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  "Ah, Alejandro," the coach said mockingly in Spanish, "good of you to finally join us."

  "Sorry," I apologized, "bit of trouble with the press outside."

  "That's not my concern," he said. "My only concern is that you're here on time, every day. You're a little fish in a big pond now, Alejandro – not the other way around."

  "It's Alex," I said. I could have bit my tongue, could have kept my mouth shut and avoided getting on the coach's bad side on my first day, but then I wouldn't have been me.

  "Okay, Alex," he said in a hard tone, "have it your way. Ten laps around the pitch."

  I raised an eyebrow, determined not to let the punishment ruffle me. After all, ten laps was nothing – just a couple of miles. It would be a nice warm up.

  I was ready to start jogging as soon as we got out under the training field, but I couldn't help but display my astonishment at the quality of the facilities. I'd come from one of the best colleges for soccer in the whole of America, but this place made that look like minor-league. My mouth was so far open that it could have served as one hell of a fly trap. Some old dude in a training kit who looked well past thirty laughed at me and muttered, "Cabrón."

  My blood boiled. Who the hell was he to call me a bastard? As soon as I got on the proper pitch, I resolved, I was going to show him who the new boss in town was.

  For now, though, I had a punishment to deal with. I bent down, touched my ankles and wiggled my ass, winking as I did so at the sexy sports therapist caught red-handed checking me out. She blushed, flushed and turned away in embarrassment, and after a good long look at her ass, I started running.

  I knocked off the laps in a gentle twelve or thirteen minutes – just enough that my legs were feeling good and ready for some real action.

  "Learned your lesson, Alejandro?" the coach asked with a mocking smile on his face, completely ignoring my request for everyone to call me Alex. I just rolled my eyes – I knew what was going on – they didn't like my attitude. Coaches rarely did. When they realized how good I was on a soccer pitch, though, they usually found a way to swallow their pride.

  "Yes, coach," I said, smiling sweetly. "Thanks."

  His face furrowed as he processed my unexpectedly calm reaction. "That's it?"

  I nodded. "Am I good to get out on the field, coach?" I asked, suddenly aware of the strength of the Spanish sun beating down on my exposed arms. I glanced down at my taut, ripped bicep and silently thanked whoever was watching over me the day I got blessed with skin that tanned to such a perfect golden hue.

  He looked at me, clearly disappointed that his attempt at punishing me hadn't had the desired effect, before shaking his head and gesturing out to the pitch. "Go on then."

  I smiled – a genuine flush of excitement running through my body as I realized that this was actually happening. I'd dreamt of this moment my entire life, and even though I'd always assumed that achieving it would only be a matter of time, actually standing on the hallowed turf of the Barcelona training ground was still more than enough to send a shiver of adrenaline pumping through my veins.

  The assistant coaches had laid out a series of training cones, clearly marking out a box that measured eight yards by eight yards. As I turned to face it, I immediately recognized what was going on – a rondo. It was the drill Barcelona had made famous – one of the fiercest, most fiendishly difficult tests of a soccer player's skill that had ever been invented. And not only that, but it was a drill I'd never attempted before.

  The game was simple, and yet, anything but. Six players formed a loose circle no more than a few yards away from each other, and a seventh stood in the middle. The job of the players on the outside of the circle was simply to pass the ball amongst each other, playing one-touch soccer and bypassing the player in the middle every time. In truth, it was nothing more than an adult version of piggy in the middle – but even so, when it's one against six, it's one of the hardest tasks a soccer player could be asked to perform.

  My stomach sank as I saw the older members of the squad look at me and then each other before laughing. I was about to be piggy in the middle, and I knew there was no getting out until I intercepted the ball.

  "Hey, Alejandro," someone called over, "get your ass over here."

  I didn't complain. After all, to be the best, you've got to beat the best – and I had every intention of being recognized as the team's best player by the end of the season. I might be a small fish in a big pond now, but I had every intention of growing.

