Chapter 28: Chapter 28: The Team Sheet II
The afternoon session stopped feeling random.
Jamie kept ending up in the same group. Kacper Zielinski and Harry Cole at centre-back behind him. Mason Clarke at left-back. Tomi Adeyemi and Noah Bennett in the middle. Miles ahead of him on the right. Bilal Haddad floating between the lines, Malik Johnson wide on the left, Elliot Ward up top.
The first time he thought it was chance. The second time too.
By the third rotation, the players started to notice.
"They’re picking the teams," Bilal said quietly, jogging back beside him. "Watch. Same lot every time."
"You don’t know that," Jamie said.
"I’ve done four of these," Bilal said, which was Bilal’s answer to most things. "They’re picking."
"He’s right," Miles said from in front, not even turning round.
"They’ve been picking since Tuesday," Tomi said, calm as ever, and said nothing else.
Jamie stayed quiet, but he started counting. The same faces kept landing around him, over and over, until it stopped feeling like coincidence and started feeling like a shape.
Across the pitch, Reece kept landing in a different one. Ryan Bell behind him in goal. Lewis Grant and Callum Forde at the back. Samir Khan and Jude Ellis in midfield. Callum Price wide. Tyler Grant off the front. Dylan O’Connor loud on the other flank, Isaac Monroe up top.
That group looked sharp going forward. Callum Price was quick and direct, and Tyler Grant kept finding the gaps between the lines.
Jamie could not tell what any of it meant.
But it felt like Friday had already started, hours before anyone wrote a list.
The head coach pulled them all in after the last block.
He stood with the whistle still on its lanyard and waited until the talking stopped.
"Friday’s teams go up after dinner," he said. "Notice board, outside the briefing room."
A ripple went through the group, quick and badly hidden.
"Before you all start losing your minds." He let the pause sit. "The teams are Blue and White. That’s it. They are not a ranking. One is not the good team and one is not the leftovers." He looked across them slowly. "Both sides get watched. Both sides have players we want to see under pressure. If I hear anyone treating a colour like a verdict, I’ll wonder why you can’t read."
Some of them nodded.
Most of them did not believe him, and Jamie could see it on their faces, because the second the coach said, "Go on, get cleaned up," the guessing started before they had cleared the pitch.
Some pretended not to care. Some asked three questions each. A couple walked off like they already knew exactly where their name would be.
Jamie walked off with Miles. Both of them tired, both of them quiet.
Staff moved them back toward the accommodation block, and nobody from outside the rope came near. His dad caught his eye from behind the barrier and gave him one small nod. That was all. Garcia did nothing. Rafi just watched him go.
The distance felt real, and Jamie understood it now. There was nothing any of them could do for him from out there.
Dinner was loud in a way that kept breaking.
The hall filled up and the noise climbed and then dropped, climbed and dropped, like nobody could hold a conversation for long without thinking about the board.
Players talked about the team sheet without admitting they cared about it.
"I genuinely don’t mind which team," Miles said, and then leaned across the table. "You heard anything? Has anyone heard anything?"
Bilal had a napkin out and was writing names on it, trying to build the two line-ups from the afternoon groups.
"They won’t split the centre-backs like that," he muttered. "It makes no sense."
"It’s already decided," Tomi said, eating. "It was decided this afternoon. You’re guessing a list that exists."
Jamie checked his phone once, under the table.
Three messages.
His dad:
Good luck tomorrow. Keep going.
Garcia:
Whatever happens, stay calm.
Rafi:
Good luck.
That was it. No tactics. No essay. No coaching him through a screen the night before.
Jamie put the phone away.
The only people who could help him now were the coaches and himself, and both of them would be on the pitch tomorrow, not in his pocket.
After dinner they gathered by the board.
A staff member pinned the sheet up, smoothed it once, and stepped back without a word.
For half a second nobody moved.
Then everybody moved at once, a press of shoulders and shirts, and Jamie got carried into the middle of it.
The heading sat across the top in plain print.
