Free Web NovelChapter 30: [30] "The Island at the Bottom of France"
SC Corse played on a pitch that felt like it had been carved out of the rock beneath it.
Bastia stadium was small, loud and hostile in the way only island clubs managed. The kind of noise that had nowhere to go and so just compressed inward. The traveling SC Valois support, all forty-three of them, were lost somewhere in the upper stand.
Luc felt his hamstrings in the warm-up.
A dull, deep pull in both legs when he tried his acceleration drills. The sensation didn’t stop him but reminded him it could.
Juliette was on the touchline with her clipboard and her eyes staring holes at him.
He tried not to look at her. She had warned him not to play but he lied time and time again that he was alright.
[System Notification]
[Reminder: Hamstring tension in both legs. Now active]
[Objective: Win! SC Corse are bottom half. No excuses]
[Reward: None]
[Penalty: Weaner size -3]
[It seems you sleep with everyone now]
Luc stared at it.
"Aren’t we starting to misbehave a little here?" He thought to himself.
SC Corse set up in a chaotic 4-3-3 with absolutely no tactical discipline but they had intense emotional commitment. They pressed high, pressed recklessly, and threw bodies into every duel.
They were bottom half for a reason. But bottom-half clubs with nothing to lose were the ones that bit you.
---
The match began. Luc started.
Minute 7. A Corse winger ran directly at Ekberg, beat him with sheer pace and drilled a low cross.
Their center forward arrived at it unmarked.
Blažek saved it with his shin. It was a scrambled save, SC Valois were very fortunate it didn’t go in.
The Corse fans went delirious as the noise filled the stadium.
Luc adjusted immediately.
The hamstrings were determining his approach of play before his brain did. No explosive diagonal runs today. He couldn’t afford a full sprint in any gear talkless of his top speed.
So he slowed down deliberately to a frustratingly slow pace.
He started dropping even deeper than usual, collecting in his own half, moving the ball in three and four touch combinations. Not his natural game. Mateo shot him a look from ten yards.
’What was he even doing’. That kind of look.
The 23rd minute.
Hugo played a disguised pass through the Corse midfield press. It was perfectly weighted, just enough pace to skip through the gap without being intercepted.
Lacombe controlled it on the turn, drove into the half-space and pulled back a cutback at a sharp angle.
Luc was expected to arrive at it late because he wasn’t running onto it at full speed, he was almost slow jogging onto it.
The Corse center-back assumed no threat, he too didn’t chase with intensity, but that was the mistake.
Luc let the ball run across his body, opened his hips and side-footed it first time with his left foot into the bottom left corner. No power in the shot just pure placement.
The goalkeeper didn’t even move.
Goal!!
1-0. But Luc held his hamstring, his teammates rushed towards him and Juliette was almost sprinting unto the pitch.
Luc started dancing the robot instead. Mateo almost killed him.
It was nine open play goals now.
Juliette exhaled on the touchline. Luc may have been joking but she didn’t think he was. She had to advise Henri to make a change after halftime.
---
Second half. No Luc Beaumont.
SC Corse equalised in the 53rd minute.
"Shit!" Luc and Henri both exclaimed simultaneously from the bench.
A free kick from thirty yards out. No wall would ever be high enough. Blažek too was positioned badly, a yard off his line for some reason.
1-1.
It was almost like the whole island roared.
Henri immediately started moving on the touchline like a man whose house was on fire.
Minute 64. The Irish Energetic box-to-box midfielder, Cillian Doyle came on for Lacombe for the first time in how many matches.
He fed Idriss-- who had replaced Luc-- the ball with his first touch of the match.
The Ivorian moved differently today. Not quite as watchful like the Dijon game but he was still sharp and hungry. He had tasted a goal last time and the appetite hadn’t dimmed.
Idriss won a physical duel with the Corse center-back, spun off him and drove into the box.
He shot but his shot was blocked and bounced out for a corner kick.
Luc read the game from the bench, resting his hamstring and waiting for the game to break open.
Minute 73.
Demirci won a second ball on the right flank. He played it inside to Hugo who had dropped between the Corse defense and midfield lines.
Hugo looked up once. Once was enough.
He slipped it through to the channel behind the Corse left-back. Not to Idriss. To the space Idriss had pointed at with a single gesture three seconds earlier. To Cillian.
Cillian didn’t sprint. He moved at a controlled pace, collected the ball on the run, and took one touch to set himself up for the shot.
The Corse goalkeeper came off his line.
Cillian let him. He took one more touch, slow and patient to draw the keeper forward another yard.
Then chipped it over the diving body of the keeper.
Cillian’s first goal of the season!
2-1.
The forty-three Valois supporters made enough noise for four hundred.
Luc stood up from the bench for a moment, both hands on his hips, exhaling slowly. The hamstrings had been untightening, barely.
He turned to find Hugo on the pitch.
Hugo was already looking at him. Luc pointed at his cranium to signal that there was a lot of genius in that play. freewёbnoνel.com
Hugo nodded in acknowledgement.
SC Corse pushed desperately for the final fifteen minutes. Blažek was tested twice more. Hadj cleared one off the line in the 84th minute with a desperate lunge that nearly took the post with it.
Piiii Piiii Piiii
The final whistle sounded.
Three points. Away. No real risk to Luc’s hamstrings.
---
The locker room was in quiet relief. Nobody was jumping up and down. These men now knew how to bank three points and move on. 8 wins now. Already playing better than initially projected.
Idriss sat with his hands clasped together, staring at the floor. He had played well coming off the bench. No goal to show for it but the performance was clean, professional and purposeful.
He was building a case for himself.
Luc was pulling on his jacket when his phone lit up.
Valérie:
Fontaine drew with Bastille tonight. He had a goal disallowed for offside. There was a late flag call, trust that he was furious.
Still 9 to 8 in your favor — V
A disallowed goal. A legitimate finish wiped by a linesman’s late flag. That was the kind of thing that shook composure.
He typed back:
How did he react?
She replied:
He walked off without speaking to anyone. Not even his captain. I’m sure he’d be drowning right now.
Luc put the phone in his jacket.
---
[System Notification]
[Objective complete: Won.]
[Hamstring penalty concluded. Both legs recovered.]
[Updated Wager Tally: Open Play Goals — Beaumont 9 | Fontaine 8]
[MD11 incoming: AS Garonne. Away. They are struggling and you will likely not take them seriously enough.]
He looked around the locker room. Mateo was laughing at something on his phone. Idriss was already dressed and waiting for the bus.
"How do you know I won’t take it seriously enough? I take all my matches serious."
