My surroundings blurred into a muffled stream of noise and movement, and I barely felt the soreness of my muscles or a teammate’s consoling slap on my back.
I barely felt anything at all.
No one spoke during our walk to the changing room, but the dread was palpable.
The only thing worse than losing a match was facing Coach afterward, and he barely gave us a chance to sit before he went off.
Frank Armstrong was a legend in the football world. As a player, he was famous for his string of hat tricks in the nineties; as a manager, he was famous for his innovative approach to leadership and his hair-trigger temper, the latter of which was on full display as he laid into us.
“Are those the standards you play with?” he demanded. “Are those the fucking standards? Because I’ll tell you, they’re nowhere near Premier League level. They are fucking shit!”
Lack of focus, terrible teamwork, no cohesion—he touched on all the issues that had plagued us since I transferred in mid-season, and it didn’t take a genius to know why.
Even as Coach berated us, heads swiveled between me and Vincent, who sat on the opposite side of the room.
Team dynamics had been fucked since I joined. Part of that was the natural consequence of incorporating a new member into a tight-knit club; a larger part boiled down to the fact that I, the league’s top scorer, and Vincent, the club’s star defender and captain, despised each other.
We played different positions, but our rivalry was infamous. He was the only true competition I had for press, status, and sponsorships—important things in our world—but the biggest source of our contention was what happened at the last World Cup.
The dive. The fight. The red card.
I tried not to think about it. If I did, I might punch him in the face, and I doubted Coach would appreciate me doing that in the middle of his rant about teamwork.
“DuBois! Donovan!”
My head snapped up at the sound of my name, and Vincent’s did the same.
Coach had apparently ended his speech because the rest of the team was shuffling off to change while he glared at us.
“My office. Now.”
We obeyed without argument. We weren’t stupid.
“Do you want to take a guess as to why I called the two of you, specifically, in here?” Coach didn’t wait for the door to fully close before launching into part two of his rant.
Vincent and I remained silent.
“I asked you a question.”
“Because we lost,” I said. My stomach tightened at the word lost.
Everyone hated losing, but today’s loss stung particularly hard for me when I knew there were people actively rooting for me to fuck up at Blackcastle—namely, Holchester United fans who hated me for transferring to their biggest rival.
I’d had plenty of naysayers growing up—teachers who thought I’d never amount to anything, football fans who thought I was a flash in the pan, press who dug for dirt in every aspect of my life—and I couldn’t stand proving my critics right.
“No. It’s not because we lost,” Coach snapped. “It’s because you two are the ones the rest of the team looks up to the most, but you’ve let your stupid rivalry affect your game. Worst of all, it’s affecting morale.”
We slunk lower in our seats beneath his glare.
“I knew there would be a transition period, but I thought you would get over it and work things out because you’re adults. However, it seems like I’m dealing with children because here we are, postseason, and we have nothing to show for it except a host of mistakes that could’ve been easily avoided if you’d learned how to bloody work together!” Coach’s voice rose with each word until it was loud enough to seep through the walls.
The muted chatter from the locker room noticeably died down, and a flush of shame crawled across my face.
Coach’s disappointment was almost as unbearable as not winning the league. I’d idolized him growing up, and the opportunity to work with him had been a major factor behind me handing in my transfer request.
This had not been how I’d envisioned ending our first season together.
Vincent shifted beside me. “Coach, I—”
“Don’t get me started with you.” Coach cut him off. “What the hell was that in the last twenty seconds? Donovan was right there. You should’ve passed him the bloody ball when you had the chance. See opening, pass ball. It’s football 101!”
Vincent’s mouth tightened. He couldn’t say what we all knew: he hadn’t passed the ball immediately because he hadn’t wanted me to score the winning goal. The press would’ve replayed that kick over and over, and I would’ve received all the glory that came with it. Vincent wouldn’t have been able to stand it.
Selfish prick. I didn’t dwell on whether I would’ve done the same had I been in his place.
Coach’s stare sharpened. He’d been a club manager long enough to figure out Vincent’s motivations without him verbalizing it.
“Since you want to act like children, I’ll treat you like children,” he said. “Normally, I leave offseason training up to the individual players, but not this summer. This summer, you’re both cross-training at the Royal Academy of Ballet. Together.”
“What?”
Vincent and I exploded at the same time.
My sense of self-preservation couldn’t override my shock at Coach’s edict. Clubs almost never dictated the specifics of how we spent our offseason. Players hailed from all over the world, which meant summer was their chance to go home, see their families, and train as they saw fit.
“I already spoke with RAB’s director. She’s on board,” Coach said. “I didn’t say anything before because I wanted to see if you two could pull it together by the last match and fucking win. You couldn’t, so you’ll be taking private lessons with the same instructor for the summer. She’s one of their best, and she has an intimate knowledge of football. You’ll be in good hands.”
