this is me trying

Chapter 17 - The Brain

We travelled over to England to start our tournament. Our first game was against Northern Ireland. Then we would be playing England, and finally we would be finishing our group stages against Austria. We were expected to progress, however, I wasn't confident. I knew that Austria would put up a good fight and there was no reason to get complacent.

Ona and Spain, on the other hand, had Finland first, then Germany and Denmark to round off their group. They were supposedly in the group of death, which made me worry for Ona, as I wanted nothing more than for her and Spain to do well, and get far into the tournament.

Our first game was against Northern Ireland, and I started the match, with Ingrid, and Guro, and Maren, and Frida. We scored four goals in the game. I opened the scoring, with Frida then scoring soon after, Caroline had herself a penalty, and Guro scored our last in the 54th minute. Although we didn't keep a clean sheet, with Ireland scoring in the 49th, we were happy with our opening match. We had won, and won convincingly. We were sitting at the top of the table leading into our game against England.

We trained for the next few days, and whenever I looked over at him, at my coach, a feeling of malice, and anger.

"Eva," he soon called out to me, as we were walking off the pitch after training. "A word?"

"Everything alright?" Guro said to me quietly, under her breath.

"Can you come with me?" I asked her, and she nodded her head, walking behind me as I went up to him.

"What's up?" I asked him, as Guro stood behind me, trying not to listen in but also protect me.

"Uh... well, I just wanted to let you know that you won't be starting the game against England."

"What?!" I replied, confused, and startled by this recent revelation. I had started nearly all the games I had been in the squad for this team. I was one of the strongest players, and the only solid six we had in the team.

"We are going for a different approach."

"You do realise that it is England right?"

"Yes, we do..."

"Who's going to play the six?" I soon questioned.

"No one. We're going to play in a 4-2-3-1." I knew, as soon as he said this, that it would be a bad idea. England had one of the best attacking presences in the game at that present moment, and without a six there would be no protection at the back. Maren and Maria were going to be heavily exposed.

"I don't know if that's the best idea," I said to him, honestly.

"Unfortunately you don't make those calls around here."

"But-"

"You can go now." He shooed me away, and as Guro and I walked back, she was just as stunned as I was.

"Is he an idiot?" she questioned.

"Yep."

"Like he is actually deranged."

"Yeah."

"We're so fucked," she exclaimed.

"You said it, not me."

Frida and I sat on the bench for the game against Norway, and just as I had predicted, our defence was exposed. England used that, and ran with it. They scored 6 in the first half. Everyone was confused as to why both Frida and I were on the bench - two of Norway's best players.

"The Norwegian manager has made an interesting choice for this tough match against England," Alex Scott said to Ian Wright, as they sat in the commentators box above the stadium in Brighton.