Striker Boy Kicks Out (8 page)

The same thoughts were the first thing that hit Nat when he woke up the next morning. He heard Ian Fox's words in his head,
If you don't catch up with the others, you won't be seeing any action.

He checked his watch – 6.12 a.m. He got out of bed, threw on a t-shirt, shorts and trainers, grabbed his battered yellow and green football and crept down the corridor. Inés and José's doors were both closed. He took a pear from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table and left a short note telling Inés he'd gone out for a run.

The sun was already blazing when he left the villa, and the dry earth all around him looked more scorched than ever. He walked up the lane, down the hill and jogged all the way to the main road, by which time he was already drenched in sweat. He crossed the main road and carried on straight ahead, following a twisting track that passed a large field smelling of rosemary and contained a series of ash and willow trees.

And then he reached the sea. This part of the coastline
was miles from the tourist hot spots and it was very early in the morning, so he had the place to himself. Some rock pools were set among a collection of stones to his left. The sand was golden, soft and not too deep – a great condition for honing football skills.

Nat had decided that nerves had played a large part of his disappointing performance in training the day before – that and spotting the man in the stand. Well, that was dust now. Today, he'd be focusing totally on the session. If the guy appeared again, he'd deal with it, but he wasn't going to spend any time looking for him. Coming down here would push him that little bit further to be in shape for today's challenges.

He threw the ball skywards and trapped it with the underside of his right trainer. He then lifted it into the air and caught it on top of his head. Like a circus seal, he kept the ball there, only moving slightly on the balls of his heels. He then flicked it up and spent ten minutes keeping it in the air solely with his left foot and knee. Being right-footed, his left leg was obviously weaker, but he was always building it up and his left foot shot was closing the gap on his right one, both for power and placement.

He then placed the ball at his feet and sprinted along the sand, keeping it close to him, using both feet and making sharp swerves left and right. Nat always found it bizarre when football pundits praised a midfielder or an attacker, even though they couldn't ‘beat a man'. What
on earth did they mean? Surely apart from passing and tackling, the core skill of football was taking the ball past one or more opposing players. That's what gave your team the advantage and the momentum to have a crack at goal.

Up and down the beach Nat ran, imagining swathes of opposing defenders lunging at him to grab the ball but failing miserably. He was Zidane, gliding past a thicket of defenders. He was too fast and skilful for them, dragging the ball from their clutches, leaving them in his wake. As he ran, he thought of the year he'd lived in Rio de Janeiro with his dad. He'd spent vast stretches of time on the beach with the local kids and adults, watching, copying their multiple boxes of tricks. Nat had played and watched football in loads of countries but in Brazil it was different.

Football wasn't just a passion for Brazilians, it was in their lifeblood, it was part of their national DNA. And if he could keep working on some of the skills he'd picked up in Rio, then he'd be delivering something that few European players could offer.

After an hour of non-stop running, turning and kicking, he sat down on the sand and took a long drink from the bottle of water he'd brought with him. He closed his eyes and let the warmth of the sun wash over his body. He thought about the Celtic game tomorrow night. He
had
to play himself into the manager's reckoning. Surely three substitute appearances in the Premier League
had shown Fox that he could handle himself against serious opposition? And he'd scored the winner against Manchester United. He couldn't go from that to missing out on a subs berth altogether. But the manager was very difficult to read. He was generally fair but sometimes he threw curveballs that took Nat completely by surprise.

Nat considered the Celtic defence. You had to respect their back four, especially the centre-backs, Reakin and Smithfield. They'd played pretty commandingly against Lazio and as long term teammates and defensive partners they knew each other's games extremely well. They were experts at keeping strikers out of their penalty area, forcing people to shoot from distance. They were very physical players who were more than happy to mix it up, bully attackers and play psychological games with them.

