Chapter Six: The Breakthrough
There was a noticeable lift in the team during training on Saturday morning. The players looked sharper, as if an invisible twenty-kilo weight had been lifted from their shoulders, moving through the exercises faster and more energetically.
Annabeth put them through a light routine of passing, shooting and crossing drills, assessing the players' energy levels to see how they were coping.
Percy and Nico were unusually subdued, showing clear signs of fatigue despite being committed as ever. They hadn't been as tired in previous trainings and Annabeth was concerned. They were her first choice forwards and she could not imagine what would happen if they could not make the starting eleven.
"You two feeling ok?" She asked them during a water break.
"Tired," was Nico's reply.
"It's nothing," Percy said, waving it off, but Annabeth knew he was hurting.
"Don't push yourself," she told them. "Today's meant to be a light session."
The team continued to improve. Their confidence grew as they became more familiar with the new system. Their grasp of Annabeth's tactics was still rudimentary, but they were now at least able to defend and counterattack fluidly as a team. Dakota had returned to training on Monday, having been passed fit for the upcoming game against Greenwood High. Annabeth decided she'd bring him off the bench on Thursday. She'd made the reluctant decision to drop Percy and Nico, too. They had been performing below their usual standards the whole week and she knew they wouldn't last more than one half.
The lineup at least looked solid from a defensive point of view. Chris and Ron tended to stay further down the pitch compared to Percy and Nico, making up for their withdrawn positions with electric pace. Malcolm lacked Percy's goal threat but had better positional discipline and was less likely to drift out to the wings. She decided their game plan would be to defend deep and hit Greenwood on the counter, then send on Percy and Nico in the second half to finish them off.
"Today's plan is the same as we've had the past couple of weeks." Annabeth told them. "Stay compact, stay calm. Wait for an opportunity to press. Hit them on the counter. Long balls over the top or into the channels."
"We've got this, guys." Jason raised a clenched fist. "Two games unbeaten, let's make it three in a row!"
The team cheered and headed out of the changing room.
"What's Greenwood like?" Annabeth asked Percy and Nico as the teams prepared to kick off.
"Physical." Percy said.
"Slow," Nico snorted. "We can run rings around them all day."
"Not with two midfielders, we can't." Percy told him.
"Dakota will come on in the second half," Annabeth nodded, murmuring to herself. "If I put you two on as well, we can switch to a 4-3-3." She was staring into space, lost in her own thoughts. The two boys shared a glance. Percy shrugged.
"She does that sometimes."
The referee blew his whistle and the game began. Greenwood's game plan was clear from the start. They played a moderate-tempo possession game with two towering six-foot-four holding midfielders and an equally massive centre-forward. A constant bombardment of long balls came into the box and Matthew and Mark battled hard to prevent the big striker from getting a header away. Leo and Frank chased the ball whenever it came looping out of the box, but kept losing aerial duels against the taller holding midfielders.
The one thing about aerial balls was that they weren't very accurate. Most of Greenwood's high crosses and headers ended up either being booted away by Matthew and Mark or ballooning over the crossbar for goal kicks.
After about fifteen minutes, Greenwood realised their strategy wasn't working and started to switch tactics. The big centre forward moved out of the penalty box, using his height advantage to knock the ball down for his other teammates to run onto. More players crowded the centre of the pitch as Greenwood's wingers and playmaker came closer to their striker to receive the ball. This in turn drew Luke and John into the box to even the numbers.
It was ridiculous. Nine or ten players jostled and fought for the ball in a melee-like scramble just outside Goode's penalty box. The forest of shin pads and boots kicked about for a few seconds, then Luke came hurtling out of the fray with the ball at his feet, two Greenwood players hot on his heels like hounds chasing a fox. Luke knocked the ball over to Leo, who made a short dash into the centre circle before being barged off his feet by one of the giant holding midfielders. Leo crashed to the ground and immediately jumped to his feet, shouting for the referee.
