CHAPTER 6: Shock the Pitch
1434 Words
CHAPTER 6: Shock the Pitch
Coach Oryazabal was there with a clipboard under his arm and a whistle hanging round his neck as though it had borrowed money. He shouted the names of the first team starting eleven and the reserves starting eleven and his voice sounded like a cleaver being inserted into raw meat on the training ground. There was one name, however, that appeared not in either list.
Kairo did not appear in the lineups. Not as an entree. Not even as an alternative. Ghosted, a la Tinder.
Just as the session was about to trip any further into disappointment, Coach Garcia pulled Oryazabal aside with the urgency of a man pulling someone out of traffic. You know the kid, doncha? Kairo.”
Oryazabal blinked. What the hell you mean?
Garcia heaved a sigh as though he were observing a toddler playing with knives. “Kairo. Miura. The switch kid.”
Oh, that is one. Oryazabal rubbed his temple, and he recalled with a start the little, silent Japanese boy with the footballing dream and no clout.
Well, today in training, he topped everything, Garcia said, his eyes as big as a man who had just seen a UFO land in his backyard. Passing, ball control, shooting, crossing--you name it. It was as though God grabbed a controller and said, ‘Lemme show you how it is done.’”
Oryazabal frowned. We are discussing the same kid who normally sits on the bench like a goddamn sauna?
Garcia made no reply. I just gave him that look. The type that caused Oryazabal to look behind him at the pitch.
Kairo was by himself, kicking the ball up in the air with nonchalant ease, as though he did not know that the coaches were talking about him as though he were a new alien lifeform.
Oryazabal bit it a moment, then growled, f**k it. We will fling him in the scribble. Find out whether he is a one off or the reincarnation of Maradona.”
---
MAIN TEAM LINEUP
GK: Sergio Bala
LB: Iago Peña
RB: Gon Simón
CB: Marquis Peña, Juan Cabello
MF: Huéves Ramos, Marcos Blaca, Sosá Herrera, Jose Martinez
FW: Louis Sordáno, Joseph Adeyemi
RESERVE TEAM LINEUP
GK: Max Luis
LB: Felipe Aspas
RB: Diego Suave
CB: Kilo Godín, Dani Mendes
MF: Savinho, Nico Chuz, Jordi Hermoso, George Whiterow
FW: Inaki Balde, Bruce Tomăso
The players scattered into position, cleats digging into damp turf, anticipation twitching like live wires beneath their skin. Those not selected slumped onto the benches with exaggerated sighs, some chewing gum like they wanted it to feel pain.
Oryazabal’s gaze, however, remained magnetized to Kairo. The kid juggled like he didn’t give a f**k. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he gave so many f***s that he had transcended the concept altogether.
The whistle sliced the air.
FWWWWEEEET
The game began.
The main team toyed with the reserves like a cat playing with a fly missing both wings. They spun flashy flicks, dragged their studs over the ball, and laughed through passes that screamed pure arrogance.
Then they got serious.
Sosá Herrera intercepted a lazy clearance and surged forward. His blond hair was damp with sweat and menace. He lifted his head, scanned the unraveling reserve backline, and locked eyes with Joseph Adeyemi.
A nod. A breath.
Then Sosá unleashed a raking through-ball, surgical and cruel.
Adeyemi latched on, chewed up turf with each step, and sold the keeper a dream with a fake shot. The keeper dived. Wrong move.
Adeyemi ghosted around him and passed the ball into the net like it was a polite suggestion.
FWWEEEET
1–0.
The reserves looked like they were being force-fed humiliation with a ladle.
After kickoff, the pain didn’t stop. If anything, it got meaner. Jose slipped the ball to Sosá again. Sosá trapped it like it owed him rent, nudged it with his outer boot, then rifled a shot from distance. It nicked a defender’s shin, wrong-footing the keeper and rippling the net.
2–0.
Coach Oryazabal grimaced. Then nodded.
“Miura!” he barked. “Get in. Take Nico’s place.”
