Yate Town came into this game proper serious. And by serious, I meant they’d somehow sourced a cheerleader screaming ‘Up the Bluebells’ every other minute. They had one singular woman on the touchline, blonde, tanned, tracksuit bottoms that had definitely never seen a muddy pitch, doing crisp little claps and half-routines like this was a sixth-form cup final sponsored by Red Bull. Maybe she thought this was being streamed by Sky Sports.

  She wasn’t bad at it, to be fair. Professional even. She just looked oddly out of place when the stands held about three rows of people who all knew each other by name and someone’s dad was selling bacon rolls out of a cooler box.

  The home fans loved it. Absolutely ate it up. Every completed pass got polite applause, every tackle got a coordinated ‘YATE! YATE!’ like they’d rehearsed it in the car.

  For the first ten minutes, though, the professional cheerleading didn’t actually do any damage.

  I called across for Redding to fix his starting position once, just to stop him drifting half a step too narrow, and after that he was fine. The kid held his line and checked his shoulder. Out in front of him, Okafor kept things deliberately dull. One touch, two at most, then straight back into the full-backs. Circulation for the sake of control. And the full-backs weren’t exactly ambitious either. Receive, set, recycle. A little shuffle forward, then back inside again. It felt like no one wanted to be the one who handed momentum over early, not with a couple of new faces ahead of them who might decide to take an extra touch and lose it in a bad area.

  Yate midfielders were annoyed, though. They were the favorites to win the game, and they didn’t have nearly enough of the ball as they wanted.

  Ten minutes gone, and if the idea was to rattle us with noise and vibes, it hadn’t landed. We were still exactly where Mitch had put us: boring, compact, and irritatingly difficult to play through. Even Dominic Johnstone, who was usually the one pushing things on, caught the mood. He picked the ball up on the half-turn with space ahead of him, head up, options there. Henderson was already shouting on the far side, arm up, calling for the switch. “Dom! The ball! Here!”

  Johnstone looked at him. Thought about it for half a second.

  Then he just rolled it back into Okafor’s feet.

  Okafor, predictably, took one touch and gestured for Milner to show. Sideways again. Henderson dropped his arm, grumbled, and jogged back into shape like he’d never asked.

  I wasn’t exactly thrilled either. Watching a game pass you by while you deliberately refuse to force it always feels like you’re losing, even when you aren’t. What good was positioning when you were just going to pass to your mate five yards away anyway?

  But this was how we won games with a squad that hadn’t fully knitted together yet. You didn’t go chasing rhythm you didn’t have.

  Yate were already showing it.

  Howard up top and Byrne underneath him couldn’t help themselves. Every time Okafor took a touch or Redding received on the half-turn, one of them would go flying out of the block to press, sprinting ten yards to close down a pass that had already left the foot.

  The rest of their midfield didn’t follow. No squeeze from behind, no line stepping up to lock the space. This meant that whatever this ‘pressing’ was, it wasn’t part of their strategy.

  What I did notice, though, was Harper. The kid was ready to impress. Even as the ball only got circulated around the defenders, he still attempted to make runs behind Yate’s defenders. He’d take off down the line or angle his run inside the full-back, proper sprinter’s burst. Then he’d slow, glance back, realize nothing was happening, and jog back into his starting position like it was all part of the plan.

  Over and over again.

  After the third time I caught it, I frowned. Why was he running like that?

  It didn’t line up with what Mitch had told him. Touchline, hold it, recycle. These weren’t decoy movements either. Maybe his uni team had coached him to stretch the line and gamble on early balls, chaos over structure.

  I scanned his First Touch: 77, give or take 30.

  That was excellent for this level.

  If nobody was playing forward, I would. Time to see if my passing still held.

  When Okafor received the ball once more, I locked eyes with Harper. The kid nodded and started running in behind. He was a good forty yards away, but I was confident.

  I called. “Oka!” And Okafor gave me back the ball. I hit it first time.

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  The ball skimmed the turf, slid straight through the space between full-back and centre-half.

  Their centre-back should have dealt with it. He got caught napping, took one step forward instead of back, and that was enough.