"Hey!" Annabeth yelled, arms outstretched in indignation.
The referee chose to ignore the tackle for the moment because Frank had intercepted the loose ball and sent it long to Chris, who cut inside his opposing fullback with breathtaking skill and fired the ball into the back of the net.
The Goode supporters erupted like firecrackers. Annabeth and the substitutes leapt to their feet, shouting and screaming. Greenwood looked stunned by the speed of Goode's transition, then angered as the holding midfielder was shown a yellow card, prompting a second round of cheers from the spectator stands.
Greenwood pushed forward from the restart, the two holding midfielders bossing possession in the middle of the pitch. The ball shifted around with dizzying speed as the two sides battled back and forth.
For all of Greenwood's intensity, they didn't seem to know how to break through Goode's defence. Malcolm and Jason shadowed the two holding midfielders, blocking them off from receiving the ball. Greenwood's defenders resorted to long balls high up the pitch, but Goode's compact formation was making it hard for them to get anything going. The game had broken down into a mess of aerial duels and interceptions all over the pitch. Each time their centre-forward or Goode's defenders won a header, Frank and Leo were there to intercept it ahead of the playmaker, but then lost the ball to the two holding midfielders whenever they advanced up the pitch. Jason and Malcolm closed them down and the ball went back to Greenwood's defenders who started the whole process all over again. It was frenetic and heated and Annabeth suspected it was only a matter of time before somebody made a mistake.
In a rare show of dominance, Frank and Leo closed the opposing playmaker down and dispossessed him inside the centre circle. Frank played a high ball forward that was headed away by Greenwood's centre-back. One of Greenwood's holding midfielders headed it on, only for Leo to intercept it ahead of its intended recipient. He passed the ball back to the centre where Frank shifted onto his left foot and sent a raking pass forward into Malcolm, who knocked it on to Chris. The lightning-quick winger spun the opposing fullback senseless before cutting inside in what looked to be a repeat of the first goal, until one of the centre-backs went sliding into him, toppling him over like a bowling pin.
Chris was clutching his shin, rolling on the ground. Goode supporters erupted in fury. Annabeth turned to Greenwood's technical area, knuckles white on the edge of her clipboard.
"Get a hold of your players! This isn't a rugby game!" She yelled.
"Get the hell back to the stands, girl." Greenwood's coach snapped back. "The touchline is for substitutes and coaches only."
"I am the coach!" Annabeth retaliated.
"Yeah right," the Greenwood coach snorted. "I've seen Coach Hedge before. You're fooling nobody with that clipboard."
"Coach Hedge is on medical leave," Annabeth told him. "I'm a stand-in."
"A seventeen-year-old girl? No wonder all your players are falling over," he replied derisively.
"You-" Annabeth's vision turned red as her anger made her stutter. "Your players are being overly physical!" She argued.
"Don't blame us if you guys can't take a tackle," the Greenwood coach shrugged. "Happens all the time. Maybe you should add tackling into your training exercises, eh?"
"Maybe you should teach your team how to score goals," Annabeth shot back. "You've not had a single shot on target in thirty minutes of play."
"You young punk," the Greenwood coach growled. "Just you wait. We'll give you a thrashing you'll never forget."
The referee gave Greenwood's defender a yellow card, which prompted a chorus of displeasure from the Goode supporters, who wanted him sent off. Chris slowly got to his feet. Annabeth was relieved that he didn't need to be substituted. The last thing they needed was another injured player.
Both teams gathered for the free kick. Greenwood formed a wall of green shirts just outside the six-yard box. Jason, Mark and Malcolm joined the line while Chris, Ron and Leo waited at the edge of the box.
Annabeth had run through free-kick routines with the team during practice, but in this scenario it depended on where Frank wanted to put the ball. He could try to set Jason up for a header or angle it over the wall.
