Look After You - A Louis Tomlinson Love Story

Chapter 6: World Cup Match

  

It was game time. I took one last sip of my water and coach gave us a quick pep talk as we ran onto the field. We exited the locker room and the crowd erupted in cheers. It had definitely filled up since we were practicing. Since Savannah, our goalkeeper, and I were team captains, we headed out to the center of the field for our first meeting with the Brazilian team. We quickly shook hands and completed the coin toss. They were starting with the ball. These girls were big, much bigger than us. But we are fast: tiny has its advantages.

I stepped into the center of the circle and looked straight at the Brazilian forward. She had a plan, and I was going to make sure that plan never happened. The referee blew the whistle and she passed the ball to her left forward, Hailey managed to keep up with her until she was finally out of range. I started to worry what would happen if we didn't win this game. All this time I had been so sure that we would win, but now everything was different.

Our defense finally got the ball away from them as I sprinted down the line for a perfect pass.                                                                                                                                                           

"One! One!" I shouted, directing the defense to pass the ball up to me.

Sure enough, our sweeper defender kicked the ball up high in the air. I brought it down fairy easily and I began to head up the field. I was getting past most of the players with no problem. If I had any trouble, my forwards were always there to give me a 1, 2 pass. We were finally getting close to the goal when Hailey crossed the ball over to me. This was it, the shot that changed the game. I kicked the ball and watched the goal intently, but no ball hit the net. I turned to see the Brazilian keeper with my ball: my shot: my goal.

I stepped back into reality and headed back down the field as the keeper threw the ball. It was heading straight to where one of the midfielders was running to. I decided to try for it, and sprinted to the other side of the field. The ball began to fall to the ground when I jumped in front of the midfielder and caught it with my chest. The crowd cheered and I quickly passed the ball up to my other forwards.

Kaitlyn received the ball and she was heading down the line when suddenly one of the big Brazilian defenders crossed over and kicked the ball out of bounds. It was time for a corner kick.

Kaitlyn took the ball over to the right corner of the field. I entered the goalkeeper's box. I looked over at her and she met my eyes, nodding her head. She knew exactly what to do. The referee blew the whistle and Kaitlyn kicked the ball fairly high above everyone's heads. It was coming almost directly to me. I reached up and slammed my head into the ball. I fell to the ground, but I could still clearly see the ball hit the back of the net.

Slowly, the crowd erupted in cheers. My teammates rushed over to me and hugged me. I quickly jumped up, screamed, and punched the air in victory. We were winning. Now we just needed to hold the Brazilians.

We headed back to the center of the circle; I was pumped and ready. I could see the beads of sweat draining from the Brazilians’' faces. They were out of breath, we had the advantage. The forward passed the ball back to her midfielder almost immediately after the whistle blew. I hustled over to her, ready to take the ball away. I was so sure the ball was mine, but when she did a fake and take while managing to get around me, I suddenly felt shocked. How could she have done that? Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am.

I watched from the top of the field as the midfielder swept passed out offensive players. Now it was just her and the defense. She passed the sweeper and I felt a pain in my stomach. Come on guys, don't just let her push through you: fight! Another defensive player out of the picture. The midfielder took a shot and the ball went flying into the goal. Coach tried to argue with the referee saying she was offsides, but we all knew that she wasn't. The game was tied, we needed to bring up our game.