Marina One Shot (EN) - Part 2

Rugby World Cup

Maya was a young athlete. She played a sport that wasn't necessarily the most watched in the United States. She played rugby. After several years of playing in private clubs, she had made it onto the U.S. women's rugby team.

Twenty-one years old, she was the team's number nine scrum-half.

Ever since she was young, she had been surrounded by the same professionals. They had been chosen by her father, they were competent and a bit like a second family to her. She had the same sports doctor, the same physiotherapist, the same personal trainer and the same agent. All people selected by Lane, her father and her greatest supporter.

Maya was a very superstitious girl. As soon as one of her staff members was absent, her team would lose, and she'd had them in her life since she was thirteen, and her team would win as soon as they were all there. So when she'd joined the US team, she'd had contracts drawn up for everyone, even though the federation already had all this staff. But they knew, Maya wasn't the kind of player they could do without. She had as much technique and power as players over thirty and some of the most sought-after male players in the world.

As soon as she was old enough to join more prestigious clubs, they snapped her up, but her objective had always been the same: to join the national team. So she moved from club to club, and as soon as a more reputable club approached her, she left for the new position. Places were limited and rugby wasn't the best-known sport, with Americans preferring football.

She didn't socialize with the other members of her team. On the field, she was the best teammate in the world, but off it, all she did was train and think about her career.

Her team had been selected for the Rugby World Cup, which ran from September 8 to October 28 in Italy.

She, her staff and her team flew to Rome, where this year's World Cup was being held at the Stadio Olimpico.

She arrived at her hotel, the Palazzo Manfredi. It was a hotel opposite the Colosseum, and her room overlooked the monument itself.

-"My God! This room is magnificent!" Said Vic, her thirty-five-year-old friend and agent.

-"I suppose."

- "reassure me, you know there's more to life than rugby, darling?"

- "it's my dream"

- "you're living it, so you can relax"

They had arrived in Rome around a week before the games, for training sessions. Their club had also booked tours of the city, so that they wouldn't come to Rome for the sole purpose of playing their games, and returning home when they'd lost... Or won the World Cup. Team USA wasn't going to win even with Maya on their team, and on top of that, they weren't the most popular team in the league, or the most supported.

There were twenty qualifying teams. Forty games in the first month for Pools A, B, C and D, five games per team, at the rate of one to three games a day, then the quarter-finals, with one group playing against another on September fourteenth and fifteenth, at the rate of two games, then on the Friday and Saturday after the semi-finals. The Friday after that, the match to decide third place, and finally the final on Saturday, October 28th.

Team USA's first match was against Chile. Maya's team won forty to seventeen against the Chileans.

A few days after this first match, the blonde's physiotherapist had a family problem: his son had fallen from his window and was in a critical condition in hospital. He apologized to Maya, but his family was the only thing that could make him leave.

She had begun to feel anxious, as the departure had taken place on the eve of their second match.

On the morning of the game against South Africa, Maya had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, the waiter at breakfast had accidentally spilled hot coffee on her, and then the driver of the team bus had closed the doors on her. As she entered the stadium, another player had jostled her and her phone had slipped out of her hand, falling face first to the ground. All in all, it was one catastrophe after another.