The Road to Canada

by Kate Christie

  “Same,” Emma agreed. She doubted Lindsay would receive another call-up until after the 2016 Olympics—if even then.

  They walked on, discussing possible lineups for the remainder of the Portugal matches. Jo wasn’t the kind of coach who played the same 11, game after game. Unlike Marty, who had preferred to let the starters figure things out on their own, Jo shifted the team’s style depending on their opponent. That often meant switching up the personnel as well.

  “I like that about her,” Ellie said, “even if it means I’m not always on the field. Jo doesn’t keep forcing a square peg into a round hole. She actually swaps it out for a round one.”

  “Wait. Am I the square peg in this scenario?” Emma demanded, faux outraged.

  “No, you idiot. I am.” Ellie winced slightly as the trail roughened underfoot, pausing to stretch her quads.

  “Old much?” Emma teased.

  “Another five years and you’ll be where I am, and then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

  Five years—another full World Cup cycle plus one. Would Emma still be playing? Would Ellie? She would be thirty-eight, so it didn’t seem likely. Tina Baker was the only player Emma had known to make it that long, and she seemed happy enough to have her soccer years behind her. Or maybe happy was the wrong word. More like too busy taking care of multiple tiny human beings to miss her former jet-setting soccer superstar lifestyle.

  Anyway, five years was a long way away, Emma reminded herself a little while later as she and Ellie turned and headed back to the hotel. She would do well to focus on the here and now if she wanted yesterday’s return to the starting lineup to be more than a blip on Jo and Melanie’s radar.

  Chapter Five

  In Emma’s opinion, their match against Switzerland was a much better showing for the team. Not only because she started and played the entire game but because—finally—the offense seemed to be finding its groove. Well, not in the first half, which remained scoreless. Switzerland’s defense was well-organized for the first 45, but Emma could tell it was only a matter of time before the US attack found the seams and broke through. Sure enough, in the second half, Ellie came in to score two goals in ten minutes and assist Maddie on a third.

  Ellie wasn’t the only person to find her offensive groove. There was the minor business of Jamie and Emma each assisting on one of her goals. Jamie’s assist was a perfectly lofted ball from outside the box that found Ellie’s head in front of the goal, while Emma’s contribution was less flashy but counted just as much. She’d intercepted a pass at midfield when all of a sudden, muscle memory took over. She passed to a checking Maddie, got the ball back, and dribbled into open space. When Ellie called for the ball, Emma sent her a neat through pass and watched, delighted, as Ellie one-timed it past the diving keeper. Emma was on the board! She’d actually added offensive points to her stat sheet, just as Jo had asked of her.

  “Nice job out there, Blake,” Melanie said after the game, clapping her shoulder as Emma cooled down. “Looks like those extra practice sessions paid off.”

  They really had. Which she shouldn’t be surprised by. To make it to this level, she’d had to eat, sleep, and drink soccer for years. It only made sense that she would need to continue to grow in order to stay at the top level of the game.

  Game three against Iceland didn’t go quite as well, and not just because Emma didn’t start again. The US needed a win or tie in their final group match to advance to the finals, and in theory Iceland shouldn’t present much of a challenge, given they were ranked 20th in the world and the US had never lost to them. But the island nation’s players were strong and athletic, and their intention was clearly to challenge for every single touch. If an American player held the ball too long, Iceland didn’t hesitate to put her on the ground. As a result of the constant pressure, the American players seemed a step off throughout the game.

  With Steph out indefinitely with her reinjured back, Jamie got her second start in a row. Emma was happy for her—until partway through the first half when the other team’s center back took Jamie down for the second time in ten minutes. Emma jumped up from the bench with the rest of her teammates—except Jessica North—to protest the foul, but she was probably the only one on the sideline who had to fight an urge to charge out onto the field and head-butt the Iceland center back Zinedine Zidane-style. Fortunately, Jamie wasn’t injured. She allowed Angie, who had been given a rare start, to pick her up and dust her off, and the game resumed. Maddie did manage to “accidentally” elbow the whor—the Iceland center back in the face a few minutes later when they both went up for a cross, so at least there was that.

