Page 7 of Couple Goals

Maeve steps forwards with her hand outstretched.

‘That’s me, Coach. I’m Maeve. Maeve Murphy. Centre-back. It’s an honour to meet you.’

Maeve can’t help the ring of pride of stepping forward as club captain. It’s always been there, since her being bestowed the honour by Coach Fernandez at the beginning of last season, lighting her up from the inside like a coal in a hearth. It’s one of her happiest memories. Adriana had organised surprise drinks at their local pub to celebrate and Maeve had allowed herself a rare glass of Champagne at achieving a step she’d always dreamed of, savouring with her eyes closed the way the golden bubbles had popped on her tongue.

‘Not so fast,’ Serena holds her hand up. ‘I understand that you were the captain under Coach Fernandez. But as much as I respect his judgement–’ she nods her head towards him in a sign of deference that Maeve can’t tell if it’s sincere – ‘we need a shake up.It’s important we have a fresh start of the new era, so I’ve not yet decided who will be club captain under me.’

Maeve feels the imaginary bubbles on her tongue evaporate. Can everything she’s worked so hard for since she joined the team just be snatched away from her that instantly, cruelly, without warning?

Adriana’s expressive eyebrows are downturned across the pitch to her. Adriana has always been like an emotional crutch for Maeve, feeling the things that she doesn’t let herself. Ironically, seeing Adriana look so devastated, Maeve feels it all the more harshly. She can feel the heat in her neck start to prickle. Fortunately her cheeks don’t flush in quite the same way, and she hopes that the jacket zipped all the way up to her collar will hide her shame from the others.

‘You will remain club captain for now, on a temporary basis’ Hoffman explains. ‘It may well be that if you impress me, you get the job permanently. But this is also a note to the rest of you players. No slacking. Everything is up for grabs. You have a clean slate to impress me. If you’ve always wanted to be captain, here’s your chance.’

Coach Hoffman shrugs her hands expressively, and Maeve feels something shift in the atmosphere of the players around her. Under Coach Fernandez, she had felt she was respected as captain, not resented or envied because of it. But now, every one of these players who just minutes ago were her teammates and, she would hope was true, herfriends– her only friends… now,they are all rivals. Rather than encouraging the team to work together in a time of turbulent change, it feels like Coach Hoffman is deliberately pitting the team against each other.

Some old familiar tension in the heart of Maeve’s chest stiffens into a rigid burden. She knows what she must do. She must prove herself. She must be harder on herself than ever to maintain the highest standards. She can hear her mum’s voice clearly in her mind. She must be perfect. She must not let even a crack through her defenses, on the pitch or off it.

Maeve forces herself to meet those strict grey eyes and finds some fight within her.

‘Yes Coach. I won’t let you down.’

Chapter 3Adriana

Coach Hoffman claps her hands in a single sharp shock that echoes round the pitch.

‘Let’s get to business,’ she says. ‘I need to see how you’re all performing. I’m going to set you three simple drills – or at least, theyshouldbe simple, for players of your supposed calibre. Firstly, an exercise to test your most basic, necessary technique. Passing. Do we think we can do that?’

She sounds kinda… patronising? thinks Adriana. Certainly Milo seems to think so, because they currently look like a raging bull, nostrils flaring. Coach puts her hand down in a sweeping motion, splitting the squad into two groups.

‘Two lines facing each other,’ she barks. ‘On my whistle, first player in the first line passes the ball to the first player in the opposite line, who must then pass it back to the second player in the first line. After passing, the player will sprint to the back of the opposite line. The passes are to be fast, precise and with two touches maximum – one to control the ball, the next to pass. Keep that ball moving like a homing missile. On my whistle.’

Without any further delay, the coach blows her whistle, a short, sharp, shrill sound that immediately kicks in some innate instinct in Adriana. All the partying and alcohol and nervous tension evaporates. Now she is just raw adrenaline, running into her position in the second line. She and Maeve end up opposite each other. It often happens, without either of them particularly trying. It’s like their friendship magnetically puts them together, but today, Adriana does it deliberately. She wants to be able to support her nervous friend.

