Shutout (16 page)

I hadn't told anybody this, but I felt like anything but a shutout would be a failure for me. If we were going to have a chance to win the game, I had to keep the ball out of the goal. Duh, but what I meant was, if you thought about it, this team, probably the best, or anyway second best in the state, was not going to give us a lot of scoring opportunities. We'd
probably be very lucky to get two goals against them. So the only way we could win was if I was perfect.

And if I wasn't perfect—well, I guess that would make me the goat. This was all I could think, even though Beasley was saying something about visualizing a good performance while we sat there.

When we got off the bus, it was a little cold, and the sky was gray. “Nice day for a soccer game!” Beasley said, but her enthusiasm wasn't contagious. We walked onto the field, and we all looked around in awe. We were used to playing on like “Field F” or “Field 3-B” or something like that, but here we were on a field in the middle of a football stadium.

That was weird enough, but as we ran drills and started warming up, actual people started filling up the stands. Over on the other end of the field, we saw that the other team—Oldham High—had brought their
marching band
. Their
marching band.
For some reason, that was more intimidating than the fact that they were older and better than us.

We were used to a handful of parents in the three rows of metal bleachers, or sometimes in folding chairs on the edge of a field that had no bleachers. But now there were rows and rows of bleachers, and they were filling up with humans. And a lot of those humans seemed to be wearing the Oldham High black and orange.

The Oldham girls looked happy and relaxed as they stretched out and shot on goal and ran across the field. I guess they thought this game was a coronation.

And for us, or for me anyway, it felt like an execution.
Like all those fans in their black and orange were there to cheer on our demise.

The Oldham High marching band started playing, and their fans started cheering, and this might have completely demoralized us if it weren't for the two buses that pulled up outside the stadium. Suddenly there was a lot more blue and white in the stands. Marcia's parents unfurled a #7
ROCKS! GO CHARLESBOROUGH!
banner, and I saw Mom, Dad, Conrad, and Dominic pull out a sheet they had painted to look like a brick wall with #17!
GO AMANDA!
graffiti written on it. It made me smile. I tried to think of myself as a brick wall, stopping every shot, but there was this little nagging demon of doubt that kept telling me I was going to let them down.

And then the cheerleaders got there. Now, I have to admit, I am as snobby as any other girl jock about cheerleading and whether it's a real sport, and you can add that to Dad's outrage about how sexist the whole thing is (they actually
bake cookies
for the football team! Like it's 1956 or something!), but I really liked hearing them yelling encouragement. Of course it wasn't enough to drown out the Oldham High marching band, but at least we had some noise on our side.

Beasley called us over and didn't have to quiet us down, because we were silent as we contemplated facing our doom. “I just have one simple message for you,” Beasley said. “This is a soccer game. There are cheerleaders here, and more fans than you're used to, but nothing on the field is different from what you saw sixteen times this season. As much as you can, I want you to tune out what's happening outside the lines and
remember that this is just a soccer game. And you know how to play a soccer game, and you know how to win a soccer game. Nothing has changed. You girls are awesome—you're the best team I've ever coached, and I know that sounds like a cheesy thing that every coach says to every team, but it's actually true. There is nothing—nothing at all—that will make me more proud of you than I am right now. So go out there and play your game.”

We tried to cheer, but it sounded weak. I'm not sure if that's because we were too nervous to cheer properly or if we were just used to being the loudest thing on the field when there were only twelve spectators.

We put our hands in a circle and did the “One! Two! Three! Pumas!” chant, and that time we were a little louder, but still not up to our usual standard.

“Amanda,” Beasley said, “take the coin toss.”

I lost the coin toss, which couldn't have been a good omen for the rest of the game, and Oldham took the ball. I ran back into the goal, adjusted my gloves, and tried to shut my brain off. It wouldn't freaking shut up, though. I looked into the stands and saw my family, and, a few rows back, Lena and her family. Wow. I wasn't expecting that one.

