The huddle at the break was loose, water bottles passed from hand to hand faster than anyone could properly read the labels, some already warm from sitting beside the bags for most of the later morning, others half-crushed beneath somebody’s boot, while the boys crowded around Ken in the narrow strip of shade beside the pitch where the sun couldn’t quite reach them.
Sweat had darkened shirts across shoulders and backs, dust clung to socks and knees, and everyone was breathing hard enough that the silence between words seemed to belong to the game as much as the shouting had.
Ken crouched at the centre of it with one hand resting on his knee, trying to sound calmer than his own lungs currently allowed.”Nil-nil’s fine,” he said, taking another long pull from his bottle before wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.
“Nil-nil means we haven’t made the mistake yet. Means they haven’t either but somebody still has to lose.”
“Preferably them.” Renta said, a couple of the boys laughed, tired and grateful for something that wasn’t another instruction.
“Yes, let’s make it happen” Ken agreed, smiling briefly before his eyes moved around the circle again.
“Second half, don’t start forcing things because we’re tired. If the pass isn’t there, keep it. Rui and Jin, when you go, make sure it’s not just because there’s space in front of you, let’s not get caught in a counter. Renta, if I drop, you carry it. Shun, don’t disappear just because Aoi’s sitting on you. Make him turn. Yamato, Ryo, keep making those runs even if you don’t get the ball. Eventually one of them’s going to follow.”
He paused, looking from face to face, making sure they were listening rather than simply waiting for the whistle.
“Focus, we’re not tired yet.”
“Sounds exactly like something a tired person would say,” Ryo muttered.
Ken looked at him.
“Want me to take your place upfront?”
Ryo immediately shook his head.
“I thought so.” The boys laughed again, and for a moment the tension eased.
Across the field, the blue side were having their own conversation.
Haruki had his gloves tucked beneath one arm while he drank, Kenji was sitting against the fence with one leg stretched out, Daiki and Ryusei were arguing quietly over whether the last chance had been a cross or a shot, and Aoi stood slightly apart from them, looking across the pitch at Shun as if he had already decided the afternoon had become personal.
The referee called time to their break, the boys stood up and walked to their positions.
For a few seconds there was only the sound of boots stomping against the ground, bottles being thrown back into bags, someone shouting for the ball, and the restless murmur of the adults gathered along the fence.
The second half began without ceremony.
Yamato and Ryo kicked off the restart to Ken.
The ball cycled through the red team, Kaito passed the ball to Tomoya and he released it quick wide to Jin whom found Ken dropping deeper than he had during the opening half to collect the ball before Hayato could close him down.
Rui, Jin remained deeper on the right and left respectively, close enough to Kaito and Sho that the four of them could form a rough line when the blues came forward, while Kota and Shun stayed higher waiting for the moment the opposing fullbacks gave them even a little room.
The first few minutes were messy.
Nobody looked fresh.
The ball moved badly across the patchy field, bouncing differently depending on which part of the field it crossed, and players were beginning to understand that the second half would punish anyone who tried to play the same way they had in the first.
Hayato received a pass from Souta and turned, carrying the ball forward with his head up, while Ken tracked him from a distance that was close enough to matter but not so close that one change of direction would leave him behind.
Souta moved alongside the play, asking for the return, and for a moment the two blues seemed to have found a narrow corridor through the middle.
Ken waited as he watched Hayato look left and right for options, but no viable pass was open.
Hayato decided to push through the middle but before he could make much progress into the reds half, Ken stepped across to challenge and caused his next touch become a contest to control the ball.
Hayato shielded the ball and tried to pass it but Ken was persistent and didn’t make it easy for him.
The two collided shoulder to shoulder before Hayato could release the ball in time and escaped his foot and became a loose ball.
They reached for the ball at the same time but Ken stretched his leg and poked it to Renta who was already moving.
Renta received and turned away from the pressure and sent the ball into the space ahead of Kota who was running in behind, not hard but with enough pace that Renta could collect it without breaking stride.
The reds bombed forward while the blues recovered.
For a few seconds, the entire pitch seemed to shift with them.
Kota received it and immediately switched across to Shun who received the ball near the right side and tried to turn Aoi, who had stayed close throughout the game, refusing to give him the easy outside lane.
Shun feinted going inside but nudged the ball one way, Aoi read it committed a tackle and shun anticipating this did a Ronaldo chop, the two boys nearly coming together before Shun released it inside.
Yamato was there, he took the pass and immediately drove toward Ryusei and the older defender held his ground while Yamato tried to go around him but Ryusei matched the movement.
Yamato noticed Ryo, on his periphery, pointing towards the space ahead and tried to pass it there, but Ryusei’s foot got to the ball and it ricocheted off him loose towards the centre.
Ryusei tried to recover the ball while Ryo and Yamato gave chase.
Before any of them could get there, “Mine!” Daiki shouted, as he reached the ball ahead of them and cleared it first-time.
The ball flew beyond the halfway line and bounced awkwardly, and once more before dropping toward Rui.
Rui watched the trajectory of the ball rather than intercepting it, he had learned from Sora that not every ball needed to be chased and, at times, it needed to be allowed to arrive. This story is hosted at novelping.com.
He stepped forward as it dropped and met it with the inside of his right foot, cushioning it and passing it into the path of Kaito.
Kaito moved the ball to Sho who immediately released it to Ken who dropped deeper and started carrying the ball through the centre, while waving his hands up.
A signal they all recognised to push up and attack, Rui was already moving pushing Shun inside with Jin, Sho and Kaito pushing higher.
The shape changed into a make shift 3-3-4.
That was the strange thing about football at Nishinari Rec.
Nobody really kept to what their formation was supposed to look like once the game started.
They knew where they had to be, but the match itself kept pulling them away from it, stretching some players forward, dragging others backward, creating holes that someone had to fill and spaces that someone else had to recognize.
Ken understood that better than most, hence he always watched the flow of the game.
When the ball went one way, he watched what moved the other way.
When a defender stepped forward, he looked for the space that defender had abandoned.
When a teammate made a run it didn’t mean he had to pass to him, sometimes the run was only useful because it made somebody else move.
Renta understood some of that from the instructions his partner would shout, the two of them had begun finding each other without having to look as Ken passed it into Renta’s feet.
Renta returned it and Ken moved on the ball wide to Rui, the blue team felt compressed and stretched at the same time.
Rui drove towards Aoi as he stepped up to challenged him, slid the ball inside to Shun who passed it back to him behind Aoi.
The quick one two opened the blue team’s defence, Aoi was scrambling to recover, Rui crossed the ball inside the box.
The ball found Ryo while tussling with Daiki as he rose high above the defenders, his head connected with the ball as it headed towards top bin for a goal but Haruki’s safe hands tipped it over for a corner.
The moment causing a mixed reaction, of cheers and groans, from the crowd
(Author)
Thank you for reading.
Constructive feedback to improve appreciated.