You See What You Know (4)
Valencia's players were collapsing the space along the second line of midfield — right back and winger, both center-backs, even the fullback on the far side. Every one of them was pouring everything into sealing the gaps between their lines.
In the middle of it all, I turned my penetration route over and over in my head. The seam between their two central midfielders stood open, but the intent behind it was so transparent I hesitated. Looked at honestly, it was the kind of option that cost you even when it came off. Push forward, collect the ball — and I'd be ringed by at least five men on every side. From there it would be either a fistful of my shirt and a cheap foul, or the press grinding me down until I doled the ball out to the right flank. And with Ramirez, the right winger, in far from top condition, even a successful pass would most likely just repeat the first half's failure.
The moment I finished rationalizing my way out of it, I made up my mind: I would loop back around behind Pedri.
Grit— I ground the turf down hard with my right shin and the tip of my big toe. The instant my body braked, the pressure in my knee joint seemed to take on weight and bear down on the bundled nerves.
Valencia's left central midfielder, who had been matching my step into the middle, swung his body counterclockwise as well, riding his momentum instead of fighting it. He meant to give himself room and chase me all the way, even at the cost of an inefficient line.
The moment I bent my run to the left, Pedri's squad number swam into view. Sure enough, he was cornered with the clock running out on him — fronted square by a center-back, the fullback and winger converging nearby, three players in all wringing the space dry like a vice.
"Pedri!"
I made myself call his name, though I wasn't counting on a pass in return. The man on the ball would know it too — he'd know that Valencia's right winger had clocked my presence and occupied the space at my back, the only place a ball could escape through.
So I swung back to the left with everything in my legs. On my first stride, Pedri was still grunting, wrestling his shoulder against the opposing fullback. By the second, he was being shoved off the spot. And the moment I took my third — he rolled the ball straight between the right back's legs.
The winger covering behind me snatched at the hem of my jersey, but the momentum clinging to my body shook him loose for me. With the right back glued to Pedri, the left flank had opened into no man's land. I nudged the ball ahead off my instep a few times and was at the rim of the penalty area in a blink.
The midfielder and center-back who had chased me all the way in now fanned out at a slant, walling off the road ahead. Roughly two meters between us.
"Just cover the sides!"
The center-back roared it out, helpfully clarifying the division of labor — the midfielder took the left, the center-back sealed every remaining channel. That left me three options: the left, the gap between them, and the right lane bending back toward the middle.
The left route would shave down my shooting angle, so it was best spent as part of a feint. The middle was out too — step in there and I'd be swallowed by the ant swarm all over again. Which left exactly one.
I crossed the white line into the box, and first things first, drove a few strides to the left. Cover defense could still arrive, so I had to start by collapsing the midfielder's base before he got there. A faint tilt of my upper body planted the seed of doubt in him. I didn't need to fool him completely — I only needed him frozen until the moment I took the pace off the ball. Soon enough, I brushed down the side of it and let my dribble slow.
He couldn't commit to a tackle — not rashly, not in here — so he just sank his hips lower, fighting for balance. The feint was doing its work, but so was the attacker's privilege that comes with the penalty box. Still, with the distance bleeding away by the second, the midfielder's patience ran out and power flooded into his left thigh.
Half a beat for the tackle attempt, another half-beat to twist back around — one full beat of profit, filed away in my head. It would come in handy when I took the shot.
Tak— I nicked the base of the ball away from his foot, switched my path, and burrowed into the gap. At a glance, the keeper entered my field of vision. The closer I came to the spot I'd aimed for, the more I needed to sharpen my focus — but Valencia's defense wasn't done either.
The right center-back gave up the channel into the middle entirely. Trusting his teammate charging in from the far side, he looked determined to throw everything into walling off the left. So I gave him exactly what he wanted — layered a shoulder feint on top and slipped out to the right. I meant to finish with the shot before that teammate crashed in.
"Kim!"
For an instant, Pedri's voice carried from somewhere close. But having come this far, I had no intention of giving this one up. I'd give him the next one. The next one.
Then I knew at once that I'd misjudged. The defender's recovery speed outclassed what I'd expected. The far-side center-back arrived in a heartbeat, and the odds on my shot slid down a notch at a time. Reluctantly, I wound in a hip-twisting shooting feint. Things had come off the rails a little, but the chance wasn't dead yet.
The core of any feint is mixing the lie and the truth in equal parts. From my side, it had to look possible while also looking blockable; from the defender's, it had to be an iffy move — one too uncomfortable to simply ignore. Sure enough, his thigh climbed to a far too high position: the tell of a man stretching his stride to cut out the shooting angle. I slipped past him on the right once more.
