It's A Game, But Who's Keeping Score?

I waved goodnight to the guys and made my way to the elevator, seeing as my room was on the floor above everyone else’s. That was one of the conditions in my contract, when staying in hotels my room had to be on a separate floor. I thought it was unnecessary, but the League was adamant. Just as I was going to put the deadbolt in, there was a soft knock at the door. “Hi Rafa,” I whispered, opening the door allowing him to step in.

“Oh no,” he declined. “I’m only here for a moment.”

I nodded my head; I had absolutely no idea why Rafa was standing in my doorway. Had Fernando talked to Rafa about what happened two nights ago? Was I getting benched?

“You’re starting the game tomorrow, and you’ll probably play the whole game. You’re ready and you’ve proved yourself. And the Kop is taking a liking to you. Kind of reminds me of another certain Spaniard,” Rafa said with a chuckle.

I stood there, completely unable to speak. I was starting against one of the most prestigious clubs in the world, was Rafa crazy?

Rafa seemed to read my mind, “No, I’m not crazy. You deserve this start. Now off to bed, I can’t have you not in top form.”

And with that, I was alone with my thoughts to dwell on. I desperately wanted to call Sergio or Iker or even Rafa, who I had barely talked to since coming to England. I locked up and crawled into bed, not realizing the magnitude of the game the next day.

I woke up the next morning, completely refreshed and ready to take on Manchester United. A big hearty breakfast with the team and we were off to the stadium to go through today’s game plan. I sat quietly in my seat by myself, wanting to get into the zone before the game. Then, I felt my phone vibrate.

Are we ever going to talk about what happened that night?
-FT

I whipped my head around to scan the bus for Fernando; he was sitting near the back, next to Xabi. His hazel eyes staring straight back at me, as if he had been waiting for me to look back. I couldn’t pick out the emotion that his eyes held, they seemed to be changing every second.

As much as I wanted to type back a reply saying that I desperately wanted to talk things over, Fernando had once again messed things up between us. And that was going to take time to heal and having Olalla in the mix with her baby definitely didn’t help things.

Are you really going to ignore me when your less than 15 feet away?
-FT

Several other texts made their way into my inbox, only to be deleted right after I read them. I didn’t understand how persistent Fernando was, we didn’t speak for over 7 months and now he wants things to be normal? He was seriously bipolar. The bus pulled into the stadium, only to be harassed by Manchester United’s faithful fans. We quickly made our way into our dressing room, thankfully avoiding the over-eager fans. I was immediately pulled to the side by Steve and he didn’t look happy.

“Stevie, what’s wrong?” my voice barely above a whisper.

“Be careful this game, []b]please,” he stressed.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Manchester United was one of the teams that actually wanted to protest you from playing in the league; Alex Ferguson is traditional like that.”

“I still don’t know what you mean.”

“They’re going to be rough with you, they’re going to try and scare you out of the game.”

My jaw dropped to the ground, “You can’t be serious?”

“Michael Owen told me himself, he’s been playing in this league for a long time and he’s seen the league change a lot. And he sees this change, as in you, as a good one.”

I nodded numbly, my perfect day just went crashing down. As I walked to my stall, I kept what Steve had said to me quiet. I didn’t need to worry anyone but myself, I could take care of myself anyways. At least I thought I could take care of myself.

This was more than I could handle, I swear the entire team basically had it out for me. Either that or Alex Ferguson told them to come after me. I was contemplating both theories. I think I had lost count the number of times I had been slide-tackled with several of them being on the dirty side. And it was only 25 minutes into the game. Man U were up 1-0 after Cristiano Ronaldo scored on a penalty kick after what seemed like a clean tackle from Pepe.

And then out of nowhere, Fernando seemed to break away from everyone, even the Man U defenders had trouble keeping up with him. The next thing I knew, the ball was in the back of the net and Fernando was off in the corner celebrating to the Kop. I ran over to him, giving him a pat on the back and an all knowing smile; even if things were patchy on the field, he was my team-mate.

“You holding up okay?” he whispered to me in Spanish.

“Just fine,” I lied, my knees were taking a beating and to think I thought I could make it through the entire game.

“Please don’t ignore them,” Fernando said, referring to my knees. “This is just one game.”

The game was over the three quarters mark and Man U was still pressing for the tying goal after Steve had scored on a penalty kick. I myself was pressing for a goal; I needed to show Manchester United that I deserved to play in the same league as them. We were deep in Man U’s half, and Steve fed me a perfect pass on the right hand side, I was nearing the 18 yard box when I felt something take my legs out from underneath me, sending a shouting pain up my leg, specifically at my knee.

There was commotion around me, Man U players arguing that the tackle was clean while my own team-mates were saying the exact opposite. I slowly rolled onto my back, only to witness Fernando and Cristiano have a “verbal confrontation.” I quickly jumped onto my feet and hobbled over to the pair, pulling Fernando away and saying some choice words to Cristiano in Portuguese.

“I didn’t know you could speak Portuguese,” Fernando said through clenched teeth, trying to calm down.

“I only know how to swear, my friend was half-Portuguese and taught me how,” I said with a grin, I went to step over to the ref to see what his call was when my knee gave out partially. Fernando was instantly at my side, holding me upright.

“Your knee!” he gasped, “Can you play?”

The tears were stinging at the corners of my eyes, “There’s no way I’m going off, this is what they wanted.” I looked over to Rafa, giving him a slight nod to say I was okay. He didn’t look impressed, but let me stay nevertheless. As the ref made his decision, Vidic (the player who took me out) was given a red card and we were given a free kick, just outside the 18 yard box.

Steve was frantically calling me over to the ball, whispering something to Aurelio. “This belongs to you,” he said proudly.

I shook my head furiously, “No way, you’ve seen my free kicks lately. They’re terrible.”

“You’ve been practicing your left kicks right?” he whispered.

I nodded; at practices for the past couple weeks, I had been practicing shooting with my left foot to become more of a complete player. Slowly the kicks were becoming better and I was able to aim them to a certain degree. Steve pushed me forward to the ball, I could see the Man U players barely 10 yards away, ready to ambush me. As soon as I heard the ref’s whistle blow, I stepped right into the ball curling my left foot around the ball, sending it into the top right hand corner. van der Saar hadn’t even seen the ball coming towards him. He was beyond pissed, but I was too busy celebrating my first Premiership goal.

My goal had proved to be the nail in the coffin and we returned to Liverpool with a 4-1 victory over Manchester United. The bus ride home was less than comfortable for me, as my right knee was swelling up and I needed more and more ice. The physiotherapist that always traveled with us had a look at my knee and said it wasn’t anything too serious, but that I needed to be on bed-rest for a few days. Unfortunately, Pepe was sitting right behind me at the time, noting that I was to rest and not be active, something I seldom did.

As we exited the bus, Rafa pulled us together in a big group and told us how happy he was with the win and especially how we didn’t reduce to Manchester’s level. We started to head our own ways, when Fernando called us all back.

“I want to invite everyone over to my house on the 20th for my birthday,” he announced proudly.

And then Olalla stepped out from behind him, “Don’t forget to bring your appetites. Me and my girlfriends will be preparing traditional Spanish food.”

I had to suppress a gag, as Fernando smiled at Olalla before pressing his lips to hers. Only she didn’t look back at him.

She was staring straight at me.