The referee's whistle blew. Frank took a short run-up before pulling back his left foot. An audible thump reached Annabeth's ears as his boot connected with the ball, then there was a split-second's pause before the Goode players went berserk, jumping into the air and mobbing Frank like flesh-eating zombies.
Frank had gone for power and placement, hitting a low shot that deflected off a Greenwood shinpad and into the goal, completely wrong-footing the keeper in the process. The crowd erupted in celebration. Annabeth and the substitutes jumped up, yelling and shouting. The Greenwood coach was swearing under his breath as he turned away from the pitch.
Two-nil up and the first half wasn't even over. Annabeth was almost catatonic with joy. Everything was going right for Goode.
Greenwood held on to possession after the restart, unwilling to risk losing the ball for fear of provoking another lightning counterattack. Goode were brimming with confidence and advanced up the pitch, pressing them back into their own half. For a few minutes they looked like they might force another goal with their aggression and intent, and Annabeth was so overjoyed with the two-nil lead that she failed to notice the danger.
Greenwood's goalkeeper started the attack with a simple goal kick up the pitch. The massive centre-forward jumped for the ball and Mark jumped with him, heading it away and into midfield. Leo was the closest Goode player and had no chance against the towering holding midfielder who easily knocked it down to their playmaker. Matthew, aware of the space behind him, hesitated to close him down, giving the playmaker time and space to step away from Frank and place an incisive pass across Matthew and beyond him into the left inside channel where Luke usually was, but the left-back was still orienting himself after a lung-bursting sprint back from the final third and didn't see the run of the opposing winger until it was too late.
The Greenwood winger timed his run to perfection, receiving the ball behind the entire Goode defence. The big centre-forward was running into the penalty box, Matthew and Mark on either side of him. The winger hit a high cross that went nowhere near the centre-forward, but fell at the perfect height for the towering holding midfielder who'd made a delayed run to arrive in exactly the right spot at the right moment.
The powerful header flew past David's outstretched glove with the force of an onager strike. The muscular goalkeeper went sprawling on the astroturf, swearing as he fell. Goode's back four halted in their tracks, aghast at the sight of the ball rolling out of the net. Annabeth cursed into her clipboard as Greenwood and their coach broke into celebrations.
"Bloody hell," she heard Nico swear from the bench.
David pushed himself into a sitting position with one arm. "Where was everyone?" He yelled angrily. "That guy was completely unmarked!"
"We were here," Leo threw up his hands in frustration. "But there's three midfielders and only two of us."
"You reached the penalty box after the goal," David argued. "You're too far upfield!"
"Don't blame me," Leo argued back. "The whole team went up the field! I have to move with them, don't I?"
"It's only two-one," Mark held up his hands for calm. "We'll just have to score again."
Goode tried to hit back and twice went close, Jason firing over the bar from just outside the box and Leo hitting a paltry strike well wide of the post. A half-dozen other half-chances were blocked or crowded out and one hacked clearance found its way to Greenwood's playmaker near the centre circle in first-half injury time.
The Greenwood counterattack flooded forward like a tidal wave. Goode defenders scrambled backward as the enemy left winger ran down the pitch with the ball. He squared up to John, couldn't get past him and tried to get a cross away. He failed and the ball rolled out of his grip, was picked up by Greenwood's onrushing left-back who angled his run toward the box before striking high and wide toward David's top corner. David was alert to the danger and clawed the ball away, but Luke's attempted clearance fell to Greenwood's playmaker instead who slammed it into the back of the net.
"No!" Percy groaned as the Greenwood players gathered for another celebration.
"Not again," Nico growled.
Goode made no attempt to push forward from the restart, instead playing the ball around their back line as the minutes ticked down. The two goals had destroyed their confidence and they could not find it in themselves to build any forward momentum.
The referee blew for half-time and the two teams trudged off. The Greenwood players were ebullient at their comeback and headed into the changing room with a spring in their step. Goode in contrast were dejected and unsmiling, aghast at the abrupt turn of events. Annabeth knew she had to re-orientate their minds in order to galvanise them for the second half.
