Legacy

2 - Match day

July 6th
Match day, I woke up in my room that morning feeling both nervous yet excited, I got up got ready and was greeted by a knock at my door I walked over and answered the door to see Alessia standing there for me.

'Hey Lexie how ya feeling?' She asked as I invited her to enter my room as I had started to also unpack and mentally prepare myself for my first match with England and my first ever international match as well, 'yeah I'm good a little bit nervous but I'm also excited to get out there' I said, she nodded 'Who wouldn't, I was the same when it came to my first ever match internationally it is nerve racking but also exciting that's all apart of the adrenaline rush of playing football internationally it completely different playing for the world' she said placing a hand on my shoulder giving me a supportive smile, I returned the smile back to her, 'yeah if you put it that way I guess it is completely different and new but to improve you have to push yourself out your comfort zone correct?' I asked, she nodded while helping me to finish unpacking my bags 'exactly, you took the words right out of my mouth' she laughed, we both laughed and then there was a familiar knock at my door.

'Come in Leah' I said laughing at the her knock 'aww man how did ya know that it was me' she laughed I laughed 'I know your knock you silly billy' I said to her 'anyways I came to tell you we are all ready to go and are waiting for you and Russo but I see that Russo has found you before I did' she said looking at her, 'Yeah I did I came to check on her and actually decided to help her unpack her stuff because she didn't get to last night' Russo said grabbing her bag from off of my bed and she chucked me mine and then we all headed downstairs to the bus to take us to  the match.

We arrived at the stadium and all went to our locker room where we all got changed and waited for Sarina to come and verify the line up and who would be on the sun bench for the game today we didn't wait too long because she entered the room, she explained who was on the starting line I wasn't on for the first half sadly but I sat anxiously waiting to see if I was maybe on the sun bench for the second half Russo noticed and put her hand on my knee to calm my nerves almost instantly, 'Alright girls that is the starting line now for the bench, the girls on are Toone, Kelly, Stanway and Owens' she said I looked at Beth and Leah who gave me big smiles and then looked at Alessia who gave a pat on the back and we walked on out.

The match
We stepped onto the field and I felt a rush of adrenaline like Alessia had told me flow right through my whole body, the anthem went under way and soon enough I was sat on the bench as the whistle sounded to mark the start of the first half.

The first half went pretty quickly and it seemed as if both teams were very equally matched with exception of a few fouls coming from Austria's side followed by a few from us it got to the 45th minute, half time where there was about 2 minutes extra time which again no one had scored and the whistle went for half-time.

We all went through the tunnel where Sarina gave us a briefing for where she wanted people to move and try out to see if it improved anything and then we headed back out where the second half then came and then whistle sounded to kick it all off and it started very quickly, Austria made a substitute after the first 7 minutes of the second half they made a substitute but levelled the substitution a few moments later after they fouled Jill and Sarina sent Georgia out.

There was about 10 minutes of up and down the field with no goal being scored that Sarina tapped both me and Ella and told us to get ready to go on because she was going to pull Millie and Ellen off the pitch and replace them with us two which she did when it reached the 65th minute she called a substitution and the crowd went wild as we both ran on in place of the two girls, we took one look at each other nodded and knew we were going to scored we were very confident too.

We went out there got into our positions and soon it enough after about 3 shots and misses on the Austria goal Ellen got the ball and eyed me instantly and I got in an open space at the goal and in the 78th minute I got passed the ball took a pretty risky shot and it to everyone's surprise went straight into the top left corner of the net and the crowd went absolutely wild, I ran over to the corner flag followed by Alessia and Ellen who both embraced me we then stop celebrating and went back to playing where for the rest of the game we played outstanding and managed to keep the ball away from our goal and then it hit the 90th minute and they added an extra 2 minutes because of the substitutions throughout it.

Then the sound that ever new player that has scored wants to hear goes, the full time whistle we'd done it we won the match and I was the only one to have scored that match and I was given my first player of the match internationally ever I was proud and everyone ran over and we headed to the locker room to start celebrating.