Atlantis United

by Gerard Siggins

  The rest of the kids laughed, but the coach just smiled and nodded.

  ‘Actually there are a few theories on that,’ he said. ‘The only ones I agree with are swimming and stretching. I’ll give you a few you can do on your own – but everyone should make sure they get twenty minutes swimming in every day, as its good for lots of things.’ Professor Kossuth was concerned that his plans for the game had been leaked to their opponents, and he set about working on some alternatives.

  ‘Do not abandon our first plans though,’ he told them. ‘It will become obvious if Hy-Brasil are aware of our tactics or not, so look on these as Plan B, or even Plan C. It is always good to have a few different approaches if your opponent is not as you expected.’

  ‘What do you expect them to be like?’ asked Joe.

  ‘I expect them to bigger and stronger than you,’ said the Professor. ‘They usually recruit players from the USA and Canada, where children are on average taller and heavier at every age band. But there’s nothing we can do about that at this stage. You must strive to beat them by being faster, more skilful, and quicker thinking.’

  ‘When do we arrive at where we play them?’

  ‘We’ve already arrived,’ said the Professor.

  ‘You mean we’re playing them here on the island?’ asked Kim.

  ‘Yes, and obviously after we surface. But no, we’re actually in the exact spot where Victor and Aston have agreed to play the game.’

  ‘And where is that?’ asked Jess.

  ‘I can’t say, but you will find out soon enough. I’ve just had a message to say we will be surfacing in fifteen minutes. And I’ve been told to tell you to go to the canteen and await instructions.’ The kids tucked into a small meal while they waited to be told to strap in for surfacing. They were all nervous, but most kept silent and left Jess to bubble away, coming up with increasingly wacky suggestions for where they might be.

  ‘It could be the North Pole?’ she speculated.

  ‘Two days sail away from Guyana – on the equator?’ Ajit pointed out.

  ‘Maybe they can go quicker than we thought?’

  ‘No, it’s not going to be the North Pole,’ said Kim. ‘Remember, Luce said we were going just down the coast.’

  Joe wished he had remembered his world geography classes.

  ‘I had a look in the atlas after she said that, and I think I know where we are going. Well, roughly anyway.’

  ‘Where?’ demanded Jess.

  ‘I won’t say, but if I’m right then it’s a very fitting place for an epic football match.’

  Chapter 44

  The five were summoned to the cottage where Victor and Luce were waiting. Kalvin opened the doors and they trekked out onto the island.

  The first thing Joe noticed was how hot it had suddenly become, and how hard it was to breathe. The island had surfaced in the middle of a very wide river, surrounded on both banks by high walls of jungle.

  ‘You will now be aware of the tremendous humidity,’ said Luce. ‘That is why we came here a few days early, to allow you to acclimatise. You are here in one of the most demanding environments on earth, and you will need to be careful not to fall ill. You have all been inoculated against most illnesses known to man, but here there are many things we do not yet understand, so take care. And never, never swim in the river – or even put your hand or toe in the water.’

  ‘So, where are we?’ asked Craig.

  ‘I think that river is the Amazon,’ said Jess.

  Luce smiled, and nodded.

  ‘So? Does that mean we’re in Amazonistan?’ asked Craig.

  ‘No,’ said Joe. ‘We’re in the greatest football nation in the world. We’re in Brazil.’

  ‘Wow, how do they get so good when they play in heat like this?’ asked Ajit.

  ‘Well, this is close to the equator,’ explained Luce. ‘It’s a huge country and most people live three or four thousand kilometres further south. But it’s hot there too.

  ‘Now, Professor Kossuth will want to take you for some light training now, and explain a bit more about what you can or cannot do. But the most important rule is STAY OUT OF THE WATER.’

  The kids heeded her warning, although none of them had a spare ounce of energy to waste on swimming after even ten minutes walking and jogging on the island. It got better next day however, and the day after that they were well able to perform as they had been before they reached Amazonia.

