Chapter 86: Red Bib
Amani tugged the red bib marked B over his head and tried to quiet the pulse in his ears. Around him, the warm‑up fractured into two seven‑man squads, cones dragged hastily into a half‑pitch rectangle.
Jacob Mulenga rolled his shoulders like a heavyweight loosening at the ropes; Yoshiaki Takagi kept flicking the ball onto the bridge of his foot and back again; Anouar Kali practised short, stabbing wall‑passes with one of the fitness coaches, every touch loud and certain. These were faces
Amani had studied on grainy Eredivisie highlights, players who inhabited the bright, distant world of professional football. Now they were the men he needed to impress without looking overwhelmed, without looking childish, without looking at all.
He slid the strobe lenses down. The first blackout hit, the turf vanishing under his boots, and instead of panic, he felt a small, bracing rush. In the dark, he could ignore reputations and see only geometry.
"Thirty minutes," Robby Alflen barked, whistle poised. "Two touches max. When we lose it, counter quickly. Play!"
0-5 minutes
The tempo started cruelly high. Kali took the kick‑off for the Blues, popping a waist‑high pass to Takagi, who cushioned it out of the air with a dancer’s ease. Two touches later, it was at Mulenga’s chest; he laid off first time, and suddenly every red bib was spinning. Amani kept a rigid ten‑metre width on the left, waiting to be fed. Balls zipped over his quadrant but never came.
During the second blackout, he mapped the noise: Takagi’s studs light, skittering; Mulenga’s heavier, piston‑like; Wuytens rumbling forward from centre‑back. Amani edged a fraction nearer the middle, trusting that the darkness hid the adjustment from Jan Wouters’ hawk eyes.
Flash. The ball finally arrived, Kali arrow‑pinged a knee‑high bullet. With vision gone again almost instantly, Amani relaxed his thigh, letting the ball die neatly into his stride. A sneeze of frost popped up off the grass. He felt, more than saw, Wuytens closing, long legs scissoring the distance. Amani dipped a shoulder as though driving inside, then used his second allowed touch to roll the ball backward, behind the Dutchman’s blind hip, perfectly into Takagi’s lane.
Takagi exhaled a laugh, "Nice!" and streaked away down the chalk. The veterans’ chatter grew sharper. Someone muttered that the academy kid had good feet. Good start, Amani told himself, but possession without penetration would not be enough.
5-15 minutes