  When Emma went in during the second half, she gave as many elbows as she received, though she was careful not to take any risks in the American defensive third. Iceland earned more yellow cards (three) than shots on goal (two), but they didn’t score. Neither did the US, much to their own frustration. Still, they were through to the tournament’s final, where they would play none other than France, who had gone 3-0 during group play. Even more impressively, they’d managed to defeat Japan—Olympic silver medalists and the reigning World Cup champions (ugh). No doubt about it. France was hot right now.

  For the second time in six months, Emma realized, the American team would have the opportunity for nearly immediate revenge against a team that had defeated them. This time, unlike at the International Tournament of Nations in Brazil, the US would come out on top.

  She hoped.

  #

  During the brief forty-eight hours between the final group match and the championship, a new team mantra emerged: “Score in the first 45.” The only time all year they’d managed a goal in the first half had been against England the previous month, so this seemed like a good objective to rally around.

  Jamie alternated that mantra with her own slightly longer recitation, intended for Emma’s ears only: “Danny Welbeck scored the winner to knock United out of the FA Cup!”

  For the first time in a very long time, Emma found she had zero urge to break team time rules with her annoying girlfriend.

  “The first time in what, like, nine years?” Jamie teased as the team’s charter bus carried them to Faro for the match against France. “Because that’s how long it had been since Arsenal won a match at Old Trafford, baby!”

  Emma didn’t point out that Jamie was basically admitting that United was the better team, nor did she remind her seat mate that United had won 11 out of the 15 previous matches between the two sides. Instead, she clapped her noise-canceling headphones over her ears and pointedly stared out the coach windows at the wide ocean vista. While she might secretly have wished that United had never traded Danny Welbeck, she was happy to let Jamie brag about her Premier League team’s victory if it would distract her from her nerves. Actually, Emma wasn’t happy about the boasting. But she wasn’t going to burst Jamie’s Arsenal bubble, easy as it would be to do so. She was going to be a good girlfriend and listen to her psych-up mix—recent dance music and a few power ballads—while she visualized the upcoming match. Because like Jamie, she had received word at breakfast that she would be playing the full ninety today.

  Her focus was, as usual before a big game, on defense. As her college coach used to say, “Offense wins games, but defense wins championships.” Emma’s primary responsibility (no matter what Jo thought) was to make sure France didn’t score. Her secondary role was to start the build-up from the back. Back in the day, the American attack had centered on long balls launched up the field. Under Jo’s leadership, however, the focus had shifted. The current coaching staff privileged technique and tactics over 50-50 balls, possession and patience over forcing the attack.

  Emma’s visualization exercises were aided by the fact they had faced France so recently. She could easily picture individual French strikers like Sophie Durand, the team’s leading scorer. Could see herself beating Durand to a through ball, closing her down one-on-one, blocking her wicked shots. She made sure to visualize herself in t
he attack, too, contributing the way she’d practiced at January camp and beyond. Because if you didn’t believe you could do something, you probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

  She managed to ignore Jamie and focus on her internal preparation right up until the bus pulled up to the stadium in Faro. She had played here a handful of times, most recently in a 2012 loss to Japan that came almost exactly halfway between losing to them in the 2011 World Cup final and beating them at the 2012 Olympics. Coming in third at the Algarve after losing to Japan that year had seemed like a near catastrophe until last year’s actual catastrophic finish. Fortunately, the US was back on track again, back in the finals with momentum on their side—if you didn’t count the minor hiccup of their tie with Iceland. Emma chose to focus on the big picture, the one where they had won 8 out of the last 12 Algarve Cup championship titles. Last year’s performance and the loss to Japan were mere blips on an otherwise stellar record.