  Joe had just slammed a pile-driver shot past Craig into the roof of the net when Kalvin came rushing out of the door to the cottage.

  ‘OK, get away from the edges, please,’ he announced. ‘You need to come up here till we see what happens next.’

  The coaches and pupils jogged up the hill to the small building. Jess asked Kalvin what was going on.

  ‘Our friends from Hy-Brasil have arrived,’ he announced, ‘so hold tight.’

  Atlantis was moored right in the middle of the Amazon, about a hundred hundred metres from the bank. About two hundred metres away downstream the waters began to bubble before, with a sound that began with a rumble and ended in a roar, an enormous dark shape began to surface. It was an island too, but nothing resembling the gentle curves and green fields of Atlantis.

  Up it climbed, washing with it a wave of water that rushed over the playing field of Leap Island and stopped just short of the cottage. The enormous structure towered as high as the Kapok trees that flanked the great river and loomed over Atlantis, the highest point of which was less than half the height of Hy-Brasil.

  ‘I can see why we’re playing down here,’ said Kim. ‘You’d get dizzy looking up at it, I’d say it’s even worse looking down.’

  ‘They don’t have the pitch surface technology to play outdoors on that island,’ said Victor, who had come up to see the new arrival. ‘But they’re very keen to acquire our knowledge about grass.’

  After a few minutes a cave opened in the side of Hy-Brasil, and a dinghy with a pilot and two other men emerged. They raced across to Atlantis and drove their boat straight onto the island.

  ‘Apologies for that,’ said the pilot. ‘I didn’t fancy wading ashore in this river.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I don’t blame you,’ said Victor, who reached his hand out to the older of the other two men.

  ‘Aston,’ he smiled, ‘welcome back to Atlantis. I am so delighted to see you again.’

  Aston moved closer and hugged his twin brother.

  ‘Me too,’ he replied. ‘It has been too long. We will dine together this evening and catch up on old times.’

  The other man coughed.

  ‘Oh, I do apologise,’ said Aston. ‘This is my business partner, Kratos. His people run Hy-Brasil now as I’m close to retirement age.’

  Kratos stepped forward and shook Victor’s hand.

  ‘Enchanted to meet you sir, you come from a remarkable family,’ the newcomer said. ‘But I’m afraid I’m here to take your island so I shan’t be getting involved in pleasantries or joining you for dinner. We have come many thousands of kilometres today and our game kicks off three days from now, at five o’clock in the evening. May the best team win, but please excuse me.’

  And with that he stepped back into the dinghy, followed by a sad-looking Aston.

  Chapter 45

  Back inside the Academy, the children were puzzled.

  ‘Three days to go to the game, and they’ve just arrived? They’ll never acclimatise in time,’ said Kim.

  ‘Unless they’ve been somewhere with a similar climate of course,’ said Joe.

  ‘But Kratos said they’ve come very far today,’ said Ajit.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d trust that man if I asked him to tell me the time,’ said Kim.

  With Hy-Brasil looming over the Atlantis pitch, the Professor decided to move indoors for the main sessions on tactics. ‘We will continue to train outside, of course, and work on your stamina, which will be very important in this climate.’

  As the clock ticked on
and the game neared, there was a definite up-turn in nerves and tetchiness among the pupils. Craig became unbearable, snapping away at anyone that interrupted him doing anything at all.

  ‘Just leave me alone, I’m trying to think,’ he said to Jess after she had merely wished him ‘Good morning’ at breakfast.

  ‘Now, now, please let’s be civil to each other,’ said Luce, who had just joined the table. ‘We’re all getting very tense, but there’s no excuse for bad manners. We are on the same team – all of us.’

  Craig didn’t like being told off and looked down at his plate for the next half-minute before he stood up and left the room.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Luce, ‘He needs to cool down. It’s just his way of dealing with stress.’

