Only Friends

Chapter 59 - The Game of all Games

We got the first touch and tried to hold possession as much as we could. My role for the game was to shut Viv out. Viv has always had a hard time playing against me, mostly because I am able to predict fairly easily whether she is going to fake a shot, or try to nutmeg me. She, in my opinion, is kind of predictable. And without Viv, they were going to have a hard time scoring. I knew Jill or Daan or Lieke could score, but Viv was their dynamite. She always has been. 

Sam, on the other hand, was playing with freedom, not over thinking and playing without fear. She was constantly getting touches of the ball, passing it and weaving it through the dutch players. We had multiple chances at goal in the first half. Caitlin tried to hit a ball on the half volley in the 21st minute, and it only just was saved by Sari, who got her fingers to it.
"Nice Caitlin!" I screamed out to her, trying to instil some confidence in her.

As we had a goal kick, as a Dutch player kicked the ball out in their end, Tegan rolled the ball to me. I dribbled it up to half way, before being pressed by Jill and Viv. I quickly nutmegged the ball between Viv's legs, and did a quick one-two with Ellie, which then gave me the whole left wing to dribble the ball down. I saw, in the corner of my eye, as I got to the corner, that Sam was in the box. She had space.
I crossed the ball into the box, and Sam headed it, aiming for the back of the net. I had always had a good cross, which meant that it was a picture perfect pass. She got the perfect touch, and it flew into the back of the net. We were up. Sam did her iconic back flip, and once she had landed, I ran up to her, hugging her tightly from behind. The whole crowd roared, jumping up and down in their seats. I was so proud of her. She had scored in a world cup final. She had done what so many want to achieve. And I had assisted her. I had done something right.

We were up by one at half time and when we went into the changing rooms, Tony was excited.
"Amazing work! Incredible! India, I love it! Please keep doing what you're doing. Don't just sit back on defence, I want you to attack. Because when you do, we score. The Dutch defenders don't know how to manage you and we want to exploit that!" I nodded at this, and he continued, "I want, everyone, when they have the ball, to not over think and don't throw it away. Savour the ball and your possession of it, okay?" All the girls nodded, knowing that having possession would help us.
"Guys, we need to keep attacking," Sam said, "we can't get complacent."
"Yeah, I think that we need to not let them have chances at scoring," Ellie said.
"India, Ellie, you two, I want to shut down the wings and the crosses. I know they want to cross it into Martens or Van de Donk, so if we eliminate that access, then they will suffer from it," Tony said, smartly.
"Okay, we can do that," I said, looking at Ellie.

In the second half, we wanted to stay on offence. As the game restarted, the Dutch team kept going to the wings, and trying to cross it in, as Tony predicted. But, neither Ellie or I let them. We shut down their wingers, and they kept turning over possession.

In the 51st minute, I intercepted one of their passes, and flew it down the field to find Sam at halfway. She was one on one, dribbling it down the field. She faked to her left when she got to the box so Sari, the goalkeeper, went left but she then pushed it right, to get our second goal. I had assisted Sam again. Sam had scored again. The win seemed close. Closer than we thought it would be. Although, we couldn't write the Dutch off. You never can.

As the ball came flying off Daan's foot, in the 67th minute, and in the Dutch's offensive half, it tried to aim itself into the top left hand side of the net. But I jumped as high as I could, trying to get my head to stop it from going in, and I did. I was able to head it out of the goal and Ellie then kicked it away, out of field. I had saved a goal. We still had a 2-0 lead.

With only five minutes remaining, a sense of ease nestled into my stomach. We had nearly won. We had nearly done it. But only when the final whistle sounded, did I realise we won the world cup. As all the dutch girls fell to the floor, I ran to Sam and jumped on her, hugging her as tight as I had ever hugged anywhere. I grabbed her face and made her look at me.
"We fucking did it!" I said to her, smiling.
"We fucking did it!" She replied, before all the other girls had come and jumped on us. We fell into a heap on the grass, tangled beneath each other. Our sweaty bodies were sticking to the grass, but we didn't care. We had just won the world cup. We were world champions. As the crowd erupted, and the speakers started playing "we come from the land down under", I looked over to Jill who was sitting on the field, cross legged, and upset. I felt awful knowing that she had lost something she had always dreamt of.