  I jogged over, actually thankful for the warmup I'd just been forced to take. Fit as I was, and I couldn't imagine there were many in better shape than me in the squad, I knew this was going to be taxing.

  "Get in the middle, cerdo," the senior player who'd already insulted me once today spat derisively. It meant pig – and the lack of respect pissed me off, but yet again, I didn't say a word. I was going to earn my stripes on the field and show this old timer who was boss.

  "You got it," I said in English. He stared at me with narrowed, uncomprehending eyes and jutted his chin out aggressively. I could take being hazed, but I couldn't help but think that this old timer was taking a little bit of tardiness way too personally.

  Standing in the middle of the circle, I realized that there was no place to hide. If I wasn't good enough to get myself out, I could be here for long, long time.

  The sharp blast of the coach's whistle echoed around the field, and it was on. The ball pinged from foot to foot faster than my eye could follow, and I didn't bother moving for a good thirty seconds. There was no point – I knew that, hell, everybody knew that. The only thing running around like a madman would achieve would be to tire me out. Relying on physical gifts, I knew, was how lesser players managed to cope with their betters. I was younger and fitter than almost everyone on the field, but I was also better. It wasn't my body that would win this, it was my mind.

  "Get on with it," the old timer shouted at me. "You lazy fucking American." My blood boiled and the hackles on the back of my neck stood on end.

  I'll show you.

  I began tracking the movement of the ball, trying to discern a pattern or whether a certain player had a tell in the way that he dealt with it. The white soccer ball was generally circulating in a clockwise direction, though from time to time a player would chip it up and switch the direction of play. The wild card was when another player decided to direct an overhead ball with a deft touch of the head, because heading was far easier to get wrong.

  My mind clutched on to that piece of information and began to formulate a plan. I needed to get the ball up in the air, to introduce a variable into the situation – something my opponents hadn't planned for.

  "You fat fuck," someone shouted. "Do something."

  I felt like a Christian being fed to the lions – surrounded by powerful, respected team mates who were all baying for my blood. But the continued heckling started to get me pissed. I had seven percent body fat – I sure as hell wasn't fat. Hell, going any lower would probably put me in hospital! They knew that, too – they were trying to provoke me into a rash reaction.

  If they'd known anything about me, they'd have realized how bad a strategy that was. I didn't succumb to anger – I molded it, made it work for me, not against.

  "Watch yourself," I said, fixing a young, green-looking player with a fierce stare. He quailed visibly under my gaze, and I smiled. The boy couldn't take his eyes off me, and I realized I'd found exactly what I was hoping for – an opening. He was standing with his legs apart, knees gently bent, and his left foot an inch ahead of his right. It was vital information, and I filed it away.

  I kept one eye trained on him, so that he couldn't help but stare back, but left my other peripherally tracking the movement of the ball and studying the opposition's body language. It spoke volumes.

  The ball was three players to my left, almost behind me. I knew I had to spring into action. I turned on my heel and ran directly at the player with the ball. After so long stand
ing still, he wasn't expecting the sudden movement and panicked, chipping the ball up and over my head.

  Exactly as I'd anticipated.

  Almost before the ball had left his foot, I was already turning, back to the young player I'd previously transfixed with my gaze. I could see the look of surprise as he saw the ball coming towards him, and saw that he wasn't prepared to deal with it. I saw the almost imperceptible bending of his knees as he prepared to head it, and remembered the way he'd been standing.

  I knew where he was going to head the ball even before he did, my mind already having processed the fact that his slightly off-center position – body twisted almost imperceptibly to his right – meant that there was only one player who could possibly be the intended target – the grizzled old timer.

  I was sprinting towards him before the ball had even hit the younger guy's head. I watched the flight of the ball over my shoulder, stretching out one long, powerful leg even as my opponent began to react.

  He was too late. And I wasn't just going to beat him – I was going to make a statement.

