Hello everyone, nice to know that you want to read my story. The updates won't be regular because I have college. All kinds of positive feedback is welcome. English is not my first language, there could be some mistakes in the chapters. If you find some mistakes and you want to report them back to me, please do so in a private message.
Chapter 1: The call-up
End of February 2015
A phone rings....
Ring.....ring....ring....ring...ring..
A person is sighing. A hand reaches into a backpack, while another hand is trying to open a door with the keys. The person, who is being called, is a short around 1.62m or 5'3 women. She is wearing her after-training clothes. These consists of nice black shoes, some pair of jeans, a red and black squared blouse and at last she wears a black beanie-hat. If she isn't in her training clothes or some form of sports clothes, she will wear nice pair of pants and a blouse. When she opens her phone, she looks confused because she doesn't know the number.
"Bizarre, je n'attendais personne." she muttered with a confused look on her face. When she accepts the call, she doesn't recognize the voice. The friendly sounding voice has a soft British accent, while sounding professionally. Lisa opens the door, steps inside and stands still. She is still thinking about the person who is calling her, because she clearly doesn't know the person. Weird, I expected no one.
"Hello Lisa Armstrong. You are speaking with Jill Ellis, the coach of the national women football team of the United States. I would like to call you up to the team for the Algarve Cup." The other voice, Jill Ellis, says. Lisa is surprised by the call because she did not expect anyone from the United States to 1. notice her and 2. to pay attention to the European Women Leagues.
"Dear miss Ellis, first of all thank you for the call up. Next to the USA, I am able to represent Scotland and France. Why should I choose to represent the USA and don't you have other players in mind?" She answers back with deep interest of what the reply will be. She dumps her bag on a couch, sits next to her bag and runs a hand through her short curly red hair that peeks out of beanie hat. Both sides of her head is nearly shaved only very short hair are left. While on top of her head, her hair is longer.
"That is indeed a great question. I believe you have a lot of potential and the other player that I could have called up is injured and not as young as you. You will bring new and fresh energy into the team, it will probably inspire and challenge the other players. Furthermore, you have shown that you are ready to compete in international level. You play regularly as a starter at Olympique Lyon. You already have so much high level playing experience, also at Linköping. You played against some international USA players in Sweden. Yes, I do believe you have the talent, experience and the knowledge to be able to certainly play at the Algarve Cup and possibly at the World Cup." She explains with valuable arguments. Lisa thinks for a moment to consider her answer, because this could change her live. Sort of.
"Look Jill, I will take this opportunity, because it is a one of a lifetime opportunity to play for a world class women football country. The fact that I know that it is a world class female team says a lot because I don't follow the women football competition except my league which I play in. Next to that, it would be a honor to represent a national team."
"Thank you Lisa, to accept my call up for the team. We will come together for camp at the end of February and it lasts at least till 11 March. During this camp we have three games, there will be a big possibility that you make your debut. That way I can see you play with the team and excess if you are at the level of the squad that is needed for the World Cup." Jill explains.
"Thanks for the information, I have a match at the 21st of February so I probable able to join the team at the 23rd. This is due to fact that we need to do our recovery and reflect on the match." Lisa explains her absence of the camp.
"That is alright, your competition begins and ends at a different time than the NWSL. We, the USWNT management team, will sent you the information and they will sent you some stuff. Do you have some questions?" Jill finishes.
"Yeah, is it possible if I have the number 14? That is my only request." She asks.
"That is indeed possible, it will be arranged when you are playing for the USWNT. I will see you at the 23rdth, bye."
"See you at camp." She finishes the call, pushes the off button. Lisa puts her phone on the table and she smiles softly.
*********
At the moment, Lisa, and her teammates from Lyon, who are also part of their national team squads, are sitting in an airplane, flying from Lyon to Faro. The flight has 15 minutes left before the plane is landing, she has nearly slept the whole flight. Lisa is playing with phone during the last thirty minutes. Most of that time she is playing some stupid little games while the others are mostly talking to each other. For her teammate this all repetition, playing with the national team, isn't new for them. To be honest, she is a bit excited to be part of the USWNT and the roster for Algarve Cup.
After a rough landing they are finally allowed to stretch their legs, straighten their clothes and breath some fresh air in. It is sunny and light outside, that is the advantage of being in the south of Portugal. After they have walked the extremely long distance from the plane to the checkout and passport control, Lisa's legs have started to wake up when she was at the passport control.
They have been standing in the waiting line for the passport check what seems for hours. They have finally arrived at the luggage pick up and of course they have to wait again for an extremely long time for their bags. After waiting for a long time for their luggage, she doesn't have to wait long for a bicycle at the special luggage. When she finally gets her bicycle from the special luggage, she put her bicycle together. Which isn't very difficult, it is mostly putting the wheels in the frame. While she waits patiently did these things, she is very thankful that her teammates were happy to wait on her. With her backpack on her back, her suitcase in her left hand and her bike in her right hand, they leave the luggage area and walk towards the exit of the airport.