"Five minutes to rest and cool off," she told Jason. "Then I'm coming in for the team talk. Shirts on, please."
"Got it." Jason nodded, sweat dripping from his hair. He stalked down the tunnel, pulling up his shirt to wipe his face.
"Are you gonna sub us in?"
Annabeth turned to see Percy leaning against the railing. Nico stood beside him, arms folded.
"Not yet." Annabeth shook her head. "You two won't last the whole half."
"Oh come on," Nico snarled. "The team needs us!"
"If you two run out of steam in the last twenty minutes this exact situation is going to repeat itself," Annabeth shook her head. "You'll come on for the last twenty."
"That might be too late," Percy warned.
"If the team can't survive the next twenty-five minutes without you, they've no hope of playing the twenty after that with you."
She turned and headed down the tunnel. Percy stalked back to the substitutes' bench, shaking his head. Nico followed her, muttering under his breath.
"What happened?" Annabeth asked inside the changing room. Her tone was matter-of-fact, not condemning. "Everything was going so well after the second goal. Why did you start chasing the ball up the pitch?"
The players could not answer. Some of them shrugged, others looked down at the floor. All of them looked lost.
"We were winning," Leo answered at last. "We wanted a third goal. That's what you do when you're winning, right? You go and score some more."
"We shouldn't have done that," Jason shook his head. "We got carried away."
"So what?" Leo demanded. "We should've just sat back? Stopped at two? What is this, family planning?"
"I'm not saying we should have stopped," Jason held up a hand. "I was going for it as much as you were. It's just maybe the way we did it was wrong."
"How else do you score more goals without attacking?" Leo threw up his hands in frustration.
"That's easy," Nico's voice cut through the growing argument like a sword blow, severing it. "You listen to her." He pointed to Annabeth.
Annabeth had been startled by the sound of Nico's voice. He hadn't spoken particularly loudly, nor had his tone been overly harsh, but there was something unsettling about it that made everyone listen, killing all other conversation in the room.
"Coach?" He gestured to her. "I think it's time for your pep talk."
Annabeth shook off the unsettled feeling and stepped forward.
"Leo, you're right in wanting to score more goals. We should always work toward the next goal no matter what the scoreline is."
She shifted her gaze to address the whole team.
"Although what you did just now backfired, the intent was right. We want to score more goals, and we're going to do so in the second half."
She pulled the tactics board over.
"When you all pushed up just now, it opened up spaces between our lines." She shifted magnets to illustrate her words. "We only have two midfielders. This is why their playmaker got free to make those passes through our defence." She tapped the empty space between the centre-backs and the two midfielders. "No one player or group of players is at fault for conceding those two goals. It's the mistake of the whole team that exposed us. We've never conceded goals like that before because we usually defend in numbers. Today everybody went up the pitch and we didn't know how to react when we lost the ball." She looked back to the players. "What we need to do now is keep our formation. Don't press unless the ball goes to the fullback. Greenwood will come to us. When they lose the ball, we'll hit them on the counter like how we've been doing in the past two games."
The team seemed to gain some confidence from her words. The dejected look had faded from their faces, replaced by understanding, but they still looked like they could use some encouragement. Annabeth desperately wracked her brain for something inspiring, but couldn't come up with anything. She glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes was almost up. Screw the inspiration then. She didn't have it.
"There's one more thing I need to tell you. I intend to send Percy and Nico in later in the second half. Dakota might come in as well to make a 4-3-3. Is everyone confident of changing formation in the middle of the game?"
The players looked to each other and nodded. Annabeth clapped her hands together, taking a step back.
"That's all I've got. Captain?" She gestured to Jason.
The tall centre-forward stepped forward.
"We played ok in the first thirty minutes. The score is level. We're still in the game. What we need now is to stay calm and go back to basics. We do that and we won't lose this game."
