It was the position that Ingvar had vacated. Adam shook his head.
“No. I want you central with me,” he replied. “Shaun’s taking it.”
“What’s the plan?”
The referee blew his whistle. They were back in play.
“One of us distracts Lopes, the other takes it home.”
Udo nodded.
One of the opposition defenders had possession and passed to his teammate. Not well enough as Ewen leapt between the players and caught the ball. Udo’s heart began to race.
Adam ran to Ewen’s left and Udo to his right. As expected, Lopes was on Udo almost immediately.
So the attacker who thinks he’s a defender wants to play, does he?
Udo twisted this way and that to keep a clean spot for Ewen to pass to if he needed it. He managed to glance across at Adam. To his dismay, two defenders were blocking him at every turn.
Two others were almost upon Ewen. He had no option.
The noise of the crowd disappeared as Udo forced himself forward. His sudden burst of energy catching Lopes unawares for a second and giving Udo the space he needed to get toward Liverpool’s goal.
Ewen saw this and kicked the ball. It sailed over a lone defender’s head on a course straight for Udo. At the last minute, he threw his body up. His foot connecting with the ball and sending it flying above the goalie’s head.
The away fans’ roar filled Udo’s ears as he hit the ground witha jolt. Dazed, he lay there, supposing he must’ve scored. Then Adam’s grinning face filled his eyeline.
“That was fucking incredible.”
Udo couldn’t move. The adrenalin and joy paralysing him.
What a rush.
“The way you tricked him like that. Fucking brilliant.”
Udo lay on the sun lounger and closed his eyes. “Stop going on about it now. It was only a goal.”
Steven beamed. “It wasthegoal. Look at this shot.”
He held up theSunday Timeswhich had him splashed all over the sports supplement. As soon as they’d woken, Steven had gone to get copies of every newspaper. Sure enough, most of them had covered his moment in glorious colour photos.
The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. May in the United Kingdom could be a magical month. Maybe because the decent weather was such a rarity, Udo appreciated it all the more. Soon the rain would come and sensible people would head overseas.
“What do you want to do today?” Udo asked.
“Re-read all these?”
“Steven, I’m serious.”
He was getting embarrassed by all this. The danger of being built up by the papers usually meant they would knock you down at a later date. Udo preferred to coast under the radar. No chance of that today.
Steven reached across and took his hand.
“Too much?”
“A little.”
“Okay, plans for today,” he said. “How about none? I’ve plenty of food in. We can laze around in the sunshine then…”
