Midfield: You’re part of the offense, part of the defense. Always involved. I live for days like this.
We came in fired up, ready to take control of this league, but East Pocono jolted us early. Precision passing, great teamwork, speed. They scored in the first minute.
“Settle down,” I say. “Think.” But they’re back on the attack already, working toward our goal, slicing in from the sideline. A shot, low and hard, and Herbie dives for it, gets a hand on it, deflects it out of bounds.
“Jesus,” I say. “Form a wall!”
One of their wings rushes over for the corner kick. He chips it toward the front of the goal. Hernandez gets a thigh on it but fails to control the ball. It’s loose, bouncing to the side, and Herbie’s on the ground, rolling on the ball, wrapping it up and leaping to his feet.
He punts it, high and long and off to the right, so I run down the field, on offense again. But Joey takes it and races along the sideline, head down. Finally he just overruns the ball; East’s got it back. It’s passed to my side, and their wing is in front of me, angling toward the goal.
Squeeze him toward the sideline, don’t give him a lane. He feints left, takes it right, but I get a foot on it, send it out of bounds.
“Mark up!” I holler. He takes the throw-in, propelling it along the sideline toward the corner. There’ll be a centering pass now, back toward the guy who took the throw; I know it’s coming before I can think. And I’m there, knocking it downfield and chasing past the wing.
Down the sideline; two guys trap me but I pivot and spot Rico. He dribbles twice, returns the ball to me near midfield, and I’ve got room ahead, I’m on the run.
Everyone’s racing this way now, but I’ve got the jump on them. I center it back to Trunk, he advances it to Dusty, and I’m curving in from the sideline, their defenders are coming up.
Trunk’s got it again at the top of the penalty area and he slips it toward me in the clear. My eyes open wide, it’s just me and the goalie. But the whistle blows before I get to the ball. I’m offside.
“Damn.” But it’s okay. We’ve changed the momentum. I trot backward. I try to catch my breath.
These guys run; they take chances. We have to keep thinking. Be part of the defense, keep them from penetrating. And back up the forwards, be there for a safe pass. Be a coach on the field; all four of our forwards—Dusty, Trunk, Joey, Mitchell—will take any opportunity to dribble instead of pass. So yell at them. Make them think, too.
It’s still 1–0 at the half, and the pace has been insane since the start. I sit on the bench and suck on an orange, listening to the coach chew out the forwards.
“Dusty,” he’s saying. “You have to move toward the ball. Don’t wait for it to come to you. Trunk: Stop playing kick-and-chase out there. Dribble if you’ve got room, but make the smart pass, too. And Joey: You’re way the hell out of position. You shouldn’t be taking throw-ins; let the midfielders do that.
“These guys are running you to death. You’re lucky it isn’t five–zip. Talk to each other, make good passes, and hustle. We’re still in the game, but we’ve got to penetrate their defense.”
I take a deep breath and look straight up. The sky’s as blue as our jerseys. I look around at my teammates. They need to get psyched again. “Suck it up,” I say. “Let’s go.”
I wave over the other midfielders—Rico and Hernandez—and we huddle up before the second half begins. “The forwards don’t get it,” I say.
“They’re idiots,” says Rico. “Joey’s brain goes in one direction. He hasn’t passed backwards in his life.”
“So holler at him,” I say. “And at Dusty, too. Keep yelling for the ball. And work with me. We have to keep the pace down, and we have to control the offense. Our guys can’t think and dribble at the same time.”
Hernandez is just nodding and sniffing. He’s got major allergies.
Rico scowls. “They’re never in position. That one time Mitchell made a great cross from the corner, and I look up and Joey’s over in the corner, too. Like that does a lot of good.”
I shake my head. Rico starts laughing all of a sudden. “Joey,” he says, shaking his head. “What a meat grinder.”
Joey takes the kickoff, sending it to Trunk, who eases it back to me, and I dribble down the field. I pass to Rico. He yells to Trunk and passes it ahead to him. Soccer’s like pinball when everything’s working, the ball flying from point to point, making a zigzag path down the field.
We’re clicking now, one-touch passes moving it toward their goal. But now Joey’s got his head down, dribbling into a cluster of red-and-silver jerseys. “Joey!” I yell. “Joey!” But the ball is already lost.
Rico intercepts it before they can cross midfield. He sends it back to me, and I beat one guy and race downfield. I pass it to Hernandez and he returns it. Now I can dribble, four more steps and I’ll shoot. But there are blue shirts near the goal: Joey, Trunk, Dusty. I loft it into the box; Trunk gets control. He slides it toward the corner and Joey fires it, high and hard, into the net. It’s tied.
I run back, angry, because it should work like that every time. Most of these guys don’t have a consistent awareness of anybody but themselves. And we can’t beat a good team playing one on eleven.
The pace finally slows as the third quarter winds down, and the fourth is more of the same. Both teams make runs late in the game, but Herbie makes two great saves for us and their defense doesn’t let us in there again. So it ends 1–1.
I sit with Rico on the bus on the way back to Sturbridge. “We should have beat those guys,” I say.
“If Pelé up there had half a brain,” he says, meaning Joey, who’s sitting about six seats up.
“He does,” I say. “Maybe even five-eighths.”
I shake my head. It’s frustrating. Joey’s fast, opportunistic. He scores goals and gets girls. But I don’t want to be like him.
Well, okay, sometimes I do.
There’s a dark alley between Shorty’s Bar and Foley’s Pizza, on the Main Street block between 10th and 11th. You can sit with your back against either wall–the green-painted cinder blocks of Foley’s or the brick and mortar of Shorty’s. The attraction, besides being out of the wind, is the music from Shorty’s and the pizza smell from Foley’s.
Foley’s crust is a little less doughy than the other places in town, a little thinner and browner. So it smells toastier.
The jukebox at Shorty’s is programmed to play the same fourteen songs in succession unless someone actually feeds it a quarter and chooses something else. Shorty went to high school sometime in the 1970s, so you get these old songs, in this order, over and over, along with the clicking of the balls on the pool table:
“Ready for Love” Bad Company
“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” Bachman-Turner Overdrive
“Can’t Fight This Feeling” REO Speedwagon
“Freefallin’ ” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
“Jack and Diane” John Mellencamp
“Every Breath You Take” The Police
“When I’m With You” Sheriff
“Take It Easy” The Eagles
“I Love Your Way” Peter Frampton
“Rainy Days and Mondays” The Carpenters*
“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” Charlie Daniels Band
“Heard It in a Love Song” The Marshall Tucker Band
“My Way” Frank Sinatra
“Free Bird” Lynyrd Skynyrd
* (I am not kidding.)