Starting Eleven (3 page)

Abs shook his head and took up his position again. For the next ten minutes the ball went back and forth between our team
and
the opposition. But then Adam got hold of it again and he ran straight through our team. No one could stop him! He was left with only Dipesh to beat. Dipesh cried out as Adam ran at him, closed his eyes and swung out his right foot. But he kicked fresh air. Adam just went to his left and then shot into the bottom right corner, just past Gurinder’s outstretched hand. It was 2–0!

Immediately Mr James told me and Chris to get ready.

‘You’re going into the defence,’ he told us.

I smiled, because defence is my position, but Chris is a striker and he complained to Mr James. The coach shook his head and pulled Chris up.

‘The first rule of the Rushton Reds,’ he told Chris, ‘is
teamwork
. I need you to play for the team – even if it is out of position.’ Chris nodded slowly.

‘Now get out there and sort things out at
the
back. Get tight on their strikers and stop them getting any space. Understand?’

‘
Yessir!
’ said Chris.

Mr James called Dipesh and Danny off, and me and Chris entered the game.

‘Come on!’ I shouted to my team-mates. ‘Let’s start playing!’

Chapter 4

I WAS REALLY
confident when I ran onto the pitch with Chris. But within five minutes things got even worse! Their strikers, Dave and Harry, played the ball to each other a few times and even though I managed to tackle Harry, the ball deflected off my foot and into Dave’s path. As Chris came in with a tackle, Dave planted the ball in the net and it was 3–0!

Mr James shouted out instructions and switched some players around. Steven came
into
defence with me and Jason was put into midfield. Chris was sent up to partner Abs in attack. And it worked. Within two minutes we’d scored a goal. And it was a real beauty!

It started at the back, where I won the ball from Adam and passed it to Steven. He moved out of defence and gave it to Jason, who ran past three players and played it out to Abs, who was standing on the left wing. Abs cut inside his marker and crossed the ball at knee height, to the edge of the box. Before anyone else blinked, Chris was onto the ball and he smashed a shot into their goal. 3–1! We went crazy and jumped Chris as Mr James shouted at us to calm down.

‘You haven’t won anything yet!’ he bellowed. ‘Get back to your positions and concentrate!’

We had two more chances but missed both before the whistle blew for half-time.

As we trudged off the pitch, Abs was moaning.

‘That was rubbish,’ he said repeatedly. ‘
Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish
 . . .’

‘We’ll be OK,’ I told him. ‘We’ve started playing now and they haven’t had a shot since we scored.’

‘Yeah, but we’ve got some right potatoes playin’ for us,’ added Abs.

Jason smirked. ‘What’s with all the stupid vegetable names?’ he asked Abs. ‘It was cabbage-face before, and now potatoes . . . you got any funny ones?’

‘Yeah,’ said Abs, grinning. ‘How about . . . Jason?’

‘Get lost!’

I shook my head and sat down at the edge of the pitch.

Mr James came over and told me to get up. ‘You’ll get cold sitting down,’ he said to me.

He had a plastic tub with him and there were oranges inside it, cut into slices. He offered them around and then started talking to us about the first half.

‘You’ve got to do better,’ he told us. ‘I know they’ve got that big lad with them but he’s not that good . . . we need to pass the ball to each other and run more . . .’

He went on for another minute or so, telling each player what to do, before walking off to talk to Mr Turner. As I watched, they wrote some stuff down on a clipboard. And then they pointed out some of the
other
players, nodding to each other. They hadn’t pointed at me or my friends, and I started to panic. What if they were picking the people who’d made the squad? Maybe we weren’t going to make it. Suddenly I felt a bit sick. I turned to Chris.

‘We have to do better,’ I said to him as my stomach started to feel funny.

He nodded as he sucked on a slice of orange.

‘
No!
’ I said urgently. ‘Look! They’re picking the squad and they aren’t looking at us.’

Chris looked over at the coaches and his face fell.

‘
Nah!
’ he said, after he’d spat the orange slice out.

Just then my dad and Jason’s mum came over.

‘Come on, lads!’ said my dad, smiling. ‘You’re better than this.’

‘Yes . . . come on!’ said Jason’s mum, making a fist. ‘You are going to play for the Rushton Reds! Go on!’ Her face was bright pink and she looked a bit scary.

‘We
have
to make the team,’ I said to Jason.

He looked at his mum and went red.

‘She can be
so
embarrassing sometimes,’ he moaned under his breath as my belly
began
to feel as though it was full of ants, all crawling around inside.

The second half started a few minutes later and I was determined to turn things around. The other team had made some substitutions, and I told Jason that we had to attack them from the start.

‘Just get the ball to me,’ he replied, ‘and I’ll get Abs and Chris going . . .’

