Chapter 63: Chapter 63: The First Half in the Shirt II
They grew into it through small fixes, not one big moment.
The deep midfielder finally got himself free, receiving on the half-turn instead of with his back to goal, and that one adjustment changed the picture. He moved it quickly to Jamie’s side before the press could set.
Jamie took it, gave it to Finn, and overlapped again.
This time the return came. Finn slipped it round the corner into his run, and Jamie was into the space in stride.
He did not float a hopeful ball in. He drove it low across the six-yard line, hard, the way he had drilled with Rafi until his legs hated it.
THWACK.
The home keeper flung out a hand and got fingertips to it, turning it behind. The striker arrived half a step late at the back post, stretching, and could not quite reach.
So close.
Corner. No goal. But the away bench had come up off their seats, and Jamie could feel the shape of the half starting to shift.
Garcia stood beside Alan, still as a post, watching like a man at work rather than a father at a match.
The home side were too good to let that go unanswered.
They worked Jamie out fast. Their left midfielder started tucking in closer whenever Jamie received, cutting his passing angle, and their winger stopped tracking back and stayed high instead.
That was the trap. If Jamie flew forward every time, the winger was left free behind him, and the space at his back became a goal waiting to happen.
So Jamie started checking his shoulder before every run.
He looked once for the winger, once for the cover, and only then decided whether to go. Twice he wanted to overlap and made himself stay, because the man behind him was too high and the risk was too big.
It was not the fun part of the job. It was the part that kept the score at nil.
Near the middle of the half, the home side had their best spell.
They circulated it left, then right, then back through the number eight, moving Tranmere side to side until the whole back line was sliding and shouting.
"Across! Across!" the centre-back roared, dragging everyone over.
Jamie was not the hero of it. He just did his job.
When the ball was central, he tucked inside and narrowed the gap. When the cross came, he turned and tracked the runner arriving at the far post, staying goal-side, feeling the man’s shirt brush his arm.
The ball dropped loose off a block.
Jamie got there first. He did not try anything clever. He put his boot through it and cleared it long, up and away, out of the danger.
THUD.
His centre-backs were shouting, the keeper was shouting, and the whole thing held because the shape held. That was the point. Nobody defended that spell alone.
He got one more real chance to hurt them before the whistle.
Tranmere won it in midfield and broke before the home side could reset their block. Finn picked it up and drove inside off the right, pulling a defender with him.
Jamie read it early and timed his outside run so he was not offside and not too soon.
The pass came into his stride, perfectly weighted, and for once he had a yard.
He did not launch a cross and hope. He looked up, saw Liam charging the penalty spot, and cut it back low and firm into that exact space.
Liam met it first time.
The shot cracked off a defender’s block and spun wide, inches from turning in.
It was the best chance of the half, and it stayed nil, and Jamie put his hands on his head for a second before jogging back.
His legs were heavy now. But he had made the right pass, at the right time, with the right foot, and nobody could say his side of the pitch had been a weakness.
If anything, it had become one of the few ways out Tranmere had.
TWEET. TWEET.
Half-time. 0–0.
Jamie walked in with mud crusted on his socks and his breath coming hard, listening to the older academy boys talk over the top of each other around him.
He did not join in.
He was replaying it in his head instead. The overlaps that had come off. The low cross the keeper had clawed away. And the two runs he had not made, the spaces he had almost left open behind him, the ones that could have cost them.
He kept his focus in the silence and said nothing.
The half-time talk was not about Jamie, and that was how Jamie knew it was going well.
Mercer stood in front of the small whiteboard, magnets in hand, and kept it practical.
"We’re letting their eight turn every single time," he said. "That’s where all their good stuff starts. Somebody has to be on his back the second the ball goes into him."
He moved a magnet.
"Our striker’s isolated. He’s fighting two men on his own up there because our support’s arriving after the ball. That has to be quicker. When we win it, you show early, not late."
Then he tapped the right side of the board, where Jamie played.
"They can’t handle us out here when we get it right. Their winger’s staying high, so their full-back’s isolated when we double it."
Jamie kept his face still and listened.
His name only came inside the instruction, folded into the plan, never lifted out for praise. It landed heavier that way. Mercer was not telling him he had done well.
He was handing him a job.
"Finn, you pin the full-back," Mercer said. "Hold him. Don’t drift in." He looked at Jamie. "When he pins him, you go outside."
Then his eyes went round the rest of them.
"But listen. If he goes, we don’t leave a hole. Nearest midfielder slides across to cover. If we turn it over, centre-back tucks in early. We use that side, we protect that side. Both. Every time."
The room went quiet.
The coach tapped the magnet beside Jamie’s position.
"If we get out, it starts here," he said. "But if he goes, the rest of you cover him."
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