Pernille Harder & Magdalena Eriksson

Chapter 4

Magda's alarm goes off at 5 am, she liked the extra time in the morning to get ready for the day. Plus, it was completely drilled into her from her, constantly telling her, "If you're early, then you're on time, if you're on time, then you're late."

Looking across at the blonde passed out across from her, a foreign sense of resentment surfaces. The situation was unbelievable, not only are they now teammates but roommates. Magda tried to calculate the odds of such poor luck. Shaking her head to forget about the futile thought, Magda puts on her shorts, practice tee, and throws on a hoodie before exiting with her football bag packed with her football cleats, Cliff bar, water, and Gatorade.

Arriving early to the field by 5:20 am, Magda finishes the rest of her Cliff bar, tossing the wrapper in the trashcan and sits on a bench to change out her shoes.

"I see who the early riser is, good morning, Magda."

Turning around, though she already knew who was speaking to her, she meets eyes with Coach Sjögren .

"Morning Coach."

"Where's your roommate?"

I don't give a shit.

"Uh, um, she's still sleeping."

"Let me give you some insight into my philosophy. Lesson number one, don't leave a teammate behind. If she's late, you're both running extra laps."

Magda rolls her eyes, "Seriously Coach? How is she my responsibility?"

"Let me ask you this if it were any of your old teammates or from the national team. What would you do?"

Regretfully, Coach was right. Magda, as the team Captain, always ensured her teammates were up and ready.

"That's not a fair question Coach."

"It's completely fair. Watch the rest of your new team arrive. They'll all show up together. Though I appreciate your dedication, arriving so early, remember, there's no "I" in teamwork Magda."

Sjögren casually walks away, as Magda starts with some light stretches, now nervous that her blonde ball and chain will be late.

Time is now 5:45 am and the majority of the team has trickled in, all in pairs. Partially forced by Sjögren's words, Magda didn't care about running extra laps but impacted her outlook and feelings as a leader, Magda makes the decision and runs back to her dorm.

Bursting rudely through the door, "Hey! You, get up."

"What the fuck?!" groans Pernille as the blonde shouts at her, rolling over to look at her phone.

"How were you even responsible enough to even be captain? I knew you were a fucking poser when I first saw you on the field. Now, get up!"

"Ugh, I had five more minutes!"

"We have to be on the field at 6, not wake up at 6! Hurry up!"

Rolling her eyes, Pernille gets up and hastily puts on a pair of shorts, a long sleeve tee and slips on her cleats without even adjusting the laces.

"Why the hell do you even care?" asks Pernille.

"Coach," responds Magda, "We're supposed to show up together. Teamwork shit."

"Of course, you're so egotistically driven you wouldn't know anything about that."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you too."

Picking up her bag in one motion, Pernille walks past Magda and they arrive at the field at 6:01 am.

"Ladies, you two are late," says Sjögren.

"Oh, c'mon Coach! I went back to her!"

Nodding, Sjögren appreciated Magda's gesture but had one more alibi before letting the two girls in front of him go. He was exceptionally glad to have both captains accept his offer to Linköping but obviously needed to put in some extra effort to build his team. As one of the best Women's football Coaches, this wasn't his first rodeo.

"Yes, you did. You girls are off the hook if you can just tell me one thing. Do you know each other's names?"

Magda, standing with her arms behind her back glares at the blonde.

Pernille, standing with her arms crossed glowers at the blonde.

No.

"Five laps around the field, now."

Both rolling their eyes, Pernille and Magda take off in a light jog around the field as they watched the rest of their team listen to the coach's morning pep talk.

Halfway through their added laps, Pernille finally speaks up in an annoyed tone, "What's your fucking name?"

"Magdalena."

Batting a light glance and surprised that the blonde didn't say anything else, Pernille replies snappily.

"Pernille."

Falling in line with the rest of the team, the morning starts with more running. A group run off campus and through the surrounding neighborhood. To both Pernille and Magda's annoyance, they ran at the same pace near the front of the pack.

Returning to campus, with the field in sight, Magda gives Pernille a light elbow shove as she picked up her pace. Provoked, Pernille speeds up her own tempo and now the two are leading. Sprinting against each other, trying to beat the other back. Except they arrive at the field at the exact same time. It was maddening.

Panting, Magda leans forward with her hands on her knees and Pernille puts her palms atop her head, both catching their breaths as the rest of the team filtered in. No words are shared, just glares.

The, fuck she's just as fast as I am, glare. Each hoping to leave the other trailing behind.

Proceeding through the day with some basic agility movements, Coach Sjögren finally introduces the ball in the late afternoon. Running a passing drill, Pernille finds herself kicking a pass to Magda, except she doesn't just kick a light pass, but puts an added oomph behind her leg swing. The ball streaks high and it hits Magda across the jaw. Actually, it left a small cut by the corner of Magda's lip.

Pernille almost felt bad, almost.

Magda bursts in anger, "What the fuck Pernille!" spitting the hint of iron that coated her tongue.

Pernille sneers, "Guess you weren't fast enough to dodge that one."

It was like Pernille pulled some invisible trigger and Magda launches herself at the blonde. Tackling her down. They scramble into a wrestling mess on the warm grass, Pernille immediately going for a headlock and Magda pushing up on Pernille's face.

Occupied with anger, they barely realize that their teammates have pulled them apart and Coach Sjögren is booming.

"Dammit, ladies! This is unbelievable, out of my fifteen years of coaching I have never! You two should be ashamed of yourselves!"

Pernille brushes the small cut on the side of her forehead and Magda wipes her face on her shoulder, tasting more blood. Still focused on each other with searing looks.

Sjögren needed to set higher consequences, this was unacceptable.

"You two need to figure this out. Quickly! Something like this happens again, both of you are sitting out during our games. Every game, until this stops. At this point, I don't even give a damn about winning, not with my two star freshmen acting like children."

Sjögren's words resonated with Magda and Pernille. Nothing was more important than playing.

Pernille and Magda settle down after that day. After their embarrassing wrestling match, the remainder of football camp is civil, for lack of a better word. Pernille and Magda tolerated each other and put on their best behavior.