  The night before the game Luce invited the team up to her office for a small party. She laid on juices and snacks, with wine for the adults. Victor and Luce both said a few words of encouragement, but Joe found his mind wandering, checking out the photos dotted around the wall.

  Victor finally asked the Professor to speak, but the coach seemed reluctant. He eventually stood in front of the group and pointed to each of the five in turn, before starting to speak.

  ‘You five are the most amazing bunch of youngsters I’ve ever had the privilege of coaching. You aren’t the most talented, but you’ve all shown great commitment and willingness to learn. And you have learned so much.

  ‘Tomorrow you will go out and play for Atlantis United and show everyone just how good you are now. I have no doubt you are good enough to beat any other side your age in the world. So there won’t be any pre-match session tomorrow, or any last-minute cramming of tactics and game plans. It’s all there inside your heads, and inside your feet. I believe in you.’

  And with that the Professor sat down.

  There was silence for a few seconds before Luce went to her desk and opened a box she had hidden beneath it.

  ‘Before you go off to bed, we have one small presentation to make, and I will ask Victor to do so.’

  She lifted five packets wrapped in plastic onto the desk.

  ‘Ah, yes, of course,’ said Victor. ‘These shirts have been specially designed for tomorrow’s game. I hope you wear them with honour, and with pride.’

  He motioned to Joe to come forward, and handed him his deep red shirt, with his surname, Wright, printed across the back.

  ‘Kim Yuan,’ he called, and Kim went up to collect her shirt.

  The other three followed, and all spent a few seconds admiring their new kit before thanking Luce and Victor and bidding the Professor good night.

  Chapter 46

  Next morning, Joe rose early and took a quick scamper up the staircase to the viewing room. He stared out the window at the enormous rival island.

  ‘That’s just ridiculous,’ he said to himself. ‘TWO enormous underground islands built just because two brothers fell out. And now their whole future depends on a game of football.’ He shook his head and descended to the breakfast room.

  The others were eating a light meal, because Connor had told them that they would have a short, sharp burst of training and would be going back to sleep for three hours. Joe enjoyed being allowed to go for naps in the daytime, it felt like he was back in infants’ school.

  ‘Everyone get a good night’s sleep?’ asked the Professor.

  Each of the five looked in different directions, all avoiding the coach’s gaze.

  ‘Not to worry, I didn’t expect anyone to sleep their full nine hours the night before a game,’ he chuckled. ‘I knew a captain of Germany who never slept a wink before a World Cup semi-final. He was snoring in the dressing room before the game – but as soon as the referee blew his whistle he was wide awake and raring to go. He scored twice and won the man of the match award.’

  ‘In that case I’ll probably win the Golden Boot,’ said Jess, yawning.

  The Professor kept the conversation light, retelling a few funny stories from his past and avoiding the subject of the big game. At eleven o’clock he waved them all away.

  ‘If you’re still yawning at my tales you must be tired Jess – because you can’t be bored by them!’

  The five retired to their rooms and, sure enough, found it much easier to sleep because they were relaxed.

  At two o’clock in the afternoon they awoke to the sound of a buzzer, followed by Kalvin’s voice telling them to meet him outside.

  The team joined their goalkeeping coach up top, and he took them on a couple of very gentle laps of the field to warm their muscles. The rest of their bodies were pretty warm too, so they all took great care to drink plenty of water.

  At three o’clock they went down below for a massage, and Joe spent some time with Fry practising penalties against a virtual reality video of the best goalkeepers in the world. He could never get more than one goal out of every five shots, but reckoned that was a pretty good strike rate.

  Craig called into the room too, for the same reason. He wasn’t able to stop more than one in five of Ronaldo’s penalties but he was delighted that he had even got one.

  They sat on the bench, watching old videos of Champions League finals.

  ‘I just wish this would start,’ complained Craig. ‘I want it to be over with.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Joe, ‘but I’m also looking forward to seeing what our opposition are like, and how much of a test they will be for us. It was hard playing against the two-man team, but it will be very different taking on five opponents.’

