die, he thought, a thought far too extreme for his preadolescent mind, but just about right for the atmosphere.
The crowd grew quiet, the opponent's side, mute since the Cubs's first score.
The air stilled and you could hear the emptiness that filled the little field. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. The Cobra's coach shot daggers with his eyes at Nerdwick.
The boy was under pressure and the facade of confidence he put on was far from what he needed.
William would have to make him aware of that.
The whistle blew, and Cobra kept possession. First, they went back a bit, driving the ball to the centre. William kept his eyes locked on Nerdwick, who had blazed away from the scenes in little more than the blink of an eye.
The plan was simple...and desperate. They did not want to go home with a draw. Where a clean sheet had gone down the drain, another goal, their ‘just in case’ was but a fool's attempt. Their first mistake in the strategy being that there was only one striker.
And they had gone too far back. Nerdwick would get an offside given his position.
William shrugged and blazed off, continuous with his position.
Cobra was not giving up possession, with swift passes and manouevred so perfect they seemed professional on their young bodies, they were dominant.
Their buying time, William realized.
The ball was in the left wing, Brian so skillfully showing George up, but he stumbled and George seized the opportunity.
He burst out running with the ball from their side. William grew the distance between him and the left winder by a slight margin.
It was good enough to avoid the ball landing in enemy feet as Brian came to avenge himself, and have William get possession. He passed over to Valentine who ricocheted the ball over to Terrance.
And the advance was set in motion.
Cobra's Captain inevitably came in, between the Cubs's own leader and his right hand man. William had to think fast, time slipping away, and with it, their closing statement of warning to team Cobra.
With Nerdwick focused on Terrance, he did not see the signal William gave to the wing—a flick of the head hand in hand with a wink—and was dumbfounded by the drive back.
The pass was made to Deon, but was intercepted.
Meddling Brian.
He was quick, and rather stupid try for a goal and bumped heads with Valentine.
Advantage given. Luckily the defender had just been moving into position and Brian had not been looking ahead of him.
William held his heart in his hands as he drove forth, just behind the twins as the ball moved in sequence.
Valentine to Deon; Deon to Gregory, Gregory to a just out past his bounds Terrance,
From Terrance over to William.
William turned, met Nerdwick, but he was the faster this time, and kicked back on a whim.
Before he could turn his head, the signal flick of bundle middle and index finger of his temple by Oswald was all he needed.
William rounded the boy, catching him off guard and the Cobras's strike land flat on the ground with his bottom, prompting brief laughter from the Cubs's crowd.
William pushed forth, past a wing, and stopped as the twins passed the ball over in rapid succession, confusing their final opponent and...
Off the post!
The crowd, who were already on edge tensed as the ball flew over the strikers, each missing it by merely an inch.
It was Williams turn, and the seconds drew down.
He leapt.
Ball on his chest, the midfielder hit the ground running, unleashing a fury of speed unlike anything the Cubs had ever seen.
That weight of the world he had bared throughout the match became his driving force as he peeped into the eighteen area but a newly rejuvenated Beckner was already dead-on at the edge. It was a moment's decision and he made it.
A flick of the ball to his left, the surprisingly vigilant keeper following aaaaaand...
Goaaaaaal!
William drew the match to a close.
The closing statement of the season as the boys go in for the Grade Seven National Exams: Cubs versus Cobra, a rivalry in the making as they are sure to proceed to the High School elites.
And the Cubs sending out their message to Cobra: Watch out!