  Harper took it in stride near the edge of the box, right in that little half-space where the white paint from the area still feels close enough to matter. First touch dead. No bounce.

  He cut inside.

  McAteer was already going. He timed the diagonal run across the near post perfectly, dragging the other centre-back with him. I felt my jaw tighten.

  “Up the Bluebells!” The cheerleader rallied.

  Harper’s end product must be ass, and I wasn’t sure if his decision-making was all that great.

  Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.

  Harper didn’t. He just slid it square. McAteer arrived onto it and passed it into the net like the keeper wasn’t even there.

  The joy was brief. I wanted to join in on the celebration, but Mitch had already crooked a finger at me. I jogged over, already rehearsing the apology. Playing that pass hadn’t been in the plan.

  But Mitch just said, “You reckon you can do that consistently?”

  “Yeah,” I said after a beat. “As long as the wingers keep running.”

  Mitch stared at me for a second longer, then nodded. “Right, then make it clear. Whenever you or Oka are on it, first look’s forward. Henderson or the new kid. If it’s not on, we drop it into the right-side triangle and go again. Don’t force it.” He glanced back at me. “Two ways through’s better than one.”

  “You want me to tell them?”

  “Obviously. What are you standing here for? Go tell ‘em.”

  That was all the approval I was going to get. Frankly, that was more than enough.

  If the day was going to keep on like this, then it was going to be a beautiful day.

  Then a quest popped up.

  Oh, come on. You couldn’t have given me this quest five minutes ago?

  However, I had more problems to worry about than playing it forward.

  Play restarted, and Yate finally woke up.

  The first sign was Milner. He took the kickoff recycle from Okafor, opened his body like he always did, ready to clip it back inside and let us settle again.

  Two blue shirts went at him immediately like hungry beasts. One cut the passing lane back to Okafor. The other jumped straight into Milner’s touch, close enough that the second touch never came. Milner tried to roll away anyway, but the ball nicked off his boot and spilled loose.

  A small sound went up from the stand. The cheerleader clapped louder. “UP THE BLUEBELLS!”

  Right. So that was how it was going to be.

  Yate didn’t overcommit after the turnover.

  The ball went straight inside, zipped past their number eight, and then angled toward Redding.

  “Hold!” I shouted. Maybe shouting had been a mistake. Redding was too hesitant to move, and Yate probably caught on to the fact that he was the newest piece in a back line that otherwise knew each other’s breathing patterns.

  The pass came firm, skidding across the grass. Redding stepped up to intercept.

  He was late.

  Howard was already moving. I was nowhere near him. He was unmarked. The angle was narrow, but I didn’t think our keeper was closing it properly.

  Crane was still learning the position. Everyone knew that. He’d come through the academy as a multi-sport kid—good reactions, good hands, loads of raw athleticism—but positioning was the thing you only learned the hard way. You couldn’t brute-force angles.

  He’d taken two steps off his near post like he was waiting for a cut-back that wasn’t coming.

  “Crane!” I shouted. “Hug the post!”

  Too late.

  Howard struck through it clean. The ball zoomed past Crane.

  Thunk.

  The post bailed us out.

  Crane twisted back toward the rebound, scrambling. The ball skittered across the six-yard box, begging for a follow-up that mercifully never came before Redding hacked it clear.

  That was a warning.

  Crane stayed rooted to his line after, hands on his knees, breathing a little too hard. Development kid or not, he’d just been shown the margin.

  Palmer ran over and kissed the post. “Best defender on the pitch,” he patted it. “Never misses training.” He was a weirdo.

  I jogged over to Redding before his shoulders could cave in. Clapped him once, firm and loud enough that the lads nearby heard it too.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “We move.” Then I turned to Crane. “Remember to close the near post. You might be our hero next time.”

  Around us, no one panicked. The Booster seemed to have done its job, but we would be left without protection now. And Yate’s midfield was talking. One of them mimed the exact movement they’d just used on Milner—two hands closing in, then a finger stabbing toward Redding’s channel.

  They’d found the pressure point. They were going to press properly now, aggressive and coordinated.

  This was the phase that decided games like this. We had to survive it.