"Greenwood rely on their height and physicality to dominate games," Nico's voice broke into the short pause. "We can beat them if we play the ball into the right places."
The buzzer sounded, indicating the end of the half-time break. The players got up from the benches, heading toward the exit.
"Keep your composure out there," Nico told them. "Don't let them rattle you."
The second half began at a moderate pace. Greenwood went on the offensive immediately, trying to break Goode down with pressure and aggression. Goode put up a fight, but seemed unable to muster the strength to match their opponents and conceded in the sixtieth minute from a corner kick. Greenwood were smug, confident that they had reasserted their dominance over the game. Goode looked frustrated and Annabeth sensed their morale was teetering on the edge. She was desperate for anything that could raise their spirits, but she had always been more an instructor than a motivator and didn't know how to encourage them.
"Send us in," Nico grated, black fire flickering in his eyes.
"Start warming up," Annabeth relented. "Both of you."
Percy and Nico jumped to their feet. Annabeth forced herself not to look as Percy shrugged his blazer off his shoulders, focusing instead on Dakota seated next to him.
"Dakota. You're going in too."
The midfielder nodded and got to his feet. The three players broke into a jog down the touchline, bringing a small cheer from the Goode fans as they realised their star wingers were about to enter the fray.
The sight of the trio seemed to give Goode the morale boost they needed. The team slowed down, circulating the ball in and out of midfield with short, neat passes. Malcolm had thrown out all positional discipline, dropping so deep that he looked more like a midfielder than a central striker. All his passes went sideways or backwards against the two Greenwood holding midfielders. The continuous movement achieved next to nothing apart from keeping possession. No one dared to play the ball forward. Annabeth didn't understand why the team had suddenly switched off from attacking and didn't know how to address it. She didn't want to urge them forward for fear of destroying the fragile composure they seemed to have found. The entire lineup seemed to have collectively decided to hold the game until their substitutes arrived.
Minutes ticked by. Percy and Nico had finished warming up, but Annabeth gestured for them to continue, not wanting to bring them on before the seventieth minute. The annoyed wingers continued to jog and stretch, baffling the rest of the team and the entire crowd, who did not understand why she was delaying the arrival of her attackers when they obviously needed an equaliser.
The seventieth minute arrived at last and Annabeth made her triple substitution. Chris, Ron and Malcolm left the field to be replaced by Percy, Nico and Dakota. The lineup was now the same one Annabeth had seen when she'd first watched the team on the day she'd given that fateful half-time talk. It seemed to all the fans like a game-changing stroke of genius, but in actual reality Annabeth had no idea what impact they would have on the game. The team might become confused and disjointed by the formation change, the new players might become over-aggressive and stretch the team too far, or Dakota, rusty after a spell out of the team, might make a fatal mistake. There were a hundred things that might go wrong, but she could only watch and hope that none of her fears would turn to reality and the substitutes could lead the team to fight back.
As if a switch had been flipped in their brains, Goode suddenly started attacking again. Greenwood were taken aback by the change and responded by falling back into their own half. The two holding midfielders tried to break up the attacks with physical challenges, but with Dakota added to their ranks, the Goode midfielders had finally caught on and played the ball away each time they tried to get close. The balance of power had evened out and with twenty minutes to go it was anyone's game.
The two sides seemed evenly matched. Greenwood had the edge in composure and possession, but Goode were the more energetic and were winning all the second balls. Greenwood fell back on their long-ball tactic, which forced Goode back into their own half. A battle broke out in midfield for the second balls, then Dakota got to one loose ball ahead of Greenwood's holding midfielder and played John into space close to the halfway line. The right-back ran down the wing and exchanged passes with Nico before lobbing a cross into the box.
