golden blonde¹

reading (a)

elena sleeps in. they have a noon game today against reading in berkshire. the girls report to london colney in the afternoon, have lunch their together there before they do a quick film session.

the hour bus ride to the reading stadium is slept through from the spanish teenager. at one point she did wake up to steph and beth blaring karaoke towards the back of the bus, but elena just out in noise cancelling headphones and went back to her nap.

it would be a lie to say elena wasn't disappointed when her name wasn't on that starting eleven, but jonas had insisted for rotation, and a game like reading was an opportunity to attack more. thus using katie proved more useful than elena's defensive play style.

they had a really physical and possession based game plan going into the game, and it involved a lot more attack. jonas had told elena that lia would be more than enough to handle the reading attack.

it would be a chance to rest, but elena didn't know how to feel. such an easy game could develop her play, but at the same time she didn't want to get burnout from playing so many games back to back.

as a result of their attack based gameplan, elena would be on the bench this time around. even worse, they were without their starting centerbacks. rafa had sustained an ankle injury, and leah a hamstring injury.

steph of all people would be playing center back, with katie playing left back.

many would say this would be arsenal's best with what they were dealt. so why did the score line only end up being 1-0?

that's what elena asks herself throughout the whole game.

their start is strong, of course. they get off on the front foot with stina slotting the ball calmly in the goal in the 30th minute thanks to a kim little assist.

reading get a little sloppy after that. they receive two yellow cards in the next fifteen minutes. the half time talk kim gives to the locker room is encouraging, more tactic based than elena's used to hearing from her captain but she nods along anyways.

jonas tells the girls he's making rotation changes after 20 minutes solely due to injury prevention. no matter what the score would be, he'd make changes.

"if there's anything left in your tank, i'd better see it in these next twenty minutes."

the first ten or so minutes is fast paced, the arsenal are relentless. however, the reading defense don't let up.

in the 60th minute, beth earns them a penalty, and elena's clapping at the winger's efforts. a good cut inside left the defender in no man's land.

"kim doesn't miss penalties, don't worry." jen says from beside her on the bench.

except she does miss. the reading goalkeeper gets a hand to it and stops it completely. elena looks at jen with a raised eyebrow.

"liar!"

"she doesn't miss though! genuinely one of the first times i've seen her miss like that!" jen hastily defends her words.

"elena, frida, lina, warm up." one of the coaches says from the end of the bench.

the trio sub on for caitlin, viv and lia respectively. the game is nervewracking, defending a 1-0 lead gave elena a sense of adrenaline, but at the same time it was frustrating as a defender. why weren't their shots going in?

at the end of the game, elena discovers that they had 21 total shots. six of them were on frame, but only one went in.

when she finally gets home, she slumps down on her bed, somehow already exhausted from the day.

caitlin and lia quickly went to their room without another word to the spaniard, which she thought was strange.

elena is scrolling through some lyon film that their coaches had sent to them the day prior, unable to sleep despite her exhaustion.

"i don't fucking know....you're being ridiculous..." elena looks up from her laptop, instead fixing her gaze towards her slightly open door.

"i'm being loud!? you're the one screaming!" elena can hear the muffled shouts from the room across the hall.

she doesn't like to eavesdrop, but if she doesn't have anything covering her ears, she'll pick up on the conversation the two are having across the hall whether she wants to or not. elena puts in her airpods and plays the film videos. there's no commentary, just the sound of the ball being kicked around the pitch.

"you're impossible! did you know that!? can't even...i asked you to do! it's the only... so why can't you... it's not that hard!" elena winces as she hears lia scream over the volume of her airpods. the door slams as she sees lia's figure walk past the door, then back tracking to see elena still up with her door open.

elena stares at the swiss midfielder, whose green eyes look like they're on the brink of crying.

"¿estás bien?" elena whispers, taking out her headphones.

"tan solo una pequeña discusión. mañana nos besaremos y arreglaremos las cosas." lia chuckles dryly, wiping a few tears from her eyes.

"pero ¿estás bien ahora?" elena presses. quieter, she whispers, "hubo voces elevadas, eso nunca es bueno, ¿verdad?"

lia sighs with a tight-lipped smile on her face, entering the spaniard's room and shutting the door gently.

"no, that's not good. but communication is a big part of relationships, i guess we both forgot that a little." lia sits in elena's beanbag.

"is everyone nervous about the lyon game? like i am?"

"there's a bit of that, nervousness. i know we have the team that can beat them though." lia shrugs.

"even with leah and rafa gone?"

"steph's not a bad center half." lia purses her lips at elena.

"i think steph is better off at left back than katie. at least from what i've seen today." elena shrugs.

"katie's not a natural defender, did you know that?" lia asks, which prompts a shake of the head from the 18 year old.

"she plays midfield for her country, but for us, she's a back up for left back, left wing, right wing, left midfielder. anywhere she's needed, besides center back, she can play."

"what about right center half?" elena asks. she wasn't going to be outright rude, but lotte was no where yet near the level of leah williamson.

"can you play right center half?"

elena shakes her head.

"do you think noelle or laura can do that?"

"no but jen can. right?"

"these are questions we shouldn't be asking if we have squad depth. we're fine elena. lotte and steph make a fine center duo. with you and me in the middle, we'll be unstoppable." lia smiles warmly.

well, mission accomplished. lia no longer has the depressed look on her face that she had a few minutes prior. instead it's replaced by a (better?) grimace. or maybe it was really a smile.

but those questions really made elena think, what if?

those were thoughts elena pushed out of her mind firmly. lia was right, she shouldn't be questioning jonas' tactics if they were winning games. if they had enough squad depth, they could definitely do good work this season.

-

the lads!!! cl nights are back at the emirates after 4 months! saka scoring the first goal of our cl campaign couldn't have been written better. anyways, short chapter today, filler mostly with some plot stuff at the end :). next chapter is lyon (a), it'll probably be published after 30k reads or whenever i finish the chapter, whichever comes first!

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