The left-back Rob Storey was a decent player too, but Davey Cathcart at right-back was a potential weak link. He had a much smaller frame than the other three, which gave him enormous stamina but laid him open to being pushed about by strikers. Plus he was a very attack-minded player, who often took the ball deep into the opposition half, leaving a gap behind him. Nat had seen him being exposed by forwards on a couple of occasions. It was definitely something to consider.

Nat stood up, wiped the sweat from his forehead and thumped the ball high in the air. He started running and when it crashed down, trapped it with the inside of his left boot, flicked it to his right foot and raced on. He
repeated this procedure fifty times. When he looked at his watch again it was just coming up to 8.40 a.m. He'd done two hours of extra training. He could feel the effects of his hard work on his calf and back muscles but this was a feeling he welcomed. It showed he'd pushed himself a bit. Hopefully in training later he'd prove to the gaffer that he was serious about this tournament and wasn't prepared to miss out on the action.

When Nat returned, he found José out in the courtyard, just finishing up a call on his mobile. He put the phone in his pocket and raised his hand a few centimetres as a greeting. “You look like you've just run a marathon,” José observed.

“I went down to the beach for some extra training,” explained Nat, sitting down on the bench.

“That's good commitment,” nodded José. “It shows you care. A lot of modern footballers only have their hearts on fast cars and nightclubs.”

“No one at Hatton Rangers is really like that,” replied Nat. “We did have a striker called Steve Townsend who was a massive gambler, but the manager kicked him out.”

José sat down on the bench. “Football can be a glorious game,” he murmured, “so long as people with the right spirit run it.”

“Our manager's OK,” mused Nat. “He's not world-famous or anything but he likes to get things done properly.”

“Good managers do that,” replied José with a slight smile, the first time Nat had seen any sort of positive expression on his face.

“We had a visit from Victor Mabena after training yesterday,” said Nat.

José's smile instantly vanished and he leaned towards Nat. “Now that is someone who does
not
do things in the right spirit,” he said, almost spitting out the words.

“What do you mean?” asked Nat.

“Mabena puts on the air of someone who is President because he's in love with the beautiful game, but people count for very little in Mabena's world. He loves the trappings of wealth – he's the worst type of person to be involved with a football club. The man's a snake!”

Nat was shocked by the ferocity of José's attack on the Talorca president, the flash-suited, beaming man he'd met yesterday at the El Mar Stadium. José clearly detested him.

“His great rival Huerto Figes nearly beat him to the presidency last year,” added José. “There was talk of Mabena cheating but nothing was ever proved. The two of them hate each other.”

Nat wasn't surprised by this. He'd heard of several bitter boardroom battles that had taken place at English clubs over the last few years.

“Your mum said you're looking for a job,” said Nat, steering the discussion away from the Talorca President.

José shrugged his shoulders. “I'm out there all the
time,” he responded with an underlying bitterness in his voice. “But work is scarce. Some people have said I should go further afield to look for a job, but why? This is my home.”

“Gentlemen!” called Inés from the kitchen, breaking up the conversation. “Come and get something to eat.”

The kitchen table had plates of toast, bowls of different jams, fruit, mugs, a pot of coffee and a milk jug.

Nat tucked into some toast and apricot jam. He was hungry after his workout. Inés bit into an apple while José poured himself some coffee and picked at a piece of toast.

After a few minutes of silent eating and drinking, José turned to his mother. “Victor Mabena went to see Nat and the rest of the Rangers players yesterday,” he declared, with a contemptuous look on his face.

Inés said nothing.

“He makes it look like he's some honest, hard-working football fan,” José went on. “But football is the last thing on his mind. The man has poisoned Talorca FC. He's filth!”

“OK, José, that's enough,” said his mother sharply.

José went red in the face and snapped at her in Spanish. She snapped back. José then threw down his napkin and stormed out of the kitchen.

Nat sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. He looked to Inés for an explanation of this sudden eruption, but she looked away and poured herself another coffee.

