Falling In and Out

Ch. 17

"And here we go for the final group stage match of this World Cup. The US versus Germany. The US drew one of the toughest World Cup groups and they're still on top with four points, the Netherlands behind them with two points, only ahead of Belgium and Germany by goal differential. This group is anyone's game. Whichever two countries win has the most likely chance to be going to the knockout rounds."

I hate playing Germany. I think everyone does. It's not the players that have anything to do with it- it's their fucking coach, Marcus. He instills a cheap, dirty style of play in his system. The players for the most part don't play dirty, but then when Marcus starts yelling all hell breaks loose. The German Football Federation won't sack Marcus either because well, he owns it. He owns it and decided himself to run the women's national team and become one of the most generally hated managers in the world.

I know some of the players from my time at Ajax and Chelsea and they're truly amazing players and people, but when your manager owns the entire federation, it's hard to go against him. It's just hard for everyone else who has to go against them too.

"Hey Bubu, what's good?" a German player and my Chelsea teammate, Sarah Huntzberger catches me in the hallways.

"Huntzy!" I hug her while she laughs.

"The day has come alas." Huntzy laughs. "I thought going against you in training was hard enough and now this shit."

"Sorry that you won't make it to the knockout rounds," I smirk.

"We could still beat you." she rolls her eyes before continuing, dropping her voice to barely a whisper. It's so quiet I can barely hear her even though she's talking straight to my ear. "We call him der Teufel in German which means the devil and if we go home, I wouldn't be so upset about it. We're planning to speak out against him after this World Cup."

"That's amazing, Huntzy, are you guys going to be okay? In terms of repercussions and everything."

"Worst case scenario is that we won't play. But we're all united on this front- we even reached out to some of the developing young players. They can't have a national team if there are no players." they don't have any players."

"We could hope for your win and then a Netherlands-Belgium draw so we both make it through so that at least you have some traction and public support."

"We'll be fine either way. We're going to give it our all tonight- the right way- and if that doesn't work, then at least we went out knowing we played with our hearts."

"I'm proud of you, Huntzy." I hug her again.

"And I'm proud of you, too. You're absolutely balling out this World Cup. And I just want you to know- with everything else too, I'm proud of you and I love you."

"Thanks, that means a lot. Yeah- it's all been a bit crazy, but right now I just want to take home the Golden Boot so I could fucking brag in T's face." I laugh and Huntzy laughs along with me.

"I'm never letting it go when you win the Golden Boot over T." Huntzy laughs again when one of the staff for the Germany national team comes to bring her back to the locker rooms.

"I still have a couple of goals to go, but good luck out there. I'll find you after the game." I hug her goodbye as we both go to our respective locker rooms.

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"It's the final game of the group stages for the US. They're up against the mighty powerhouse, Germany. They need to come out of this with a win to ensure their spot in the knockout stages. I think a surprising decision by the US coach Tyler is the decision to continue starting Bella Evans. With everything that happened yesterday and knowing her previous track record of getting in fights, especially with Germany's aggressive play- you can't help but wonder if Evans might come into this match with a lot of anger and emotions and essentially maybe come out of this game with a red card."