At the exit she see a representative from the team, holding a board with her name on it. Before she walks towards him to see why the representative at the airport is. She says goodbye to her teammates, even if she doesn't join the USWNT management staff representative to travel to the accommodation. It doesn't mean that it changed the fact that she and her Lyon teammates would still split when they were outside to go to their respectively national teams.
"Hey, why are you here? I mean I don't know about anything or I wouldn't ask you about it. I didn't get an email but if you did send one I didn't receive it. Maybe you didn't send it to the correct email address. Do you guys know my email?" She asks and babbled at the same time at the representative while nervously pushing her glasses further up her nose. The man looks confused when she asked the question and why is being awkward as if the situation is completely new to her.
"Weird that you didn't receive anything. Someone was supposed to let you know about the pick-up at the airport. Do I still need to explain what the plan was or do I need to bring you to the hotel?" He says, trying to explain the situation.
"No thank you to both. I think I know where the hotel is located so I am able to ride my bike to the hotel." She says denying the help.
"You sure? The hotel is quite some distance from the airport." The professional looking man says, trying to change her plan or her stubborn thoughts. He is only trying to do his job, making sure that the representatives of the team are transported safely. When she shows that she has plans to cycle to the hotel, he is not entirely convinced it is a safe way to travel.
"I will be fine, back in France I cycle every day in a very busy city so I am used to cycle in busy cities. Even if I compare the distance to distances I cycle back home, it is nothing." She says back, still trying to convince him.
"Alright, I will let you cycle to the hotel. Keep in mind that they will soon start the training. I can take your bags with me so you don't have to bring them with you." He finishes and stops trying to convince her what is the best option. He has just settled on a compromise.
"Fineeee, you can take my bag. Now if we are finally finished, I would like to go because I like to pick some minutes of the training." She signs, hoping the conversation is finally finished and dropping her biggest bag on the ground near his feet.
"Okay, you can go. Go. Before I change my mind." He says, nearly pushing her away. She lets out a very big breath, she says goodbye to her while moving to the exit. The moment she is outside, she puts her backpack good on her back and jumps on her bicycle. Now a new chapter in her football career starts.
*********
Lisa arrives after 15 minutes of cycling, through the lovely warm weather of Portugal, at the hotel where the team stays during the Algarve Cup. It was easy to find the hotel, since her google maps lead her to the place. While she is stumbling and nearly tripping on her feet multiple time, through the lobby, she is greeted by the management of the team. She is being told by the management that the teams just left for the training at the training fields.
"Is it still possible to join them? This way I will get some feeling of playing with the team and what the team is like. Next to that, I just have flow and I want to warm up my body and to remove some stiffness from it." Lisa says trying to argument why she wants to join them this late.
"Are you sure you want to train this early after landing? Otherwise I don't mind and I believe that Jill will be happy that you will be to join them even for just a bit. But to let you know, they just left for the stadium." The management say.
"I will be fine, I have my bicycle to get to the stadium and Google Maps for the route so I will be fine. Don't worry I have cycled to the training location in Lyon every day." And that was the end of the conversation, the only compromise is that Lisa has to have someone who follow her with the car. This way they know that she arrives safely and well.
After the conversation Lisa leaves her bicycle with the management and quickly takes out her bicycle shoes for some slip-in things because she will waste time trying to take her bicycle to her room with her. She goes to the reception to get her key. Apparently, her room is on the second floor. She decided, because her room is on one of the lower levels, that she is running on the stairs to her room. So after a couple of minutes of running on the stairs and nearly tripping multiple times, she arrives at her room.
The first thing she sees, is that the room is quite clean and the one of the two beds is still made up. It means that she has a roommate, she doesn't really mind it and during a tournament it is nice to have someone to surely spend some time together with. On the clean bed lays a packet with some USWNT clothes, so she changes quickly into these clothes. The packet consists of a white training shirt with blue stripes on the shoulders, some dark blue shorts, on the sides of the shorts are red stripes and some other stuff with long sleeves or pants but they are not important for the training today. When she has changed, she quickly takes off her glasses, changes them for her contact lenses and puts her glasses in their case.
Around ten minutes later Lisa arrives back inthe lobby, after she has changed and checks that everything is in the smallbag. In the small bag are things like your training boots, a pair of cycleboots and some other things. While she is changing to her cycle boots, she isbeing introduced to the team member who is going to follow her with the car andis being told that he is standing standby in the car at the front of the hotel.She puts the address of the stadium in Google Maps and takes a look at theroute, she does this to get some familiarity of the routes she has to take. Sheputs on her bag, accepts her bike from the team member and walks outside, stepson her bike and leaves the scene.