“There’s three ways out of this mess,” he says. “Maybe we stay in fourth, no harm done. Possibly we could drop to fifth or sixth. Mathematically, we could end up in third. It all depends on how Chelsea and United play.”
The trick of that is that all the matches will start at the sametime, as is tradition with the final schedule of the season. Camden won’t know the scoreline they need, because it will be determined in real time, while they’re going scorched-earth mortal combat against Kilburn.
“We’ll say a prayer at halftime. Then we’ll fucking win,” Oliver says into the phone, willing himself to believe it as simply as he’s said it. Leo has finally looked up from the floor and now he’s staring at Oliver with his jaw clenched. He’s fiddling with the rosary under his shirt and nodding like he’s trying to believe it too.
“You might need to give a bit longer of a speech than that, Ollie,” Anthony replies gruffly. “Listen, I have kids to put to bed. I’ll be with you from the bench, okay?”
Anthony hangs up without letting him say goodbye and Oliver takes the phone down from his ear slowly, almost disbelievingly.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles to Leo. “I don’t know what to—”
“You don’t have to, Ollie,” Leo whispers back, the words punched out of him. “I understand. I could hear. This week, it’s for football. You’ve gotta be the captain.”
“But—” he starts.
“It’s okay,” Leo insists, slowly and deliberately. It must be, because he’s touching Oliver, one tentative hand at his waist. “Please don’t say anything else. Just—let me stay?”
Oliver couldn’t send him away even if he wanted to. He nods and pulls at Leo’s wrist until he’s back in close and Oliver can get his arms around him, for however long he’s still allowed to.
Sunday, May 21, 2017: Camden at Kilburn
Matchday 38
The coach trundles its way through traffic, stopping and starting for the whole section of the city that separates Camden and Grange Park, home of the Kilburn Rovers and thirty-two thousand of their most devoted supporters. The further they get from Camden Market, the more the neighborhood changes, dark green giving way to burnt orange, the footpath crowds growing ever thicker and more antagonistic. June is looming: the Premier League season has carried itself through every kind of weather and now, as it arrives at its end, it’s coated with high stakes and high temperatures, the sun beating down in a way that leaves everyone drunk faster than they expected, angrier faster still. From the tinted window, Oliver can see the throngs of fans following the same road to the stadium, promenading down the warpath in perfect rhythm. Every time their coach overtakes a new group, the mob mobilizes, stopping to jeer and shriek and throw things. The chants they lob at them are impressively varied and universally profane, surprising even Oliver, who thought he’d heard them all.
“Good God,” Finn says, cupping his ear to the windowpane. “I think that one’s to the tune of ‘Claire de lune.’ ”
“They’re always creative,” Noah admits, not unimpressed,watching the great iron structure of Grange Park grow larger and larger in front of them.
The din extinguishes itself, thankfully, once they’re underground and changing into their kits. All the crisp visitors’ white starts to replace their suit jackets and pleated trousers, until they’ve swapped one uniform for another. Oliver tries his absolute hardest to shut out the roar of his own thoughts while Willem points an uncapped marker at squad lists and various formation drawings, but his head is somewhere in the atmosphere, looking down on derby-day London and trying to make sense of it. Joe drifts from locker number 1 to number 6 so they can sit next to each other, knocking their knees the same as always, beating a familiar tattoo between their bodies.
Willem gives them the gift of silence, leaving the room twenty minutes before it’s time to assemble for warmups.
“They’re going to keep shouting at you,” the manager calls back to them from the hallway. “Enjoy the quiet while it lasts.”
All of them start to turn inward the same way Oliver is, engaging in the intricate rituals of preparation, somewhere between superstitious and spiritual: lace the left boot first, comb your hair off your face, try to believe in God, but only until you’re sure he’s heard you.
Anthony would normally be preparing to give a pre-match speech, but he’s silent, still in his suit. Oliver looks over at him once, twice, for some kind of confirmation or maybe encouragement, but all Anthony does is meet his gaze with an unblinking stare, inclining his head once like a benediction.
When Sebastian yells “Five minutes!” from the next room, Oliver knows it’s now or never, maybe the last time he’ll ever wear Camden colors, the final afternoon he’ll spend with this group of people, playing football together. He can’t bring himself to look at Leo, dressed for his first-ever derby, or he’ll lose his head completely.
“Listen,” Oliver says, clearing his throat and standing on shaky legs. His teammates obey, turning toward him, all eyes on the captain’s armband, but he’s lost for all the words he practiced in the shower last night. “Garcia, you have to stay low and cover the center—without Anthony, they’re going to try to press the full backs first, so you’ll shore it up and then they won’t be prepared if Woodsy or Matty move things up from the flanks.” He meant to be inspiring, a leader of men, but his pulse is thrumming a thousand beats a minute, the tactics spilling out of him as easy as breathing, the only things he knows how to say. “And, Trev, stay close to me—I’ll play end to end, but I don’t want us exposed in the pivot, because we’ve given Garcia enough to do.” He tries to start again, but he stammers, looking wildly at each of them, trying in vain to commit their faces to his memory perfectly. “Lads, I just…” Oliver trails off. “You know what we have to do, don’t you?”
Lukas, sitting to his immediate right, reaches out and grips Oliver’s calf muscle, holding on for dear life.
“I hear you, captain,” Georgie says in a serious baritone, the gravest tone he’s ever used, and everyone nods and whistles in agreement. Someone starts a drumbeat of feet on the tile, clacking away with their boots until any words that might occur to Oliver would be drowned out anyway.
“You’re ready?” he asks, knowing the answer in his heart. Oliver doesn’t need to say anything more: they knew what his speech would be, they know what he means, and they’ve already heard him a thousand times before. “Then let’s go do this.”
Pitchside, the light is blinding and the noise is deafening. Warming up is like trying to perform surgery in a sensory deprivation chamber. It awakens something primal in Oliver, the sheer competitiveness that’s at the core of him, his desire to win even overtaking his desire to play. He’s not scared of Rovers, but they sure ought to be frightened of him. When he meets Stewart Reedat the center of the pitch with the referees to shake hands, he’s looking at him through narrow, dark tunnel vision.
“They’re just letting anyone wear the armband over there?” Stewart says out of the corner of his mouth, eyes narrowed as he tries to crush Oliver’s fingers under his knuckles. Oliver is surprised to find himself unfazed, seeing Stewart and only feeling a sort of amused pity at the state of him. Kilburn will do their damn best to thwart them, and there’s every chance they will, but it’s impossible for them to overtake Camden in the standings—for all the rivalry, the meaning of the derby aflame around him, Oliver knows they’ve already won something, and he transmits it through his grasp to Stewart’s damp palm.
Kilburn wins the coin toss and then the first good spell on the ball. Oliver was right that they’d push hard down the middle, trying to throw Camden off-balance without Anthony anchoring the back line, but Ji-Hoon keeps running them down, sending Loxley rolling about the grass and calling for a foul more than once. Oliver keeps to his own word, playing the whole length of the pitch, tackling and attacking in equal measure. After twenty-five minutes, Camden goes up two goals. Still, it’s a tight match, and it goes back and forth, back and forth, gritty and stroppy and long. The team is buzzing at halftime, but in an exhausted way. There’s something to be said for needing to maintain versus hoping to disrupt; when they return to the field, Kilburn is salivating and whooping, buoyed by the screams in the stands, and Camden is stooped and sweaty, guzzling from their water bottles.
“How are the other scores?” Oliver asks in between dumping the tepid leftover water over his head, trying to cool down enough to reset his heart rate.
“You don’t want to know,” Sebastian replies. “United is up and Liverpool is down. Chelsea put three past them.”