The Greenwood defenders had retreated toward their goal as the ball came down the wing, drawing in Percy and Jason with them. All eyes went wide in realisation as John pulled back his boot, but Percy had made eye contact with the fullback one second earlier, arm outstretched to point to a vacant patch of space away from the goal. He darted away from the ball-watching Greenwood defenders as the ball came toward him, and by the time everybody in the box realised that it wasn't heading toward Jason's blonde head it was too late.
Time seemed to slow down. The Greenwood keeper was rooted to his spot, incapable of reacting. Defenders rushed desperately toward him. Percy took a colossal leap and powered a header into the goal.
The stands erupted. Percy wheeled away to celebrate, howling in triumph. Goode players sprinted the length of the field to join him.
"YES!" Annabeth punched the air in celebration.
Greenwood were now faced with a decision. If they attacked they would expose themselves to more counterattacks. If they played cautious and defended, they were throwing away an extra two points that were still within reach. They reckoned Goode would collapse again after taking the lead and decided to go for it.
The game took on a familiar pattern. Greenwood attacked, moving the ball up the pitch with purpose and intent. Goode fell back into a deep, low block, closing Greenwood down aggressively whenever they came forward. The defensive setup invited pressure, seeming to indicate Goode's lack of confidence to keep possession. Greenwood flooded forward and in their eagerness to win the game fell into the same trap that Goode had walked into earlier in the game.
Leo raced onto a loose ball one stride ahead of Greenwood's holding midfielder and poked it into Nico's path. The diminutive winger accelerated up the field with blistering pace, evading the second holding midfielder like a hurdle. He played a short cross across the box to Percy, who cut inside the Greenwood fullback and knocked the ball to Jason just outside the box. Jason pulled back his boot and unleashed an absolute thunderbolt of a shot that cannoned off the underside of the crossbar and into the net.
The roar that followed made Annabeth's hair stand. Every Goode supporter was on their feet and cheering. Jason disappeared under a delirious mob of teammates. The Greenwood players looked stunned by the turn of events. The score was 4-3 with just under ten minutes to go.
Greenwood completely fell apart after the fourth goal. Annabeth watched in disbelief as Goode dispossessed them in midfield less than a minute from the restart and went on the attack. The ball moved from Frank to Nico to Jason with frightening speed. Three defenders converged on the centre-forward as he lined up an epic strike that deflected off a boot and bobbled up the pitch. Percy, who'd been standing unmarked to Jason's left outside the penalty box, gave a yell of frustration. Jason gave him an apologetic wave and jogged after the ball as it moved back into midfield.
Greenwood's long-ball tactic didn't work against Goode's deep-defending setup. The home team stayed in formation, letting Greenwood play the ball among their back line. The defenders didn't see any way through the wall of blue in front of them and could only think to play the ball to their two holding midfielders, who could only pass it straight back to them under relentless pressure from Dakota and Leo every time they received it. That was the weakness that Nico had spotted in them at half-time. Their defenders and holding midfielders were physically strong but didn't have the vision and skill to play the incisive passes needed to break through Goode's lines.
The knockout blow arrived in the eighty-ninth minute. Frank found space in midfield, picking up the ball close to the halfway line. The three forwards accelerated up the pitch immediately, scenting blood. Frank noticed the unusually large gap between Greenwood's right-back and their centre-back and sent a raking pass into the space between the two players.
Percy's run curved inward into the gap, racing onto the ball a full stride behind the opposing right-back. He bent a brilliant shot toward the top corner that was clawed away by the Greenwood keeper. The ball fell toward the far post where Nico lurked and he fired it into the back of the net from point-blank range. The stadium erupted as Nico pulled off his shirt in celebration. The Greenwood players slumped onto the pitch in defeat. All their earlier confidence and swagger had vanished, torn to shreds by Goode's attacking firepower.
The final whistle rang three minutes later and was immediately drowned out by the roar coming from the spectator stands. Goode supporters were jumping up and down. The entire stadium was shaking. Annabeth raised both fists into the sky, her face lit up in a brilliant smile, and victory was sweet for her and the rest of Goode High.
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