Floodlights

Chapter 4

Black.

Intense echoes of male voices blur into one another and shudder through space off each other like a stressed out Doctor in the ER. The dense shouting streamlines into single screams and directions.

"Come on eh boys!"

"Concentrate yellows!"

"Get the bits!"

"Get it fucked."

"Liam, Ian let's do it today. Get 'old of this midfield and fucking dick 'em." The teen's voice sounds out in a true out of body experience.

The loud high-pitched screeching whistle of authority blows and the echoes fade off to individual instructions. The game of football begins as always with the teams looking at one another, sizing their opponents up. The teen never looked that scary, the kit's stripes are slimming and make him appear even slighter than he is. He concentrates on his opposite positions in midfield to evaluate their speed, strength, mentality and whether or not they actually look like football players. Some look like they do not have coordination and their auras fill the air with a musty constituency of unease and weakness. The teen then focuses on himself, clears his mind of anything else, pushes it back to the storage room. The pitch's glow dims anything around the cage's edge; the white lines equal to nowhere. The light and dark draw his attention to the task. He knows this is the night. The night when he could succeed in doing what so many others can only dream about. People were here to watch him so he must be the best; he must win, his team are depending on him. It's time to stop thinking and live on instinct, an instinct that holds his spring's coil at the right amount of tightness. Trusting his instinct is what makes him the best for it makes him quicker, stronger and simply better; the team does not think, they feel it. He must win, be the best. He must lead.

His sight goes at a different speed to the game. The game is extremely fast and its tempo is that of Boris Becker on a staircase: Rushed, quick and the ball moves in and out of each half like an SAS mission. Neither team take grip on the ball or can adapt to its tempo. While the teen's exterior is harsh and tempered, his inside is calm and his eyes move sharply and quickly. He is always looking, at the opposition's shape, their movements, their play. As for the first twenty five minutes many move around him rushing around as if the ball was the last selling Harry Potter book at Christmas time, the teen is waiting for the right time to explode; the time to be most effective and when he can do the most damage. This was his true skill. The ball does come across him from time to time and he deals with it quickly and succinctly with precision keeping team possession of the ball. He loiters just on the shoulders of his opposition midfielders letting them create a defensive no man's land where no defender dare to tread. They always leave it to someone else. The defenders cannot go that far forward; the midfielders assume the defenders can. As the opposition's concentration slips the boy bursts into life. He picks up the ball in that hole and runs at players, taking them on and swiftly breezing past them without prejudice or care. He doesn't use skill or trickery. He glides past them with sheer human instinct and change of pace. He already gains a few yards with movement and stealth before gaining the ball and exploding from any who dare come near. His feet are quick with the ball keeping it close like a mother to a new born baby. He has total control over it as he glides knowing when and where to release the ball as he has already seen it happen.

The scouts are watching a masterful performance as the teen gets the ball wide, gets in the middle and creates chances. The crowd particularly revel in the match as he picks it up wide beats two men before whipping the ball across the penalty area as if it had a lasso. While the opposition keeper shows his trait, the opposition break only to see the lad work hard and graft his way back to defence to win the ball back and return to their midfield's shoulder. Each game he earns the respect of all as his enemy, they can only stretch out to try and reach him.