Open Play: Ladies, Goals, The Everything System in-between

Chapter 51: [51] "Fresko Part 2"

3-2

Idriss immediately turned, found Luc across the pitch, and pointed at him with a wagging finger.

Luc raised his chin at him. That was the whole exchange.

Everything that needed to be said between two strikers who had started as rivals and become something more complicated than that had been compressed into one gesture each.

The stadium was in full voice. Three-two. Phocéen were shell-shocked. SC Valois were twenty minutes from three points against a team that had come here believing they could win.

Phocéen’s manager was frantic on the touchline for the first time all match, he was actually on it, with only one foot inside the technical area. The fourth official’s flag was almost hovering close to his chest.

He was screaming about Fresko.

Get the ball to Fresko! Get the ball to Fresko!

The striker was still on the pitch. Still dangerous. Still the man who had bent one into the top corner already in this match.

Luc tracked him.

Not with the kind of pressing that burned energy and left spaces. He tracked hm patiently, always half a step ahead of where the ball was going before it arrived.

Minute seventy-six.

Neji received the ball centrally, still in his adjusted deeper role.

Fresko made his run. Same diagonal. Inside from the right channel, aiming for the pocket between Hadj and Ekberg.

Luc read it from twenty yards away.

He didn’t press Neji. He sprinted across and inserted himself directly into the passing lane.

Neji played the ball. Luc intercepted it with his left shin, completely inelegant but who cared.

The ball ricoched to Mateo, who played it forward immediately.

Fresko was already jogging back into position, the run was wasted.

Neji stood with his hands on his hips.

It was the first time Luc had seen Neji stand with his hands on his hips.

---

Minute seventy-nine.

Phocéen won a free kick wide left. Thirty yards out. Enough to deliver a dangerous ball into the box.

The Phocéen left-back stepped over it.

The entire SC Valois defensive line organized, calling heights to defend it, pushing the Phocéen attackers back to the required distance.

Mateo, Hadj, Ekberg, Owusu... a wall of bodies ready to contest every aerial ball.

Fresko lined up on the outside of the defensive line. Luc marked him personally.

Not by standing behind him and waiting for the ball to fly.

He stood beside him. Shoulder to shoulder. Close enough that Fresko would have to physically remove Luc to get a clean jump on the header.

Fresko shoved him once. The referee didn’t whistle.

"You’re going to have to do that a whole lot to get rid of me." Luc said resetting his position.

The free kick came in, curled and dangerous.

Fresko shoved again, trying to get vertical separation.

Luc shoved back at the same moment, canceling the leverage.

Fresko got a touch on the ball with his head but it was half-powered and deflected wide of the post.

Goal kick.

The stadium exhaled and then immediately roared again.

---

Minute eighty-three.

Phocéen abandoned shape entirely.

Their goalkeeper kicked long and direct, bypassing Neji’s entire midfield structure, just hunting aerial balls and second chances in the final third.

Hadj won everything in the air. He was composed, dealing with balls that were no more as complex now as they had been all match.

SC Valois didn’t keep possession beautifully. They didn’t play elegant triangles from the back.

They kicked it long too, tracked second balls, chased Phocéen into corners and won tackle after tackle through sheer, organized commitment.

Mateo alone covered more distance in those final ten minutes than he had in the entire second half. The captain’s armband almost disappeared under the sweat.

Cillian broke up two Phocéen attacks in sequence, the second one he slid in on his weaker side and still won the ball cleanly enough that the crowd cheered the tackle like a goal.

---

Minute eighty-seven.

Fresko received the ball on the edge of the box. The last genuine chance.

Luc was there too beside him again, interrupting any attempt at a shot.

Fresko tried to go outside.

Luc’s weight was already on his back foot for it. He stepped across.

Fresko pulled it inside.

Luc’s right foot stabbed the ball from him, the foot that had started this season as an afterthought and had become something Luc trusted as much as his left.

The ball rolled free to Ekberg, who was already in the cover position. He played it long, into the Phocéen half.

Fresko stood in the same posture Neji had stood, with his hands on his hips.

Two men recognizing, with the body language of professionals, that they had been outplayed.

---

Minute ninety.

Four minutes of added time.

SC Valois saw the game out through effective, grinding survival football that every player in that dressing room had learned across the course of a season that refused to allow them any comfort.

Blažek made one save from a low shot that he gathered into his chest.

Hadj headed one clear from the six-yard box with the game’s last corner.

Mateo won the second ball and played it to Cillian.

Cillian played it into the stands.

Piii Piii Piiii.

3-2.

The stadium was still processing it when the players started walking off the pitch.

The home crowd was somewhere between relief and disbelief from beating a team that had one of the best forms in the league.

Hadj grabbed Ekberg around the shoulders and said something that made the Swedish center-back smile.

Cillian was bent over near the touchline, his hands on his knees, his breathing showed how adrenaline drops out of the body all at once.

Idriss walked off ahead of everyone else.

Mateo reached Luc near the tunnel entrance.

"Fresko touched the ball twice in the last twenty minutes because of you."

"Because we stopped giving Neji the pocket to play from. Take the food away and the appetite doesn’t matter."

"You know what tonight means for the table."

"Yep."

Stade Phocéen had come here projected for European football. They had scored twice, and played brilliant football related to the two goals they scored.

But they were going home with nothing.

---

Henri came into the locker room, looked at his players, "Good. We do it again in ten weeks."

Luc pulled his jersey over his head.

"Luc Luc Luc."

"Bastien. What’s got you so excited?"

"Olivier blanked tonight against Normandie. Even though Paris Royal won 2-0, Olivier didn’t bag any goals."

"Ha. One behind now, Yankee." Mateo celebrated.

[System Notification]

[Objectives completed: (2)]

[Rewards applied: +1 Spatial Awareness stat (permanent), 100% guaranteed goal x1]

[Updated Wager Tally: Open Play Goals — Beaumont 10 | Fontaine 11]

[Mateo’s birthday: November 30. Two weeks.]

[MD15 incoming: Paris Royal FC. Away]

Paris Royal. Away. Fontaine’s fortress.

The biggest game of the season sitting seven days out.

One goal gap that Luc might close on Fontaine’s head