Unbreakable Bonds

Chapter 42

It was a rather sleepless night in Manchester. Not that I was surprised. By the time my alarm went off I was already awake, staring at the ceiling. Jenni was leaving, Ronnie would probably follow, who else was set to leave? It's no surprise that the team was stacked which meant everyone was fighting for their position and game time.

Ronnie slowly stirred awake, it was breakfast time then we had a quick team bonding, then lunch, our team walk and then off to the stadium. Ronnie and I were headed straight for Mexico tomorrow morning, we were set to play Mexico, then travel to Los Angeles and play the USA, then we came straight back to Spain. In the grand scheme of things, these friendlies didn't mean much. It was more how we gelled as a team and who would make the final 18 for the Olympics.

Breakfast went off without a hitch, the team bonding was Pictionary. It was split into 2, those who were playing Pictionary and those who were playing Jenga. It created quite the stir when the teams for Pictionary were announced.

Team 1 was Jenni, Mapi, Ingrid and Me.
Team 2 was Alexia, AMC, Codi, and Frido. Team 3 was Mel, Vicky, Sandra and Mario.
Team 4 was Marta, Kheira, Patri and Cata.

Team 1 were to play team 2 first, then team 3 and then team 4. The winner of the 3 games would be given a small plastic trophy, basically a gag gift. Everyone went to their stations and the games began.

It was loud, incredibly loud. Everyone yelling and screaming, people trying to cheat or say someone was cheating. There were a lot of laughs shared. By the end, Team 2 had won. That was unfortunate for me because it meant I had to deal with Lex bragging about it. The only time she'd brag about winning things was when it was a silly game like this, monopoly was the worst though. I banned it from our house after continuously losing.

The little smirk on her face when she got the winner team photo said it all. If it's a silly little game like this, or a game at the arcade, that smirk of victory is there. The cocky, best-in-the-world smile. One of my favourite smiles, to be honest.

The bus ride to the stadium was quiet. Everyone doing their pre match routines, it continued that way for a while. The nerves were obvious, the tension in the locker room almost made it hard to breathe.

The managers came in and did their speech, next was Alexia and Mel. It seemed to calm everyone down a bit. We were hyped, ready to win this and go to the next round.

The game started rough. Man City came out firing. They were hungry for the ball, and for the win. They continued to attempt to score, pushing through our midfield and defence with ease. By the 20th minute, a goal from Janine Beckie is scored from a corner kick.

By half time, the score remains 1-0 Man Cities way. Their defence has been playing hard, pushing us offside in the last second whenever they can. It's a tough game to be playing. They were the better team in the first half, but we needed to change that, and quickly.

As soon as the whistle starts, we come out firing. Pressing as soon as possible. We worked hard, they still had some early shots on goal but so did we. By the 59th minute, Mario plays a beautiful ball into the box, with one touch I was able to control it and put it past Lucy Bronze and Ellie Roebuck. 1-1. City now needed to score at least four goals to knock us out.

Less than ten minutes later, city are rewarded a penalty. Sam Mewis steps up to take it. She easily puts it past Sandra, making the score 2-1, we still lead the aggregate. The game continues on, city trying to stop us from getting close to scoring while also trying to score themselves, and us doing the same.

By the 90th minute we were all exhausted. There would be 6 minutes of added time. In what would be the last play on the game, we had a corner. Our last chance to score and tie the game up.