Kairo’s head snapped up like someone had called his name in a dream. He jogged to the touchline and received quick instructions. A few defenders looked unsettled, whispering under their breath: “That fullback guy? What the f**k is this?”
No one questioned the coach aloud. No one ever did.
Ball went out. Sub made.
“Coach wants us in a 4-3-1-2,” Kairo said. “I’m in the hole.”
Sosá, ready to take a corner, caught the substitution and sneered. Kairo’s pass stats from earlier had bruised his ego like a sledgehammer to glass.
He planted the ball, took a few steps back, and whipped it in.
But fate, in the form of Dani Mendes, rose like a vengeful salmon and cleared the danger.
The ball dropped at Kairo’s feet.
And then the world bent.
One touch to kill the bounce. One pivot to face forward.
He saw green: acres of it.
There were only two defenders left.
He bolted like someone had strapped jet fuel to his heels. The first defender tried to clip him. Kairo saw it, chopped the ball past him, and curved his run like it was scripted by the gods.
Second defender came. Kairo’s mind ran like a CPU on meth.
La Croqueta.
Snap. Slide. Gone.
The defender ate grass.
Now the keeper.
Kairo didn’t panic. He didn’t hesitate. He chipped the bastard.
The ball rose. Suspended in time.
Then it dropped, soft as a whisper, into the net.
FWWEEEET
Silence. Then the reserve team exploded like soda cans in a furnace. They swarmed Kairo, who was already mid-knee-slide at the corner flag, screaming like he’d summoned football divinity from the depths.
Sosá stood frozen. His jaw was doing its best impersonation of an open manhole.
Oryazabal and Garcia stared.
Garcia broke the silence. “That... wasn’t a fluke.”
Up in the stands, Coach Emil of the senior team turned to the scout beside him. “Who’s the kid?”
The scout flipped his clipboard. “Kairo Miura. Fourteen. Originally a left-back. Probably testing a new role.”
Emil nodded. “Tell the under-19s coach we’re watching him. If this keeps up, he’s training with the first team next month.”
---
Kairo was carried on his teammates' shoulders like a war hero. Comments flew:
“Was that real?”
“Yo, that was f*****g class.”
“He’s not even on the team sheet!”
The match resumed. But now Kairo’s presence loomed like a weather system.
The principal force assaulted vigorously. Kairo pinned the reserves with savage precision. He was not a perfect tackler, but he was smart, a general in boots. He bellowed orders like a general in the field, glued midfield and defense together by dint of will alone.
Then came a chance.
A sluggardly pass. Kairo stole it as a god in disguise.
“Run!” he yelled. “Split wide!”
The strikers complied. He dribbled through the midfielders as though they were ghosts. Sosá lunged. Kairo slowed. Sosá missed.
Then the dagger.
A lobbed ball, beautiful and stinging, that hung a moment and fell behind the defence.
The striker pounced, darted through the goal and scored.
FWWEEEET
2–2.
The assistant coach on the stands was laughing as though someone had fallen on ice.
Main team doubled. Even triple-teamed Kairo sometimes. He disappeared out of the action a spell, and had to be silent.
Yet silence is a loaded-gun.
As time was running out, Kairo noticed it. A gap.
He sank deep, drawing defenders like a f*****g pied piper. Four followed.
It was at this time that he made his attack.
“Inaki! Now!”
The forward rushed on. Kairo passed the lines as though he despised them.
Inaki was brought down outside the box.
Free kick.
Kairo took the initiative.
Three steps back. Deep breath. Eyes narrowed.
The ball bent like a damn boomerang dipped in black magic. It sank, sank, sank--
CLANG
NET.
The keeper made no sign. Couldn’t move.
GGOOAAALLLL
Teammates screamed. Kairo knelt in front of the corner flag as an actor in a play might after the best monologue.
Coach Oryazabal faced Garcia.
Diamond, he grumbled. He is a f*****g diamond.
Coach Emil looked around to the scout in the stands.
Promote him when he is fifteen years old.
And suddenly, the future of Kairo exploded.
He did not know it yet. However, nothing in his life would ever remain the same.
- Writer
