Only Friends

Chapter 14 - Tokyo

The June camp went quickly, and no sooner were we on a plane to Tokyo for the Olympics. Due to Covid, the Olympics were pushed back a year, which, in some ways, had its benefits. We played our first game in mid July. Many people said that we were in the 'group of death'. We had Sweden, the USA and New Zealand. Sweden and the USA are notoriously good, and it was frustrating being told we were already going to fail. We ended up winning against New Zealand, losing to Sweden and having a draw with the USA. Again, due to Covid, I wasn't able to see Jill. Jill was contained in the Dutch village and I was in the Australian village. Mingling was at a minimum. Although, we often crossed paths with the American girls, as our two camps were quite close to each other. 

Our first game against New Zealand, we won 2-1. Sam scored a head (her traditional staple) and Tameka also scored. Although New Zealand did score in the 91st minute, we were able to secure the win. We had a small press conference after, in which Sam, as she is captain, talked about the game and the takeaways from it. I overheard what she said.
"Obviously we are happy to have won, but there is always room for improvement and we need to make sure we are fit and ready for the games against the US and Sweden." She went on but I left to the changing rooms.

After the game, we headed back to our rooms and chilled around, trying to regroup after the first match. Sam really wanted to see Kristie as she hadn't seen her in nearly 4 months, and she missed her terribly. We messaged Kristie to see if we could meet at the Olympic rings. Obviously I didn't want to be a third wheel, but Kristie is my best friend, and I also hadn't seen her in ages. So we headed down outside the building, and found her sitting with Sam Mewis and Lyn Williams. Sam and Kristie were both smiling and hugged tightly when they reunited. Due to covid and the masks, kissing wasn't quite on the agenda.
"You gonna hug me?" I asked Kristie, as Sam was still holding her tightly.
"Yes, give me a second," she said, still leaning into Sam. After a little, she let her go and gave me a hug.
"I missed you," I said into her ear so only she could hear. I don't know why, but in a way, I felt that comment needed to be private.
"I missed you more," she replied back.
We walked around the Village, being sure to be covid safe and abiding by the many rules Tokyo had put into place while being here. We always wore our masks and would try to avoid people as much as possible. Sam and Kristie, although not supposed to, held hands as we walked the village, trying to savour as much together time as they could. I missed Jill in these moments. It felt weird being so close to her physically, but not being able to see her and kiss her or be with her. I hadn't seen her in nearly a month as we both had our respective camps. I couldn't complain though, Sam and Kristie have the distance relationship a lot worse than me or Jill.

As the Olympics went on, I was seeing a possibility of finals. We lost to Sweden, which was devastating. Sam scored a double, but Sweden got four, putting the final score at 4-2. Sam said in the post match interview that it was devastating but losses help us come back stronger, and it did.

The following game against the US was going to be a tough one, and we needed the draw or win to, in a sense, stay alive. Sam knew going into the match that she was playing against Kristie. Playing against and competing against your significant other is hard, very hard. I'm not sure how she managed it as well as she did. The game was tight all the way through. So many missed opportunities, but it was a heavily defence orientated game. Instead of having the mindset that we wanted to score goals, we thought only about not being scored against. Our mentality was the opposite to which I think could've won us the game. However, it all turned out good in the end. We tied the game 0-0, and as Sam called an injury time for herself, Kristie came on in the 87th minute. Although they hardly played against each other, their teams still competed.

When we arrived in the changing room after the game, we felt relieved. Not happy, or sad, but relieved to have survived a game like that against the best team in the world.
"Girls," Sam said, while standing up, "I know our emotions are confusing right now, but we made it into the quarters so we should feel good. We did it! Now let's actually win this fucking thing!" The girls all screamed and shouted and cheered. We lost our hype, but it never truly left.

I posted a picture on my instagram of us after one of our games. We were all toppled on Sam after she scored a goal, cheering and shouting that we were back in the game.

indiharrison: Heading to the quarters, what about you?

samanthakerr20: I'm off to the bathroom

jillroord: Maybe I'll see you ;)

Note:
- shorter chapters today so I thought I'd upload two :)
- hope you like