  I cushioned the ball down with my foot, watching all the way as the old timer tried to charge towards me and nick it back. He didn't have a chance. It was like playing soccer with my dad – he was in slow motion and I was sped up. I swiveled around my planted foot, turning counter-clockwise, and spun around the senior player. He opened his legs, trying to block me, but I read him like a book, brought the ball to ground and knocked it between his legs.

  The circle erupted around me with cries of shock, surprise and astonishment.

  "He just nutmegged Garcia!" someone whispered loudly.

  The nutmeg – knocking the ball directly through a player's legs – is generally considered to be the most humiliating way for a soccer player to suffer. It shouldn't happen – first of all, the legs shouldn't be wide enough to present the opening; second, they should be able to snapshot in time to block an attempted nutmeg.

  Garcia, which was apparently my nemesis's name, had underestimated me. He stared at me with eyes that were black with thunder. I took a pace towards him, closing the distance between us so that we stood with our noses almost touching.

  "Let me know if you want me to stay late with you for some extra practice." I smiled nonchalantly. "I'm always willing to help out a teammate who needs it."

  Garcia didn't say a word, but he looked like his anger was about to overwhelm him – his hands were bunched into fists, the knuckles white with effort, and he was trembling, almost as though every muscle in his entire body was keyed up and ready for a fight.

  "You don't know who you're messing with, Alejandro," he grunted, an act which seemingly required a monumental force of will.

  I flushed with annoyance. "I told you to call me Alex, cabrón," I said, turning the Spanish slang he'd used earlier back on him.

  "This is my team, Alejandro," he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. "I'll call you what I want."

  Two short, sharp whistle blasts broke up the impending fight, but left neither of us satisfied. This wouldn't be the last of it. I shrugged to myself. It wasn't ideal, but then again, there wasn't space for two leaders in this team. Whatever happened – one of us would need to go. I had no intention of it being me.

  We trudged back towards the locker room after cooling down. I was lost in thought, but not so far as to not notice someone hanging around me. I snapped my head to my right, only to see the young Spanish player who I'd earlier transfixed with a stare walking awkwardly along beside me, clearly trying to figure out how to start a conversation.

  "Hey," I offered. I had nothing against the kid, felt kind of sorry for him even. I had no doubt that Garcia would be giving him a piece of his mind later on for making him look the fool.

  "Hey." He smiled, offering his hand. "Rodrigo."

  I shook it. "Alex."

  "Not Alejandro?" he said with a wry smile. "Nice to meet you."

  "You too, buddy. Sorry about messing you around out there," I offered peaceably. I had nothing against this kid, just the asshole who thought he ran the place.

  "Don't worry about it," he said. "My fault; I should have been paying more attention."

  "You should," I agreed with a smile, "but I'm glad you weren't."

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Go ahead," I said curiously. This was clearly the reason he'd come over to chat with me. I was intrigued to find out what exactly he wanted to ask.

  "Why'd you do that to Ramon?"

  "Ramon? Oh – Ramon Garcia?" I said, the pieces finally falling into place in my mind. I suddenly realized who the old timer was – Barcelona's captain, and their best player for almost a decade.

  Rodrigo looked at me with shock, like I'd just tested the very foundation his world was built upon. To be honest, I probably had – this looked like a kid who'd been brought up in Barcelona colors and come through their academy. He looked like he slept in Barcelona bedsheets! "You didn't know who he was?"

  "The name rings a bell," I said, "but I don't watch much soccer. I've heard of him, but I didn't know what he looked like."

  Rodrigo's mouth hung open for a few seconds.

  "How the hell did you get so good?"

  I looked at him with surprise. "Playing, of course. How can you get good with your ass plonked down in front of the television?"

  Rodrigo was still looking at me like I was an alien, but he'd at least managed to regain control of his jaw. "Fair enough, I guess. Hey, let me know if you ever want to do some of that extra practice," he said. "It looks like you could teach me a thing or two."

  "Anytime." I smiled. "Hey, I'm gonna hit the showers, okay?"