After breakfast, Inés drove Nat to the El Mar Stadium. They talked about the Celtic v Lazio match and the weather. Inés's angry exchange with José wasn't mentioned.

Nat found everyone already in the same changing room they'd used yesterday. There was a lot of chat and teasing, particularly over the quality of Adilson's singing voice. He pretended to be offended but laughed with everyone else.

“All set for today?” asked Emi, strolling over to Nat.

Nat nodded. This morning's session on the beach had done a great job of psyching him up for training. Far from tiring him out, it had actually energised him to do a thousand times better than he had the day before. Ian Fox would be keeping a very close eye on him and he was going to show the gaffer he was up to the pace.

From his first second out on the pitch, Nat got stuck in. He was at the front of the pack for all of the initial running exercises. He was excellent in the passing and dribbling drills and he ran and harried in the two versus one possession and tackling sessions. After this, Stan Evans called the four strikers, the two goalies, Emi and the Wildman to the far goalmouth, while the others worked with Fox.

“Right, lads,” began Evans, “we've got Celtic tomorrow night and, as you all know, they've got Angus Reakin and Paul Smithfield in central defence.”

Nat swallowed nervously.

“The boss and I have picked up on something which we want to work on.”

Nat and Emi exchanged an interested glance.

“They know we'll be playing four-four-two, just like them,” said Evans. “So Reakin and Smithfield will each pick up one of our strikers.”

Nat nodded. He'd seen them do exactly this with the Lazio forwards in last night's game. Being marked by either of them was a daunting prospect.

“However,” went on Evans, “there's a chink in their armour. At corners and set pieces Reakin will always stay with his man, but Smithfield sometimes hangs back. Having a massive figure like him on the goal line is always a useful blocking device, but when he does stay back, the striker he's marking gets some legroom. We want to exploit that tomorrow night.”

“Sounds good,” nodded Dennis Jensen.

“So,” carried on Evans, “Graham and Jack will take turns in goal now – five minutes on, five minutes off. Adilson, take these balls. I want you to take corners and free kicks first from the left and then from the right. Wildman – you're going to be Angus Reakin. You'll always stick to your man. Emi, you're Smithfield, so mix it up – stay with your opponent half of the time, but the other half hang back on the goal line, OK?”

The Wildman and Emi nodded.

“Strikers, I'm going to rotate you to try you out in all sorts of different combinations. You'll all get a chance
to be marked by the Wildman and Emi, or in this case, Angus Reakin and Paul Smithfield. Nat and Dennis – you're on first.”

Adilson started pumping balls into the area, with the Wildman pretending to be Reakin and Emi pretending to be Smithfield. When Nat was being marked by the Wildman/Reakin, he hardly got a sniff of the ball. But when he and Jensen switched and Emi/Smithfield became his marker, he found that every other ball he suddenly had the freedom to dart around the penalty area and this allowed him to get in a couple of decent shots and then score with a crisp volley past Graham Dalston. Seeing the ball hit the back of the net was deeply reassuring.

Evans kept them at it for forty-five minutes, drilling them again and again to take advantage of Emi/Smithfield's goal line hang-backs. Sometimes his presence on the line denied a goal-scoring opportunity, but at other times it enabled all four strikers to bag some goals. Evans and Fox were right on the money – it was an area Rangers would be stupid not to look at. By the end of the session Nat had scored nine goals and his confidence was rising rapidly, yesterday's poor showing a fading memory.

During the five-a-sides in the last portion of training Nat was totally up with the pace, exchanging passes with speed and accuracy. In his second game, he swerved past Paulo Carigio and smacked the ball with some wicked spin past Jack Bell into the net.

“Spot on!” shouted Evans from the touchline. Fox
stood next to him, the trademark inscrutable expression on his face. Nat had another shot parried and scored again a few seconds before the end with a blistering long-range shot. The Wildman patted him on the back after the final whistle.

“You're fired up today, kid, aren't you?”