  In the locker room, the players changed into cleats and stowed their gear, talking and laughing amongst themselves while the team’s pre-game mix played on Bluetooth speakers. When everyone was ready to hit the pitch, Jo called them into their pre-game huddle. They stood in a loose circle, arms around each other’s waists and shoulders, while Jo wrote a quote on the dry erase board: “Even if you’re on the right track, if you sit still, you’ll get run over.” This was the same quote she’d shared at their very first team meeting after replacing Craig. She underlined it now and joined the circle between Melanie and Henry, the offensive coach, gazing at the players one after another.

  “You’ve all heard me say before that in sport, as in life, there’s no looking back. There’s only moving forward. To that end, I challenge each of you to face this game today with a clean slate. Leave what happened in France where it belongs: in France.” For a brief moment, Emma thought the coach’s gaze might have lingered on Jamie, but she couldn’t be sure. “You’ve done all the preparations and made all the adjustments we’ve asked you to. Now it’s just a matter of putting it all together. Oh, and scoring in the first 45, of course. See you on the pitch, athletes.” And she led the coaching staff from the room.

  Ellie waited until the door closed to declare, her gaze as piercing as Jo’s had been, “This is our chance to avenge more than last month. This is our chance to wipe away last year’s pathetic showing, to move forward into the amazing future I know is waiting for us. Let’s go out there and win the first fifteen minutes, and then the next fifteen, and then the next.”

  Across the huddle from her co-captain, Phoebe added, “We always do better when we score early, so let’s get on the board right away, girls. You do that, and I’ll give you a clean sheet, guaranteed.”

  Emma could feel Phoebe’s confidence and Ellie’s optimism flowing through the team, moving from one person to the next, filling them with the indefinable sensation she’d always associated with victory. They were going to win this match, she could feel it. France had no idea what was about to hit them.

  They screamed out a cheer, and then they were filing out of the dark underbelly of the stadium and onto the freshly mown field, newly painted lines white and gleaming in the afternoon sunlight.

  Before warm-ups, Emma performed her pre-game rituals: jogging to the goal on their assigned half, readjusting her shin guards, and plucking a few blades of grass from inside the six to test the wind. Today, the rituals felt more significant. She had always known her time in a US uniform was limited, but now she could feel the ephemeral nature of her chosen profession in her heart, in her stomach, in her bones. A week, a month, a year from now she could receive the news that she was no longer on the squad, and all she would be able to do was nod and say, “Thank you.” For the chance to represent her country at the highest level; for the opportunity to be part of something so much larger than herself.

  But not today, Satan. Today she had a game to win.

  Warm-ups dragged. All Emma wanted to do was play, for fuck’s sake. She could see France warming up on the opposite end of the field, their collective body language confident and relaxed, the looks they sent the US players smug and more than a little condescending. Emma gritted her teeth and tried to focus on her teammates as they lunged and stretched, as they played keep away, as they worked on passing patterns and small-sided games. She jumped in place during the requisite national anthems, humming through France’s La Marseillaise because whether it was due to the previous month’s loss or more about Jamie’s teenage trauma, she was starting to really dislike all things French.

  And then, finally, FINALLY, it was time for a last team cheer in front of their bench.

  “Let’s show these biatches where to shove it,” Jenny Latham declared, and everyone laughed.

  “Win the first forty-five,” Ellie said, gazing around at them one by one.

  She was back in the starting lineup too, and the confidence in her look and bearing was palpable.

  “Get on the board early,” Phoebe added, her game face fierce. “Team on three. One, two, three, TEAM!”

  Emma jogged toward their defensive end with Lisa, Taylor, Ryan, and Phoebe. As usual, they gathered at the top of the penalty area and did their own cheer: “Hold the line!” While Phoebe continued on to the goal to execute her pre-game ritual pacing of the goal-mouth and spitting into her gloves, Emma took her place in the center beside Lisa. Jamie was on her way toward midfield, but paused to smile at Emma. She nodded back, face set. Once she was in game mode, she rarely smiled. Instead, she channeled her energy into being the fiercest, most badass woman she could be.