Not the way I'd first drawn it up — somewhere along the way I'd cut through the heart of the goal and worked my way back up the far side. The midfielders had abandoned their spacing and were closing in, so the shot had to come as fast as I could make it. Beats and rhythm be damned; now I was truly out of time.
Tak— Had I rushed it? Of all moments, my touch went wrong. I hadn't lost the ball, but it sat up just enough — exactly the amount Valencia's left back needed to join the play. I scraped the top of the ball down with the edge of my right sole, settling the back-spinning thing on my left instep, and in the same breath read the fullback: his eyes had sunk deep, and his knees were moving passively.
Through it all, hot breath closed in from nearby, stamping the Valencia players' presence into my mind — the relentless press of a flat 4-4-2. Break out to the right one more time and I'd keep the ball but lose the shot; shoot now, and the botched touch had stolen the room I needed to set my body. In effect… my attack had arrived at its culminating point. Before the pressure broke over me, I had to find some kind of finish. Choking it down, I aimed for the left side of the goal and jabbed the shot away with the tip of my toe. Given the sliver of time I had, the toe-poke was the best I could do.
Thump— A mess of posture, a mess of power — a shot half entrusted to luck, liable to fly anywhere. Except the direction turned out better than I'd dared think. The ball clipped the left defender's boot and bent viciously toward the right side of goal. The keeper never had a chance against the deflected trajectory… and so the ball flashed past the bottom right corner and curled in behind the net.
Right on cue, the stadium walls shivered with a long, rumbling roar.
"Eyee—!!"
"That's it!"
"You Oranges — Els Taronjes! Time to flap your way home!!"
"Hat-trick! Get the hat-trick!"
Was I supposed to be celebrating the extra goal? I pushed the crowd's roar to the back of my mind and replayed the move. What if I'd taken that last touch before the shot properly? It was an embarrassing piece of work — one that would have been better served by giving the ball to Pedri.
"Nice one—!"
Whether or not he could read my mood, the Chihuahua was nothing but purely delighted about the goal. He clambered up onto my shoulders, flipped his curls back, and started bellowing in every direction. All match long, Pedri's moods had swung so violently I never knew how I was supposed to meet them. Losing to the stir in my chest, I handed over a promise he hadn't even asked for.
"One more and it's a hat-trick! Haha!!"
"Yeah… next one's yours. I'll lay it off for you."
"Huh? What was that?"
Ignoring Pedri's reply, I smacked palms with Ramirez. His congratulations were always the calm sort. I liked that about him.
And then, a moment later, the Las Palmas players came swarming in — shaking shoulders, shoving, hugging all over again.
"You saw it! Did you see it!"
"…Let go of me."
"Great stuff!!"
"Haha!"
I pried Aythami's grip off me with great effort. I understood being excited, but he needed to never again grab another man's balls in his bare palm (I genuinely considered throwing a punch). I'd thought I was adapting, more or less, to these barbarians' religious rites. Clearly I still had a long road ahead.
As the celebration finally wound down and I turned back toward the center circle, Pedri sidled up beside me, buzzing, chattering away.
"You're still keeping your word from earlier, right? You said you'd help me get a goal."
"You're the one who has to score it. I said I'd give you the pass."
"Right, right. I do the scoring. So feed me more, then. I've only got three goals all season. Three!"
"…That's all you've managed?"
I had meant it as a plain observation, but Pedri's face clouded over again, his feelings clearly taking a knock. Well, Viera, who'd gone back to China, had put away ten in half a season.
And then, unbidden, I caught myself wondering whether my own brand of individual play was part of the reason — and found myself looking inward. No matter how selfishly Pepe had egged me on and fanned the flames, the truth was I'd never once gone out of my way to help another player. Helping each other, communicating, breathing together as a unit — the things I was no good at, the things I didn't want to practice. Right when I started to worry that all those years of struggling through football in Korea had belatedly hardened into this shape — a game built on individual tricks alone—
I came to a stop astride the arc of the center circle and offered Pedri a few words laced with goodwill.
"Today. I'll make sure you score today."
"…It's fine. Don't force it. If a chance comes, you should take it. You've got a hat-trick to finish."
"No. I score plenty, don't I?"
…
The more I turned it over, the less defensible the numbers were. A Barcelona product, for heaven's sake — three goals. Counting from the start of the season, Pedri and I had shared a pitch for more than six months. It must have been my nature — the careless, off-kilter way I was built — that left him so poorly looked after. And then it hit me, a small realization with an enormous shadow: maybe that was exactly why Assistant Head Coach Ríos had put Castro at my side. So that I would take a hard look at myself, and try — for the team's sake — even the things I hated. A half-broken man like me can only learn through the stiff typeface and cold data of a report. But even so. There were things I could attempt, in my own way.