Chapter 64: Chapter 64: The Right Side Opens I
(Jamie POV)
The coach’s finger was still on the right side of the board, and Jamie could not take his eyes off it.
The shirt clung to his back, gone cold now in the changing room air. Mud had dried stiff on his socks, and the noise of the first half still sat in his ears, the shouts and the studs and the near miss.
"If we get out, it starts here," Mercer said again, tapping the magnet beside Jamie’s position. "But if he goes, the rest of you cover him."
He was not praising Jamie. Jamie understood that clearly.
Mercer was pointing at his side because it was one of the ways Tranmere could hurt a team sitting second in the table. That was different from being told he was good. It was heavier.
Jamie sat still and said nothing. His hands tightened around his water bottle until the plastic dented under his fingers.
The whole room had heard it now. His side was part of the plan.
Which meant if he went forward at the wrong moment, the space behind him would not just cost him.
It would cost all of them.
Mercer kept it short, the way he kept everything.
"Finn, you pin their full-back. Stay wide, hold him there." He moved a magnet. "Nearest midfielder slides across the second Jamie overlaps. If we lose it, centre-back tucks in early. Nobody gets caught."
Nobody made a speech back. They pulled their socks up, drank, and went.
Jamie wanted to use the trust. He had wanted the ball all through the first half.
Now he had it as a job, and the wanting felt different with the weight on top of it.
TWEET.
The second half kicked off, and Tranmere went for the right side too soon.
The ball came into their midfielder with a man on his back, and instead of holding it, he forced it out to Jamie before Finn had pinned anyone.
Jamie took the touch forward on instinct.
But their left midfielder was already close, reading the same plan Mercer had drawn, and the lane Jamie wanted was shut before he got there.
He did not force it into trouble. He rolled it back inside, safe, and let Tranmere start again.
It was not a mistake. It was a lesson, and he felt it land.
The instruction was not enough on its own. The timing had to be right, or the same pass that hurt them in training just died against a good side.
Wait for Finn to pin him first, he told himself. Then go.
The home side answered by pushing Tranmere straight back.
They had seen the attempted exit and did not like it, so for a few minutes they turned the screw. Their number eight kept finding the pocket between Tranmere’s midfielders, receiving free and turning.
Their striker pinned one centre-back, holding him, opening the space.
And their left winger stayed high up the pitch, never tracking back, sitting on Jamie’s shoulder as a warning.
Jamie felt it every time the ball came near him. He checked over his shoulder before he did anything, because the winger was right there, waiting for him to leave.
He was not frightened of it. He just knew the shape of the danger now.
Go at the wrong second, and the counter came through the grass at his back.
Then the match moved away from him, and that turned out to be a good thing.
Tranmere’s left side held the ball under pressure instead of rushing it. Their central midfielder finally got himself free and took it on the half-turn, facing forward for once.
The striker dropped short to feet so he stopped being an island up top.
Jamie felt the whole team breathe. The ball was not being flung to his flank in a panic anymore. It was being worked, side to side, patient.
That was what he had wanted without knowing how to ask for it. Not the ball every time. Just the ball at the right time.
The right time came a few minutes later.
Tranmere moved it left, then back into the middle, and this time Finn did his job first. He stayed wide and pinned the full-back to the touchline, holding him there.
Jamie saw the lane open before the pass was even played.
He started his run outside, and the ball came into his stride, and for the first time in the half he had a clean yard on the overlap.
He did not float it in and hope.
THWACK.
He drove it low across the box, hard along the ground toward the penalty spot.
The striker lunged for it. Their keeper flung out a boot at the same instant and got a toe to it, and the ball spun away for a corner off the tangle of legs.
No goal. But the away bench had come up again, and Jamie’s side of the pitch had a heartbeat now.
The home side started managing him after that.
Their left winger stayed even higher to keep Jamie honest, and their midfielder shaded across to sit in the passing lane between Jamie and Finn, so the ball could not get out to the right as easily.
Jamie noticed the change and understood what it meant.
He was not just being allowed to arrive anymore. He had become one of the things they were controlling.
They were not obsessed with him. They were a good team, and his side had turned into a problem, so they treated it like one.
He took a strange kind of confidence from that. You did not get managed for being nothing.
Around the hour, the second-place side had their best chance, and it did not come near Jamie’s wing at all.
Their number eight turned between Tranmere’s two midfielders, quick and low, and slid a pass behind the centre-back before anyone could get tight.
Their striker peeled across his marker and got there first.
He shot low across the goal.
THUD.
Tranmere’s keeper went down hard and got a strong hand behind it, shoving it wide of the post, and the ground behind the barrier went "oh" all at once.
Jamie’s part was quiet and it was disciplined.
He did not chase the ball. He tucked inside, tracked the far-post runner who was creeping in behind him, and when the loose ball spilled out toward that back-post zone, he got there and cleared it long before anyone could square it back.
It was not a highlight. It was the job.
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