Serendipity

41

Emma's POV

"Thank you for doing this today." Alex Scott says.

I'm doing an interview today that will be played before our Champions League game against Wolfsburg in two days.

"Thank you for having me." I say.

"So I want to get started on the big news that came out a few days ago." Alex Scott says. "Jill Ellis has been appointed the manager of the Australian Women's national team."

"Good luck with her." I say.

"Ever since Jill left the US Women's national team you've publicly talked about your views on how things went between you."

"Mhmm." I say.

"What do you think went wrong?"

"She broke way too many promises to me." I say. "I was called up in 2015 with the promise of starting at center back in the World Cup, but that promise was broken. I was promised I would get to compete for the starting Keeper job after Rio 2016, but that promise was broken...to be honest the only reason she started playing me is because I told her I was going to switch national teams if she kept breaking promises."

"Would you have gone for England or Germany?" Alex Scott asks.

"Germany." I say. "There's no way I was going to play for Phil Neville."

"Do you think Jill has a chance of leading Australia to a World Cup title?"

"If she doesn't drive people to drink then maybe."

"What'd you mean?" Alex asks.

"I became an Alcoholic because of her." I say then I take a deep breath. "I've only ever told five people that." 

"An Alcoholic?" Alex Scott questions and I nod.

"After the Rio Olympics debacle Jill called me into a meeting where she gave me a list of 10 things that she wanted me to change about my game if I wanted to play for the team." I say. "This meeting happened when I actually respected her so I went home and worked on the list she gave me. I got so stressed that I started drinking heavily everyday...it started with beer then progressed to whiskey and ultimately to Vodka."

"When'd you stop?" Alex asks.

"June of 2017 I believe." I say. "I stopped because I lost respect for Jill so I tore her list up and burned it then I had my friends remove the alcohol from my house."

Alex moves the conversation on to talk about the game so we chat about that for the a few minutes then we get onto a topic that Alex and I know all too well.

"Given what's going on in the world today." Alex Scott says. "I wanna know when you were first racially abused at a football Match."

"I like how you assume I've been racially abused"

"I think most of us People of Color have been."

"True." I say then I sigh. "The first time I was racially abused was when I was 13."

"That's young." Alex says and I nod. "What happened?"

"My club team were at a worldwide scouting tournament in LA and when we were playing an Italian team one of the Italian parents called me the n word a few times, they called me a gorilla a couple times, and they told me that I should go back to being a slave."

"Woah." Alex mumbles.

"Luckily my coach was an amazing man who, after the game, took me to get some food and he sat me down and basically said that whatever the Italian man said was wrong. He said I'm beautiful just the way I am, and to never give other people's opinions any value in my life."