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

Chapter 76: [76] "Piii"

"You know what they’re going to do," Henri said. "You know what we’re going to do. I have nothing new to tell you." He paused. "Play like you’ve been playing since August. That’s all."

He left the room.

The door closed behind him.

Mateo stood. He pulled the armband tighter on his bicep. He looked at each player individually, moving through the room without speaking, the way a commander walks a line before the order is given.

He stopped in front of Luc.

"You’re scoring three tonight," Mateo said.

"Yes Captain."

Mateo hit him once on the chest, hard. "Make it ugly if you have to. Pretty if you can. But three."

The two teams walked out side by side.

The noise at Stade Valois almost hit a level that made the advertising boards vibrate.

AC Nord’s players lined up in the tunnel with dignity. As men who knew the crowd wasn’t chanting for them, and had decided to treat that as anything other than a wound.

Their holding midfielder, a 31-year-old who had played for seven clubs in twelve years, looked at Luc as they lined. He saw that Luc understood what was about to happen.

Luc looked past him at the pitch.

---

Piii.

SC Valois kicked off. Hugo played it back to Mateo. Mateo drove it wide right immediately, no hesitation in the buildup.

The match started quickly.

AC Nord dropped immediately into their 4-5-1, all five midfielders tucked into the gap between their defensive line and the halfway line. Their lone striker pressed Hadj with mild urgency, just trying to following tactical instruction rather than his own genuine striker’s belief.

The space between the lines was compressed. Twelve yards from their midfield to their back four. Almost no room.

Hugo identified it in the fourth minute and began looking for a work around, receiving between the lines, playing quick one-twos with Mateo before the Nord midfield could shift across.

Luc held his position high up the pitch. He was patient. Waiting for his time that would surely come.

Minute eight.

Their left back pushed forward to assist a throw-in, exactly as Hugo’s had analyzed.

He didn’t track back immediately. He jogged. He looked like a player who had done this a thousand times and never been punished for it at this level. But that was the opposite.

Aubert exploited the space before it closed.

He drove a fast cross to the near post.

Luc had already started his run off the far center-back’s shoulder. The Blind Side Run Timing firing adequately. The center-back felt the movement but committed the wrong way, drawn by the flight of the ball rather than the runner behind him.

Luc arrived at the near post a full stride ahead.

The ball was below knee height. He didn’t have time to set properly.

He jabbed at it with his right boot, catching it on the outside. The contact redirected the ball across the face of the six-yard box, away from the keeper’s diving body, toward the far post.

It hit the inside of the post.

And stayed out.

The stadium’s noise was the embodiment of anxiety. Thirty thousand fans finally at the end of an intriguing rivalry.

The ball rolled slowly along the line. The Nord right center-back, scrambling back from his forward position, arrived and cleared it with his heel.

Luc stood in the penalty area.

The keeper was on his knees staring at the post.

"I’ll score from the next one," Luc said to nobody.

---

Minute fourteen.

Hugo found a pocket between Nord’s midfield and defensive line, his first touch arriving clean despite two bodies closing him down simultaneously.

He played it wide to Bastien on the left with the outside of his right boot.

Bastien cut inside on his stronger foot. Their right midfielder pressed immediately, tracking the movement.

Bastien played it back inside to Hugo and kept his run going.

Hugo slipped the ball through the gap between Nord’s right center-back and their right midfielder, the lane that opened for for a few seconds as the midfielder followed Bastien’s run and left the channel uncovered.

Luc arrived into it.

He picked the ball up at the edge of the area, one center-back in front of him, the keeper three steps off his line.

He shaped for the shot. The center-back committed to the block with his weight going forward.

Luc faked the shot and rolled the ball left. The center-back’s weight couldn’t reverse. The lane to the near post opened.

He shot hard and low.

The keeper came off his line. Full extension. Both hands.

He stopped it.

He actually stopped it.

A full, proper save from a 38-year-old keeper who had conceded twenty-nine goals in sixteen league matches. He hit the turf on both forearms and held the ball into his chest like it was the most important thing he had saved all year.

Because it was.

The away end, in their small and passionate size, erupted for the save.

Luc planted both hands on his knees and straightened up slowly.

"He must think he’s playing the match of his life tonight, doesn’t he," Bastien said from behind him.

"He just might," Luc said. "But eventually he runs out of miracles."

---

Minute twenty-two.

Idriss received the ball on the penalty spot, a rare moment of space created by Hugo’s third disguised through-ball of the half. He had a clean shot.

He hit it.

The keeper read the direction. Dove early, caught it at his right hip.

The stadium groaned.

Idriss walked back to the center of the pitch with his hands in the air.

"He cannot keep this up," Idriss said as Luc jogged past him.

"Yeah, plus they aren’t attacking us. Keep shooting."

---

Mateo thundered a long-range effort in the twenty-eighth minute that the keeper palmed over the bar with both hands, making it look easier than it was.

Hugo’s corner was headed clear by their tallest center-back, a 6-foot-3 giant who had spent ninety percent of the match dealing with the aerial threat and doing it competently.

Cillian, playing on the right side of midfield after Dermici’s knock in training (meant SC Valois were Playing with 5 base midfielders and no natural wide threat), drove a low shot from twenty-five yards that the keeper kicked with his right boot.

Genuinely kicked it. With his right boot. Like he had decided defending corners and low shots was beneath his hands tonight.

The ball ran out for another corner.

Minute thirty-seven.

Henri on the touchline was no longer pacing. He was standing completely still with his arms folded, watching the Nord keeper with a concern that had nothing to do with tactics.

The keeper was saving everything.

Shots on target: seven.

Goals: zero.

The match had started to acquire the atmosphere of a game where the numbers insisted on a different result than the scoreboard showed.

Halftime was fast approaching without a goal to show for their efforts.

---

Minute forty-three.

Hugo played a disguised pass through the Nord midfield block, the ball arriving at Luc’s feet twenty-two yards from goal, two defenders pressing from the flanks.

The Pressing Resistance held. Two seconds. Three.

Till he found space for a shot.

He drove it to the bottom left corner with his left foot, low and hard.

The keeper went the right way.

He had been going the right way all night. Every shot, every bounce and deflection, he had gone the right way.

This time the ball bent slightly at the last moment off the studs of the pressing defender.

Enough to redirect it.

Onto the outside of the left post.

It cannoned back into Luc’s chest but he collapsed into the turf from the momentum of the ball.

The stadium fell dead silent.

Then noise. Frustration and disbelief compressed into one outburst.

Luc lay on the turf, his forehead against the cold grass.

He had hit three posts and a crossbar across four months of this season. He understood that the post was not the universe’s judgment on anything. It was a metal object with a diameter, and the ball had struck the outside of it rather than the inside.

Physics. Nothing more.

He stood up.

Piii.

Halftime.

0-0.

---

The locker room wasn’t as quiet as that of a beaten team.

This team had produced enough quality to have already won the match by the first half but had been consistently stopped by a goalkeeper having the night of his career.

Henri came in and stood at the board.

He drew one thing on it. A single diagonal arrow from the left channel into the six-yard box.

"The keeper comes off his line when the ball is played from the left," he said. "Every time we deliver from the left, he leaves his line by two full steps." He tapped the arrow. "We simply need to fake that delivery. Then immediately we find the runner arriving at the far post. The keeper won’t be able to recover."

Luc looked at the arrow.

He already knew who the runner would be.

[System Notification]

[Second half begins. Three goals required. 45 minutes remaining.]

[TES recommends patience. The keeper will run out of miracles before you run out of time.]

"Can’t hope on that."