The Greatest Game

“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.”

Julie Andrews

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Samuel Beckett

I was done. Simply done. 

It was the end of training and I was more then exhausted. I had run laps of the oval, interval sprints (while slipping in the mud) and had fell head first into the ball, it was not exactly my idea of a good time. I was tired and I was about to pick up my kit and go home when Coach Sheed the amateur comic he thinks he is, thought it might be a funny idea to chuck me the ball and take a practice penalty for “some light comic relief” as he put it.

“Since when do goalkeepers take penalties?” I shouted at him,

“Oh come on Lucas, just because you’re a terrible player doesn’t mean that you have to take it out on me!” he smirked.

“Coach, is this some kind of joke?”

“Lucas you do not talk to me like this, everyone needs to learn to score a penalty, although I don’t think you’ll ever score a goal unless it’s an own one.”

To put it nicely, I hated Coach Sheed with an absolute passion. He was the dictator of the Riverside Under 15’s and we are his humble slaves. Although he treats us with disdain, he has a special dislike for the goalkeeper. “Lazy buggers he is, never has to do anything during a match” was his opinion of me. He is an egotistical man who was only smiled when he could see that we were in pain or I fumbled a save or a kick. He barked out his instructions in a gruff Scottish accent that we could barely understand, but it was terrifying nevertheless and he loved it. He loved the smell of fear and there was plenty to satisfy him. He was a fierce man that seemed to know how to make the human body a jittering mess. His worst characteristic in saying this is his sense of humour and I was baring the brunt of his latest idea of a joke.

I walked to the spot shaking my head in frustration. “Yay, another chance to get embarrassed!” was my thinking. I placed the ball on the spot, adjusting it a few times so that it was dead on centre. I flicked some grass in the air and slowly, very slowly paced out my run-up.

One step, two, three, four, five, six and then the seventh and final pace.

I stood now facing the goalkeeper, not concentrating on his smirk or my teammates howling laughter behind me, or the fact that my coach was uncontrollably giggling at the sight of me at the spot. I blocked out and tried to focus. I imagined maybe 80,000, no that is much too few, 150,000 people screaming my name, waiting with baited breath for the goal. I stared at the goalkeeper trying to figure out which way he was going to move. “Left” I thought and I started sprinting out the ball ready to smash it into the top corner of the goal.

Three seconds later after I imagined myself heroically smashing the ball into the top right-hand corner, I lay face-first into the mud and I envisaged what would be the reaction. I was tempted to lie there, maybe until everyone had gone so that I didn’t have to endure the humiliation of my miss. I staggered to my feet, my face splashed with thick mud that seemed to cling to ever fragment of my face. I walked off the pitch almost in tears, the coach and my teammates clapping me off, that taunting low clap that replays itself in your head for hours. I sunk into the ground the heckling becoming louder and louder, thundering into my skull. I then started to laugh. I don’t know why I did, it just started to come out in small bursts and then in loud and uncontrollable waves that had me on the ground incapacitated and breathing for air. I then decided that no matter how much the Coach slammed me into the ground, I was going to get back up. No matter how much pain he put me through; I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of him knowing that it affected me. Because pain is temporary, but if I quit though, it will last forever.

So I ran. I ran until every sinew in my body was dying, I ran until I couldn’t feel the pain in my legs. I sprinted until I could only stagger into the house and go to bed. Football became my life, I studied the best players, what they did, how they did it and tried to apply it to my game. Slowly I became better, my body became hungrier and leaner. I also kicked penalties. I smashed hundreds into all parts of the goal until I could do them in my sleep.

So every week Coach Sheed made me take a penalty. Every week I missed, much to the delight of my teammates. But I got closer every week and every week I stood a little taller and a little prouder and a little better.

The final match of the season was upon us. Win and we win the premiership, lose and we finish “first loser” according to our coach. I wish I could say that I played the greatest game that I scored 84 goals, danced past 18 defenders and left my opposition stunned in awe of my amazing skills. But then I would be lying. The game itself was as tight as you could get and it went to penalties, each team locked at 0-0.

Coach had already told me that I would be last to go in the shoot-out, even behind the goalkeeper. I stood beside my teammates as each player converted their penalty. With the scoreline at 10-10, the goalkeeper from the opposing team sprays his penalty over the bar leaving me with the chance to win the game. Now I would love to say that I strode confidently to the spot, placed the ball down and smashed the penalty into the corner, but I want to be honest. I put the ball down and went back through my paces.

One step, two, three, four, five, six and then the seventh and final pace.

I strode to kick the ball, my teammates cheering me on. I slipped just before the spot and just managed to connect to the ball. I lay flat on my face, dejected and heartbroken. Suddenly, I heard cheering. My teammates came over and raised me on their shoulders. The ball had gone into the back of the net. Somehow, lady luck had shined upon me. But then again, luck doesn’t just happen.

Luck is part of the greatest game. The game that is life.