  We parted ways, and I had a few seconds of silence to process the morning. I'd made a powerful enemy, but it also looked like I'd made a friend.

  3

  Diana

  "So, Diana," the tinny voice said in my earpiece, "tell us – how's Alex settling in in sunny Barcelona?"

  The truth was, I had no idea. I'd only landed in Spain six hours ago, so I had no idea what the sports anchor five thousand miles away back home was expecting me to say. I mean, I could guess from what I’d seen on the news that he was a cocky, arrogant son-of-a-bitch.

  But I couldn’t say that in front of a national audience, now, could I…

  "Hey, Mike, good to speak to you." I smiled, concentrating on not squinting in the face of the impossibly bright light emanating from the camera shoved in front of my face. "I'm standing here in front of the Nou Camp, Barcelona's ninety thousand-seater stadium, which is where the club is playing tomorrow night."

  "And what are Alex's chances of playing?" came the question I was dreading. I had no real answer. I was going to have to wing it.

  "That's really up to Alex and the coach," I said, plastering a wide smile on my face. My boss, the sleazy Grant Adams, had made it very clear that he didn't care about soccer news – according to him, there were only going to be two people watching: men who cared more about ogling me than listening to what came out of my mouth, and women who just wanted to see footage of the stunning Alejandro Rodriguez on their screens. It was galling, and sure as hell wasn't what I'd studied journalism for, but at least it was a get out of jail free card. "Barcelona is a very closely knit club," I riffed, "and the noises I'm hearing," I didn't say that I'd read this in the newspaper just before coming on screen, "are that he might come on as a substitution, but he's unlikely to start."

  "He won't start?" the anchor said, surprised. "Wasn't he a million-dollar signing? Can they afford not to play him?"

  "You'd be surprised, Mike," I said. I still had a television smile plastered on my face, but inside I was seething. Mike, but really the whole of WBC, were treating soccer like it was some kind of niche hobby like curling at the Winter Olympics, when really it was the world's most played, most watched sport. "The two Spanish soccer clubs – Real Madrid and Barcelona – are both bigger in dollar terms than any US sports club. The question should really be not whether they can
afford not to play him, but whether they can risk playing him at all."

  "No way," Mike scoffed, "are they bigger than the Yankees or the Cowboys. Do your sums, Diana."

  I bit down on my tongue to avoid spitting out an aggressive, if justified retort. I remembered that first and foremost, I was going out live to hundreds of thousands of television sets across America. I was right, but the viewers didn't want to see a fight between an anchor and a reporter. Well, they probably did – but there was no way I was going to let it happen – it’d be the end of my career.

  "Maybe not, Mike," I smiled falsely, "but they're bigger than you think."

  "Diana, I still don't get why he's not playing," Mike pushed. "I thought he was supposed to be the best soccer player America's ever produced?"

  I bit down on a sigh. I didn't understand how he couldn't seem to get that there was a world outside of North America, and that nowhere in that world did people play baseball, American football or even basketball to anywhere near the same extent that we did.

  "Yes, Mike," I replied with the same kind of exaggerated patience I'd have used when dealing with a toddler, "but Barcelona has a team full of thirty-million-dollar players. Alex is good, but he's not just going to walk into the team. He's going to have to prove himself, and that won't be easy."

  "If you say so, Diana." Mike laughed. "Soccer, eh. Well, thanks for talking to us, Diana. I'm glad at least you're having a good time. Send us some pictures from the beach, yeah?"

  I felt angry and humiliated – he'd just listened to everything I'd said and ignored it as easily as that, minimizing its importance. Oh, and then he'd thrown in a healthy dose of sexism. Naturally.

  I wanted to scream. There were tens of millions of recent immigrants from Latin America living in the United States who watched soccer on a daily basis, many waking up early and staying up late to catch games streamed from Europe. Many millions more young boys and girls whose parents, worried about the risks of brain injury from contact sports, ferried them to soccer practice every weekend.