It took me a minute to let it sink in. Was she here being punished? Were her parents rubbing her nose in it? Was she going to gloat when we lost? Was she going to be mean to me? And how must it feel to have your dad come only to the one game you can't play in?

I tried to shake it off, to stop thinking about Lena. This wasn't about Lena and me, it was about soccer. Except it was
also about Lena and me, because we were always about soccer and soccer was about us. And now she was here to watch me play my worst game ever.

I looked at the other people in blue and white in the stands, the banners, and everything, trying to think about the hundreds of people who were here to cheer us on (including Angus, who apparently was a big soccer fan) instead of the one who was here to rejoice in our defeat. I guess it should have made me feel better, but as I saw the banners and the blue and white and the cheerleaders, the only thing in my mind was “You're going to let them all down.”

Finally the ref blew her whistle, and Oldham brought the ball up. I guess our whole team was feeling like I felt—intimidated, terrified, and sort of sluggish—because Oldham sliced through our entire team with ease, and this girl came streaking up the wing, and all I could think of was Lena. I marked her and hoped she was going to try to fool me by going to her left foot like Lena usually did. I could see it in her feet—she was gearing up to shoot with her left, and I knew exactly where it was going. No problem.

Except that Marcia came out of nowhere with a brilliant slide tackle and sent the ball across the end line before I could get out of the goal to grab it. Corner kick.

I hate these set plays so much more than somebody breaking away and shooting on me because they are unpredictable. A lot of teams mess up the kick, and since I'm so much taller than most of the other players, I can usually grab the ball in the air and punt it away, but I couldn't expect this team to mess it up, and if I don't grab the ball, I can never be
completely sure of what's going to happen to it with all those people in front of my goal.

They set up, we set up, and everybody started moving around. My heart was pounding, but I took a deep breath and suddenly saw the field clearly. They had a tall girl right in the middle, and as the ball came shooting in front of the goal, I just knew she was going to leap up and head it at me. And I knew I was going to catch it.

And that's what would have happened, except that she must have been a little jittery or something, because she jumped early and completely missed the ball. I was still expecting it to come off her head and so was totally flabbergasted when another girl about half the size of the one who'd missed the header unleashed a
bicycle kick
and sent the ball screaming straight into the top right corner of the goal.

The game was less than one minute old.

Their crowd went crazy, their orange and black bobbing in the stands, and the marching band played some kind of exciting victory song, and the Oldham girls had these smug smiles on their faces.

I was aware of this, but I didn't really take it in. Because I was flooded with a really weird feeling: relief. The worst thing that could possibly happen, the thing I had been lying awake worrying about, the thing I had tried and failed to put out of my mind all morning had happened: I'd gotten scored on in the state championship.

And now I felt light enough to float out of the goal. I didn't
have to worry about what might happen if they scored on me because it had already happened. And now that I didn't have to worry, I felt great. My shutout was over almost before it started, but now I had nothing to lose. I had no lead to protect, no more what-ifs clouding my mind.

I took a deep breath and felt my body connecting to my spirit for the first time since yoga class on Thursday night. I looked at my teammates and realized they weren't feeling the surge of relief I was feeling. Their shoulders were slumped, and they were jogging slowly back to their positions looking like we'd already lost 10 to 1.

Whatever was going on with the rest of the team, I was fired up. I decided I had to try and share some of it, so I came running out of the goal and yelled, “Shakina!”

The Oldham players looked at me like they thought I was one of those goalies who blames their teammates whenever they get scored on. They didn't know me at all. Shakina turned around and gave me a quizzical look.

“You tell those girls they'd better enjoy it, 'cause that's the last one they're getting off of me!” Shakina's face broke into this big grin, and she went running up to the front to deliver my message.

I looked around at everybody else. Some of them were smiling, but a lot of them didn't look convinced. “Hey!” I yelled. “Pumas! This is our last game together! Let's have some fun out here!”