FINAL TRIAL MATCH — FRIDAY, 7 AUGUST 2075
Northgate Blue vs Northgate White
NORTHGATE BLUE
Coach: Martin Shaw
GK Enzo Moretti
RB Jamie Holt
CB Kacper Zielinski
CB Harry Cole
LB Mason Clarke
CM Tomi Adeyemi
CM Noah Bennett
RW Miles Carter
AM Bilal Haddad
LW Malik Johnson
ST Elliot Ward
NORTHGATE WHITE
Coach: Daniel Price
GK Ryan Bell
RB Reece Mallory
CB Lewis Grant
CB Callum Forde
LB Aaron Pike
CM Samir Khan
CM Jude Ellis
RW Callum Price
AM Tyler Grant
LW Dylan O’Connor
ST Isaac Monroe
Jamie looked for Reece first, without deciding to.
He found him under Northgate White.
Right-back.
Then Miles hit his shoulder and pointed higher up the sheet.
Jamie saw his own name.
Northgate Blue. Right-back. Jamie Holt.
He read it once. Then again, slower, because the first time had not gone in properly.
They had not chosen one right-back over the other. They had not cut anyone. They had put both of them on the pitch, on opposite teams, in the same final match, in front of the same people.
That’s bigger, Jamie thought. That’s not smaller.
He had not beaten Reece.
He had been handed the same stage.
Miles got there before he did.
"You’re starting." Miles grabbed his shoulder again and shook it. "Forty-seven, you’re starting the final."
"I know," Jamie said, and his voice did not believe it the way Miles wanted it to.
Bilal had found the sheet over the top of two heads. "Blue’s right side is going to be busy," he said. "Look who White’s got that way. Callum Price out there, Tyler Grant floating off it."
"That’s the point," Tomi said, behind them. "They’ve put the work in front of him on purpose."
Jamie looked back at the board and let it land properly.
This was not a reward.
It was a test, dressed as one.
Across the crowd, Reece read the same list. He did not get loud and he did not get jealous. He just went still for a moment, the way the calm ones do when something matters more than they expected. His eyes moved from his own name to Jamie’s, then back down to the sheet.
He did not look at Jamie.
The pause said enough.
Jamie glanced toward the entrance once.
The four of them had seen it too. His dad let out a breath and held it together. Garcia stayed exactly as calm as he had been all day, no smile, no fuss. Rafi’s face barely moved.
Oliver was reading the sheet as well.
And for the first time since Croydon, his easy smile was not there.
It came back. But Jamie had caught the second it was gone, and it stayed with him longer than it should have.
Before lights-out, Northgate Blue got called into a side room.
It was small and warm and crowded, eleven boys and a few subs pressed onto plastic chairs, and the moment Coach Martin Shaw shut the door it stopped being a camp and started being a team.
Players sat forward. This was not the general briefing anymore. This was theirs.
Shaw did not make a speech.
"Right." He put a board down and did not raise his voice. "Shape first. Then I want one thing clear, and then you sleep."
He ran the shape quickly. A back four, two in the middle, the front four with licence to rotate. He went round the room and named each job in two sentences, no longer.
Then he stopped.
"Tomorrow gets watched," he said. "Both teams. The men out there have come to look at all of you, so do not spend the day waiting for someone to notice you. The score matters less than the decisions inside the score." He looked round them. "But do not hear that as permission to coast. If you don’t compete, nobody can assess you. A boy hiding for ninety minutes is the easiest cut they make."
The room was very quiet.
Then he found Jamie.
"Forty-seven."
Jamie sat up.
"White’s left side won’t be quiet," Shaw said. "Dylan O’Connor’s their left winger and he’ll run at you all day. Their full-back, Pike, likes to come past him on the overlap. And Tyler Grant drifts off his line, so he’ll turn up in your channel when you’re not looking for him." He held Jamie’s eyes. "If you switch off, the three of them will punish you. That side is where they think they’ll get joy."
Jamie nodded once.
"And listen." Shaw did not let the look go. "Don’t try to disappear at right-back because you think it’s safer. I’ve watched you all week. When the danger comes to your side, you deal with it. When you win it and the forward pass is on, you play it. That’s the player I picked. Don’t give me the other one tomorrow."
Jamie nodded again.
Shaw moved on to the next name, but Jamie barely heard it.
The coaches had seen the weakness. Shaw had just described it back to him, the safe pass, the urge to hide, the side they would aim at. And they had seen the other part too, the recovery and the forward ball, because that was the player Shaw said he had picked.
