Henderson tried it again, like the one-trick pony he was.

  Same tell. Same drop of the shoulder. Same idea of beating his man down the outside like the last ten minutes hadn’t happened. Portishead’s left-back didn’t bite this time. He just jockeyed, waited, and nudged Henderson toward the corner flag where space went to die.

  Henderson tried to force it anyway.

  With a toe poke from their left-back, the ball was off his shin, then out for a throw about three yards from the flag.

  I didn’t even need to look to know Mitch was incandescent, yet I looked anyway.

  “One more time,” Mitch snarled, loud enough for the nearest ball boy to flinch, “and I swear to God I’ll ask you where you’re getting these ideas from.”

  Even Dom looked annoyed at Henderson, so I knew I’d be fucked if I tried anything stupid one more time. Nobody gets punched in the dick twice and politely presents his crotch the third time, hoping it’ll be any different.

  Henderson jogged past me, eyes fixed dead ahead.

  That wasn’t good. I couldn’t afford another nudge that didn’t produce immediate effect. If Mitch asked him that question, he’d be ratting me out without even meaning to.

  It was time.

  I drifted across again as Portishead set for the throw and whispered to him, “Now you play the triangle.”

  “Why now?” He asked.

  I nodded toward the pitch without turning my head. “Look at them.”

  Portishead’s midfield had sagged five yards deeper, compacting the flank like they were trying to cauterize it. Their near-side eight was practically standing on the fullback’s toes. Their centre-backs were narrow, paranoid, and that created a huge gap in the half-space between them and their left-back.

  “They fully expect you to go again,” I said. “They’re selling out to stop it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Play the triangle,” I went on. “Bounce it into Dom, then go. Don’t hesitate. They’ll step late. You’ll be gone.”

  Shit. I’d almost failed that. I really couldn’t push my luck further, trusting others would see my vision.

  “And if I don’t get it back?”

  “You will,” I said. “Trust me. You’re sharp enough.”

  He swallowed. “You’re sure?”

  I chanced a glance at the overlay hovering near his shoulder.

  Good enough.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”

  The throw came in.

  Henderson did it right this time. No touch toward the line, no heroics. He killed the ball, laid it inside to Dom, and kept moving—diagonal, sharp, straight through the space their left centre-back had just vacated to step up.

  Mitch had drilled them well, even with Henderson; no wonder he wanted them to ping pong the ball. One touch from Dom. Return pass into Milner. One more, first time, threaded right into the channel Henderson had just attacked.

  For a second, nobody tracked him.

  Then it was too late.

  Henderson was in behind, ghosting off the centre-back’s blind side the way a shadow striker would. He met the ball and hit it first time, low and hard across the keeper.

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  Goal.

  The home crowd, all thirty of us, went wild.

  “Yes!” Mitch roared, suddenly reborn. “YES! THAT’S IT! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”

  There we go. His philosophy vindicated, his process rewarded, his ego thoroughly glazed.

  Henderson turned back toward the halfway line, grinning like a man who’d just discovered fire. As he passed me, he mouthed, thank you.

  I just nodded. Crisis averted; nobody but me and Henderson would know I’d messed about with Mitch’s tactical ideas in front of his nose. And I’d gain so much EXP.

  Portishead didn’t respond. That was the most damning part.

  Their attacks came in pieces, never as a whole. A hopeful pass and a miscontrolled touch later, the ball was gone again. I didn’t even need to get involved as Okafor had done the sweeping in front of me. They kept losing the ball. You’d think they were deliberately sabotaging themselves to get their coaches sacked, or like their best players had clock-out times and didn’t want to miss the late shift at Tesco. Maybe they were conserving their energy for jobs that actually paid the rent.

  Before I knew it, we were already two-nil up.

  Against better teams, Donovan was usually pinned back, but today, Portishead’s right side was all over the place, and he got through, whipped a ball early to Roberts’ head, and the big man guided it into the corner. No drama.

  Mitch punched the air once, restrained this time. I checked the clock.

  The whistle went for halftime not long after, merciful and unceremonious.

  I jogged in without hurry, legs warm but far from burning. The overlay slid obligingly into view.

  That was . . . fine. More than fine, actually. For a first-half spent intercepting, stepping, and resetting, I’d barely dipped into the red.

  Which was exactly why Mitch was already thinking about taking me off.

  Inside, he didn’t waste time. “You’re coming off,” he said, like he was ordering a coffee. “Second half. No point burning you when we can still get this one in the bag without straining.”

  It was reasonable; annoyingly so. Farnham Town away was next. The team was a spot above us, one below depending on whose game in hand you trusted. The pitch was narrow and the crowd was hostile, which was exactly the kind of fixture where centre-backs earned their wages and their bruises.

  I understood the logic.

  But logic didn’t account for the token already ticking down in my mind.

  If I came off now, I’d be throwing away EXP left on the pitch.

  And yeah—maybe that was selfish.

  But I’d already dragged this team through games it had no business surviving. Covered for mistakes. Directed traffic. Made Mitch’s system look smarter than it was.

  I’d earned this.

  “I need seventy,” I said.

  “Seventy what?” Mitch asked.

  “Minutes, at least. If I sit now, I’ll be undercooked for Farnham. I need match sharpness. You know I ain’t back to my best.”

  He folded his arms. “Or you blow a gasket at sixty-five and give me a headache.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “They’re not stretching us. Even Kowalski’s looking green, and he’s ancient. I’ll manage my load.”

  That got a snort. “You’re a centre-back, not a bloody sports scientist.”

  I shrugged. “Still right.”

  He stared at the tactics board for a few seconds. I could see the calculus: risk versus rhythm, sharpness versus protection.

  Finally, he sighed. “Seventy. No more. “But . . . I catch you dropping a stinker because your legs have gone, I won’t care what you say. You’ll be off, and you won’t start at Farnham. Clear?”

  “Clear,” I said.

  I might have already regretted it. The second half started, and Portishead finally made a decision. It was a good one, and a dangerous one. For me.

  They subbed on an attacking midfielder: Manning. I immediately pulled up a Live Assessment on him.

  Oh.

  That was annoying.

  Players like that didn’t lose the ball cheaply. They killed tempo. They received between lines, absorbed pressure, and made you move when you didn’t want to.

  If Manning could plant himself behind our central midfield pair and just keep it, then this half stopped being a jog and started being work.

  At the very least, my gauge was about to start sliding.

  At worst, I’d make a mistake.

  I glanced toward the touchline. Mitch was already watching me.

  Not the ball. Me.

  As if he’d made the substitution personally, just to test whether my argument held up under stress.

  Fine.

  I rolled my shoulders, dropped half a yard deeper than before, and started talking—quiet instructions to Okafor, reminders to Reeves about when to step and when to hold.

  I couldn’t afford to look bad now.