  Jamie, she was pretty sure, understood.

  The referee, a woman from Romania, lifted her whistle, and Emma felt it—that familiar sharp urge to pee. Then the whistle blew, and the game was on. As France dropped the ball back, Ellie led the pressure charge, forcing the French players to dump the ball all the way back to their keeper to start a slow build-up from their own box. The US kept the press on—so much so that Maddie got called for her first foul less than a minute into the game on a call that Emma thought was questionable at best. Both players had been going for the ball, and really, the contact had been incidental, hadn’t it? Obviously, the ref didn’t see it that way because she called Maddie over and gave her a verbal warning while both teams looked on in semi-amazement. Maddie was practically laughing, and she rolled her eyes at Emma as she turned away from the overly-officious referee.

  They were professionals, though, Emma reminded herself as France prepared to restart, and as such were fully aware that there was no accounting for some refs. Better not to worry about what—and whom—you couldn’t control.

  France took advantage of the ridiculous call to launch an offensive off the free kick, but Emma cleared the in-swinger easily out to Taylor, who started the attack up the left wing. A moment later, France intercepted a long ball out of the midfield, and soon they were driving back down toward the US goal. A whistled handball on Jordan Van Brueggen gave France their second dangerous free kick in the first three minutes of the game, and Emma began to doubt her earlier certainty about the game’s outcome. She lined up at the top of the eighteen as Phoebe shouted orders, relieved when Durand’s notoriously dangerous free kick skipped harmlessly over the end line for a US goal kick.

  While the center ref was undeniably whistle-happy, her bad calls went both ways. Just past the five-minute mark, France’s right back used “too much” arm extension during a shoulder charge against Gabe—in the ref’s opinion. Emma didn’t actually see the need for a whistle, but no one asked her. Besides, she would take the bad call against France to even out the crappy reffing odds.

  Jo called something from the sideline, and Jamie jogged over to take the free kick a few yards off the corner of the eighteen. While the referee inserted herself even more into the game by lecturing Jordan and her French counterpart for jockeying for position near the twelve, Lisa caught Emma’s eye.

  “Get in there,” she said. “I’ve got the counterattack covered.”


  “Yeah?” Emma asked, already starting toward France’s penalty area.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

  Emma and Ellie exchanged a nod as they set up between the six and the twelve. Then Emma looked back at Jamie, standing with her hands on her hips, waiting for the ref to cease her annoying posturing. Their eyes met and this time, Jamie didn’t smile. Her nod was decisive. Emma knew before the referee blew her whistle exactly where the ball would be.

  Sure enough, the high-pitched tweet had barely finished when Jamie took two graceful steps and launched the ball into the box. Emma sprinted past her defender to the near post, intercepting the ball on the six. Her vision narrowed, her hearing dimmed, and the only thing she focused on was connecting her forehead with the arcing ball and flicking it on toward the goal. All it took was a slight redirection, and the ball sailed past the wrong-footed keeper and into the back of the net.

  Holy shit. Emma leapt into the air, swinging her fist upward as she shouted, “Fuck, yeah!” She had just scored her first ever goal for the national team! Why hadn’t she done this sooner? It felt awesome!

  The American fans erupted—or maybe that was the bench, given that the stadium was mostly empty—while the team converged on Emma, laughing and hugging her for varying amounts of time. Jamie hugged her for an extra-long moment, and Emma could practically read her mind. Just like we practiced.

  “Gooooooooallllll!” Ellie and Jenny said in unison, smacking her back so hard Emma thought she might lose her breath.

  Taylor O’Brien hung back from the celebration, but as they jogged back to their defensive end for kick-off, Emma pulled her into a side-hug. Now that this particular newbie wasn’t stealing her playing time, Emma could admit it: Taylor deserved her starting spot. She was a beast at both ends, and in the past year, Jo and her NWSL coach had managed to mold her into a more measured, controlled monster. Emma was psyched she was on their team, especially as the first half wore on and Taylor continued to occasionally run over a French player.