  ‘I’ve been doing a few of those stretches Connor suggested,’ said Craig, ‘as well as a lot of swimming and doing a bit of hanging from the bars too. And – would you believe? – I’ve grown an extra two centimetres.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Joe, although he sounded a bit dubious. ‘I wish I could grow a bit too, but I think I’ll leave it to nature.’

  At four o’clock the pair wandered back to the canteen and munched on a couple of energy bars and some fruit juice. The rest of the team joined them, all now dressed in the red of Atlantis United, and the Professor also slipped into the room.

  ‘I promised you I wouldn’t confuse your minds with last minute cramming – you all know what to do and when to do it. If anyone has any questions I’m here to answer them…’

  The kids all shook their heads, or said ‘no, thanks Professor.’

  ‘OK, so there’s just one thing I have left to do – and that is name the captain. Different people have shown different leadership skills these past few months. And I hope to see everyone do that out on the field today. But football demands a captain – to shake hands with his opponent on all your behalf before the game, but also to make the big calls once it has begun. And I, with Kalvin and Fry, have decided that the person with the deepest knowledge of football, and the greatest awareness of the strategies we will use, shall wear the armband today. So, we have chosen Joe.’

  Joe was stunned. He supposed as the only one to play football before meant he was a sort-of obvious choice, but he had never seen himself as a leader. It was his dream to captain Woodstock one day, once he had nailed down a place on the team. Now here he was captaining Atlantis United.

  Chapter 47

  Joe led the team out the door of the cottage and was surprised to see the touchline already lined with dozens of spectators, most waving red scarves.

  ‘Why are they wearing scarves in this heat?’ asked Ajit.

  ‘They’re supporters – Atlantis supporters,’ replied Kim. ‘That must be everyone that works on Atlantis. There’s Ross, and Maureen, Fleur and Angela from the canteen.’

  The players felt a bit weird at first, having a kick-about in front of the people they saw every day, but they soon focused on their main task and went through their stretches and warm-ups with Connor.

  With ten minutes to kick off, Joe glanced over at Hy-Brasil in time to see the cave door open and a small fleet of dinghies emerge. The first one had five passengers, all wearing bright yellow shirts. The pilot stee
red them across the short trip across to Atlantis and they clambered onto the island one by one.

  ‘They’re huge!’ said Jess, as their opponents stood up and looked around the arena.

  True enough, some of the four boys and one girl in yellow shirts looked more like men and women. One even had a moustache.

  Victor walked over to greet his brother, and Kratos, to the game. ‘Good afternoon, and welcome to Atlantis. But I must say I’m astonished that you have brought these players – they are far older than ours.’

  Aston began to reply, but Kratos butted in. ‘Why of course they are, King Victor. Your students have been with you for four months, ours have been with us for four years. No one said anything about them being the same age or having spent the same amount of time in the academy.

  ‘But…’ began Victor. ‘These are almost fully-grown adults.’

  ‘Well, like I said, they have been with us for almost four years. We are about to send them out into the world. One has signed for Barcelona I believe.’

  The Professor kept his face set as he listened to the conversation, but took Joe aside just before the teams lined up.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about here, Joe, you and your team took on two adults and tore us apart by using your brains and your speed. You can do the very same here.’

  The two sides took their places and the referee – who had been hired from the Brazilian FA and arrived by parachute – blew the whistle to kick-off.

  The Hy-Brasil team came charging at the smaller team and tried to muscle them off the ball at every chance they got. The smallest Atlantean, Jess, hadn’t a chance against the big defenders and was knocked onto the ground twice in the first five minutes. Joe spent most of his time coming back to help-out the defence, but the tackling technique he had learned from Professor Kossuth meant nothing got past him.

  The yellow team grew impatient at the youngsters’ refusal to crack and next time Joe got the ball he was floored by a savage tackle from behind.