About You - The 1975
"Wait (don't let go) and pretend (don't let go)
Hold on and hope that we'll find our way back in the end."
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It's easy to fall into a routine as an athlete. You wake up early, eat a balanced breakfast, perform at training, have more balanced meals, relax, get to bed early. Repeat. On weekends it's the same, eat, play, sleep. Repeat.
The game occupies ninety minutes of your time and then you forget about it. Or maybe you'll review later with a cup of coffee and a focused Alexia. Life goes on and suddenly it's the next weekend and another match approaches.
Or that's how most of my former teammates thought. Not me.
I relive the match over and over again after they are finished. Some leave me waiting for more, others make me want to time travel to the past and change everything I did wrong. There are the ones that go our way, there are others where I look like I don't even know how to kick a ball.
And then there are the special ones, those life-altering scenarios that will live forever in my mind. Those where the team excels, every pass well placed, every shot piercing the net, every celebration pumping more adrenaline onto my veins.
They were the most awaited, frantic, heart racing games of the season. And the ones I lived for.
The Champion's League. That's what I live for. The lights, the stars, the chants. The goals scored, the skills displayed, the emotions heating up the path for the trophy we all wanted to lift.
Camp Nou. Stanford Bridge. Emirates. San Mamés.
FC Barcelona, the reigning champions that would not rest until we beat whoever we needed to get our hands on the silverware once again. Now on home soil. Three weeks, two games, one red team separated us from achieving the third final in a row.
The Arsenal.
A team I followed, a team I had some worn out jersey in my closet, a team that had someone I didn't want to face. But most importantly, a team I knew we would beat nonetheless.
"Ah, I didn't miss the English weather to be honest." Startled out of my thoughts, Ona Batlle's voice made me take out my headphones.
"Yeah, Barcelona's sun can't be compared to anything." My reply short although enough for the young defender as she switched the topic once again
We had left Spain in the morning on a one hour flight to London in anticipation for tomorrow's match. I woke up shivering for the anxiety I had been feeling these past days was reaching its peak. And the worst part was I couldn't figure out the perpetrator
The all-of-nothing first leg of an UWCL semifinal? That blonde defender I knew will make me sweat to get past her? Her new found girlfriend who I could already feel burning a hole on my figure?
I don't know and I don't think I want to.
And so I took refuge on Alexia's playlist because hearing my own, full of country and ABBA songs, reminded me too much of her. And seating alongside an overexcited Ona ended up being a great mechanism to suppress my wondering thoughts
It was midday when we finally arrived to our hotel lobby repleted of yelling fans and a staff too obliging if you asked me. I mean, they were handing us warm towels and fresh made lemonade as if we were part of the royalty.
"Ona! We have to start doing this." But of course Maria would find the peacock made out of fruit that was seating at the reception alongside our room keys a easy task
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Crush - Leah Williamson
FanfictionOna Taylor, a twenty-three year old Argentinian, is expected to be next big thing. Currently playing for OL Reign, Ona has everything she had dreamed as a little girl. However she never suspected, in those wild dreams years ago, that her success wou...
