Free Web NovelChapter 45: Chapter 45: Tranmere U18s vs Development Group III
The whistle had gone for half-time a minute ago, and the U18s were still standing near the touchline getting their breath back.
Jamie pulled the damp bib away from his chest and let the cold air get under it. The back of his throat burned with every breath he took, and his studs had been pressed down into the soft grass so long that his feet had stopped feeling the cold in them.
Across the pitch, the development group were not laughing anymore.
At the start they had knocked the ball around in their own half and talked over the top of it, loose and unbothered, like the session was something they were doing as a favour. Now they stood in a tight group around their coach in black bibs and said almost nothing.
Kade kept looking over. Not at the whole U18 side. At the right. At Jamie.
He didn’t do that in the first half.
Mercer brought them in and did not tell them they had done well.
"You survived the first half," he said. "That’s all it was. They were feeling you out, and they were polite about it. That’s finished now."
He looked round the group once.
"Second half, they stop being polite. If you think the hard part’s behind you, you’ve already lost it."
Then the corrections came fast. He told Noah not to drop so deep that the striker ended up on his own. He told Finn to keep going at the left-back, because the man was stepping higher every time, and to punish it. He told Liam to track Kade’s runner earlier, before Jamie got stuck with two of them, not after.
Liam’s jaw moved, but he did not say anything.
Then Mercer turned to Jamie and gave him one line.
"Good first half." He held the look a second longer. "Now do it when they know you’re there."
Jamie did not smile.
His fingers closed round the neck of his bottle, and the plastic gave a small crack under them. Mercer had already turned away, already talking to someone else, and Jamie stood there with the words sitting in his chest heavier than praise should have.
Across the pitch, Kade was still looking.
Now they did know.
TWEET.
The second half started, and the development group came out faster.
They did not build slowly anymore. Their centre-back stepped into midfield earlier than he had all game, their number eight moved the ball on with one touch instead of two, and their left-back was already pushing up past Kade before the U18s had settled.
The first attack came straight down Jamie’s side.
This time it was not Kade on his own. Kade took the ball with his back to the line, the left-back went outside and high, and the number eight slid in underneath to give him a third option. It was three of them against one of him.
Jamie did not dive in. He stayed on his feet, gave ground slowly, and tried to shut the inside ball while keeping half an eye on the overlap.
But Liam was late getting across, half a second, no more, and half a second was all Kade needed. He slipped the pass through the gap where Liam should have been.
The number eight was through.
The U18 keeper read it and came off his line fast, spreading himself, and got a hand to the ball before the shot could come.
THUD.
He smothered it at the second man’s feet.
Mercer’s shout went straight across the pitch.
"Liam! His runner! That’s twice!"
Liam turned his head once, jaw tight, then jogged back into the lane. Jamie kept his eyes on the ball, but he felt every head on that side turn toward Liam instead of him.
Liam did not argue with Mercer. He never did.
But the next time the development group built down the left, he dropped in beside Jamie earlier than he had all match. He did not say anything kind about it, and he did not look at Jamie like they were on the same side now.
"Show him inside," Liam said, flat. "Next one. Send him inside."
"Noah’s lane?"
"Mine." Liam was already setting his feet. "My lane. Show him in."
His voice was still hard, but his boots were planted where they should have been before, and this time Jamie did not have to turn and check if the help was coming.
The attack came again.
Kade took it wide and looked for the outside, the way he had all game, but this time Jamie did not sell himself to the line. He angled his body and left the inside open, like a door someone had forgotten to shut.
Kade took it.
He cut inside off one touch, sure he was about to burst clean through, and Liam was already there, across the lane, forcing him to check and turn back.
The ball ran loose. Jamie stepped on it before Kade could recover.
He played it short and safe to Noah and got his breath back.
Liam said nothing. But he stayed on the right this time instead of drifting in, and that was the answer.
Kade reset, and tried again.
But Jamie was no longer chasing single movements. He had stopped looking at Kade’s feet and started reading the whole shape of it.
When Kade dropped short to get the ball to feet, Jamie followed only halfway and stood in the return lane instead of biting all the way out. When the left-back overlapped, Jamie did not panic and chase the outside, but held, and waited the half-second it took Liam to recover. When Kade dropped his shoulder and went for the outside again, Jamie used the touchline like a second defender and let the line do the work for him.
Kade got it again.
This time he slowed in front of Jamie, rolled his foot over the ball once, then twice, waiting for Jamie to twitch. Jamie did not. Kade tried to drag it outside, but Jamie shifted with him and left him staring at the same strip of grass near the line.
The pass went backward.
Two minutes later, Kade tried the inside. Jamie stepped across the return lane before the ball even left his teammate’s boot, and Kade threw one hand out in frustration when the pass had to go somewhere else.
The third time, Kade did not ask for it straight away.
Across the pitch, the development coach had folded his arms.
Fast full-backs were everywhere. He had seen a hundred boys who could run. But after Jamie shut Kade down the same way three times, the coach looked down and wrote something on his sheet.
At the rope, Garcia watched the right side and saw the thing change.
Noah had started turning forward the second he got it, because he was no longer sprinting across to rescue Jamie’s side every time the ball went wide. Finn made two runs in behind the development left-back, dragging him deeper each time. Up top, the U18 striker stopped waiting with his back to goal and began pulling the older centre-backs around.
Jamie won the ball off Kade, looked up, and found Noah.
Noah turned before the development midfielder could close him and slid it into Finn’s run. It did not become a goal, because the development keeper came and claimed it, but the older left-back still dropped five yards deeper before the next restart.
Garcia kept his face still.
Next to him, Alan had both hands on the rope and did not seem to know it.
The goal came from Jamie’s best sequence of the week.
Kade got the ball wide and tried to isolate him one more time, going for the outside.
Jamie did not chase the first movement. He waited for the touch, the heavy one Kade always took when he committed to the line, stepped across, and won it clean.
Noah showed inside immediately.
Jamie played into him and went, overlapping outside without waiting to see if it was on. Noah laid it back round the corner, first time, into the space Jamie was running into. Down the other side Finn pulled the development full-back narrow, and the far post opened up.
Jamie drove the cross early. Low and hard, across the face of the six-yard box, before anyone could set to clear it.
Liam arrived.
THWACK.
The net snapped.
For half a second Liam’s jaw tightened before he turned. His eyes flicked to Jamie, then to the ball in the net, then back again.
He pointed once at Jamie, short, and jogged back.
"Same ball again," he said.
That was all. No thank you. But Jamie held the look a beat longer before turning away, and Liam did not look through him this time.
2–1.
Across the pitch, the development coach was not looking at his own group anymore. He was looking at the white bib with the taped number.