It took ten minutes to find a way through the other team’s defence, but when we did Abs scored a cracker with his left foot. 3–2! He went mental, running all the way back to high-five our goalkeeper. And straight from the restart, Steven won the ball and passed it to me. I ran into the opposition’s half of the pitch and skipped two challenges before coming up against Adam, who had moved into midfield. He was bearing down on me like a buffalo and I started worrying that I
might
lose the ball. He was steaming towards me . . .

But just as Adam got close, Jason popped up next to me. I squared the ball to him. He spun round and found Abs with a great pass. Abs already knew he was better than the defender in front of him. He flew down to the touchline and crossed the ball. It was sailing
through
the air and I sprinted to meet it with my head.
Bang!
The ball flew into the net and my head exploded in happiness. It was 3–3! This time even Mr James was jumping up and down and cheering. I heard my dad shout, ‘Nice one, son!’ and then I went back to take my position.

After that the game got scrappy, and in
the
end we didn’t manage to find a winner. But that didn’t bother me. When the final whistle blew, I was happy that we’d got the draw after being three goals down. I felt like an FA Cup-winner and as we walked off the pitch the other lads were congratulating each other.

But it didn’t last very long. Mr Turner gathered all the players together and shook his head.

‘Some good play,’ he told us, ‘but not enough. The defending was sloppy – and half of you couldn’t be bothered to run. I only want
determined
players for Rushton Reds and some of you just weren’t up for it. I’m going to read out thirty names. If your name is called out then you need to be back here for six p.m. on Thursday.’

I gulped down air and my stomach turned somersaults. I had to be on that list of names. Had to be!

‘And if your name isn’t called out, then never mind. You haven’t made the squad this time. But don’t give up. There are lots of other trials to attend . . . and thank you all for trying.’

Jason put his hand up to ask a question.

‘What is it, son?’ asked Mr James.

‘Isn’t thirty players a lot for one squad?’ he asked.

Mr James nodded as Mr Turner explained further.

‘Thursday is trial number two,’ he told us. ‘That’s when we’ll narrow the field down to sixteen players, with another four or five as standbys . . .’

I looked around. There were some
really
good players. I wasn’t sure that me and
all
of my mates would make it. Mr Turner started to read out the list of names . . .

He read one name and then another. But he hadn’t read my name out or any of my
friends
. He read out two more names. Still none of us! I started to panic and I could feel the sweat on my forehead tingling. What if we didn’t make it? What were we going to do then?

That was when I heard ‘Abs, Jason and Chris.’

I expected to hear my name next, but I didn’t. And it wasn’t the next one either. What was going on? Was I going to fail when my best friends had all made it? Would they still want to be my friends if I wasn’t a Rushton Red like they were? I was starting to feel sick again. What if I was no good . . .?

Then I heard
my
name, just as I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I wanted to jump up and down but I didn’t. Instead I reminded myself that I still had to pass the second trial. I couldn’t see one bad player in the list for Trial Number Two. We were only over the
first
hurdle. Thursday was
going
to be even
more
difficult.

‘Come on then, lads,’ said my dad, after the coaches had left. ‘Time to get home and showered. Well done!’

I looked at Abs. ‘There’s some good players coming back on Thursday,’ I said.

‘I don’t care,’ replied Abs. ‘We’ll be better than them again.’

I turned to Chris and Jason. ‘What do you two think?’ I asked them.

Chris shrugged and Jason shook his head.

‘It’s gonna be hard,’ Jason said.

‘Not if some of them don’t make it in time,’ said Chris mysteriously.

‘Huh?’ I asked.

‘Never mind,’ said Chris. ‘Just leave it to me . . .’

He winked at me and then refused to tell me what he was on about all the way home.

Chapter 5

Wednesday

THE NEXT DAY
all we talked about was football. Very soon everyone else at school started to get fed up. The first person to say something was a girl called Lily Jones. Only she wasn’t actually fed up. She was just mad!

‘Can’t you talk about anything else?’ she asked me and Jason as we sat on a wall during morning break.

Jason shrugged and asked her what she wanted to talk about. His face went a bit red because he fancied Lily.

‘Oh, anything,’ she replied. ‘Just not football. I mean, I like football. I even play, but can’t we
please
talk about music or something?’

I groaned as Jason just smiled at her. The fool.

‘But you weren’t even talking to us,’ I said to her.

Lily grinned. ‘Yeah – but I
could
have been,’ she replied as one of her friends, Parvy, joined her.

‘And . . . ?’ I asked.

‘
And
just think of all the
cool
points you could get . . .’

Parvy started to giggle.

‘I mean – it’s not every day that someone like
me
talks to you, is it?’ Lily continued.

But I didn’t have a clue what she was on about.

‘Er . . .’ I began.

‘And with me being so beautiful and
clever
– just think how jealous everyone else will be . . .’

She took my hand and squeezed it hard. I tried to pull it away but she held on tight. Then she kissed me on the cheek! Jason’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. From behind us I heard a really irritating voice. It was Nilesh – the school geek.