golden blonde¹

manchester united (h)

mid november 2022
luckily for elena, her cold passes after a day of strict bed rest. lia had made it her mission to make sure the girl did nothing but recover the day they all returned home from international break.

even though elena only misses one day of training, she gets dropped to the bench against manchester united.

even worse, it was a home game at the emirates. they didn't always get the chance to play their home games at emirates stadium, but now that they did, elena was sat on the bench watching. elena had heard some girls mention that around 40 thousand tickets were sold.

jonas had been talking a lot about experience, and how valuable it would be when they faced against united.

maybe that's why the spaniard was dropped in favor for a more experienced midfielder in jordan.

elena doesn't mind not starting, although she's disappointed, all she wants is to get some minutes off the bench, improve the little things in her game, and most importantly a win; it won't matter whether or not she's starting.

she just wants to be remembered for helping this team succeed.

since their game is a late kickoff, the girls have the majority of the day to themselves before they have to report to london colney.

elena, lia, and caitlin meet up with steph and beth at the local cafe, the pudding stop.

as they're approaching the shop, a fluffy dog approaches them, running circles around the trio before jumping up and down in front of elena.

"hey you, aren't you the cutest little thing," elena grins as she bends down to play with the dog. it continues to jump and play with elena, running circles around her as she gets up.

"calvin!" steph calls from outside the cafe. the fluffy dog starts running back to the australian, hopping onto the bench.

elena smiles as she takes a seat next to viv, who tagged along with her girlfriend. "he's your dog?"

"elena, meet calvin!" steph says enthusiastically as calvin holds his paw up. elena grins as she shakes it, but the dog has very little stamina, ultimately dropping his paw.

as calvin starts playing with lia, viv slides a cup in front of elena.

"hot chocolate," the dutch woman smiled warmly.

"thank you."

"aye, where's my drink viv?" caitlin grins easily from across the table.

"didn't remember your order," viv casually throws her arm around elena, who sheepishly shrugs at the australian attacker.

"and you remembered hers!?" caitlin asks with mock offense.

"it's just hot chocolate," elena offers up shyly.

at last, kickoff arrives. elena is sat on the bench next to viv, watching as the ball moves across the pitch quickly.

the game starts off fast paced, much like how their other games have been starting, except this time, elena comes to a scary realization.

it wasn't arsenal that were dominating possession, but united. although they weren't really overpowering the arsenal players, it was clear to elena that this was not like anything she played against in the english league yet.

while the first fifteen minutes were about adjusting to the pace of the game, both teams on the pitch upped the tempo. united constantly push up the right side using their right back — ona batlle was a formidable presence in the back for both spain and united, but she had resigned from the spanish national team for the time being.