The whistle blew again. Goal kick from their side after our left winger Donovan dribbled himself into the deep end. I tracked the ball across the midfield and saw Parron drift like a prowling cat toward the gap between me and Reeves. Exactly where he wanted to be.

  I called the angle. Kowalski read it instantly, sliding a half-step into the space I’d forced him to occupy. Parron flashed a grin at me. The cheeky bastard probably knew something was off. Maybe he even suspected we had read him. That only made him faster.

  And fast was deadly.

  He came at the ball like he’d been shot from a cannon, cutting inside then whipping it wide in a heartbeat. I moved to block the line, and Kowalski shadowed him perfectly. Parron pivoted. He tried the old trick, a step-over, a feint, a drag back. Nothing. We were already mirroring him, and when Reeves jumped at him from behind and wrestled the ball free like yanking a candy off a kid. Reeves pushed it forward, trying to ping a quick triangle with Rothschild and Dom. I could almost see the little lines of the pass open in my mind, the space we’d carved.

  Yet it broke down easily. Their centre-back read it before the ball even left Reeves’ boot, stepping into the passing lane like he’d rehearsed it a hundred times. Intercepted. It was like our move was too slow or too telegraphed for him. To be fair, that triangle did look clunky, and Rothschild’s pass weight was Sunday-league slow on a pitch this slick.

  I looked at the CB and got his stats:

  Only one star? One star was nothing; this wasn’t the Michelin guide! Okay, technically that would make Jackson one of the best defenders if he were in our squad, but still, I’d imagine a half-decent striker being able to outmaneuver him. Were our forwards that rubbish, or was this lad hitting the form of his life? I was tempted to fire up Live Assessment and check that CB’s Tackling attribute to see how close it might be to mine.

  But no, not now. I needed to save my assessment for Parron. Or, worse yet, the shadow behind me, Schwarzer.

  Schwarzer didn’t seem either fast or flashy, but he had a well-timed run. I saw he’d scored 5 this season, and I could understand why.

  The attack fizzled and their central midfielder got the ball again, head up, scanning. Parron was already calling for it, raising both hands impatiently as though the game owed him the next touch. But behind me, Schwarzer was making another run.

  I kept darting glances over my shoulder. Neither Milner nor Okafor closed the midfielder down quickly enough. Big mistake. Mitch’s voice lacerated the pitch, “Close the gap! CLOSE THE—”

  My instinct from my Dunsvale time screamed: step up. Spring the trap. Get him offside.

  My brain countered half a second later: I’ve never done an offside trap with Kowalski. Will he step with me?

  Too late.

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  The midfielder clipped a high through ball, clean enough that it didn’t even wobble in the drizzle.

  That moment of indecision cost me.

  Schwarzer slunk past both of us, slipping into the channel with that patient, predatory stride of his. The flag stayed down.

  “Recover! Recover!” I shouted, already turning.

  The ball dropped. Schwarzer didn’t control it cleanly. He put too much spin into it, and the ball bobbled off his shin. I lunged in. My boot hooked the ball away a split second before he could wind up a shot, and I sent it flying behind for a corner.

  Could’ve been a red.

  Could’ve been my face on a billboard saying Sponsored by Legal Fees.

  But today, my tackling held.

  Kowalski clapped me on the back as he jogged past. “Good work, lad,” he muttered, like I’d just rescued a toddler from traffic instead of bailed us out of my own hesitation.

  Out wide, Parron threw his hands at Schwarzer, mouthing something dramatic—probably a rant about how he would’ve taken the perfect first touch, followed by the perfect first-time shot, followed by the perfect celebration directed at me.

  Let him talk.

  I activated Live Assessment again, instinctively aiming for Composure . . . then remembered I'd already unlocked that one. Schwarzer’s numbers sat there plain as day: Composure 56, Decisions 99.

  Great. So he’d probably miscontrol again, but only after choosing the smartest possible way to hurt us. A bloody annoying combination. This guy was also probably a good 10cm shorter than me, so checking Heading wouldn’t be my first priority.

  Alright, then what I really needed to know is whether I could catch him if he slipped the line.

  Acceleration. That was the one.

  Acceleration 63 ±30 against my 77. Statistically, he should be slower to take off than me.

  That made it simple. No offside trap. Not with Kowalski’s tempo and my half-second hesitation. I wouldn’t gamble on synchronicity when the price was a through-ball and a striker in acres of space.

  Gotta clear this corner first.

  They stacked the near post with Parron drifting just outside the box like a shark circling blood and Schwarzer jostling between me and Kowalski. The delivery came in flat and vicious. I rose, didn’t get the cleanest connection, and the ball skimmed off my temple instead of thumping off it. Not ideal. It dropped into a tangle of legs, ricocheting once, twice, like a pinball looking for the worst possible outcome.

  Our central midfielder Milner reacted first, stabbing a boot through the mess and hacking it out toward Dom now slightly to the right.

  I thought we were safe.

  Then reality corrected me.

  Dom brought it down with a decent touch, but the moment he tried to turn, both of Plymouth’s centre-backs and their roaming midfielder were already on him—closing, crowding, herding him like he’d wandered into the wrong neighbourhood. Dom hung back for just a fraction, unsure whether to shield it or lay it off.

  Fraction was enough.

  A boot poked it free. Another body stepped in front. Dom was left flailing at shadows. The ball was theirs again before he’d even opened his mouth to shout for support.

  And of course Milner and Okafor were too deep, exactly where they always were, hovering in that safe-but-useless zone where they could see the second ball but never reach it. By the time either of them moved, their midfield already had full control, head up, options everywhere, and we were scrambling to reset. This was a problem Mitch had to have seen, and must make corrections soon.

  We looked like ass. Another attack was coming. It felt inevitable.

  It had barely passed the 10th minute, and when I looked at my stamina bar, it’d already dipped like it was doing Dry January and trying to sub itself off.

  I sighed. This would be a long game.