Seconds later, the whistle blows for the first pass, and Adriana watches her teammates kick across to each other, heart in her mouth. Zuri kicks a perfect first touch, setting up Charlie for a neat pass across to Elisa. With neat sprints, the two then run to their next positions, to Maeve and Adriana’s left. The drill continues to Rebecca, to Milo to Nat to Liv. Their passes are weighted like Goldilocks, neither too soft nor too hard, the perfect touch to find their target. The whole thing works fluidly. As the ball gets closer and closer to Adriana, she feels mounting pressure, but also pride in her teammates. Sure, the coach can intimidate them as much as she wants, but they’re all professionals. They’re all brilliant.Of coursethey can do an exercise as basic aspassing a ball to each other.

And then Rebecca passes to Adriana. Adriana effortlessly controls it with one touch and sends it towards Maeve. She doesn’t have to think, it’s all muscle memory, in-built since she was barely five years old. It’s a neat pass, no surprises, and Adriana almost doesn’t wait to see it meet its target with Maeve before running off to the other side of the line. But out of the corner of her eye, Adriana sees the impossible: Maeve fumbles it. The ball misses her waiting foot, and she has to reach out to make extra touches to control the ball.The coach’s whistle, which had been a regular beat like a metronome, blows extra long and hard and angry. Maeve’s foot quickly corrects it, but not fast enough. In a match, that fumble could have lost them possession. And boy, won’t Maeve know that too.

They keep going for another two rounds, the pace increasing with the coach’s whistle, and then kicking in the reverse order up the line. Each time it reaches Adriana and Maeve’s pair, Adriana is scared Maeve might fluff it again – but thankfully she is now as pinpoint as a machine.

The coach blows her whistle twice to mark the end of the exercise, and they all gather to hear the next drill, panting lightly. Adriana surreptitiously reaches across to squeeze Maeve’s arm. Maeve tenses and shrugs her immediately off. Adriana tries to swallow down her hurt. She understands Maeve doesn’t want to draw any more attention to herself in front of the new coach, but still, would it kill her to be a bit reassuring back to her sometimes?

The next drill provides an immediate distraction though.

‘Dribbling,’ calls Coach. ‘Again, one of the mostbasictechniques for any decent player. The five-year-olds in my daughter’s team can do this exercise. Let’s see if you’re up to scratch...’

While they were doing the passing drill, Kevin has set up an obstacle course over the other side of the pitch: zig-zagged cones, a slalom, and a series of gates made by two cones placed a couple of metres apart.

‘Simply make your way through the obstacle course as fast as you can while dribbling,’ Coach explains. ‘First time round you will use your dominant foot,second time your weak foot. At each of the pink cones, five burpees. You will go one at a time, while the others all watch.’

She holds up the sleek electronic timer around her neck.

‘Each time through the obstacles, you will be timed and I’ll make a note. At the end of the exercise, I will be calling out who were the two fastest in the team, and who were the two slowest.’

Adriana feels her teammates tense. Pappi never pitted the players against each other. Their times were recorded, sure. Sometimes he even told them, pulled to the side, if they were performing faster or slower than their previous records. But they were only pitted against their own personal record. With Pappi, there was so much camaraderie, that even in supposedly ‘competitive’ matches in training, they all knew they were serving a higher purpose, the improvement of the team as a whole. And sure, there’s a competitive streak in Adriana, of course there is, sheisa footballer after all, but she likes to channel her competitiveness againstopposingteams, not in-fighting.

Lining up to begin the dribbling obstacle course, Adriana tries to smile at everyone and lighten the mood.

‘I hope this obstacle course doesn’t bring up last night’s kebab,’ she whispers surreptitiously to Elisa and Charlie. But they do not laugh the way they normally do when Adriana plays the fool.

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