I clapped and cheered as Shakina brought the ball up. It got stolen almost immediately, and bicycle kick girl came screaming up the right side of the field. She beat the defenders, but she was obviously so in love with her footwork that she wasn't looking for her teammates charging up the field,
and, to give us proper credit, her teammates had some trouble finding a good angle for a pass.

Bicycle kick girl looked up and gave me a smug smile as she prepared to shoot. I saw the ball coming and thought for a fraction of a second that it would be really easy to punch the ball back and hit her right in the face. But as good as that would have felt, it would have put the ball back in play, and that would be bad for our team. So I caught it. I could hear our cheerleaders, and I heard a couple of my teammates yell and say, “Great save!”

Somebody—some ancient goddess of sports or something—had taken control of my mouth, because as scared and awkward and ugly as I'd felt at the beginning of the game, I was on fire with confidence and competitive spirit, and apparently that meant I had to talk trash.

“You call that a shot, Pelé?” I yelled at the bicycle kick girl. She wasn't smiling anymore. “You're gonna have to do better than that!” I punted the ball up the field and added, “Come back! I'll beat you all day long!”

I ran back into the goal pumping my fists, and I looked around at my teammates. They were running faster and smiling more. Maybe we were having fun after all.

I wish I could say we shocked them so much that we ran down and scored easily, but the fact was, this team was better than us. Pretty much the whole first half was played on our side of the field, but I didn't mind. I knew nothing was getting past me. Girls who'd been timid all season were charging the ball, cutting off the angle, and slide-tackling. They did their best to protect me, but the other team kept on coming.

And I kept on stopping them. Five shots on goal, five saves. After the fifth one, I could see the frustration building on the faces of the Oldham players. “Can't anybody on your team shoot?” I called out to them as I punted save number five up the line to Shakina.

The ref blew the whistle, and we ran over to the sideline. The Oldham girls were grinding their teeth and looking really angry. They had known exactly how this game was going to go: the lowly JV team was going to lie down and die while they rolled over us, laughing and joking the whole way. But we didn't get the memo.

As we ran over to Beasley, who was beaming, it started to rain. “Yeah!” I screamed out. “Let's get muddy!”

A few other girls took up the cheer, and pretty soon we were jumping up and down on the sideline screaming, “Mud! Mud! Mud!”

Beasley finally quieted us down and we could hear, over the crowd noise and the marching band, the sound of the Oldham High coach yelling his lungs out at his team.

“Well,” Beasley said, “I was going to tell you girls to keep up the good work and have fun out there, but you're clearly all over that. You're playing a fantastic game. Keep it up.”

The rain started falling harder. Our fans were chanting “Let's go, Pumas!” The time till we got back on the field seemed like it was crawling. When the ref finally blew her whistle, we went running out cheering.

Oldham looked tired and beaten down, which was the opposite of how I felt. And as fun as the first half had been, the second half was the most fun I'd ever had playing soccer.
Marcia slide-tackled again, and this time she kept sliding for about ten feet and got up laughing with half of her uniform completely brown with mud.

“That's what I'm talking about, girls!” I yelled. “Let's get dirty!”

And we did. I had three more saves, two of which had me diving in the mud and covering myself in it. After the third one, I got up smiling, and spat a mouthful onto the field. “I love the taste of mud!” I yelled. “It tastes like victory!”

This cracked everyone up, and I punted the ball way up the field to Denise, who ran by her tired, wet, demoralized defender and passed to Shakina on the wing, who tapped it in past the napping goalie.

Tie game! We were screaming, but then the ref was giving the ball to the goalie. Apparently Shakina had been offsides. No goal. I couldn't see it too well from my position, but it sure didn't look like offsides to me.

I guess it didn't look offsides to Geezer standing on the sideline at midfield either, because she started screaming at the ref that she didn't have the sense God gave a blind mule, which must have been some kind of Texas saying or something, and how much was Oldham paying her to make bullshit calls like that. I guess that was what got her the red card.