january fourth | neymar jr

chapter eight

  Neymar

  January 9, 22

  With less than a half hour until the match began, I was doing one thing, and one thing only. Texting Morgan. My eyes were locked on my phone, but I occasionally looked up to see what my teammates were doing. We were all in the locker room together, some of my teammates were talking in a group, others kicking a ball around for fun.

  At this point, we weren't really supposed to be on our phones, but I didn't really care. I was having a very interesting conversation with Morgan about birthdays. I didn't know how it got to that point, but I remember bringing up that mine was in less than a month. We talked about the worst birthday presents we ever received, best years of our life, and little things that weren't really interesting but we were discussing anyways.

  That's how all my conversations were with Morgan- we always talked about something random with no clue how we got to talking about it. A few days ago, we went from talking about football to math in a matter of minutes. 

  When Messi walked over to me from the group, I was in the middle of sending a message. I quickly got out of my messages app and turned off my phone so it would be locked. I didn't need my teammates teasing me about Morgan, let alone the fact some of us might play her brother in the World Cup in a few months. 

  "What's with the hiding your phone?" Messi asked once he approached me. I looked up and into his eyes. "What?" I laughed, trying to play it off. "I'm not," I said, and he sat down next to me.

  "Sure," he laughed sarcastically. "You better get off your phone before coach sees," he patted me back. "But it seems like you already have," he added. I looked him up and down. 

  "We'll be going out soon, but come talk to the group while we wait. They were wondering where you are," he stood up again and I followed. We walked a couple of meters into a different part of the locker rooms. 

  Just as we approached the group, and I was about to start talking, coach walked in and everyone went silent. "Boys, it's game time," he said, a little enthusiastically. Like we didn't know already. I rushed back over to my phone, texted Morgan, telling her I had to go, and she wished me luck. I smiled, and when I turned off my phone and went with the boys who started walking out, Messi raised his brows at me. 

  "Why so smiley?" He teased as I found myself in the line right behind him. It was always him at the front of the line, then me, and Kylian, since we were all forwards. The defenders were behind us, and the goalkeepers at the back. 

  I didn't say anything to Messi, but I just rolled my eyes and started walking with the group. Kylian tapped my back twice, and I looked back at him, still walking.

  "Messi's right, you know, you've been so damn smiley recently," he giggled. I didn't say anything yet again, I just turned back around. Why do these boys have to be so fucking nosey? We kept walking, a little bit of chatter near the end of the line. When we got closer to the pitch and saw the opening, Messi stopped and waited for the other team. We always lined up side-by-side before games. 

  When Strasbourg got there, we said good luck to them, then took our spots on the pitch. Mbappe and I were strikers, Messi was a sub today because he had recently gotten injured and wasn't sure if he'd be 100%. In midfield, we had Sarabia, Soler, Di Maria, Sanchez, and Parades. Our defending lineup was Marquinhos, Thiago, Ramos, and Sels was our goalkeeper. 

  I had to admit, our lineup was pretty strong for today. None of us were really worried for the match, we had won at least 80% of the time against them, but of course we always had Messi.