Finally, 1 - 0.
Short Story ll By Anushka Bhatt
I closed the car door, hand waving “bye” to my dad, holding only my water bottle and
phone. My team already started to warm up and I decided to join them. I looked down at my
phone to check the time, noon. Perfect I thought to myself, I was right on time. The cool fall
breeze brushed my face as I ran and then sooner or later it was finally time for our game. We had
about two practices just to prepare for this moment. While we were warming up we saw the
other team all gather around and start to warm up, they were bigger than us and looked scarier
too. During our stretches we even noticed them glancing at us a few times, our teams returning
their glares. I started as a forward, a forwards main goal is to score goals and stay ahead. The
thing about soccer is that there's always someone better than you or someone you think is better
than you, which creates a lot of self-doubt for someone, and that's precisely what happened to
me. After, our coach soon brought us back to the bench and told us our game plan, and got us
ready for the game.
My teammates and I all stood in our positions and got ready for the whistle to blow.
After the referee followed all the procedures we started, all my teammates looked at each other
before the first pass of the game. My coach, pacing back and forth, awaited for the game to start.
Settling into my stance, I readied myself for the game, legs spread apart. The first pass turned
into the second pass and so on. The gust of the ball rolling against the fake grass excited me and
made me ready to play. Some passes were high, some passes were low, some passes were fast
and some passes were even slower. The team even snatched the ball from us a few times, which
meant extra work for us because we needed the possession back. All the light jogging and
sprinting already made me tired, and then out of nowhere my vision blurred, the world got dizzy
and my knees got weakened. I’m going to faint, I thought to myself. This is not a good sign for
me, but I tried to put my act together or at least make it look like it. The team was tricky to get
past, but we define the upper hand and advantage in this game.
A forward is always supposed to stay closer to the opponent's goal and wait for the pass
to come to them, and if it isn’t they should interfere. For me, our team was doing pretty good
with possession of the ball so I stood ready, but then out of nowhere, the other team tried to
score... and it was a field goal, which meant it went right over the goal post, the score stayed
0-0. Then, it was time for our goalie to do a goalie kick. She decided to play it peacefully and
roll the ball to one of our amazing defense players. They passed the ball to the midfielders, who
ran up to the ball and crossed it between each of them. On the other hand, I tried to stay ahead of
them the best I could.
I look to my left, and there in the middle of the field, the referee stood glaring at the ball
with his hands crossed behind his back, I look back, and then0, all of a sudden one of the defense
attackers kicked the ball right in my direction. I knew it was meant for me and ran to where I
estimated the ball was going. The fall first bounced onto my head, and then to ensure I had
control over the ball I bounced with my knee once too.
At this point, I knew I was taking too long and wasting time, and from the corner of my
eye, I noticed an attack from the other trying to pressure me by running up to me. I knew what
they were doing, and started dribbling as fast I could while trying to take small touches with the
ball because if I didn't the ball would've gotten taken from me a long time ago. While I dribbled
the ball all my teammates told me to pass it to the person everyone thought the “best,” was, but I
knew I could do this.
I got past each of the other teams swiftly and while all my teammates were shouting,
“SHOOT!” or “PASS THE BALL!” I trusted my gut and juked the ball like I was going to score
to the left corner, but scored to the right of the goal as hard as I could. So hard that I lost my
balance and fell on my back while I scored, but not hard enough to not pick myself back up in
time to look where the ball landed.
The goalie flung herself to the left, but since I turned my leg into a specific angle that
would make the ball go to the right corner, the ball went to the right. Which is also one of the
hardest spots to save a goal. At this point, everyone froze silent and everything felt like I was in a
different universe in slow motion. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a ball and a net hitting with a
swish sound, at that moment I knew that could only mean one thing. My whole team wilded out,
we all huddled together and started screaming because we were all so happy. After my team's
celebration, I stood back in my position waiting to start again and the only thing I could think of
was... the score is finally1-0.
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